Child services and court

[Flower12123]

Hello I wondered if you could help please? I brought my son into emergency department due to pain in his shoulder. He had the x-ray for it and shows he has a fractured shoulder. Myself or his dad do not know how this has happened as he never goes out of our sight. The nursery he attends to have no recollection of events of falls or anything. No incident reports. We have been told this will be going to court but there is no evidence that this is non accidental injury as we genuinely do not know how it’s happened. He has had a skeletal survey - first one and just shows his fracture but no other injuries. He has a repeat one on the 12th May which again will show the same but with his fracture healing. What happens from there?

How do you mean, going to court? Who's been charged, and with what offence?

How old is he?
Does he recall anything happening? When the pain started?

I hope he’s healing well. It sounds like there’s quite a lot of info missing from your post. Have you got a lawyer and are you in the U.K. or another country?

I'm guessing from your title that you mean family court? Are you in England or Wales?
If you are, and if it means that children's services are issuing care proceedings (presumably due to severity of an injury without an explanation) then you'll be entitled to legal aid and a solicitor.

A solicitor will give you far better info about what the next steps are than any of us guessing on Mumsnet. That's not to say don't post for support, but online advice is not the same as proper legal advice.

Seems highly unusual for one visit to A&E for an injury has led to a court case. So unusual that I find it difficult to believe. There would be social services involvement, initiated by a referral from hospital, then they would visit parents, nursery and made assessment. This does not happen quickly.

Are you sure you don't mean you've been referred to Social services? That's par for the course when there's an unexplained injury.

We're not going to get the full story here.

OP, firstly how old is your son?

Secondly get legal representation from a properly qualified solicitor specialising in Family Law.

If there is going to be a Family Court hearing of any kind, decisions are largely made on the balance of probabilities with a multi-agency approach.

Has there been police involvement?

Have either have you been arrested? If it was suspected to be an injury from abuse the police would be leading on a criminal investigation. You wouldn't just be taken to court. If there was no evidence it was physical abuse but there were safeguarding concerns there would be an assessment from social services and possibly a child protection conference to decide if he goes on to a child protection plan.
The only time it would be going to court straight away would be of he was at imminent risk of harm, and if that was the case it's likely you would have promptly been arrested, child kept in hospital and family court would be within 24 hours.

Mine comes home regularly with bruises from school. He has no idea (so he says) what happened to cause it. There is play equipment in the playground with climbing tower, and also the monkey bar things to hang from. They are higher up than most of the children's height. There is safety bark but could definitely cause bruises, fractures if a child fell - doesn't seem to bother the kids! Bit of a worry if something like that could lead to being taken to a family court! However there are a lot of injuries caused to children by those who look after them so difficult for hospitals to know how safe the child is.

We have not been charged with anything and he’s one years old

Surely social services/police have been involved if court proceedings are being mentioned? As others have said, there’s a lot of detail missing from your post.