You think you've seen it all. But you won't believe this.

Spot on bowlofbbelfish.

There’s a huge class issue here as well. This simply would NOT have happened to an upper middle class child - all the stops would have been pulled out to find and return them.
I’m from one of the northern cities which has huge grooming issues, the disdain for working class people, and working class women and girls is palpable. I read these cases with utter horror and I know there’s more to come. The rings in my home area haven’t been uncovered yet, but they exist. In one of the poorest wards in the country.

When this attitude meets the general attitude of women and girls being worthless anyway, the results are catastrophic.

(And that’s what intersectionality was supposed to tell us, ffs.)

important thread which collates some of the failings /failures of child protection & safeguarding frameworks:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3301266-Safeguarding-girls-and-protecting-women-post-Jimmy-Saville-metoo

This whole situation of hundreds of girls being abused for years ,is sickening..

Vegan - a lot of this happens because we have forced/involuntary adoption in this country.

Let's take an example that does not related to grooming gangs. Thinking of the child which is what our legislation, the Children Act, specifically does, should that child be forcibly adopted out, does it have the right to any contact with or information about its father, even if that father is, say, a convicted murderer?

We know that adopted children are likely to have identity concerns and issues as they grow up and need to have information about their backgrounds, and that is why the legislation and courts prioritise their needs above all else.

As we've been saying on this thread - the blindspot in the legislation that always centres the child is that it sometimes results in unjust outcomes for mothers who have been abused by fathers.

@arranfan I think I remember hearing about attempts to have the criminal convictions that these victims have accumulated during their abuse removed but I have no idea how far that has got. One would hope that sense would prevail. The whole thing is a shit show.

Dropping in some items from the Notts Hearing:

"I was prosecuted when older men paid for me to have sex with them in a public toilet - I was only 15 or 16. I can't get my head round it, I never could."

twitter.com/InquiryCSA/status/1055742992013766656

In that same thread, from Telford_gurl :

I was first arrested 40 miles from home with a girl much older that lived another 40 miles away, too young to drive and no direct train. How did I get there and how did I know her? Police didn't bother verifying my address never mind contacting my parents.

The law did vegan, the law. It is not the arbitrary choice of one person. The article does not say how much weight was given to his opinion, if any. The legal status of his alleged crimes against Sarah are separate and I agree that these should be investigated and dealt with as appropriate.

Someone will of made the decision to invite a rapist to have an opinion on the child's future...when instead they should of been helping her take her rapists to court...

@LangCleg I couldn't agree more.

@Veganfortheanimals Social Care work within legal frameworks, it would be better to look towards how these operate, rather than blaming individuals. And I'll say it again: media reporting of Social Care issues are always inherently skewed. But Social Care also do very little to counter this by not not being proactive in the media.

And this is why social services get a bad name.the people involved in taking these children away need naming and shaming..then charging and forced to justify themselves in court

Fucking depressing isn't it LangClegg - the scale of what has happened and how inadequately it has been dealt with. It will continue to unfold for years to come.

Yes, it is.

I like the Children Act. I think it is generally wonderful for children and that our family courts generally do a good job on behalf of children. The act itself is beautifully simple and even quite young minors can have it explained to them.

But all the good things about it for children are also the bad things about it for mothers who are victims.

In a supreme irony - the "intersectional movement" currently prioritising heterosexual white males on the basis of subjective inner identity completely ignores - cannot even see - this actual intersectionality, where systems come together and fail to meet the needs of particular groups of vulnerable women who exist at their intersections.

Thank you, R0wan and Spartacus - I'm going to watch and research. This looks incredibly helpful.

The complexities of this are wretched. The disdain for Sarah and her family seems palpable and I know that there are reporting restrictions in place that make it difficult to have a full understanding of what is happening.

My anger over this is looking for a focus for something that will address it instead of writing it off as something that is so politically and socially contentious that it can't be resolved.

Fucking depressing isn't it LangClegg - the scale of what has happened and how inadequately it has been dealt with. It will continue to unfold for years to come.

I agree it is hard to think that a mum met and hugged her daughter in a supermarket and then she was dragged away by the gang and whisked off by car. I can only imagine the girls parents were terrified of these people. I would like to know if the police were called on this occasion knowing that she had previously been reported missing. Had threats been made to her family directly and not just to the girl. If so what sort of world are we living in where people are allowed to get away with this.

SpartacusAutisticusAHF Thank you

@LangCleg from the Filia workshop:

"Elizabeth Gordon is an artist and a campaigner against Non State Torture. She advocates for non state torture to be named and recognised for what it is, so that the voices of survivors have the words to name the violence they suffered. She campaigns for a human rights based approach to supporting survivors"

filia.org.uk/podcasts/2018/10/3/filia-meets-elizabeth-gordon-non-state-torture

Some info on her here:
filia.org.uk/artists-2016/2016/11/17/elizabeth-gordon

I read it earlier and it’s utterly disgusting.

I am sure there must be more to this.

Of course there is. It is a very complex case, much of which can't be reported.

Understanding the impact of the long term systematic abuse by men who are part of 'grooming gangs' is still catching up with the deep-seated & wide-ranging effects this has had on so many girls and their families.

As Lang describes above, there are particular issues with court and social work systems/frameworks.

During these grooming scandals, we have adopted out multiple babies born to minors who are victims of grooming on the basis of them being unfit parents (rather than supporting them to be fit parents) and we have prosecuted raped, coerced minors who fell under the spell of their abusers and helped to recruit other victims (instead of giving them therapy to come to terms with what was done to them and how they were coerced into doing what they did), authorities have told parents nothing can be done because their daughters want to be "sex workers" (instead of prosecuting their paedophile pimps).

The list of our collective sins is endless.

This is why it is a scandal of such magnitude.

In what way could including the child's rapist, grooming gang member father, who was involved in the kidnapping of their mother into sexual slavery at 15, in decisions about them possibly be in the child's best interest?

I hear you. I've not gone through the article in detail, because it will be missing many details (I did an extended study into SS and the media and how they do not help themselves with regards to how they are portrayed) so I am guilty of not paying much attention when I see these articles. However, we don't know how much weight was given to his wishes, or whether he had been found guilty of the allegations- even then the burden of proof is different in family law. The article appears to do a great job of doing what they always do in these situations, half reporting, demonising of decision making with no reference to the legal framework and obligations these set out, and minimising of some facts.

Sorry, I'm such a sceptic with these types of articles- what I do know is that there is far more going on than is presented; that doesn't mean I don't have sympathy for Sarah and her children though, there are no winners there.

Move2WY - because our systems are useless at recognising coercive control. It's perfectly possible for all this to happen - for the victim not to understand that a crime is being committed against them, for them to try to escape then go back voluntarily, etc etc. Unless they turn up at a police station, say I am being abused and then stick to that without wavering, nobody does anything. Even if the parents go to the police.

In what way could including the child's rapist, grooming gang member father, who was involved in the kidnapping of their mother into sexual slavery at 15, in decisions about them possibly be in the child's best interest?

Possibly bad reporting? Not what the father wants but what might be best for the child. So all relevant parties would be considered by the court.

Thinking generally, rather than for this specific case: for a child adopted out against the wishes of the mother (and the father) - the court will not consider whether the father was abusive to the mother, only if it is in the best interests of the child to have any/no contact with the father, or be given information about the father.