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

Yes, quite, Spero.

Nobody could ever argue that miscarriages of justice don't happen, in child neglect/custody cases as in other areas of the law, I'm sure. I am not a lawyer,, but in other fields it seems more accepted that, say, Shipman was an aberration, and that the vast majority of doctors are NOT bumping their patients off by the numbers. Or that there is NOT some kind of conspiracy to keep people ill that vast numbers of doctors are complicit in deliberately.

It's the repeated narrative that a certain number of children are 'needed for adoption', that there is some kind of target, that excuses will be found to remove children from their loving, caring parents that is just.... I dunno.

And yes, JH's reputation goes before him, I'm afraid.

But the point is that generally it does get picked up.

How do you know that, statistical improbabilities and hunches about is 'likely' aside?

From the law reports, and from the experience of many lawyers who specialise in representing parents and children in these cases. Obviously that isn't a comprehensive survey, but if it were usually the case that clear miscarriages of justice happen, you can rest assured that it would be known. Lawyers working in this field tend to be feisty and would certainly be making a massive fuss if it were the case that bad decisions were routinely being nodded through. If lawyers, social workers and judges all regularly took leave of their senses in the way suggested by AllPart it would certainly become known.

Miscarriages of justice happen. Not just in care proceedings, but everywhere. Why is it that it's only acceptable to call social workers as a whole, baby snatchers, evil, juts want the money etc etc.
You don't hear that doctors are trying to kill us all because of shipman
You don't hear that judges want everyone in prison because that's happened before.

Damn my slow typing! I cross posted woth Pacific

I'm too lazy to go back through the thread, but my recollection is that the OP said or implied the headteacher was the only source of information, and that if the countless other people involved could have testified they would have contradicted him. That even the alleged victims if incidents he described to SS would have contradicted him.

That's the whole point, really. If you were a lawyer acting for social services, you would not rely on the headteacher's third hand evidence of incidents where s/he wasn't even present - it wouldn't be admissible, and a case relying on the word of one person against another is always a weak one. It is rendered even weaker if you could bring the actual alleged victim to court and have failed to do so. The first thing you would do is go to, for example, the pregnant teacher for her statement, and you would examine it very carefully. Even if she feels she has to back up the head by making up a fictitious event when she was chased down the street, she would very soon be tripped up by questions about why she didn't ask for help or report it to the police, and by evidence from CCTV.

In the case in question the children would certainly have been questioned carefully in accordance with guidelines laid down by the court under which questioning is filmed and they are asked open questions that don't suggest the answer. As AllPart hasn't mentioned that, it rather sounds as if the friend kept quiet about that element of the evidence.

There are complaint and appeals. 2 families I referred to have submitted theirs.

Cover ups go on all the time. Some of them are major - big ones, Blair and Iraq, Hillsborough, etc. Child abuse cases - isn't the Australian or NZ one at the High Court currently?

But they also happen on a smaller scale, every day. In schools, hospitals, social services, everywhere.
Happens in companies all the time. Then finally Employment lawyers involved. My friend has tonnes of cases re employees being badly treated, and the company trying to cover it up. Often with blatant lies.

Surely you know this goes on, in every area of life. SS is no different.

"they are asked open questions that don't suggest the answer. "

Not always . Bad practice still happens, of leading questions.

I appreciate that humans are often shits and behave often in selfish and self serving ways.

The big difference however in care proceedings is that the parent gets free legal advice and representation to counter any lies or corruption and the proceedings are very anxiously overseen by a Judge or Magistrates who do not want to be subject to appeals or criticism.

The amount of oversight of these proceedings is quite rightly massive. For me to believe some of these stories I would have to accept as a fact that everyone was either asleep or utterly corrupt. And that is NOT my experience over 17 years.

So again I ask the question - either I am a credulous, naive, closed minded fool OR I am corrupt OR we are just not getting the full story from many posters. Which is it?

'Leading questions' are emphatically NOT bad practice. They are the expected part of cross examination, which is designed to put leading questions.

I suspect what is going on here is unfamiliarity with practice and procedure which is used to support allegations of corruption.

Just as parents are asking closed or leading questions when their case is challenged, so too will the parents' lawyers challenge the LA witnesses. This is all part of our adversarial process.

It's not perfect but it's what we have got.

i also think the papers would have a field day with that story if it were provable - they love "exposing" people and practices. Are parents allowed to talk to the press Spero?

There are complaint and appeals. 2 families I referred to have submitted theirs.

Well, exactly. The right to appeal is another safeguard built into the system. Again, it's not foolproof, but it does help to cut down the likelihood of miscarriages of justice not least because it's a bit of a black mark against a judge to be repeatedly overturned on appeal - more so if the appeal courts think the judge has been slapdash or biased.

Adala - the issue of what can lawfully be published about children's proceedings is complicated and difficult and I accept it is probably a massive part of the problem about why debate in this area is so poor.

I have tried to clarify the fundamental principles here

childprotectionresource.online/category/the-law/key-legal-principles/transparency/

Basically you cannot name a child or talk about the evidence presented in court, without risking contempt of court. But you CAN ask the judge to relax these rules.

If you google Tickle v North Tyneside you will hopefully find the case that Lucy Reed of the Transparency Project gave about six days of her time for free to enable the Guardian journalist to tell Annie's story - and in a nice twist 'Annie' was on mumsnet in 2013 and she was one of most powerful voices urging me to do something constructive about the dangerous 'advice' and misinformation out there.

This is helpful article about what the TP were able to achieve in the Tickle case

www.transparencyproject.org.uk/tickle-v-northtyneside/

'Annie' gave a talk at a social work conference I was at. She's a brilliant advocate for parents. She worked closely with suespiciousminds.

And in a further, wonderful twist 'Annie' now has her own blog and is setting up a scheme to provide advocacy for parents.

I would recommend to anyone who is worried about anything they have read on this thread to look at her site or contact her directly. She is found at Surviving Safeguarding - sorry IPad now refusing to link.

This is all actually a wonderful tribute to the power of mumsnet. It was posters on here who encouraged me to take on a more campaigning role and I think it has been useful. The sad consequence is however, it means I have much less free time to spend on here!

The problem with the accountability argument is that child protection already has a huge employment and retention problem partly to do with the high levels of accountability already in place. During my university masters we were lectured on how the profession is a 24/7 one and how our private lives are no longer our own. I know in the current climate I would not pursue a career in child protection though many of my friends who I trained with do and are exhausted constantly both emotionally and physically.

It works both ways as well. The good things children's services achieve are not reported on because of anonymity. Social workers are only in the mainstream press for the most extreme negative. None of this is helpful in terms of public perception.

Poldarks - she is a brilliant speaker isn't she?
Website is here survivingsafeguarding.co.uk

So people ARE aware the system isn't perfect, people ARE campaigning and speaking out.

What remains dangerous however is that men like Hemming and Josephs are still preying on the vulnerable and encouraging them to do crazy things that will just ensure they lose their children for ever.

Lean back - I completely agree. SW are leaving profession in droves, on long term sick due to stress etc. Lots of LAs now rely on short term agency workers which is hugely expensive and not good for families.

But in terms of the oversight of the court process, the SW has a lawyer, Ê parents have a lawyer AND the children have a lawyer. This is very, very different to an employment tribunal. For deliberate corruption to get past all these lawyers, something extremely rotten has to be going on - which I have not seen in 17 years of work in London and the South West.

I hate all the scaremongering shit. Hats off to any social workers on here. I can't imagine having to do your job knowing that chances are your seeing clients who think your the devil incarnate child snatcher.

It's sad people are scared to ask for help when needed because of all the bullshit.

Spero, this was 11 years ago. The persuading to not use the barrister was only verbal. The letters from barrister only refer to cancelling him, etc. My friend did complain to the solicitors head office but was fobbed off. She was really in no state at the time to follow up, still isn't really, has a number of ongoing illnesses. Another big disappointment was the first solicitor who was provided by an sen organisation and only dealt with one issue. The evidences were never dealt with, not at case conferences, not by the council, not by the ombudsman, not by a human rights lawyer who would only wait for the ombudsman decision. Once it reached court the ombudsman could no longer deal with it. When allocated a Childrens Guardian and child solicitor, we really thought that was the answer for the kids. However the Guardian didn't do his job either, particularly in the feelings and wishes of the child. Complaints were made to cafcass with documented evidence but were met with a refusal to stage 2 and a thankyou for letting them know. There was so much of it, it became impossible to deal with it all. Support agencies such as citizen advice and the child advocate were flabbergasted and shocked. It was complete oppression and there was nowhere to go. In 2010 we noticed similar cases were coming on the internet with exactly the same accusations eg. Drug and alcohol abuse, mental ill health, dangerous parents, etc. My friend has never put her case on the internet, too afraid of repercussions for the kids who are now adults. We've always kept a low profile until now. So on this thread my main question has been what can parents do in this situation? The most awful part of it was the sen child being placed at risk along with other children too, a couple of kids being injured and everyone knew but did nothing. Absolute shocking disgrace! Just realised, were you referring to the telephone calls between the two solicitors? We do still have those records. Sorry this is so long, but it's lain dormant for years. Thanks to anyone who reads.

Haystack, I a, sorry this has been going on for 11 years and you don't feel you got proper redress.

I can't possibly deny that these things happen - sadly they do, the evidence is all around us. But I do think they are NOT commonplace.

I think all I can usefully say is - if you are involved in investigations about your children and professionals are making a case against you that is not based on truth, do NOT just sit back and be fobbed off with anything other than an immediate and focused response from your legal team.
If you think your legal team are not doing a good job, sack them - but not the night before the final hearing obviously!

What depresses me immensely is a lot of people seem to withdraw after taking 'advice' from Hemming etc and then don't contest the case against them. It's too late after final order is made to start complaining abbot process. You must engage and get a lawyer you can trust.

Thanks for this thread everybody, especially postes like Poldark and Spero who have proffesisonal experiance in the field.

I had some tiny contact with social services before the birth of my first child. The hospital had sent some important letters to the wrong address and formed the impression that I was not engaging with antenatal services. In fact i was still attending the midwife clinic, unaware that I was supposed to have been referred to the consultant (who's admin staff were sending increasingly frantic letters to the wrong address!). It was all a big mix up and the social worker was able to sort through it and close the case after one appointment.

However: It has left me with an abiding awareness of how easily a person can come to the notice of social services and a nervousness around it.

Like other posters, I have second guessed my behaviour to try and avoid referral. If my son is going to nursery, you can be sure he will be wearing the second hand John Lewis jumper!

I think a lot of middle class people underestimate the visibility of safeguarding in working class communities.
I have been asked whether I "can clothe my baby adequately" because I didn't fully dress my baby, to carry him from one room to another at a health check up (I thought I was doing the nurse a favour by going quickly).
It has been noted that I am "socially isolated" when going through the formalities to register a child at nursery school.
I have attended a public talk at my childs nursery at which a health visitor has remarked that children on my estate "might have gone all morning without being spoken to" by the time they arrive at nursery.
These are dog whistle phrases that frighten people. They know that its something to do with safeguarding but they can't tell how seriously (or not) these "infractions" will be taken.

I recently had to register the eldest for primary school.
The parents handbook for the school in a middle class area had a lot of detail on the reading schemes and phonics methods used and a single sentance about safeguarding.
For the school in a working class area, this was reversed. One sentance about reading, and even that in a slightly accusationary tone: "It is in your childs interest that you read to her" and a full page on the circumstances in which they might make a referral to social services.

The person upthread who was told "Everyone gets referred at some point in their school career" is probably correct. I can well imagine this.

I think the difficulty is that many people can see, in their daily life that the threshold for a proffesional to raise an issue with social services is very very low.
But they don't understand that the threshold for a care order is very very high. They just see the whole of the professional world as a monolith. And therefore when they hear about social worker snatching kids, they believe it- because their daily experiance with other professionals backs it up.

I can't say enough how good Spero's links are. Especially this one on the threshold criteria.

I can see now that I have been looking at this the wrong way. I've been asking myself "Could my nursery/my health visitor/my crazy downstairs neighbour make a referral to social services?" and the answer, of course is yes, they can and they might.
I think a better question might be "Could a competent lawyer make a convincing argument that I don't reach the threshold criteria?". The answer is Yes for most people I think, unless something is going badly wrong.

I am pleased to say that, because of this thread, I am going to be much more natural in my parenting and much less concerned to give the apperance of respectability in public.

Thankyou for that Spero. I think more scary than Hemmings is Ian Josephs. Have you seen his website? What on earth is his agenda? My friend tried 3 solicitors, each one more hopeless than the last. They were also very afraid though because not only the harassment notices with "power of arrest" incidentally but the SW then accused them of phoning her at home. How are parents supposed to obtain a SW phone number? Ridiculous! Friends then had to obtain a criminal lawyer and case closed again. But of course this new allegation went into the reports but not that police had closed the case. It became a battle between "them" and my friend with no focus on the children at all.

Posted too soon. Just wanted to say thanks once again Spero and keep up the good work

Social workers do have a very difficult job and so many leave. DD already lost one of her social workers, first to long term sick leave and then left altogether, and she wasn't even in the most stressful position (was the family support worker rather than the child protection worker). The rest of her team has changed a few times which isn't great for continuity of care for DD. Had one social worker say that she had to get a protection order in place because of angry clients trying to come to her home. There's no way I could do that job, that's for sure.