Vicky Haigh in Ireland

[johnhemming]

In my view not an acceptable way to treat a pregnant woman.

www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/8500531/The-police-hunt-is-on-for-Vicky-Haigh-though-she-is-not-a-missing-person.html

www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/8485742/Vicky-Haigh-flees-the-babysnatchers.html

Not true that children born in another country are citizens there. Ireland and the USA used to be the only states where this was the case. Ireland no longer automatically grants citizenship.

The other rights you mention are dubious at best. Bank robbery suspects cannot flee to Ireland with their children and expect to be allowed to stay just on the strength of the children being in school or children being born there while the parents are on the lam. The children have not robbed the bank, but the alternative to sending them back to the custody of child welfare authorities where the parent will be charged is to keep them in Ireland in school while their parents face prosecution in the appropriate jurisdiction.

A pregnant woman who has committed no crime is not a bank robber. And many EU countries do issue passports to people born there. In these cases Britain has tried to take children away from other EU countries despite the parents not being convicted of any crimes. If the parents have not committed any crimes then the parents cannot be extradited and Britain has no business with the children. If the foreign authorities decide they are not fit parents, then they cannot chuck the children out of the country, the child themselves has residency rights.
What about free speech. In this case Vicky haighes was pregnant, no child was in existance so she could not be breeching its confidentiality, yet she was arrested for exercising her right to speak to her MP.
And why was she and her partner haressed for he rleaving the country as was her right. There were no suspicions of a crime being committed, yet both she and her partner were questioned by police. Trying to hinder someone from exercising their freedom of movement is against the law.

EU states do not issue passports to people born there. There are strict rules that vary from country to country as to who is entitled to claim a passport.

Your argument wrt passports cancels out your argument wrt extradition etc. If borders are that porous and anyone can go anywhere else no matter what the circumstances, and passports can be issued willy nilly, then surely the reach of the law of their own land should be equally untrammeled?

A person who flees the jurisdiction of Britain and her local LA in order to prevent the LA from carrying out its duty towards her child(ren) has as much right to reside in another country as a bank robbery suspect does.

"She still has a criminal conviction though Jimmy"

I stand to be corrected but I don't think so. It was a civil contempt.

"she was arrested for exercising her right to speak to her MP."

I believe she was arrested for breach of a non-molestation order. Twice I think. One of these as I understand it was dealt with as a criminal matter although I don't know the outcome. No-one has ever suggested that she not be allowed to speak to her MP. In fact her MP seems to be quite annoyed with Mr. Hemming.

"There were no suspicions of a crime being committed,"

On the contrary, criminal matter was pending at the time.

When a pregnant woman goes abroad to give birth as long as she intends to stay there her "habitual residence" changes. Hence when she gives birth the rules in the country she ends up govern whether to remove the baby or not.

None of the other EU countries are as mad as England and Wales. The scottish system is better, but they at times allow the English authorities to take over so there is no sense going to Scotland.

The difficulty of getting to ECtHR is you need to go through the courts here. Even getting the case to the Court of Appeal can be difficult. It generally will not be funded by the LSC so you need to do it yourself (my team can help). The lower courts often resist providing written transcripts and you can go to prison if you record the judges judgment with a view to typing it up yourself.

Elizabeth Watson would not have gone to prison had she followed my advice.

A lot of EU countries do issue passports to those born there. And it is true that we can go to EU countries freely, but to be removed either through extradition or expulsion the country has to go to the courts. hence the fuss about the EAW. And leaglly bank robbers do not have as much right as non-convicted criminals to move across EU borders as some countries do not allow criminals in. But it is not a crime for a pregnant woman to go to an EU country whatever her reasons. Even if she already had children andsocial services were trying or even had custody of them, if the EU country thinks she is a fit mother they tend to over rule the british courts. If the child is born there then it is nothing to do with british social services at all.

At the risk of repetition, you continue to say this but your blog on 26th April contained the following statement:

"Gag Removed - Job Done
Some confusion has reigned in the blogosphere about today's points of order. My objective was to identify the parties in the Vicky Haigh / Doncaster case where Doncaster tried to Jail Vicky for talking in Parliament.

All the other details of the story are in the public domain, but an injunction prevented the parties being identified.

Now they can be identified."

This was clearly misleading to say the least. The "other details" were in the "public domain" only in the sense that the order had been repeatedly flouted. The comment appears intended to tell the public that as you had now identified Ms. Haigh and the local authority, others were now at liberty to do so, as well as Mr. Tune and the child, also parties. This assertion was, of course, nonsense, but both Ms. Watson and Ms. McNeill regularly cited this passage to justify acting as they did. I accept, as you have pointed out before, that their behaviour began prior to this date so you could not fairly be accused of incepting it, and it may be in fairness that nothing you said would have stopped them, but it is beyond argument that they were reinforced in their actions by this intervention. You were asked at the time repeatedly what intended to accomplish by this and have been asked repeatedly since. I've yet to see a clear answer. If this was not an invitation to the public to discuss the facts of the case then what on earth was it? In the circumstances I simply cannot for the life of me see how you wash your hands of this.

O god o god someone help me. I knew I shouldn't have clicked.

Just wanted to say, if anyone is lurking, please be very, very careful of kelly2000's posts. She is utterly mistaken about nearly everything she says.

You don't get a passport to a country by virture of being born there. Ireland was the last European country which permitted this and abolished that rule some time ago.

If a child is physically in England then it is the legal duty of a LA to act to protect that child if he or she is at risk of significant harm, it matters not what that child's citizenship or habitual residence is; physical presence gives jurisdiction.

An EU court would NOT overrule an English court who had already made orders about a child who was subject to their jurisdiction. European courts respect each other's jurisdiction and will assume each other are competent.

Please, please, please anyone who is lurking and who might be in a situation where you are dealing with child protection/Social Services issues, get some proper legal advice. these people are dangerous; they don't care about you, only grinding their mad axes.

www.heart.co.uk/dorset/news/local/womans-plea-prison/

"Watson told the judge: "I am truly, truly sorry. I feel this is a wake-up call to me. I made a serious error of judgment.''

She added: "I am terribly sorry for any distress this caused to (the child).''"

Anyone else?

Anyone?

Jimmys: The care case is an entirely different case. The sub judice rule of the house of commons is quite clear that each application is to be treated as as separate case.

spero: The question is whether the courts in England can consider a case. That depends upon "habitual residence". If the courts in England can consider a child habitually resident here then they can apply under the Hague conventinon for the return of the child (and have done). The other phrase is "ordinary residence" which determines which LA have jurisdiction.

There are far more people who have gone abroad to escape the system than has been revealed publicly. People has gone as far as Australia and The Phillipines.

Ireland is popular because it is close and there is not that much of a language difficulty. They also have a constitution which protects legitimate children from forced adoption - which has been successfully used to prevent children from being sent to the UK under public law Hague.

On the rest of Jimmy's post. Given that I explicitly told them not to publish the care case and to follow the injunction then I don't think there can be any uncertainty.

There are important issues to be discussed about both the attempt to commit Vicky Haigh for talking at the APPG meeting and the attempt to remove her baby which can be discussed without reference to the other care case.

Actually Several EU countries still give passports to those born there, Denmark still does for instance. And even if they do not so long as they have an EU passport they cannot just be chucked out, and have a right to have habitual residence there.
And my point was that if a child is not in the UK, and is resident somewhere else then the UK has no rights over it. I did not say that if a child is not British but is in Britain then the British courts have no power over it, I said if they are overseas. If a child is born abroad, and is then habitual resident there the UK courts have no rights over it regardless of whether they had planned to take the baby after birth. In one case a British woman was told her baby would be taken after birth, she went to Sweden, the child was born there and Britain had no power over it, and the Swedish authorities ruled that the UK courts were incorrect to decide the baby should be taken.
And yes other EU countries have over ruled British rulings. In one case a British woman married to a Danish man but living in the UK was awarded full custody of the children and the husband only got to see them alternative weekends. He took them to Denmark, and the courts over ruled the British ruling and awarded full custody. remember once you are in a country you are subject to their laws, and therefore the protection of those laws. If the foriegn courts think that following the British courts would break their own laws, then they have to overrule them.

DS1 was born in Canada and he has a Canadaian passport. Think NZ is the same

to correct Kelly slightly. The key area is the EEA rather than the EU.

On my weblog I refer to a venn diagram of the different supranational bodies relating to Europe.

International family law is quite complex. I have dealt with quite a few cases of international public law where the English authorities have behaved in really strange ways.

Mr. Hemming,

I'm not actually asking about the sub judice rule and am happy at least for the sake of argument to accept that you complied with it. In any event, privilege can have no bearing on what you write in your blog, which was the source of the passage I quoted.

"The care case is an entirely different case."

Different to what? So far as I am aware there was only one injunction, one "gag", as you put it, which you claimed to have "removed". I'm trying to understand what you meant by this and what you hoped to achieve by saying it.

I have answered this. There are/were actually quite a few injunctions. One related to identifying the local authority and person involved in terms of someone talking in parliament.

It is in fact the case that a public debate is the best mechanism for influencing parliament. Hence you need to get a public debate going. For that to be possible you need to allow the people effected by something to speak. Hence you need to stop them being anonymous.

I am not going to answer this again.

You can get a Danish passport after going through the application process if your father or mother is Danish. Same goes for Irish passports. But you cannot be issued a Danish passport just on the strength of being born there.

EU rights of travel and the right to live in a EU country do not extend to people fleeing the reach of the Social Services or the courts in their country of origin. See my point about the bank robbers.

'And my point was that if a child is not in the UK, and is resident somewhere else then the UK has no rights over it.' And you are wrong.

You haven't answered it at all. Are you saying that there was a reporting restriction order other than the one in respect of which Ms. Watson was committed and that it expressly prohibited talking in parliament? Its the first I've heard of it.

No-one is suggesting the issues should not be debated, merely that it should be done without identifying the child, either directly or indirectly by identifying the parents. I cannot see, and you do not explain, how debating the issue requires the child to be identified. You now appear to concede that you intended to encourage the public to do this.

No, you can get a danish passport if you are born and resident there, if not I know several babies who have committed fraud! Where do you get your information, Pia Kjærsgaard?

And there is no restriction on EU citizens moving to other EU countries. If someone is pregnant and is going to another EU country to leave British social services they are breaking no law. If people are told social services are going to take their child, and they therefore leave to go to another EU country they have committed no crime. Even if they have committed a crime such as breaking a custody order Britain has to go through an extradition process to get them back, and they will only be returned if the other EU country deems that they have committed a crime that would be a crime there too. Britain does not have automatic rights over people including children just because they or their parents are British. If a child is not habitually resident in the UK, then the UK has no rights over it. Even if it is habitually resident in the UK the UK still has to go through the courts to get it returned, and the foriegn courts have to do what they believe is in the best interest of the child, and in keeping with its own laws.

JimmyS - I have made it clear that I had acted to stop the issues involved in the care case from being discussed with or without identities. It is actually very difficult to discuss the merits of the judges reasoning without access to a lot of material most of which is not in the public domain notwithstanding the efforts of Ms Watson.

What I wished to look at was the issue of removing a baby at birth and attempts to commit someone for petitioning the state (in terms of CAFCASS and Members of parliament (one MP, one Baroness)).

I understand, without of course accepting, your view, that anyone may break the terms of a reporting restriction order provided that there is an MP in the room at the time. As Doncaster did not press the point it is perhaps academic.

"It is actually very difficult to discuss the merits of the judges reasoning without access to a lot of material"

Well this seems to me to be the crux of it. You believe it desirable for the judges' assessment of evidence to be reviewed by the public and this cannot sensibly be done without publishing restricted material. Which is of course precisely what Ms. Watson had done and continued to do.

I'm sorry to bang on and I appreciate your busy, but I would like you to clarify the phrase you used: "All the other details of the story are in the public domain". By this did you mean details which had already been published in breach of the order or were you talking about something else and, if so, what?

From the horse's mouth wrt Danish citizenship. If neither your father nor mother were citizens then you are not a citizen.

See question and answer No. 1.

You know several babies whose parents have committed fraud.

Yes, foreign courts, just like the British courts do what they think in the best interests of the child. Both British and foreign courts have the right to decide what is in the nest interests of the child. Nobody has a right to flee to another country to evade the judgement of a British court or to evade the judgement of an Irish court or Spanish or Polish, etc., etc.

JimmyS - I was talking about the proceedings/case/application that related to Vicky's comments at the APPG not the care proceedings.

Nobody has a right to flee to another country to evade the judgement of a
British court or to evade the judgement of an Irish court or Spanish or Polish,
etc., etc.

True, but if you know the English and Welsh courts are spectacularly bonkers (on a procedural basis) and leave the country to ensure that they don't come to a judgment then you are acting entirely within the law.

Ah yes, if in your own considered judgement you are in the right and hundreds of years of jurisprudence are wrong then of course you can to do as you please, leave the country, whatever...