A paedophile sentenced to 18 years in prison for raping his own children was allowed to continue because of mistakes by various public bodies, an independent case review has shown.

The man, in his 40s, was jailed for five counts of rape, three counts of wilfully ill-treating a young person and one count of actual bodily harm, following a trial at Kingston Crown Court last September.

The allegations, which date back to 2003, were the subject of an independent serious case review into whether Kingston Council, Kingston Hospital, the Metropolitan Police and other public bodies failed to protect the victims.

Requests by the Surrey Comet to see the anonymised serious case review have so far been declined, after it was published online for just five days in February.

Conservative councillor Andrea Craig, opposition member for children’s services, said: “I have now seen the report and it shows serious failings of Kingston Council, Kingston Hospital and the police with respect to how they handled the case individually and collectively including inadequate record-keeping and poor communication between agencies.

“They failed to address warnings. They failed to take action when they should have, repeatedly. Even though there is evidence which makes you feel sick [when you read it], people were not listened to, and it appears no one escalated their concerns. It almost feels like they were skimming the surface not properly following up.

“Very tragically for these children, their father was therefore able to continue doing what he was doing."

She said the failings identified by the serious case review, which was completed in draft form in 2010 and shared with the Kingston Local Safeguarding Children’s Board (LSCB) to ensure lessons were learned, were the same as the final damning Ofsted report in 2012, which took control of safeguarding away from Kingston Council.

Coun Craig said: "What were they doing for those two years? This serious case review highlights the dreadful state of the council’s safeguarding under the Liberal Democrat administration for the past 10 years."

But she had faith in new director Nick Whitfield and the team turning the problems around.

Councillor Patricia Bamford, Liberal Democrat member for children’s services, said: “All the recommendations from this serious case review were implemented when it was written some years ago.

"It has also had thorough scrutiny at the LSCB and appropriate training was put in place.”

A Kingston Council statement said: “This is an independent review of the circumstances surrounding incidents that took place in the royal borough between 1989 and 2008. The review was commissioned in 2010.

"The timetable for publication has been influenced by the conclusion of the associated criminal trial.

"The independent chairman has looked in detail at the role of the local agencies that were involved with this case, including Kingston Council.

"The aim of such reviews is to enable safeguarding professionals to learn from the experience of unique individual cases and ensure that we employ best practice to provide the highest levels of safeguarding in Kingston.

"This case pre-dates the Ofsted inspection of the council’s own safeguarding service in July 2012 and consequently highlights a number of issues that have already been addressed as part of the council’s extensive safeguarding improvement plan.

"This independent review contains no surprises for the council but provides all agencies in the borough with a very useful insight into a particular series of events.

"Such reviews give agencies the best opportunity to learn and continually improve the level of safeguarding they provide in the borough.

"As a result of the review a local safeguarding children board multi-agency action plan is in place.”

The report was published on the website of the Kingston Local Safeguarding Children's Board, a partnership of council, police and other public bodies, for just five days before the authority deleted all record of it, sparking criticism by the NSPCC which said it should have been left online for the public to see.

New guidance from the Department for Education, published last Thursday, as the Surrey Comet was going to press, cleared up ambiguities in the interpretation of guidance and made clear new serious case reviews should be online for at least 12 months.