AN ORPHANED schoolgirl separated from her sisters by Hampshire County Council is calling for the social workers responsible to be sacked.

The Daily Echo revealed on Saturday that social services bosses had been heavily criticised in an indepen-dent report over their care of 15-year-old Emma Bursey and her two younger sisters.

Social workers split up the sisters in 1995 after the death of their mother Maureen - although she had begged carers as she lay dying of cancer to keep her daughters together.

In an interview with a Sunday newspaper Emma, who received a personal apology from social services boss Terry Butler over the scandal, said: "I would like the people involved in this sacked or demoted."

The enquiry also found that social workers did not allow Emma to listen to a tape her dying mother had recorded before her death.

The tape - on which her mother taped a heartbreaking thank you to her daughter - was only handed over after Emma learned of its existence and demanded it.

The teenager had fought for more than three years to have more contact with her sisters, whom she only saw ten times in the two years after her mother's death. The children's father Tony died of a heart attack in 1994.

In 1992 the family was at the centre of a baby mix-up when one of Emma's sisters was swapped with another child at hospital.

But Alexis McEvoy, county councillor for Fawley, who helped champion Emma's cause, told the Daily Echo: "I was appalled when I heard of Emma's battle but now I do not believe that any useful purpose is served by having a witchhunt.

"I really do now believe that everything that can be done to improve Emma's situation is being done."

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