A DEVASTATED dad has told of his ongoing four-year battle to get custody of his son – and how insulted he was to be offered £250 compensation for being wrongly labelled a danger to his child.

Garry Wright, 38, was unable to see his then five-year-old son for TWO years after being assessed as “high risk” after his lad was found with bruising to his chest in 2011.

Mr Wright has now received a letter from Thurrock Council which has admitted social services were “incompetent” when assessing the original situation.

And it states how social services had reversed the decision, instead raising serious concerns about the mum’s then partner, a notorious convicted career criminal.

Mr Wright, who had a brief relationship with the boy’s mother while they were living in Stanford-le-Hope, continues to fear for the safety of his son, now nine. And he has vowed to continue to fight for custody.

He said: “I don’t care if it’s £20,000 they offer me, I am not going to take it because it’s my boy, my son.

“I get about an hour’s sleep a night because I can’t stop worrying about my son.Iwant to try to protect him. This case is disgusting.”

Andrew Carter, head of children’s social care, admitted Thurrock social services failed to acknowledge or investigate that his son had sustained a non-accidental injury.

He accepted that the social services’ risk assessment had been conducted in an incompetent fashion leading to “an inaccurate and damaging conclusion.”

The decision was only reversed after Mr Wright took it to court.

A second report said the convicted career criminal had an “offending history for violence, abusive and threatening behaviour has continued across a reasonable time span to indicate that there is unlikely to be any change.

The risk level in terms of future indicators of risk is high.”

Social services are currently being investigated by an independent assessor following a complaint from Mr Wright, who now lives inWestcliff.

A Thurrock Council spokesman responded by saying: “It would be inappropriate to comment now on a case that is midway through an investigation.”