A housing association under fire following the tragic death of two year-old Awaab Ishak today admitted it 'made assumptions about lifestyle' relating to his family and apologised, saying it 'abhors racism in any shape or form'.
Awaab, who lived with his parents in a flat on Rochdale's Freehold estate, died in December 2020, just days after his second birthday, following prolonged exposure to mould and damp. His parents, a coroner said at an inquest into his death, had repeatedly raised their concerns about the state of their home with landlord, Rochdale Boroughwide Housing (RBH), but nothing was done.
And as the fall-out over the tragedy continued Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, slammed the association's 'apparent attempts' to 'attribute the existence of mould to the actions of Awaab's parents' as 'beyond insensitive and deeply unprofessional'.
