to be fuming at someone phoning ss on me

[AuntiePickleBottom]

i have no idea whom has, i think i am a good mum.

the social worker was lovely, and i am glad they did come even if this was a malicious phone call.

but i am so paroniod that someone is watching me now, i can belive someone would phone the ss on me

Yes.

I know dd needed me i didn't want to lose conciousness, I couldn't help it :( I still feel guilty but can't change it.

xstich its not your fault.
There does need to have something in place for people who continue making absurd accusations.

xstitch, you need better legal advice. Your solicitors so far have been a shower of shit. Can you make a formal complaint much higher up than your ex MIL and her colleagues, so away from their sphere of influence.

Also if you left the area, I know you would be taken to court, but could you get a hearing away from 'their' area.

But surely the baby was an inpatient at the hospital at teh time? Even if you'd taken off to a nightclub it couldn't possibly be abandonment, how could the compalint be regarded as anything but malicious.It just doesn't add up?

I have been advised that breaking the court order would be enough to have dd taken away. Other factors wouldn't be taken into account, I wouldn't just be taken to court I would be arrested for kidnapping my dd. An arrest on record would get me struck off and make it even difficult to find work.

xstitch - who told you that breaking the court order would be enough to have your DD taken away from you? Who told you that you wouldn't be taken to court and that you would be arrested for kidnapping your daughter?

I really think you need a clean start, with a new bulldog lawyer.

It sounds like you have been fed a lot of horseshit to keep you towing the line.

My lawyer told me.

You couldn't have been seen to have abandoned your DD unless you left the hospital. xstitch- to tell you if this is correct i would have to ask you a few questions about parental responsibility (yours, your exDP, and if SS also had an order). I find how you have been treated unbelievable and can only imagine that it happened because you have not legaly challenged when you should have, or pushed for answers. You have also been given really bad legal advice, i can tell this by some of your posts without knowing about PR. I understand some of it may have come about because of your fear of communicating with the SW or SS.

If you are viewed as kidnapping your child then you will always lose full custody (sometimes on for a while), and will be put under supervised access.

Time for a new lawyer I'd say xstitch x

We both have PR there was no SS order, I have residency on condition I don't move. We were still together when I gave birth the complaint was made retrospectively by a few years. Until he left me they kept their snide comments about me for making me feel bad in person.

I fully suspect if I attempted to make a complaint XMIL would ensure the appropriate people never saw it. I cannot trust her after all she has said and done and i have not posted everything on here. Though I have posted enough to give you a picture of what she is like. I am too scared to risk the backlash of a complaint.

All the lawyers seem to be friendly with each other a few have told me I have no grounds for appeal on anything. I think they will all continue to to agree with each other.

I cannot really get over the humiliation in court which was only last year. Having to stand there and be called 'the worst mother in the history of all mothers' is soul destroying' It was little things too that got me down. People will probably say I am stupid but it was a very emotional time. I had to stand for hours over more than one day. XH and his family were each in the witness box for a relatively short time. In the time they were there chairs were brought for them, regularly asked if the were comfortable and if they were sure they wouldn't like some water. OH yes and they were apologised to a few times for having their lives disrupted by having to come to court which really got my goat as it was their fault we were there in the first place. The difference in treatment made me feel like their testimony held more weight that they were better people than me and it had already been decided I was scum IYKWIM.

Xstitch- you must feel as if the whole world is against you.I think you have been treated dreadfully by many people!
I really hope you can get a decent lawyer to get this sorted out x

The only past complaints that SS take notice of is sexual abuse. They may put some sort of supervision order in place for other complaints (usually cruel behaviour or if there is more than one indicator such as a parents having MH issues). You know that your exDP is toxic so it should not surprise you what he is capable of saying. I doubt that a judge or SW described you as 'the worst mother ever'.

You have taken it for granted that a complaint would not be upheld, until you start to complain you cannot say that you are being totally let down.

Your case is a very unique one and tbh you cannot take that experience to judge how SS handle things normally.

Have you had counselling at all? You need help to 'get over (which you say you cannot) your court experiences. You need upto date legal advice, do not take everything for granted, and stand up for yourself, get your POV on record. Residency is not taken away so easily unless there are serious welfare concerns eg moving to an area with 'failing schools' or if your ex has your DD as much as you do. If information is not recorded as you wish it to be, SS case is weakened. Very shortly the wishes and views of your DD will be taken into consideration, you need to get stronger and teach your DD to speak up for herself.

"A1980 - reporting that would have been entirely over the top. Plenty of parents shout the house down on occasion, it's a non issue."

That's why I didn't report it. Alarming to know that plenty of parents scream the house down with a four and six year old though and throw things as depcited in the example i gave. IMO that is not accpetable or normal. They need to get a grip and control themselves or what sort of example is being set.

There is NO need to scream at two young children like a fucking psycho. PErhaps you needed to be there to listen to how bad it was.

A1980-How do 'psycho's scream', then, is it very different to a stressed out parent? If you use the same language in RL as you do on here, what sort of example do you, yourself set?

I have read the first two and last two of this thread. Clearly lots of shocking and upsetting things going on here. Can someone tell me, if a SW were to bang on my door tomorrow and tell me there had been a complaint, would the SW have the right to simply come in without an appointment and without allowing me to have a witness present? I would be minded to say "I am not expecting you, tell me what you want, and make an appointment". I would then telephone the DH and our solicitor in that order.

The legal system is extremely complicated and there are many misconceptions floating around - I have often posted on MN clarifying things that have been mis-interpreted, and my general stance is that the people working in "the system" are, in the main, doing the best they can.

HOWEVER, I am now considerably less cynical about the "bad SW" stories that abound. There was a time when I would have thought people were tending to exaggerate or ministerpret comments due to being so upset about SS involvement.

Not any longer.

A friend of mine was subjected to the most horrific experience by SS. It was completely unwarranted and occurred through no fault of theirs, whatsoever. However, once the investigation had begun, it transpired that their situation was so unusual (health problem related - can't be more specific) that none of the SW had any idea how to deal with it and reacted with the most spectacular case of arse-covering I have ever seen. There were numerous other professionals involved, including a very senior SW from a different area acting as an advocate, and all their recommendations, including those of the panel dealing with the case, were ignored. Rules were breached. Threats were made. Mistakes were made, including in written documents. And every time my friends made any attempt to gain control of the situation, the SW openly threatened to instigate care proceedings. The child in the middle of this became thoroughly distressed by all the upheaval. An MP was involved, as was a charity that supports people in these situations. No-one could get any sense. It got to the point where everyone was telling them that it might come down to them digging their heels in and forcing SS to instigate proceedings on the basis that there was no way a court would uphold their actions. They were too frightened to take the risk - they are both professionals who work in the system so they know how things work, but the experience was so far removed from reality that they lost any faith that things would work properly. In the end, they finished up moving back to their home country - uprooting their family and moving to the other side of the world, at the loss of their home and jobs - just because they were frightened someone was going to knock on the door and drag their child from their arms.

I still believe that the vasy majority of professionals are trying to do the best they can. However, this was a very frightening lesson into how terrifying it can be for someone caught up in this system. It was no comfort to my friends for all of us to be saying "the courts won't let it happen" or "there are rules to stop this sort of thing".

As a result of this experience I strongly believe that the child protection system needs a very serious overhaul in terms of accountability and supervision, and the complaints system needs a complete review.

onceamai- they would not need an appointment and you would not be entitled to have a witness on the first enquiry, you would not need one anyway. I have answered this question and others about the process in my posts. It depends on the nature of the complaint if you did not allow entry and it was a serious CP complaint they would phone the police and gain access (if they were doing their job properly), the little girl died in Birmingham without the SW insisting on access.

Kungfupanda-my point has been most people are reacting through fear, no one who has posted about 'bad practice' (including yourself) has had the children removed. The SW do not have the power to do this. I have posted in this thread for people to not fear the case going to court and to challenge the process legally. The SW does not prepare the court papers, a legal team does and if they spot a flaw, the case does not go to court.

CP does not need an overhaul whilst children are not removed by the court, people need to get good legal advice and believe it. It is no different as the police, who most do not live in fear of, the fear is self inflicted because it is imagined (the power of an individual SW). I only post so that people realise that SW do not have this power.

SS do not seek to remove children, read the 1989 CHildren Act, they cannot by law.

If you read the OP starting thread, she states that the SW was lovely.

I think you misunderstood my post birds I don't assume the complaint wouldn't be upheld if I don't complain. I just feel there is a greater chance of the complaint being upheld if I complain. I still live in fear of the next complaint being upheld that is why I panic when things are dropped, spilt etc.

When you have a whole family intent on having your dd removed. When that family have contacts in SW, politics and high up in the police. It is completely natural to feel that one day there will be 'evidence' to effect removal of dd. SW are just one cog in the chain but are the people who get the ball rolling. The sight of them is the sign that I am about to go to hell again and one day I fear I will never manage to even pop my head back up. There is only so many time a person can be beaten back down by people and the system.

Birdsgottafly - it's easy to say that people shouldn't fear the system. It's less easy for people to believe it.

I spent months saying to my friends "they can't do this" and watched them being beaten down by the SWs telling them "we can do this". Even as professionals working in the system, even with extremely senior professionals telling them what could and could not happen, they were so cowed and frightened by the end of the process that they were completely unable to see it through and finished up leaving the country to escape what was happening. It is far easier to believe the frightening stuff, particularly when everything I and others said wouldn't happen, kept happening.

I believe it is the chain of command side of things that needs an overhaul, particularly in relation to the complaints process as it made my friends feel utterly powerless to see the process that any complaint would go through - they believed that complaining would trigger some of the things that were being threatened, as the threats all seemed to be based on the SWs assessment of my friends' view of the process. So every time they raised any concerns, or queried the legality of a particular step, they were met with "aha, we knew you weren't taking this seriously therefore we are going to consider removing your child".

It was ludicrous, but it destroyed them. Fear is an unbelievably powerful driving force. You have no idea the lengths they went to to fall into line with the ridiculous edicts and demands that were imposed by SS. When you are completely terrified that someone is going to knock on the door, wave an EPO at you and take your child, you are too terrified to do anything that is going to rock the boat. They couldn't trust anyone, they had no faith that the courts would uphold their position. Why would they? No-one else in the system was doing what they should be doing.

So actually then, they do not have the power to enter a property without consent, they would have to contact the police and presumably get a warrant. That then would give me time to contact my DH and solicitor would it not?

Onceamai-No they can phone the police from your door who will instantly attend and can get instant access. If they did not do this there could be a child dying inside the property as was the case of V Climbie.

You cannot base/change a system on peoples unfounded fears. No social worker 'can wave a EPO' and take a child unless that child is showing phsyical signs of abuse.

Complaints are not delt with by the department that the complaint is made against. The procedures have all been developed to protect children from abuse and work well. You use the word 'believe' alot, the law cannot be changed based on the belief of what may happen by those investigated.

There have been scandals in the past (Cleveland) but they can no longer happen.

Onceamai- they should be questioning your DH anyway, seperatly from you, if the concern was serious or sexual. Your solicitor could do nothing to stop any part of the CP process. If they could the children of parents with money (or pimps etc) could be abused at will. There is an whole money making industry 'snuff/porn films' etc that those involved in can afford the best legal advice.

In the past children have been tortured (sometimes to death) while SW have been knocking on the door and going away again.