
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, July 7, 1990                   TAG: 9007070209
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: BARTOW, FLA.                                LENGTH: Short

SOCIAL WORKER GIVEN THREE YEARS PROBATION

A social worker was placed on three years' probation Friday for allowing a foster child to his parents' home, where he was killed because he had soiled his pants.

"I will carry on," Margaret Barber told about 100 fellow Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services workers who cheered her as she left court. She could have been sentenced to up to five years in prison.

Barber, 62, the first department employee ever criminally convicted over the handling of a case, was the main foster-care worker for 2-year-old Bradley McGee of Lakeland.

A jury found June 15 that Barber was negligent in recommending to a judge that the foster child be returned to his parents, while not providing the court with a psychological report describing the parents as explosive and infantile.

- Associated Press

by CNB