Chilling story about child (allegedly) wrongly taken into care.

[Callisto]

It is from the Mail I'm afraid, but there are quotes from the couples MP which seems to add weight to the story.

Article here.

[Comewhinewithme]

Very very chilling and heartbreaking .

[Callisto]

It terrifies me that SS have such powers and that parents are powerless in this situation. Also, why do SS persist in not taking children from drug addicts/alcoholics who are clearly at rist, and yet if it is normal people with normal lives the children are taken instantly? There is a terrible, institutionalised inverse snobbery that exists within the SS it seems.

[AppleandMosesMummy]

I cannot believe there is so little outrage about this, all those people who say if you've done nothing wrong you've nothing to fear ?
Quite clearly something has gone very wrong in this case even if it hasn't in SS eyes the communication is very poor if these people feel they have lost their child because the wardrobe wasn't full enough and they needed some household repairs.

[TAFKAtheUrbanDryad]

Why are you lot so surprised about this?

I've been banging on and on about this for years, along with edam and a couple of others.

The secrecy of the Family Courts needs to be looked at - now. This has happened time and again, and once an adoption has gone through it cannot be reversed. Scary shit.

[TAFKAtheUrbanDryad]

I love how this story gets attention in the meeja though, because the family are white and middle class (en suite bathroom, clothes from Monsoon?) while Janipher Maseko and the horrific scandal of Yarl's Wood Immigration Detention Centre has yet to be investigated thoroughly by the mainstream media.

Vile, horrific, but sadly, not shocking.

[singingmum]

My cousin was treated badly by ss and lost her children as I have stated before.The threat ss pose in this day and age is strong as they work with maybe's sort of's etc. with very little chance by which to defend for the parents.
People wonder why as an HE'er I would never allow one in my home,(another little thing the government wishes to slip through while no one is looking)I think to cases I know of such as a family who had their dc's removed when one broke their leg and the doc decided it was not recent and the ss took the dc's that day without even investigating.
Thankfully these parents succeeded in getting their children home but so many others have not even when the evidence is not supporting ss's case.
I honestly believe the initials SS speak for themselves.

[seeker]

I don't know the rights and wrongs of this case, but I think that taking the reporting of the Daily Mail may be a mistake.

[Greensleeves]

I agree with Dryad

people would be very shocked if they knew the half of what goes on in our free, civilised society

not that I don't feel awful for this little girl and her family though, middle class or not their suffering is as valid as anyone else's

[FenellaFudge]

Absolutely UD.

The Family Courts are a very scary part of our legal system. When I have explained to people about it in rl, I get the feeling they think I'm exaggerating. It really sounds that outlandish. Sadly it's all true.

[Kayteee]

Second that Singingmum,

We HE and this is one of the reasons I am so against the Badman report. They are closing in alright

[HollyBunda]

This is exactly why so many HEdders are banging on about that Badman report giving powers to the LEA to enter and interview a child with no one present.

But so many on here are now 'bored' with it.
Or have 'nothing to hide'

You watch, when the powers extend to your toddler and you find yourself dealing with SS and people who have no interest in what you say.

[AppleandMosesMummy]

I do think they need to start issuing a ruling book with the first scan so that people are absolutely clear what is acceptable and what isn't, for example smoke throughout pregnancy, fine we'll support you through that nevermind that the babies health is at risk, a bit of dog shit in the house, nope sorry you lose your child.
Utter utter madness.

[TAFKAtheUrbanDryad]

When I talk about some of the cases I've seen and been involved in people look at me like this: and say, "Surely not in Britain?" Lolz...

[Callisto]

John Hemming has been campaigning for ages to try and open the family courts, but he has got absolutely nowhere. The couple in question had their MP on side plus testimonials from various officials that the child had been wrongly taken. No prosecutions of any kind have been brought against either parent and yet their daughter is about to be put up for adoption and once that happens it is final.

Of course one problem is that parents are scared to protest and campaign for more openess unless they too become targets. I would leave the country if I thought that SS might want to pay me a visit. I can completely understand why HEers don't want to register their children with the LA or have enforced visits from SS.

[edam]

Dryad's right that there are far too many of these cases. There don't seem to be any checks and balances in the system. I'm a health reporter so spend all my days talking to docs and nurses and writing about the NHS - SS seem to have nothing like the same safety nets, the same professional accountability, the same requirement to be aware of your own practice... so if you do happen to have a nutty SW in a dysfunctional team, there is no way out.

Most of these cases seem to turn on SS not backing down. If they steam in, they are reluctant to consider any evidence they may have been mistaken - every new item is treated as supporting the original allegation, even when that doesn't make any sense.

Of course there are plenty of cases where SS do have to intervene, but it would be a damn sight easier to do that if they weren't wasting their time harassing people like Fran Lyons or this couple.

[beanieb]

Unfortunately the following line in the article makes me cringe so much I can't take it even a little bit seriously.

"Susan, in her 40s and involved in her local Conservative Association, used to be a beautician before becoming a fulltime mother - that was how important her child was to her."

So being a stay at home mum is an indication of how important your children are to you? Compared to what?

Of course I feel very sorry for these people if their child has unjustly been taken from them but the Daily Mail present no evidence to show that the SS team and courts were/are wrong, and are just using this couple for their own hate filled agenda.

[seeker]

The Daily Mail will always take the side of white, middle class Middle Englanders against anyone, particularly against the social services. There are no facts in this article, only opinions, hearsay and rumour.

There are real injustices in the world, but please don't look for them in the Daily mail.

[edam]

"MP, Charles Hendry says: 'This case has concerned me more than any other in my 13 years as a member of Parliament.' And, he went on to describe Jenny's mother and father as 'devoted parents'.

Furthermore, one of the experts brought in to examine the child's removal, a psychiatric social worker, concluded the local authority had 'mismanaged the case'. Needless to say, his advice was ignored."

[edam]

And more reason to say there is something questionable here:

"Jenny was never physically harmed, and was 'thriving and happy before being taken away', the Court of Appeal was told."

Two experts criticised the parents, two defended them. One of the negative experts "suggested, after spending just one hour with Jenny, that she had been sexually abused by her father.

And the proof? He came to this conclusion, it seems, after Jenny had described choking on a lollipop which, so the expert said, could 'signify the child being forced to have oral sex with her father'."

One of the experts in their favour, Dr Peter Dale, a psychiatric social worker, "concluded the local authority had 'mismanaged the case'.

"They made, he said, fixed assumptions about the parents at the outset, and had not done the necessary investigations to check whether those assumptions were correct.

"Dr Dale said: 'Jenny had suffered significant harm as a result of being removed from her parents, and was likely to suffer fears of abandonment by them for some time to come and would be particularly at risk during adolescence."

'She needed urgent therapeutic input to help her make sense of what had happened to her.'

He continued: 'Plans for reunification [with her parents] should be established on a very urgent basis.'

[TAFKAtheUrbanDryad]

Actually - and I hate the DM as much as the next, sane person - they've not been too bad about reporting the SS injustices. They totally ignore Yarl's Wood, obviously, but they were the first to report the Fran and Molly Lyon story and have been a champion of these types of causes for a while.

Just because it's in the DM doesn't mean it's not true, although I admit it lacks credibility.

[Callisto]

Seeker - I rather despise the DM too, but there are lots of quotes from various professionals, not least the MP, that back up the slant of the story. The only reason the police raided this couple's home in the first place was alleged tail docking - for which no prosecution was brought. The whole thing spiralled from there. It is very easy to dismiss the story as DM bile against SS (some of which is wholly deserved), but if I were in this position I would take whatever newspaper coverage I could get.

[BouncingTurtle]

My DH's ex has just qualified to become a SW.

She is totally self-absorbed, selfish, materialistic woman, who regularly dumps her own son on any and all who will have him, claims to have no money, yet still manages to have a 20 day fag habit and according to her facebook, gets shit faced most weekends
I pity any family who have the misfortune of having her assigned as a case worker.

[wahwah]

Utterly bizarre report and it seems as if a great deal is missing. Most social workers I know welcome the family courts being opened up so that people don't just have a one sided account of events- I do worry that part of the reason people howl so much to hear the gory details is because they're getting off on it all. There's a reason there are so many 'Child called it/ don't leave me with Daddy' type books.

[FabBakerGirlIsBack]

When are SW's going to get some common sense, some compassion and some accountability?

35 years ago they messed things up for me as they felt they knew best and had good impressions to keep.

Some terrible things are going on and I am not sure how much more the country's children and their parents can take to be honest.

[wahwah]

I think that suggesting that SWs as a profession don't have common sense, compassion and accountability is going too far and is deeply unpleasant. I'm not sure why people think that it's ok to criticise an entire profession. I've had a couple of shit doctors, but it doesn't mean I slate them all.