My sister has been hurting her son

Doesnt surprise me at all, but like you it does disgust me.

The fact is that your nephew was their little cash cow and now they have lost that significant income stream. Do either of them work?

Gosh this is appalling. Thank goodness he has decent family members that keep him safe.

I am wondering whether your sister has a drug problem, is herself the victim of abuse from her partner, or if there is another reason she has behaved like this and perhaps she needs help?

Why they want him with them now is beyond me

@Kickpot Its simple. Money.

They will have claimed UC with the uplift due to him being disabled which presumably they have now lost (and if they havent then that needs reporting) plus any PIP/DLA award and child benefit. Your mum and dad should be receiving all of that, and if they aren't then that can be a practical thing you can help them with. The DLA is your nephews money, it is just paid to his carer when he is under 18 so if your sister is still getting it then that is legally fraud and morally theft. Also, you sister may be claiming carers allowance especially if she doesnt work. So that is a lot of money that they will have lost, hundreds a month, possibly over a thousand if he has a higher rate of DLA awarded.

ETA....further thought if they are claiming housing benefit it may affect that too (not sure how that works) , and if in social housing then they are now "over housed" and may be subject to the bedroom tax. This will all be about money, I am sure of it.

I suggest you read the entire thread. OP and I are fine, ive apologised to her.

And actually I would be more than happy to help the OP personally if she needed it.

And if you had bothered to read the whole thread (which you clearly haven't) then you'd see Im applying to be a foster carer. Precisely to help kids who have been abused.

But it says a lot about you that you've chosen to make this kind of comment. Don't assume people don't actively help just because perhaps you dont.

Contact this group - it helps kinship carers

frg.org.uk/

At this point, given how much you're telling the OP what to do, I'm wondering why you yourself aren't getting involved and offering your personal help to the OP.

Or getting involved with politics to persuade people to pay more taxes so genuine support for SEN exists. Or getting directly involved with parents who need support near you.

It would be so much more helpful than spending time berating the OP and telling her what to do and how dreadful it all is.

Mother to an adopted child here. Almost all children adopted in the UK in 2026 come from this type of background, with or without the direct influence of alcohol and drugs in the mix, so I understand quite a lot about this situation (sadly). I've come to this thread late so just a few points to offer. First, your nephew is, relatively speaking, one of the slightly luckier ones. His teacher has cared enough to notice the signs and take action, and in his family he has at least 3 people who love him including grandparents prepared to parent him. By by the best life chances for him will come if he is looked after by family members who can be 'good enough' (it's actually the official social services term) parents.

There is a strong bias in the system towards keeping children with their birth families wherever possible (and supporting birth families to enable this) for many good reasons - even where the parenting is not 'ideal' keeping the family together is generally much better for the child/ren long term. It's also cheaper... However it does seem pretty unlikely in this case. If the child has been removed from birth parents via Court Order (and is just placed with grandparents by social services on an interim basis at the moment) then you can be reassured that the bar is high for him to be returned to birth parents (or in this case, birth mum). She'd have to prove significant change, which in this case would probably mean ditching the man, making it very clear she understood how bad what she'd done was, showing remorse, engaging in parenting courses and other resources and showing a long term (many months/ years) pattern of behaving differently and coping better in supervised contact situations.

The one thing I will tell you is to please, please tell your parents that whilst they are looking after their grandson and well before any permanent Order is made (e.g. Adoption Order, Special Guardianship Order) in their favour, they must ensure Social Services complete full needs assessments to ensure they get the support they need. To be honest whilst he might well have always been going to have an autism diagnosis, developmental trauma from neglect and abuse mimics and overlaps with the symptoms of various neurodivergent conditions and it's only specialists who are able to see where one begins and the other ends. Your nephew may need any or all of, specialist play therapy, sensory integration, occupational therapy, speech and language therapy (and the list goes on) and once Social Services find a permanent home for a child the support waved in front of you is not there without a huge fight and a long wait. Every child deserves better. So my advce for you, if you want to help out more directly, is to start joining UK based Facebook groups for adoption and special guardianship advice and support, adn start learning about this subject to ensure that ultimately, wherever he ends up living, your nephew and broader family get the support they need.

Thank god that poor little baby has a wonderful extended family. I can’t even imagine how you and your parents etc must feel

I can't imagine how awful this is for you and your parents OP. It's unthinkable that your own sister could do this to a child, and allow her partner to abuse her child also.

Right now it's all very new and raw, and you're overthinking all the negative aspects of what's happened. Take some time to overthink the positives - your nephew is safe with your parents. He's loved. He's being nurtured. He has you, his teacher and others advocating for him. He will no longer be shouted at, hurt or abused. His life may have started badly, but his future now looks a whole lot brighter. It will take a long time to come to terms with. Maybe some counselling for your parents and yourself would help, to talk through the trauma and help process it?

Glad it was helpful. And no it’s not selfish - no one can imagine exactly what their feelings would be in response to a horrific, unforeseeable situation like this, and it’s not like you’re trying to dump those feelings on those in the trenches with this; you’re just trying to get a handle on it all.

Good luck to you all in supporting your poor wee DN, I hope he’s surrounded by the safety and love he deserves from here on in. 💐

Yeah we are foster carers. I fostered a 7yo that graphically described how her dad had been sexually abusing her and also allowing his friends too. She was so brave. Re told it to social workers and then again for the police. Case built against the dad and he was convicted but during the 9months we waited for court dad was allowed 3 x hourly visits per week fully supervised by social services. He regularly guilted her upset her, whispered about changing her story when he thought he couldn't be overheard. Problem is my child isn't adopted we have an SGO. This means bio parents retain parental responsibility. Whenever someone has PR they are generally legally allowed info about and or access to the child. There is so much support for the parents that have had their kids legally taken its insane. They have their own social workers, support workers. Charities keen to jump in and help them prove they changed in the 6 weeks they work with them. I get absolutely zero support for the child. He's only entitled to what other kids queue up for on the nhs. No fast tracked therapies etc. Yet his mum has had multiple rounds of private therapies to.cope with her 'loss'. As soon as support workers change or pull away we don't hear from her again untill someone encourages her. It's shit.

OP, if you are normal and not abusive, it's unimaginable that someone else is doing this, especially a family member. Kids have bruises, parents are not perfect, but no one would immediately jump to thinking it's abusive without clear evidence.

You and your parents have nothing to be guilty about. Be glad it was discovered, that's the best thing that could happen.

I honestly think this is why I was being crazy in my previous posts. It wasnt actually aimed at OP, it was more I am frightened because SS and family courts are not fit for purpose. The more I look into fostering the more apparent it is to me how many kids are forced into contact with their abusers.

Someone suggested help with legal funding for the grandparents, that seems like a good idea but 25k you've gone through is awful. Im so sorry to hear that.

Well, apologies. It was meant to give you a shake and say you’re doing what you can now but that there’s no point being guilty because you didn’t know so it’s pointless and not helping anyone. Clearly didn’t work.

It’s indulgent to feel guilty tbh. You live far away, part of that means not being there to see things or protect the child. I also live at a distance and I understand that this means I am not in place to have a close relationship with my nephew. Guilt doesn’t help anyone now.

You’re doing what you can with the information you have now. As you did when you believed he was safe. Drop the guilt, get angry. Continue to be more involved.

Can you access legal help for your parents? Raise your concerns that they made be allowed access and even to take the child back in the future? They will have advised on these situations before and it might allow you to stay one step ahead?

I’m so sorry, OP, how utterly devastating.

As others have said, you have nothing to feel guilty for - how could you have possibly known your nephew wasn’t safe with the sister you loved and thought you knew?

It sounds like you’re doing everything you can for now with the financial support and the video calling.

Have you thought about maybe getting some short term professional support for yourself? Someone you can talk to about the impact of all this, a place to offload your own feelings and trauma about it all, to help you process it all. Not only would that potentially be good for you, it could also support you to be there as much as possible for your nephew and parents.

Just a suggestion as it clearly is and has been so deeply distressing for you, and you’re a completely innocent party in this. You clearly love your nephew very much and are doing your best to help however you can.