For standing up against the social work and going this far ...

[BipedalSpecies]

First, I dont know if Mumsnet is the best forum for this, but it has the most appropriate user base I could find.

3.5 or so years ago I told the head of social work and education if they did not stop segregating and descriminating against my daughter I would see them in court.

2.5 years ago 2 social workers and a social care worker came to my door and threatened to remove my children if we did not comply with them.

Then they went to the police and the care worker made an anonymous complaint stating she saw my partner assualt our kids. Her timeline states my partner was positively identified by her description, woman with dark hair in a ponytail, by another worker six weeks before they even met her.

I had reports about me sent from the school regarding injuries on my daughter blamed on me. Interestingly enough in one case three members of staff saw my daughter injure herself in school, yet one member reported it to social work as abuse. You just cant make this up.

I covertly recorded social workers and made a complaint against them regarding them using false information in child protection meetings and giving the prosecution against us false information, backed up by my video.

I was branded a liar and our kids placed on the child protection register.

Court proceedings started. I submitted my video evidence. Court case was dropped.

The council refuse to watch the video. They also illegally accessed my medical records claiming I gave signed consent, which they cannot produce. (along with another 3 billion wrong pieces of information they cannot back up e.g. according to them and only them Im an ex drug addict and a current alcoholic)

Now the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman has recommended they watch the video by end of January.

The Information Commissioner's Office has asked them to explain themselves by mid January.

So my question is: Am I wrong to bury these people up to their necks by going to the media when all my investigations are finished?

BTW my case was closed to them over 1.5 years ago and Ive been fighting this 2.5 years, so Im not planning on taking any prisoners after so much effort.

Also the head of social work said 'nothing has gone fundamentally wrong' and the person in charge of the complaint circled the wagons and I am willing to publicly say, covered up for the workers. After all I told him where the evidence was and he refused to do anything except repeat the falsifications of the workers he was supposed to investigate. The request for a copy of the medical records authorisation in itself speaks volumes.

I also got told that I should drop my complaint because 'next time we will have the police with us and it wont be for a cup of tea and a chat'.

Why start a fight?, when you have won the battle=The dc are with YOU, the case was CLOSED years ago.

You are fighting a pointless battle that means nothing.
Don't waste your time with SW, make the most of your dc & cherish them.

Don't try to settle scores, you have the outcome right in front of you-your dc

IMO it's not fair to do this to your children. It sounds like your poor daughter went through a lot as is.

You keep talking about YOU and YOUR injustice and how YOU felt labelled etc, etc.

This should be about your DC, not you. To be blunt, this all smacks of you having a bruised ego.

Also IMO, you've left it far too late to start a blog. How can it even continue? You say your story, that's it. If you'd wanted a blog it should have been right after all this happened and your updates would have been about your DC's improvement and how your family was moving forward. That doesn't give your children the chance to opt out though does it?

What happened to your family was truly horrible and it's not fair that your complaints were brushed aside. I get that you're angry. I getthat the system failed your child shockingly.

Drawing attention to it all, pouring salt into your children's wounds and revisiting it all isn't the answer though.

I actually think for you to put this up on the internet would be quite selfish TBH. What's on the net stays there forever. Why should your kids have this follow them forever because you wanted to settle a score?

I agree with the poster who said you should write to your MP. Write letters to everyone with any sort of power. Continue writing letters until someone pays attention if you feel the way for you to heal is to be acknowledged.

But don't tackle this alone and make your children suffer for it. They don't need this to heal. SS 'going away' was enough and having two parents who are as committed as you and your partner are is enough for them. Don't put them through all this just for yourself, please.

Go for it Biped -too often, these so-called 'professionals' can get it so totally wrong but can't admit it and cover up for themselves irrespective of how much they are actually harming children (and their families) by doing so. For some reason they can't accept that to 'err is human' and put their little 'hats' on instead and go to the default position of blaming the parents whilst praising each other. Unfortunately, due to information sharing (set up with good intentions to protect children), schools, ss, nhs, etc can all share their notions and ideas about 'events', non-events and explanations which go down on the record as facts even if they are no more than assumptive tittle-tattle (out fighting eh?!!) aka 'gossipy nonsense'. This deformed picture of a family's life is then circulated around to all and sundry profs who have this as their main influence when forming their opinion; so it gets extrapolated to epically untrue proportions. Sounds like there will be some exposure of the truth in Jan so enjoy your Xmas and wait for the outcome of that before you make any decisions. At least, for now, you've got some of it off your chest.

Hope op gets things sorted. Good luck.

Specialagent.

You appear to have compleatly missed that the things the op is complaining about did happen to him and his partner, not to his child.

If the child had ended up in care then fair enough it wold be about what was done to the child but because it didnt its what happened to the parents.

The system did not fair there child. It failed both parents.

Yes but by going public what choice does the child have in their privacy?

I feel for you, it is clear that you have had a really bad experience. Bonkers reply? Really nice, I am sure the OP feels better now.

Well, been a while since I updated this. Its been a while for a good reason, well ... define 'good reason' ...

The council are now almost 9 weeks late in complying with the SPSO recommendation. Its probably sunk in that when its watched it means they can no longer say my allegations are spurious and vexatious and it means some of the complaints they have successfully dodged in the past are now, how can I put it? 'Going to hit their mark' sounds good.

its pretty simple what we have to, sit and watch a video and discuss. Simple eh? They've had almost 21 weeks to do it. But then they have spent the last two and a half years making me out to be a bad tempered liar.

But there is a further problem with them seeing the truth, I offered them the chance to resolve this before they branded me spurious and vexatious and they have stood firm in saying that 'my perception' of the video itself (direct quotes from it I am talking) wrong. Also their 'expert witness' is on the video and they used her against me many times, even at a complaints review committee meeting.

I have read the thread and I'm gobsmacked.

Have you got legal advice and retained a solicitor? Would you think that sending them a solicitors letter at this stage would help? As in "the decision at the council on X date was that the video evidence was to be seen by mid Jan and now at the end of March it still hasn't been seen. If it isn't watched by Y date, we will be taking Z Council (and all named people below ) to court in a defamation case" or something like that? I'm not a legal expert by any stretch but it seems like you have been more than reasonable and very patient with them up to now. If they play by different rules maybe you should play them using their rules??? If sending them a solicitors letter wouldn't help I don't know what to suggest except to try and not let it get you down.

WhatchaMaCalllit

The SPSO, I believe, has the power of the court of session (from what I remember).
If I was to threaten legal action in such a way or intended such legal action the SPSO would not be able to pursue my case ... or something like that.

From what I understand 'senior management' at the SPSO is involved because they take such delays seriously.

Op please do not anywere near this FASSIT website ElsieMc is giving you bad advice

On this site parents do crazy things like post foster carers names and address, sw names i have even seen car reg on there often the bitter parents give so much detail about there case sw can woek out which child they are talking about and that usually dose nothing for your case but prove how unsable you are.

I have been through a situation where my dd was segregated due to disability and we had a lot of aggro from the school; we had some horrible suggestions made about us as parents. Fortunately, SS refused to dance to their pipe and supported us.
We would have had a good case of disability discrimination as school had carelessly made remarks on dd's report that showed that she was not getting proper tuition.
But by the time we had realised where we stood legally, the discrimination had stopped, dd was getting ready to move on to secondary, I was still having flashbacks, but had to decide whether to move on or get closure.
We decided to move on, because dd still needed our support and we did not feel we could take attention away from that. If we had carried on with the legal case, we would have been stuck as a family in what happened years ago; it would have affected dd for years.
Tough decision, but in retrospect I think we did right.

OP I think you should follow this through. If these people are prepared to treat your family so unfairly then who's to say they won't do it to another family? Who's to say it isn't happening up and down the country?

It's only through individuals taking on organisations that these things come to light. I think the press would be very interested. I agree you should tread carefully though, so as not to weaken your case or credibility.

This happens. It happens to normal people. If you think it doesn't you are living in a fantasy world where only naughty people have bad things happen to them.

I started reading the thread and someone had asked sarcastically "do you really think social workers have the time to make up stories about you?". Yes, they do. The social work service in this country and by the looks of it in Scotland too needs a massive over-haul along the lines of the Scandinavian countries. But that's not for this thread today.

I don't want to start on about my experiences, too painful for a start, I can hardly bear to recount them, and I live in fear of it happening again even now. I did begin a case and then dropped it, it would have meant (in my case) seeking a judicial review, and you have to put up surety for that (would have been my house) - also OP is in Scotland so entirely different again.

As for involving the press, it depends what you mean by press, and if you have the ability to use the press to your advantage - what you need is to find a journalist researching family courts and social workers and ask them to take your story on. An example, which any interested poster might like to look at, is Camilla Cavendish - a campaigning journalist writing in the broadsheets who fought to overturn family courts being heard in secret. Worth a google, someone I really admire.

Good luck OP, I hope it turns out well for your DCs.

Domjolly
I know what you are saying, though legally I could publish their details now and very publicly and there would be nothing they could do to stop me, simply because a) this matter is in the public interest and b) because the only thing taking me to court would do would be to prove me right.
Ive actually made it ultra easy for the council to find out who has posted this. There can only be one person with an SPSO case, an ICO case and a covert video ... Id like to think Im the only one unlucky enough for this situation.

Funnily enough they cannot publicly identify me as it is against the data protection act.

cory
Its like everything else, good ones and bad ones.

babanouche
Too many people have told me its the right thing to do for me not to follow through. Im also determined that neither me nor my partner will ever be worrying about the possibility of grandkids being taken away 'because their mother was part of an abuse case'.

BurningBridges
Yes; you hit the nail on the head in paragraphs one and two. Ive been thinking a lot about the press, I dont think I need them. A much simpler solution would be a simple and unbias website. One without even my opinion on it. Just simple facts, like whats contained within the video versus the workers accounts of the events.Theres a lot more I could go into. BTW, I havent used any of my legal team regarding my complaint, other than requesting a copy of a document and some advice on the video. And yes, I do technically have a legal team for Glasgow City Council and I will be getting a fourth member of for it soon because of another matter.

Thanks to everyone that is being supportive. For everyone having doubts, you are entitled to your opinion, but please have a look at the SPSO outcome I posted and consider what my allegations are regarding the video and the fact that the council are fighting it really hard. Id look pretty stupid to do what I have in the last the past 2.5 years for nothing.

England is worse than scotland. I spoke about it yesterday in parliament see my weblog.
johnhemming.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/yesterdays-speech-about-adoption.html

Op, if I were you I’d also let the police know what’s going on and pass over copies of any evidence. It may have no impact at all, but it’s worth it. If anything it will be on their records while liaising with social workers.

Thread is 10 years old!

Why was your daughter self harming? Are your children ok now?

Zombie

Oh my gosh. Just realised. What IS going on with the zombie threads today??!!

Zombie but still a good read. I would love an update

I have family who went through similar and also had the case dropped due to video footage that completely outed the social workers as liars. One of the social workers resigned due to it but nothing really happened as a whole and I’m sad to see it still persists.

My relative wanted to do what you want to do but I think (can’t remember entirely) that she was warned against it by the family court due to the privacy of the court.

Just trolls. We've even had them doing it for a YouTube laugh. It's pathetic but I'm assuming it gives them some pleasure.