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

wouldhave you are absolutely right. One of the parents Ian Joseph helped "flee" to France was Marie black - currently serving a life sentence for being at the centre of a paedophile ring in Norwich.

Living, it's not true, it's unresearched, sensationalist bunkum, based on the paranoid fantasies of a couple of highly contentious individuals who are well-known for their views on adoption. There are no quotas for children to be removed from their birth families for adoption, no local authorities are penalised for not meeting quotas, and the children who are 'advertised' - I'm going on information about the documentary in this link -

researchingreform.net/2016/11/14/englands-stolen-children-controversial-new-documentary-on-forced-adoption/

are often hard to place older children, children with significant additional needs, or sibling groups, and their details aren't 'publicly available', like an ad for washing powder. It's very time-consuming and difficult to be approved to adopt in the UK, and it takes a court order, with evidence, to remove a child, it's not a social worker's whim. Currently there are far more parents approved and waiting than children available to adopt.

Only a fool would claim that mistakes and injustices never occur, as with any under-resourced system involving fallible humans making judgement calls under pressure, but they aren't the norm.

Potential future harm and emotional harm are real concepts/concerns in U.K. Social Work now. That much has been widely reported.

The idea that there are 'targets' comes from a Blair policy to ensure 'permenance' for more 'looked after' children (be it by safe return to their families or adoption). This is also a matter of record.

What you get when you join those dots is a matter of opinion.

Josephs Hemmings are dangerous people. Leave anything they're involved in well alone; and take everything they say as bollocks.

Please tell all your French friends that it all made up, untrue, and dangerous to spread this sort of nonsense.

Ah well, at least I am less scared that my children could be taken away from me.

This documentary was shown on a very respectable chanel, which usually is very informative and not sensationalist.
I don't know who the two mens you mentionned are. Just so you know where I am coming from.
And again, I wasn't saying it was true, I was just asking what it was all about.
I am an expat here in the UK and it has been a big topic of conversation in the French expact community/FB groups at the moment.
Thanks for your insight.

But you won't get a dispassionate, theoretical debate about where the rumours and theories have arisen from here OP.

There are a lot of adoptive parents on Mumsnet and the subject arouses extremely strong emotions.

It's indisputably true that there have been cases where innocent parents have been accused of abuse, and their children have removed from them. Subsequently the children's problems have been explained by a previously unknown condition, but if they have already been adopted, it's too late.

However, these cases are not only very rare, but have also all been due to Social Services & courts making terrible mistakes, rather than due to a conspiracy. Counties are under huge pressure to save money, not to unnecessarily remove and care for children.

Regardless of whether or not John Hemmings has a part in it, this programme may not be the utter bollocks that some appear to believe it is.

Social workers can and do lie, mistakes are made, but miscarriages of justice in the Family Courts rarely come to the attention of the public because the proceedings are held in secret.

The documentary is wrong. Social workers have an obligation to try everything possible to keep a child with their primary care giver before applying to have them taken into care.

OP, I haven't seen the documentary you're talking about, but even if we accept the example you gave and the circumstances in which that child was taken into care as true (I have no idea whether they are or not, although I'm dubious), the most it can tell us is that there was a miscarriage of justice in that particular case.

I work in the criminal justice system, where I think there are parallels to be drawn. I accept that miscarriages of justice sometimes happen in the criminal system. But the system itself is set up in the fairest way humans have yet been able to conceive. It is striving for justice and fairness, and on the whole, I believe it gets it right.

There is a huge gulf between a just and effective system which sometimes gets it wrong, and a system that is deliberately set up to facilitate underhanded miscarriages of justice as a matter of course.

If this documentary really is making the leap from 'parents wrongly accused' to 'whole system is corrupt,' well that's just plain stupid and I hope any discerning viewer would be able to see that.

goddess many of the transcripts of judgements from the family court are reported via baiili website.

SS have targets. They have to rehouse x many children and of course babies are easiest

I don't think anyone is suggesting that SS are infallible. Of course they make mistakes - sometimes tragic mistakes. What I'm disputing is the theory that there are targets and that SS are a band of merry child snatchers taking all the beautiful babies away from innocent families and selling them off to the highest bidder.

Ah I typed too slow. My post was in response to goddess.

Evidence for these baby targets, Cucumber?

SS have targets. They have to rehouse x many children and of course babies are easiest

Please post a link to your source cucumber. I need a good laugh tonight! Do SS knock on the door of just anyone and remove their children. Or do they work with the parents and children for years and then remove them because the parents are clueless and the children are suffering as a result?

Haven't watched the documentary, so can't say. But the case described is very true or at least sounds very similar to what happened in my locale. It happened in North London, about 8 or 10 years ago. I remember it because they alleged the SW advised the mother to leave the husband so she could keep her new baby, and the abuse was based upon a previous child's injuries that were due to a deficiency. The mother didn't do it obviously because she thought being innocent would be enough.

Mistakes do happen and it is a real case. The judge acknowledged they were innocent but nothing he could do. I guess they have it on record that they were innocent if she every tries to find them

I don;t think there's a conspiracy but dreadful things happen. I've experienced the dark side of mental health services and am terrified if I have children they will try to take them (I suffer from trauma but in the past was treated as if I was just a horrible person). It all depends on who you have supporting you/writing reports... If I got some misogynistic old psychiatrist I could be in big trouble. I've forgotton the name but there was a woman who posted here and fled the country before her child was born... although it was sorted out in the end. But she had been mentally stable and trained as a doctor iirc before becoming pregnant - a much better position than many are in.

I want to say it's rubbish and I do believe most of it is, but I am terrified because I have seen the type of situations that happen when professionals without ethics make prejudiced judgements and close ranks and cover things up. (There's been one locally with an NHS whistleblower protecting children from abuse and getting dragged through the courts for it).

Sorry, meant to add, most professionals are not like that though as as PP have mentioned care system and social services are overwhelmed. But there are the odd morally bankrupt individuals.

Unfortunately, children of families accused of abuse or neglect are often not middle class types able to articulate themselves in court. Things are sometimes taken horribly out of context and even when abuse is found not to be proven, there's an attitude of 'that's a shame, but too late' mixed in with hand wringing 'think of the chiiiiiildren.'

It's true the UK are one of the few countries who 'do' forced adoption.

A recent FOI request and analysis by Louise tickle discovered many LA's do in fact have some adoption targets although not for the nefarious purposes that Ian Joseph has claimed. The transparency project have blogged about it this week - link below.

www.transparencyproject.org.uk/adoption-targets-when-we-said-it-was-complicated-we-were-oversimplifying-its-really-complicated/

I believe it's true,SS can't be bothered with or don't have the funds to deal with real child abuse incidents BUT they do have adoption target's to meet and ive heard of social worker's getting pay rise's for the number of children they get adopted per 6 month's. It does seem like they target the easily scared middle class parent's who will bend easily to their will and sign their children over to SS believing they will get them back because they have co-operated and proved they are capable parent's only for the children to be then placed for adoption by a judge because the child has a slight bump on their head or the parent's worry too much and and therefore mentally unstable etc etc SS will literally make up any excuse to put before a judge in order to meet their targets. I know many people don't want to believe it or won't believe it but that is what some of the social service's department's have degraded into in this country i do still believe there are some amazing social workers out there that do amazing work despite large case loads and small timescales though.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that SS are infallible. Of course they make mistakes - sometimes tragic mistakes. What I'm disputing is the theory that there are targets and that SS are a band of merry child snatchers taking all the beautiful babies away from innocent families and selling them off to the highest bidder.

In the event that one or two rogue councils ever are uncovered monster, it would be more likely to be a case of organisational culture than wilful child theft, wouldnt it?

Overzealous commitment to seeking out all possible CP concerns and achieving swift permenance?

It's got to be that kind of thing that is suspected? Not cackling conspirators?

I was put into care age 5 along with my 2 younger sisters
My mother had had my older sister taken away at age 2 shortly before I was born, hence we had social services involvement for years, she was given many chances to become a suitable parent
If social services were just taking children away on a whim to fulfill quotas then I am sure we would have been taken away much earlier seeing as they had already taken one child!
I will say though that my youngest sister who was a small baby was split from us as babies were easier to find adoptive parents for, I'm not sure if that happens a nowadays. It obviously in the 80s things were different. Sadly my adoptive mother wanted 6 kids so would have happily have had all 3 of us but the baby had already been adopted by the time we were placed (my mother should actually have never been allowed to adopt any children but that's another story!!)

grindel if you really know of social workers promoted for illegally taking children for adoption, I suggest you report it. The fact is, the threshold for removing a child is very high and is scrutinised by the courts. Children aren't removed for "slight bumps"