Forced Adoption

[Syd35]

Hi, I'm new to this and wanted to talk about this upsetting situation. Where to start...I will try to make this long story as brief as possible...
My sister's little boy was taken into care a while back due to her drinking and drug use although she always made sure the little one was well looked after. What we thought was a temporary thing has turned into a long drawn out nightmare. The social services are now trying to place him for adoption against her will. My sister dearly wants to be given a chance but the social services are not interested and she hasn't been given any support, just talked down to and belittled. None of the family are in a position to help and I would love to take the child on but my husband is not on board with it so I haven't been able to pursue. I was able to visit him recently and can see he is a very sad and confused child. He loves his mum to bits and they have a lovely bond and it was heart-breaking to hear his foster carer telling him "when you go to your new mummy and daddy". I think it's heartless to tell a young child who is clearly missing his mother that they will be going to a new family. I cannot forget the sadness in his eyes as we said goodbye. Yes my sister has done silly things but she is still young and keeping her away from her child is destroying her. I hate the way SS have handled the whole thing and told lies and had no compassion. They have far too much power and are playing with people's lives. I don't know how they can sleep at night. I understand they have to protect children but how many times have they got it wrong? I am sure with the right support my sister can turn things around but I fear time is running out. Has anyone had a similar experience or any advice?

Syd35 I think the social workers are even less likely to reply to your letter than return your phone calls. Writing a letter takes longer, in addition to any other reasons for not doing it. It is clear that your nephew would like to be cared for by his mother and remain in contact with his bio-family. The social workers have been able to convince the court that is not appropriate. I am not a lawyer. However, I think the only chance your sister now has of retaining her child is if she can get a letter from eg a medic saying she is likely to be an OK mother. Then for the mother to file a Human Rights Act 1998 claim against the Scottish Government Justice Department www.scotcourts.gov.uk/courtsadmin/jdd.asp via sections 6 www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/42/section/6 and 7 www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/42/section/7 of the Act. Probably in the Sheriff Court www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Justice/legal/Civil as a "party litigant", "litigant in person" in England. In my opinion, professional lawyers, who earn plenty of money via the State, should not to be trusted in "public law" proceedings. The claim could submit that the court was wrong to agree with the Local Authority and deny the child his Article 8 right to respect for his private and family life www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/42/schedule/1 for reasons which are disproportionate and not necessary in a democratic society. Depending on the current circumstances the claim could alternatively be against the Local Authority. I think it would not be a good idea to try and argue such a claim in terms of the rights of the parent or the family, because the LA and or the court will just say we are only interested in the welfare of the child. So it is best for the parent and family to say the same!

Syd - I hope you don't take notice of WTTG/Melvinscomment (I think they are one and the same) He/they clearly have an axe to grind regarding child protection. The fact that he says that the only chance you sister has now is of getting a letter from a medic to say she will be "an OK mother" demonstrates that he doesn't know what he is talking about. There will have been many assessments done on your sister, which will have to have been evidenced in court. I am assuming the court have granted a Care Order or Placement Order (the latter means the court have agreed that the child can be placed for adoption). To think that a medic can now pop up and say someone is an "OK mother" is ludicrous.

He is also knocking the lawyers and saying they should not be involved in public law proceedings (which is the law that your sister and the child have been involved in). I don't agree with the system that we have in the UK i.e. the adverserial system, which means the lawyers fight for their client as in criminal proceedings, but it is the system that we have. There will be a LA lawyer acting for the LA and no doubt your sister has had a lawyer acting for her and she would surely be eligible for legal aid. Just thought you may be in Scotland where the laws are different and I don't know how they differ.

This bloke could also be John Hemming - Lib dem MP for Yardley inBirmingham in the West Midlands who is always talking about cases of the Court of Human Rights, but never tells us that any court has overturned the original decision made inthe Family Proceedings Court. I think these men are just raising hopes for people in your position that will not solve the problem and just cause more heartache. God knows what their agenda is - but it's not honest and authentic, of that I am sure.

wttg - you already said that (in substance) on Fri 18-Mar-11 09:50:41, no need to repeat yourself as OP has shown herself to be caring of her nephew and understanding of the issues and it seems perfectly capable of taking what everyone has said and doing the best she can with it.

Just thinking of you and concerned to avoid you getting RSI for no reason.

kiss kiss

Kewcumber

Syd35 This is how a "litigant in person", "party litigant" in Scotland, would find out about forced adoption cases in Scotland.

Do a search on BAILII www.bailii.org/form/search_cases.html

Here is a recent Scottish Sheriff Court Decision www.bailii.org/scot/cases/ScotSC/2010/14.html and the Acts and Rules referred to by the Sheriff.

Adoption and Children (Scotland) Act 2007 www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2007/4/contents

Children (Scotland) Act 1995 www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1995/36/contents

Act of Sederunt (Sheriff Court Rules Amendment) (Adoption and Children (Scotland) Act 2007) 2009 www.legislation.gov.uk/ssi/2009/284/contents/made

Oh go away that guy and get a life!

It is John Hemming I recognize his "style"
This is a sorry story, which hopefully will evolve into a positive ending for the child at least.

A letter from a medic to say the birth mother can be a parent? What utter rubbish and likely to send caring relatives on a wild goose chase.

Letters are a much better way of communicating and, in my real life experience, always elicit a response.

SWs are always overworked. Even the best ones dont return phone calls. If they do they tend to be last thing on a friday, preferably leaving an ansaphone message. Cant tell you the amount of times I have recieved the 'five thirty friday message'.

My FD thought I was some sort of white witch when I predicted we would hear from her SW at this precise time. She was amazed when it happened

Any letter you send should be kept on file at the very least. This will be available for your nephew to read when he is ready. Some small comfort.

I think this thread shows both the best and the worst of the internet in responding to a situation like this.

I think it is very cruel and irresponsible to try to encourage Syd to 'appeal' the final adoption order. She is way out of time in any event.

Her sister will have had a lawyer, paid for by the State. The child will have had a lawyer and a Guardian, paid for by the State. Syd concedes that the mother couldn't stay clean and was providing positive samples.

This child will have come to the attention of SS because he was suffering or likely to suffer significant harm due to the mother's failure to parent due to her drug and alcohol abuse.

On the bare facts given I cannot see that any appeal has any hope in hell of succeeding. Children can't wait around for ever for their parents to sort themselves out or for relatives to put themselves forward. It is sad but true.

Syd sounds like a loving and caring person but I have to ask - where was she while her sister was spiralling out of control? Was the sister keeping it a secret? Why did no one in the wider family notice what was going on and step in? How did it get so bad? I can only suspect that Syd only knows the part of the story her sister choses to tell her and I would bet that is but the tip of a very large and bleak iceberg.

I think best thing to do is to say goodbye to your nephew for now - it won't be for ever. He will have a life story book prepared, your sister will hopefully be able to make use of letter box contact and when he is old enough I am sure he will come looking for his birth family. That might be cold comfort now, but little children have a desparate and urgent need for solid stable parenting as soon as possible. I accept that this is very sad and dreadful for birth families to accept but the damage done to children in the households of substance abusers can be massive.

Syd just wanted to say 'hi' - thinking of you.

Maryz, of course, I wasn't there and can only speculate. However, I would guess it is going to take more than just one incident of child being left alone, not fed, injured, etc, etc, before SS took an interest. It usually takes quite a long time for SS to step in, unless something major happens and police are involved of course.

I was not suggesting that Syd 'cure' her sister - I know that is impossible. But family members can and do step in, offer respite, even make referrals themselves because they know how bad its got. Syd said her husband didn't want to get invovled. It sounds like this family is distant from the sister, didn't know what was going on until it was too late and the only info they are getting is drip fed by sister.

I am really worried by some of the websites out there and some of the people who pop up to give 'advice'. I was so shocked by John Hemmings last year I was going to write to Nick Clegg about his activities - I am not sure how his activism fits in with his paid for employment as a politician.

I

I'm sure OP will find that really helpful. I read one of those (recent Scottish Sheriff Court Decision) beginning to end (twice) and didn't get much out of it but no doubt I am not so bright these days as I once was.

supro i dont think you need to be to worried micheal gov the minster in chanrge of children and familes was him self adopted adopted himself i belive and aldo tim loughton used to be a youth worker so theirs no chance of them ever listeing to what jh has to say in matters of adoption and we know the judges do not take kindly to mps getting involed as they would have only gotten the parents side of events

Kewcumber It definitely isn't easy for a parent acting as a litigant in person, party litigant in Scotland, to learn the relevant details of the law. I think a good way to do it is to read relevant judgements. Doing a search on BAILII, selecting Scottish courts only and search term "permanence" brings up the following cases :-

www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/sino_search_1.cgi?sort=rank&datehigh=&query=permanence&method=boolean&highlight=1&datelow=&mask_path=scot/cases

NanaNina You are correct that Syd35's sister will have had lawyers acting for her. The child will also have had seperate lawyers. In my opinion, there is a fairly high probability that all of those lawyers will have been covertly supporting the Local Authority. In terms of future fees, it isn't a good idea for any lawyer to get on the wrong side of a Local Authority or any other public sector organisation. However, litigants in person have no problem getting on the wrong side of public sector organisations, apart from a possible financial one, like the lawyers! Bottom line is it is best for a litigant in person to have very little cash and no significant assets, just in case he or she ends up being obliged to pay the other side's legal costs! If a litigant in person launched a claim which a LA defeated and asked for its legal costs to be paid by the litigant, it would be at the discretion of the judge to decide whether or not to grant the LA's request.

Here is the latest Mr Booker article, which has various comments attached relating to forced adoption :-

www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/8423799/The-family-justice-system-is-callous-corrupt-and-staggeringly-expensive.html

I appreciate everyone's comments although I did think some certain recent posts were a bit strange. Kewcumber I was the same with some of those links.

Spero - I won't go into details here but we are quite an open family and were aware of my sister's problems. Of course we have all tried to intervene but there's only so much you can do for someone. You cannot stop someone being influenced by others and making bad choices. So yes, I have distanced myself to a certain degree over the last few years but I am always at the end of the phone if she wants to talk.

My husband comes from a very different background to mine and he just isn't interested. If I try to speak to him about it he is quite derogatory about my sister so it's a closed book as far as he is concerned.

Thanks for the thoughts Italiangreyhound, I do appreciate your continued interest.

Syd - Its always difficult to know the true situation with only one side of the story but based on what you have posted I think you have probably done the best you can. I also suspect that although your heart bleeds for your sister and her son you probably accept that her problmes do compromise her ability to parent effectively. If they didnt I think you would have been able to have a more involved relationship with her and although you are desparately sad about this and you can't imagine the horror if it happened to you I suspect there is a part of you that can't help but wonder if she is a decent enough parent? If something happened to you and your DH - would you be happy for her to be sole custodian of your children?

I read that link to Mr Bookers article and posting a link on that in comments to this thread is nasty and below the belt Melvin/WTTG, and does your cause no good at all. I have always been open to a discussion about children taken into care incorrectly, I am always happy to discuss failings of professionals in this area even though I think they are by far the minority of cases, the OP should be a natural ally of yours in this area but you cant help alienating even those who should support you in your campaign with your single minded trampling over the reality of those who could benefit from your help. Syd has been very careful to keep identifying details off this thread but there is always the risk that someone outs her in real life.

To paraphrase Jane Austin "poorly done, Melvin, poorly done"

I think this is John Hemmings too - surely there can't be 2 other males posting on here with the same warped views as him. Whatever, I think the best thing to do is to ignore these posts. Sorry Syd because I think this is detracting from your OP but I am sure you are sensible enough to know that melvin/wwtg/JH are all talking nonsense and giving you totally inaccurate "advice" It troubles me greatly that this bloke/men are using these threads because they have an axe to grind, and are falsely raising people's hopes, as others have pointed out.

Hi Spero - nothing changes does it - I did actually write to Nick Clegg but didn't get the courtesy of a reply. I haven't seen JH on the threads for a long time and thought he'd gone away, but see he is back, although since I posted about Wall LJ's criticism of him and the fact that he attempted to sue Birmingham City Council for £30,000 and insisted that the sws should pay out of their own pocket, and being ordered out of court by a Judge in Birmingham he has gone very quiet......here's hoping! Mind if these other 2 blokes are not JH, they too are posting nonsense and clearly do not have the children's interests at heart, but are obsessed with this ridiculous notion of "forced adoption" - sorry I know I am preaching to the converted!

Hello again Nana! Maybe I will try again, you should at least get the courtesy of a response when your raise a query about an MP...

Can I just invite again Mr Hemmings or whoever his latest sock puppet is. Come to court with me. See how I act for my clients. Your suggestion that I would be in any way 'in the pay of' a LA or my fees would depend on not pissing them off is laughable.

I am paid by the Government. It doesn't matter if I piss off LAs, they don't pay me. My solicitors rather like it if I do piss them off.

So, come to court. See it for real. Or keep on obsessessing on some web site and causing needless pain to people like Syd by encouraging them to think they've got a case or can appeal??

My email is phillimore sarah @ hotmail.com. I've already cleared it with the Bar Council.

John hemming

Shortly after his election in 2005, he made headlines when it was revealed that he was the father of a child with his personal assistant and fellow councillor Emily Cox, though he would stay with his wife and her three children. His wife Christine commented that she forgave him and is standing by him, as he has always been honest about his extramarital affairs, of which she said this was "about number 26".[14][15] Following the publication of details of the affairs, Hemming voted for himself for the News of the World's 'Love Rat of the Year' competition.[16] In 2010, his wife appeared in court charged with stealing his mistresses' cat.[17] Pleading "not guilty" on 7 February 2011, she was bailed and sent for trial in June.[18]

I don't think he should be lecturing anyone about parenting do you ladies?