WINNIPEG -- Manitoba social workers involved with a young girl who died of abuse and neglect will be named at an inquiry into her death.
Their union had been asking that inquiry commissioner Ted Hughes put a publication ban on the names of dozens of workers who handled Phoenix Sinclair's file.
Hughes says there's no evidence to suggest that publishing the names or images of social workers in the media would put their personal safety at risk.
He has, however, imposed a publication ban on the names of seven people who came forward with concerns about the five-year-old girl's care.
Phoenix spent most of her short life in foster care before being returned to her mother, Samantha Kematch.
The girl died in 2005 after being repeatedly abused, neglected and beaten by Kematch and her boyfriend.
The inquiry, which is to start in September, is to examine how the child-welfare system failed to protect Phoenix and why her death went unnoticed for nine months.
The union had argued that a publication ban was needed to alleviate stress on social workers, while a lawyer for Winnipeg media outlets suggested that would make social workers unaccountable
