Hundreds of children who suffered neglect or abuse at the hands of their parents have been given the green light to sue councils for damages that could total millions of pounds.

Between 200 and 300 cases where councils failed to take children promptly into care are being prepared after a landmark legal ruling, The Times has learnt. The delays in removing children stretch from weeks and months to years in some cases.

This month the Court of Appeal upheld a ruling that Doncaster council must pay compensation to a man who suffered 12 years of abuse by his parents.

The case established for the first time that local authorities are liable for abuse suffered by children if they fail to remove them from harm. The ruling could force hundreds of councils to settle similar claims.

Some of the claims are being brought by lawyers acting for children after referrals by the Official Solicitor; the rest are being brought by adults who suffered abuse as children. The Official Solicitor acts for children in care proceedings and refers the cases to lawyers if there have been delays.

Haringey, the council at fault in the cases of Baby P and Victoria Climbié, is among the authorities facing claims over its past failings. After the publicity over Baby P, who died of abuse despite 60 visits by health and social services professionals, two families have come forward saying that Haringey left them to suffer sexual abuse.

There has been a 26 per cent rise in care applications by local authorities since the Baby P case, which resulted in senior councillors and social workers resigning or being sacked.

The Court of Appeal test case, which was backed by the Legal Services Commission, arose after Jake Pierce, 32, sued Doncaster council over neglect and abuse that he suffered as a child. The other cases are the subject of similar legal aid arrangements.

Mr Pierce was initially removed from his family home into foster care for 15 months, but social services returned him to his parents, where he suffered 12 years of further abuse. He won £25,000 plus legal costs from the council in December 2007.

His parents kept him and his siblings in squalid conditions and beat him almost daily. The court heard that he had suffered “severe physical abuse, emotional abuse and neglect from his natural family” almost from birth, including being left in the garden naked in cold weather, suffering burns to his buttocks and feet and — he claimed – having his eyes scratched with cutlery.

Two weeks ago the council failed to overturn the ruling in the Court of Appeal, which accepted the original finding that Doncaster social services had been negligent and should not have placed him back into the abusive home environment in 1977.

Jonathan Wheeler, of Bolt Burdon Kemp solicitors in London, said the appeal judges upheld the original ruling that the abuse could have been prevented in part had Doncaster acted properly: “This shows that the death of Baby P and the failings of social services in Haringey which have been highlighted recently are not isolated incidents.” He added that lawyers could point to “countless examples of similar failings by social services departments up and down the country.”

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