If you'll forgive me for butting in here, as the author of the blog post which started this discussion (not my usual practice as this is your space, not mine).
First, I've seen enough of 'Cote D'Azur' in this thread to be confident in identifying him as Ian R Josephs. Troll may change their IDs but their modus operadi rarely varies, particularly when they're as obsessive as he evidently is.
To be absolutely clear, Josephs lives in Monaco where he runs a language tuition business. He is entirely unqualified to give advice on aspects of the child protection system, least of all legal advice, and the 'information' he does provide is misleading, inaccurate and often downright dangerous.
Whatever Hemming's disagreements with Josephs might be, that doesn't appear to stop his 'Justive for Families' campaign from linking to Josephs' website as a source of information, pushing people into his clutches.
As for John Hemming, I'm slightly surprised to see that he hasn't on this occasion, tried to play the 'contempt of court' gambit in an effort to shut down discussion relating to that specific post of mine. That's what he did on another online forum, causing the owner to incur costs as a result of taking legal advice about the advisability of the discussion when they could just as easily have emailed me and I'd have advised to be circumspect about the contents of the post.
To be clear, some of the information in that post may well be sub judice - that's seeming the view of the Local Authority involved in the case - so please steer clear of discussing the detail (as everyone seems to have done so far) and leave any risk to me. I know what I'm doing here and will take care of myself, if necessary, and wouldn't wish to see Mumsnet placed in the firing line.
We're it not for my webhosts having technical problems, I'd have provided a link to a new post of mine which debunks Hemming's allegations of systematic 'baby stealing' using his own statistical 'evidence'.
That post also covers a case submitted to the European Court of Human Rights last October which, as with other cases into which he's inserted himself, seems to involve a parent with a history of psychiatric issues.
This is a theme which seems to run right through the antics of Hemming and his camp folowers. the cases he picks up almost always seem to involve deeply vulnerable individuals, many of whom have a history of psychiatric or mental capacity issues. In short, people who are highly susceptable to the deranged conspiracy theories that Hemming peddles, and all the more so for the desperate situations in which they find themselves. Without giving too much away, I've been talking to quite a few mental health professional who're serious concerns about the activities of Hemming and his followers and the impact this is having on what are often extremely vulnerable individuals who, in their own way, are as much in need of protection as the children involved in some of these cases.
I'm not going pretend that the child protection system is perfect. Mistakes are made. Injustices do happen and some of the people working in the system may be incompetent, arrogant and/or overzealous. Pretty much all are overworked, overstressed and working constantly under extreme pressure in the knowledge that even one poor judgment call can have the most serious consequences. There are legitimate issues that need to be raised and addressed and people working to secure changes that will hoipefully improve the system, and none of the one's I'm speaking to regard Hemming as anything other than a menace who's egotistical personal vendetta against the child protection system is serving only to impede efforts towards securing improvements, particularly in area of openness and transparency of process.
I've said enough for now - thanks for listening.
Unity.