The Home Secretary has criticised the police and two councils for failing to protect a mother and daughter from the abuse of local youths.

Alan Johnson has said there were ‘no excuses’ for council’s failings, which led to the mother taking both her own life and that of her daughter.

BBC News reports that an inquest jury in Leicester agreed that both Leicestershire Police and two local councils had failed to handle the family’s complaints correctly. In October 2007, Fiona Pilkington, 38, killed herself and her daughter Francesca Hardwick by setting fire to their car, after years of abuse from local youths. Francesca had learning difficulties and her brother Anthony had severe dyslexia.

The inquest at Loughborough Town Hall heard that the family suffered abuse for 10 years.

The council admitted that one family involved in the bullying is still causing ‘trouble’ in the area, despite the deaths.

The father of the children involved in the bullying was asked by the BBC whether he thought his children were responsible for the deaths of Mrs Pilkington and Francesca and said:

'That's for for the authorities to decide.’

The jury decided that Mrs Pilkington killed herself and her daughter ‘due to the stress and anxiety regarding her daughter's future, and ongoing anti-social behaviour’.

Mrs Pilkington is thought to have poured petrol over clothes and set fire to them in the back seat of her car, which she had driven to a lane near her home in Barwell, Leicestershire.

The jury also decided that the police response to her complaint about the behaviour of youths near her home had had an impact on her decision to unlawfully kill her daughter and then commit suicide.

Temporary Chief Constable Chris Eyre of Leicestershire Police apologised for the police’s failure to protect Mrs Pilkington and Francesca from bullying and abuse. Mencap said that hate crimes against people with learning disabilities should be treated as seriously as racial abuse.

‘I think this case will be the wake-up call that gives it that kind of profile,’ Chief Executive Mark Golding said.

The Home Secretary said that existing powers had not been used properly by the police and the councils involved.

‘It is the police's job, along with the local authority and social services and housing and all the rest of it, to ensure that people are not driven to the kind of despair Fiona Pilkington was driven to.’

An investigation into the handling of the case is to be launched by the Independent Police Complaints Commission.

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