Even under repeated questioning Ms Baptiste struggled to recall basic facts - including when she had qualified and begun her social work career. She hesitated before answering, often mumbling vague replies, and became the latest in a line of key witnesses in the inquiry who have experienced sudden amnesia when pressed on the extent of their knowledge of and involvement in Victoria's case.

Ms Baptiste, 39, ran the investigations team at the north Tottenham branch of Haringey social services. She was supervising Lisa Arthurworrey, Victoria's social worker, in the months before the eight-year-old's murder in February 2000 after months of abuse and cruelty at the hands of her carers.

She told the lead counsel to the inquiry, Neil Garnham QC, that she only had a vague memory of when she qualified. Asked which decade she had passed her social work diploma in, she finally replied "it was around the late 1980s".

Ms Baptiste has gained some infamy for repeatedly failing to cooperate with the inquiry as well as the revelation that her own child was removed from her care in a state of distress just months before Victoria's death.

There were a few tense minutes when she failed to appear on time. "It was indicated to me that she was in the shopping centre downstairs. I hoped she might have made it upstairs," Mr Garnham remarked dryly.

He was forced to repeat many of his questions as the former social worker sat before him in silence or ummed and erred after a deep sigh and a long pause.

Ms Baptiste could not remember who her managers were at the north Tottenham district office of Haringey social services while she was the acting supervisor of the investigation and assessment team.

Nor could she pinpoint when she had led a formal meeting about the adverse impact of an alleged case of intimidation on staff morale and the quality of their work.

"Month? First half of the year? Second half of the year?" enquired Mr Garnham.

"I do not recollect, I am afraid," replied Ms Baptiste.

Indeed she ended up doing little more than agreeing with the QC's version of events. "I will have to be guided by you," she confessed after her memory failed her once again.

While her evidence shone no new light on her role in Haringey's failure to prevent Victoria's tragic fate, it did present further cause for concern about the quality of the council's social services.

Bizarrely, despite finding her professionally unfit for her job in October 1999 - or as the London borough puts it "not appointable" - it emerged that Ms Baptiste was offered a post as a project worker on Quality Protects - the government's programme to modernise and improve children's services.