Balls: I was right to sack Baby P council chief

Children's Secretary Ed Balls was so "stunned" by the state of children's care in Haringey council that he was right to sack summarily its boss Sharon Shoesmith, the High Court heard today.

His lawyers told the court Mr Balls acted "for proper, sufficient and obvious reasons" after reading a "damaging and critical" report in the wake of the conviction of the killers of Baby P.

They dismissed her claims that he had acted "in haste" and attacked Ms Shoesmith, 56, for claiming her plight was similar to the James Bulger case.

Mr Balls was responding on the third day of Ms Shoesmith's demand for a judicial review of her sacking on the grounds that the minister, Ofsted and council acted illegally and unfairly.

She was forced out of her £133,000-a-year job as the director of children's services after a damning inspectors' report on her department in the wake of the death of 17-month-old Peter Connelly. Seven other children were found to be left vulnerable by the council. Mr Balls's QC, James Eadie, told Mr Justice Foskett the minister had to act quickly once the Ofsted inspectors had reported after the Old Bailey trial, in which Peter's mother, Tracey Connelly, her boyfriend Steven Barker and his brother Jason Owen, were jailed for their part in the toddler's death.

Mr Eadie said: "He reached his decision for proper, sufficient and obvious reasons based in particular on the obvious concerns arising as a result of Peter Connelly's case and on the damning conclusions of the report. A decision was taken against the backdrop of justifiable public concern as to safeguarding arrangements in Haringey and nationally and issues of public confidence."

Ms Shoesmith has argued she was not given a chance to respond to the report before she was sacked. But Mr Eadie said Ms Shoesmith had accepted many of its findings.

He said comparing Mr Balls's decision to the overhasty sentencing of Jon Venables and Robert Thompson, the killers of James Bulger, was "plainly inapt". The case continues.