AIBU to be horrified by the Stolen Children of England

[LivingOnTheDancefloor]

I just watched a French documentary called "England's stolen children" and can't believe this is happening in England. Horrifying, scary, unbelievable, it is like a horror movie...

Basically, social services are taking babies from their parents based on suspicion that abuse might happen in the future, except that the decision is made based on ridiculous things.
A lady had her three children taken from her, including a breastfed baby because she went to the ER for a child's broken ankle and they judged that he must have been beaten by his parents (only based on the ankle). X years later the parents manage to prove the fracture was due to scorbut. And they found out the initial report from the ER says "no sign of fracture".
The judge admitted they shouldn't have taken the children and the parents were innocents. But the children were given to adoption so the parents will never see them again.
That is just one of the stories.
Some women are told while pregnant that their newborn will be taken as soon as he arrives (and thzney do it).
The documentary says it is due to the facts that counties have to reach a number of children given to adoption so they target poor/uneducated parents and find any reason to take their children.
And as fostering costs money to the state they prefer adoption.

AIBU to ask if you heard about it here in the UK? And if yes, what do you think? Could it be true or are they exagerating?

I am really shaken.

www.google.fr/amp/s/researchingreform.net/2016/11/14/englands-stolen-children-controversial-new-documentary-on-forced-adoption/amp/?client=safari

Sorry, no idea how to post links, and I am on my phone

I finally have 5 minutes to myself, but the earlier links to the documentary don't seem to work (unless I am just being incompetent). Does anyone have a link?

Sorry, found it. Just ignore me.

I work in a school where half the kids come from an attached children's home where they are placed by SS. Almost all of their parents would swear blind (and do) that they've been perfect, ideal parents and that social services are hounding them with no reason.
Then they turn up; bringing their kids (all of whom are under 18) money, cigarettes, drugs. Or start arguments where they call their children (most of whom have some form of MH/SEN) horrendous names. Including one where a 12 year old was left inconsolable after her mother came to visit and then said to staff loudly and within earshot " I wouldn't have bothered with pushing contact if I'd known she was a fucking spacker"
I tend to take these documentaries with a very large pinch of salt as I've seen it from the other side.

I haven't been able to find any replies to my post but, a lot of posts on this thread www.mumsnet.com/Talk/feeling_depressed/903685-This-fear-that-social-services-will-come-and-take-your/AllOnOnePage

suggest that SS are in fact not always on the family's side. Same happened to my friend, who was suffering MH issues and had an additional needs child and needed help. She had absolutely no idea they had any thoughts of taking her children. She was in shock after the court case, offered no support at all and got herself through a nervous breakdown (missed or not cared about by SS) and lost all her children. I was there through all of it, felt powerless and could do nothing as a random ley person at the time. It was horrendous. No abuse listed or documented. They snapped at things such as her bathing her toddlers together rather than apart. Potty training-toddler wearing no pants in summer. Etc etc. I stand by my point. I am not in a camp that thinks they're always the enemy, however I will never agree that they never take children when they absolutely shouldn't-and growing up in care is no picnic.
They do.

Nothing about being a banned poster

He is definitely banned.

I agree Matilda.

Had something similar with my friends case. With her I saw ALL the court documents and know exactly what happened so it's not a case of her painting a rosy picture to me.

With her it was also MH issues and lack of support especially for her dc (which is why she reached out to ss to begin with). She did everything ss wanted even though she wasn't happy with what they were doing. In the end, they used that against her even though she was doing exactly what they said! It was like something out of Alice in wonderland!

Iwith my friend, the judge totally threw it out of court and told the social workers off, no order was made. But the interim care order caused a lot of harm. Plus my friend, as an educated professional, had access to the kinds of resources others don't have.

These things can and do happen. The problem is the quality of social work - that's why you get errors either way

Guardian covered it too

I think people here are being naive, therehave been cases where kids have been placed into adoption on grounds which later turned out not to be true. There have also been cases where kids have been left to die with abusive parents. I suggest that the current ss system is not working and needs to be overhauled. Id also suggest that adoption should always be about thechild and if they as an adult decide to want to dissolve the adoption they should be allowed to do so. Id also suggest that more stability and support and resources should be given to longterm fostering.

mothersruin this thread is full of social workers, socia care workers and an experienced family lawyer. Our views are not springing from naivety.
I promise you, child protection services don't need 'overhauling' they need proper funding and staffing. The system would work, it should work. The system is only broken in as much as it has been strangled by cuts both to frontline services and support services.

Agreed that child protection services need proper funding. Where I live sws have more cases per head than the recommended limit. So not surprising there are mistakes. And where there is a lot of vacanacies, it is not surprising sws get employed who really should not be.

Sorry I'm late to the party, but if you watch some of the documentaries about SS taking children, many of these people have no business bringing children up, and their children's right to be given a decent start in life should trump any rights their parents have.
I do feel it's sad, that some people who are decent parents end up being in a situation where they are blamed for abusing their children when it simply hasn't happened. I wish that it weren't the case but ss are safeguarding the child.

Ss doesn't generally come in and take children for no reason.
Neighbours sister has 2 kids, first one was born very premature because of her drug use. Child was put in the care of family. Second child born, she's an alcoholic, very chaotic life, he doesn't eat dinner- one meal a day. His speech is affected. She refuses to deal with addiction services, refuses to go to parenting classes, refuses to do anger management.... this is all after a domestic issues happened at her house when drunk. She head butted an officer who tried to remove her child from the environment whilst they figured out the situation (she had beaten the shit out of her partner, he hit back, she called police)

She still has her child. I awoke 4 AM to a car alarm going off, she was trying to lock her sleeping son in the car. This is the same child who has witnessed his mother physically fighting with other adults of both sex, he's so used to being slapped and shouted at. I feel so sorry for him and SS haven't taken him.... so no, they don't just take kids.

Having read the guardian piece, I'm now wondering who some of these posters are and why Hemming felt it was relevant that their identities were disclosed? Not that it was acceptable but when you think about it, we have no idea why some posters are so vociferously against the idea that there is anything wrong with the forced adoption polices used in the UK.

The one thing that is patently obvious is that there needs to be transparency and accountability. Secrecy, which is intended to protect children, is being misused to screen SS from accountability and I know that some judges agree with this view.

Hemmings' motivation seemed to be primarily spite and, possibly, a wish to intimidate his more vocal critics. IIRC, he did try to make a professional conduct complaint about Spero which, predictably, was chucked out because it was a load of rubbish.

The whole "secrecy" thing is a bit of a smokescreen. Judgments in child protections cases are regularly publicised, it's just details that would identify specific children that are left out. Parents are entitled to free legal aid as of right, i.e. it's not means or merits tested, so they have the benefit of lawyers on their side scrutinising everything that social services and others do. If they believe that social services have acted improperly they can and do draw it to the attention of their superiors including people like local councillors and MPs. Likewise judges who believe that a social worker has misbehaved can and do report them.

just what is it that you are trying to say Humphrey?

That Hemming was trying to out is as some secret rad fem social workers with an axe to grind?

I am a family lawyer, granted. I made no secret of that. The other two were not professionals in this field - they were women who were outraged by what Hemming was doing and he tried to bully them into submission.

Disgraceful, vile behaviour and he was rightly banned.

And anyone who thinks they 'know' the whole story from the documents their friend has shown them - you are naive.

When you have sat in court for a week with three lever arch files of documents - then you know.

This constant refrain that cases are bought on a whim, for no reason, is I am afraid bollocks. Yes, sometimes cases go wrong, particularly the single issue cases of suspected non accidental injuries. Sometimes SW add up 2 and 2 and get 10. That's when a good lawyer is handy. But this is not commonplace.

Vast majority of cases in which I am involved have long standing and serious issues which are well documented.

I'm pretty insulted by your insinuations, Humphrey. I wasn't one of the posters JH tried to out, but I was on the thread (with a different user name) as he was posting the restricted documents, and I have made no secret of the fact that I think the SS snatch cute blonde babies to order conspiracy is a complete load of bollocks.

I'm happy to disclose that I'm an adoptive mother (to a cute blonde baby, as it happens - but there's been no financial benefit to the LA from her adoption, given the costs of fostering and taking a case through the legal process). But it was clear both from that thread and from the other interactions that JH had with MNers on previous thread [NB he had been warned previously about his behaviour, he wasn't just banned out of the blue] that he has a problem with women, particularly ones who disagree with him. He was frankly trying to bully us.

Many of us would agree that there is scope for improvement in how the current system works, but no one has been able to come up with a satisfactory argument (that I have seen) for how it can possibly be in a child's best interests for the details of the abuse that they have suffered at the hands of their parents to be freely available to the entire world. If you can't see that it would be completely unacceptable for everyone to know that little Sally was raped every Saturday night by her dad, or that little Billy's mum stubbed cigarettes out on his torso and made him sleep on the floor surrounded by dog shit, then I suggest you go and have a long hard think about the implications of opening up family court proceedings.

What is Humphrey insinuating? I couldn't decide.

I also know someone who believes herself to be a 'good mum' and had her children 'stolen'.

Being a good mum included having sex in the same room, telling them to watch the TV and not look round.

Not always feeding them, not clothing them, not applying for a place at secondary school for her eldest, but that was fine she had left him at his gran's and moved 100 miles away, then she realised he could be useful to take the younger ones to school and bring them back so she got him to 'jump' a train ie travel without a ticket to her new home, the first his gran knew was when he didn't come home from school. He was out of education for about 6 months.

But she still believes herself to be a good mum.

Re parents fleeing the country, what if they really are innocent but know that the authorities are going to steal their children no matter what they say, do or comply with? Surely if they have no other way to keep their children safe and out of the care system which is known to be horrendously damaging, they must leave? If you were truly innocent, and your kids were being damaged by the process and there was no way out whatsoever, what would you do?

Spero, i'm always interested in what you have to say but have you honestly never seen even one case where the parents were unjustly treated and the judge or magistrates went along with it, resulting in children losing their family. Not just parents losing their much loved, well cared for children but more importantly the children losing their parents even for a short time?

No-one "knows" that their children are going to be taken into care no matter what they do, but the trouble is that people like Hemming and Josephs make people think that that is the case. Yes, mistakes happen, but given that the mistakes get publicity, actually the number of cases where they reach the point of no return is tiny. It really isn't the case that SS decide they will "steal" a blond, blue-eyed baby and that's that; it's a long, complicated and expensive process, and parents are given every help to oppose care applications.

The other side of the coin with people who flee abroad is that if one or both of the parents is abusive, it enables them to carry on abusing; and if the child has injuries due to a medical condition, it may well mean that they don't receive the medical care they need.

Basically, what if this is REALLY happening in this country and most people are thinking "hogwash"? What if truly innocent, falsely accused, good parents go to councillors, MP's, lawyers, ministers, ombudsman, family court, etc with their evidence and no-one does anything to put things right or even help? How must those children feel if they KNOW it is so wrong and unjust, yet no-one will help them?

It's pointless saying"what if" unless you can quote actual cases where you 100% know that the care order was unjustified. What Spero sees is going to be a pretty clear picture of what is happening day to day on the ground as she is dealing with these cases regularly. As repeatedly pointed out, no-one is saying mistakes never happen, but no-one has yet produced any evidence whatsoever of a conspiracy to steal children.

Because, haystack, it isn't happening. We can only tell you what we know and you can choose to believe it or not but the scenarios you are describing don't happen.

The only scenario in which parents could be completely wrongly suspected (ie with absolutely zero other concerning factors) would be non accidental injury of a child where the child had a hidden condition that caused the injury, or possibly physical signs of sexual abuse that are also caused by a hidden condition. In cases of non accidental injury such as shaken babies or multiple fractures they do dozens of tests to rule out every obscure condition you can think of.
Judges are not stupid and they do not roll over and do as they are told by social workers. Judges are sceptical and very aware of the gravity of their decisions. Additionally there are usually four lawyers involved in any care proceedings case, and each lawyer will have other lawyers working on the case too. There are many many people working on care proceedings cases in addition to social workers.
Care proceedings are not easy or straightforward, nothing gets done without rigorous evidence. I've never seen children taken into care where there wasn't significant evidence of harm but I've certainly seen lots of parents who believe they have done nothing wrong.

haystack

How anybody can condone, aid, or advise people to leave the country after the Lianne Smith case is beyond me.

No matter how convincing adults may be about their innocence, children rely on other adults to remember that not everybody is very good at telling the truth. Or even seeing the truth under all the lies they have told themselves for years. Reframing reality into social services "stealing their children", being taken out of an abusive home and being put into foster care as "a fate worse than death".

What would I do ?

Contact Spero. And follow her advice to the letter.

I know that sometimes it is necassary to take kids away from parents but why are they adopted without parents consent?
Imo the best thing to do would place them in loving foster homes. I have no issue with parents giving kids up for adoption.
Taking children away from parents whi are struggling and THEN giving them to another couple/ parent is a real kick in the teeth for bith parents.