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

Bloody hell. Society is so fucked that we end up in a position where that happens. I recognise the fear in the face of unbelievable pain and professionakls just not giving a fuck. I don't know, it might be completely justified but fuck how have we come to this that people are so lost and not helped before? Why aren't we nice to each other and living in nice supportive communities? Where people could actually be supported rather than expected to cope alone and set up to fail in this dog eat dog world. Preofessionals cut off so it's not personal to them, when you're the one in wrenching pain and they see you as not human

Friend opened her front door to two SWs who pushed their way in and told her they were going to take her child and there was no use fighting it as the court order was just a rubber stamp job.

Complaint was made by her exh who had not seen his child for 4 years as he was incapable of looking after his child because he was completely off his head on heroin, crack or anything he could lay his hands on.

The report was a joke. Friend is a certain nationality and religion. One look at her and you would have had to be some type of moron to label my friend as British white and catholic. This report had so many inconsistencies in it. On one page it said there was no evidence to suggest that exh was a drug addict and my friend was making it up to stop him from seeing dc. Then you turn the page and the report says says exh is hopeless drug addict who doesn't want to get clean and is incapable of looking after a child.

I like to think these things are not widespread but a lot of people have a story to tell about someone.
Whilst the people who did the documentary might have attracted bad feelings it doesn't make the principals of the documentary fundamentally untrue.

Personally I believe this is one of those scandals that is waiting to burst. Not being able to give the dc back after it has been proved that the BPs haven't done anything. We have to ask why the need to go the adoption route before the judge has delivered his verdict. Even a dog gets treated better.

The council must be hoping that all of the adopted children never find their BPs because there is potential for a major pay out for each and everyone of them.

Friend managed to keep hold of her child because she recorded everything and she kept every thing they sent to her.

Another interesting documentary exposing SS.

I know a mother who have had her children forcibly taken away from her. She swears it was a conspiracy and she did nothing wrong. Even from what she says, it is clear there were massive issues with her parenting. No I believe she did not deliberately abuse her children, but I also don't believe it was a conspiracy.
Of course there will be cases where mistakes are made. Whenever humans are involved, sadly mistakes will be made. Very different from saying there is a conspiracy.

I am extremely surprised this came as a surprise to readers on the Mimsnet. Many newspapers, especially in the Eastern Europe have bee nwriting about this for years. This has happened in many immigrant families, where the children were born in the UK and parents didn't have proper grasp of English. As a result, there was a very decent supply of integrated little children where their parents found themselves exposed and defenceless in face of a well running machinery. Of course, if any of the stories was made public, nobody cared because who cares about a Polish, Czech or Slovak family, they must be beating and mistreating their children in those countries anyway as a standard ( which was actually the argument which the Social Services used and the tabloids parroted). They also prey on the socially weak to satisfy the demand for young adoptable children.

" Haven't you just proved the system works? "

no i gave an anecdote...in the case that I mentioned the mother (who had been in care herself) was lucky that the judge saw through the social workers poor case and reports. I am not sure that everyone is that lucky. I agree with Clandestino that a certain type / nationality of parent are targeted.

I come from a country with a large Roma population. Unlike Romania, they don't roam Europe in highly organised gangs focused on begging and pickpocketting. They mostly work in meat processing factories, processing chicken carcasses. They saw a big amount of their children being taken away. Coming from already impoverished regions their grasp of English was very weak but they were determined to do their best for their children. Instead, many of them found themselves fighting for their children who were suddenly gone.

The problem is (rightly) due to the protection in place for the child, you never hear their side to the story.
Ss get it wrong, we can all list cases where it's gone wrong. Child not removed despite clear abuse, child returned when they shouldn't have been.
But quotas and stolen babies. No, I may be naive, but I don't believe it. Frankly, there's enough kids to 'steal' without making shit up.

But quotas and stolen babies. No, I may be naive, but I don't believe it. Frankly, there's enough kids to 'steal' without making shit up.

Sadly, on of the reasons seemed to be the "quality of the supplied material", as awful as it may sound. Many families weren't keen on adopting children which obviously had symptomes corresponding with drug abuse and alcohol abuse of their mothers and wanted a nice clean bright baby/toddler. Hence the preference for immigrants' children.

The council must be hoping that all of the adopted children never find their BPs because there is potential for a major pay out for each and everyone of them.

Oh of course. That's why they promote life story work and letterbox contact, because they don't want children to know about their birth parents . And I'm neither an adoptive parent or a social worker.

I do have cousins that were adopted though. Their birth mother and her friends to this day still tell anyone who'll listen that she did nothing wrong, the children were taken off her because they were cute etc.

They always, always manage to skip the part when social services initially got involved because she went off on holiday and left a 4 and 2 year old in the care of a dog.

Oh and Ben Butler- he was very vocal about how his children were wrongly taken off him, appeared in the Daily Mail and on This Morning etc.

And then murdered his daughter.

With one exception, every single family I know who have had children removed claim it was a miscarriage of justice or a conspiracy. And they're really convincing and most really do love their children but that doesn't mean they haven't been damaging them. If I hadn't been present at so many child protection meetings and heard the evidence, I'd probably have believed their version of events.

Mistakes have been made I'm sure in some cases and children removed that shouldn't have been. In my experience though, it's usually that mistakes are made in not removing children that should have been.

honestly, that's how it was portrayed?!
'The British taking immigrant kids?'
As we only want to adopt the good ones?!
Like I say, there's enough kids without needing to fulfil quotas.

I can see how culture causes SS problems, there's been cases where they've not got involved when they should because "we don't want to be seen to be racist". There's also the language and engagement issue. But honestly, there's leaflets in so many languages and interpreters (although I'm not sure how recent cuts affect that) for health care and social services. I appreciate leaflets and schools don't have that access though.

No one is the bad guy in their own story.

Grindelwald I'm not watching those YouTube clips because they shouldn't be posted on the internet. I'd just like to point out that the first family have uniformed police present. Why do you think that is?
Either because the family are so dangerous that the social worker can't visit without protection (social workers rarely take police with them when removing children after care orders are granted) or because it's the police who are removing the child, not social workers. Research police powers of protection if you're curious.

I promise, promise you all that there are no financial incentives, no targets to reach of babies removed. Removing babies is really fucking hard and requires a lot of evidence, even when parents have had previous children removed.
Parents get legal aid and solicitors representing them. The number of statements I have read that I doubt the parent even understands, let alone wrote - they are not disadvantaged by their educational or learning deficits/needs.

COurts do not rubber stamp care orders on social workers evidence alone. Specialist reports and assessments are almost always required. Social workers Can and do disagree with these experts.
People are very worried about the risk of future harm being used to remove children - this is only ever used when there is proven history of actual harm done to that child or previous children. It's almost impossible to remove a first baby from a woman at birth based on risk of future harm and would only happen in extreme cases - for e.g. The woman is a chaotic drug user who continues to use throughout pregnancy, makes no effort to find a safe place to live, makes no preparations for the baby etc - then you could reasonably say that she can't safely take the baby home. Even then she would be offered mother and baby foster care and rehab before the step of removing the baby.
These 'documentaries ' are full of shit and insulting. I'd never say there are no incompetent or malicious social workers, there are in any profession. But all social workers have managers and all care proceedings are full of solicitors (4 usually, local authority, 2x parents and child) plus a guardian and 3 magistrates or a judge. It's not possible for a social worker to just make stuff up without that being picked up very quickly. Social workers are cross examined in court and shoddy evidence gets pulled to pieces. There is no baby stealing conspiracy.

*honestly, that's how it was portrayed?!
'The British taking immigrant kids?'
As we only want to adopt the good ones?!
Like I say, there's enough kids without needing to fulfil quotas. *

I love selective blindness.
Why is this so incomprehensible?
Those stories resonated across the media and believe me, they were not black and white. Neither were people's opinions. It's hard to believe but people actually aren't stupid and prejudiced just because they have Eastern European passports. The IQ doesn't get lower just because you don't have a stiff upper lip so please stop being so condescending.
Leaflets and posters can only reach certain groups. If you are somewhere in a foreign country, with the whole government machinery, media and the opinion of the native population so against you and your education and grasp of the language isn't great, you feel like you are fighting windmills.

... I've used this line a few times lately.
I'm so confused!

I've said there's language and engagement issues. I've said that the interpreters don't go down to school level. I get that if things are happening in a different language and in a legal system you don't understand that things can and do spiral. People are always told to work with social services, but that's going to be difficult if you can't understand them.
What I find hard to believe is that it gets past the solicitors, the judges to have the child removed purely on a "I've got a family who want your child" point of view, when there's been nothing wrong in the first place.

I heard that people get paid wrll for remiving children from parents. Perhaps commision. Shocking.

Clandestino. Say you are right and adopters like me do not want to parent children who have suffered the effects of in utero drug and alcohol use. Say the next time round I want a nice, clean immigrant baby (Ignoring the abundant evidence and what every single adopter pretty much will tell you on here about the children that come into care).

Say all this is true. Assume for a minute there are an army of asshats like me who are comfortable with the idea of children being removed from vulnerable immigrants for no other reason than we want nice children not tainted by drugs etc.

Can you tell me why (a) the system would want to service my needs above someone else's and (b) why they would spend vast amounts of much needed cash doing so?

Malificent7 please can you explain and provide evidence for this? Who pays the commission? What rate is it paid at?

This was also in the news in Portugal.
My parents were telling me about it and I had to say it was bollocks

No, nobody gets paid commission for removing children from their parents.

Is this only being shown in Europe post brexit?!

I heard that people get paid wrll for remiving children from parents. Perhaps commision. Shocking

No. not true.

Do people find it difficult to accept sometimes people act in ways that motivate them that have little to do with financial gain?