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

The theory is that children are returned to their parents as long as it is safe to do so. Hence if a higher proportion of children are returned to their parents in Scotland and a lower proportion adopted than in England the argument is in fact that the parents in Scotland are safer than those in England.

The question, then is whether the reality is the case or the perception the case.

I have tried to upload the scots stats to google, but it won't accept it.

Given that as I understand it you have already conceded that the Scottish statistics are not directly comparable, it's hardly going to assist you.

Firstly, I think you also need to decide whether you objection is to adoption or to non-return of children. Obviously they are not the same.

Secondly, if you think one of these numbers is to high or too low (or evil even) then logically it would seem to me that it is incumbent on you to indicate this in terms, what you would expect the correct number (roughly) to be and how you arrive at this conclusion.

It is of course possible that Scottish parents are safer than those in England.

It is possible that children are returned to unsafe parents in Scotland.

It is possible that children are kept away from safe parents in England.

It is possible that the statistics are not comparable.

In other words, the statistics explain precisely nothing. They simply raise a question: why are adoption rates higher in England than in Scotland? That is a legitimate question and it is quite valid for you to raise it. Not so valid to keep brandishing around spreadsheets in the hope that people will take your word for it that they are some kind of evidence that too many children are taken into care in England.

John, you will win more hearts and minds on this issue if they start treating the women on here as intelligent beings. We KNOW your opinions; but you have given us not one scrap of evidence to support your assertions.

If people wish to ignore evidence then that is up to them.

You seem to feel much the same way about questions.

You haven't given us any evidence, just some numbers that in themselves explain nothing. John, I am not meaning to sound rude - though I'm aware that I will - but you are doing your cause no favours by apparently not understanding evidence and how to use it.

The numbers don't "explain nothing". They demonstrate that the proportion of children under 5 that are leaving care in England that return to their parents have gone substantially down over the years since 1995. They also show that more children are taken into care in these age groups.

You can also consider the figures that demonstrate from the Significant Incident Notifications that in England the numbers of children that are suspected to have died from child abuse and neglect have been going up.

I am going to get the SIN info from Ofsted collated for 2010.

I give up. What can you say to people who will only talk and not listen or learn.

Actually unless I misread the table it states that figures prior to 2000 were calculated differently and are not comparable (see notes 2 and 3). The numbers taken into care in the years subsequent rise about 50% over the last decade with a similar increase in the numbers leaving care. The number of children being returned to parents over the period has changed very little and the numbers being adopted appear fairly constant too. Unless Mr. Hemming has decided to include the pre-2000 figures (and ignore the "health warning" against doing so) then the figures would not appear to bear out his rather eccentric interpretation of them.

I know of two children who were finally adopted by loving and sober parents (after a long and terrifying ride through the court system that actually does not snatch children from abusive parents half as much as it should, and which accords far too much importance to the 'rights' of parents who are very obviously unfit to be left in charge of even a dog) and in truth, SS had found out only the tip of the iceberg as far as those two children's lives were concerned.

Secret courts my arse.

What a shame you seem to like calling attention to yourself, JH, on the back of people who are truly vulnerable and voiceless, grinding your axe incessantly while small defenceless children languish for years in the limbo of foster care (no offense to foster parents meant, but it is not an ideal situation for the children).

I am sure people said the same thing about sending children to Australia and Canada at the time.

It is nothing like the previous situation where children were dispatched abroad, wholesale. We are still very much caught up in the guilty aftermath of all of that, with the pendulum swung as far in the opposite direction as it can go.

The stats you present show fewer children are returned to their birth families in England than Scotland. They say nothing about the outcomes for either group. So it could be that abuse and neglect continues in more Scots returnees or it could be that more kids could have been safely returned to their families in England.Without more info we can't know this. It could just be that parents in Scotland are better.

Whilst mistakes are made I'm sure, generally you have to be a significant risk to your children to have them taken into care.

Whilst mistakes are made I'm sure, generally you have to be a significant risk to your children to have them taken into care.

I admit that I tend to see substantially the cases where mistakes are made. However, it is quite clear that the system goes wrong a lot of times.

However, it is generally poor people who are often not that bright and so not people that the upper middle classes concern themselves about.

I, however, believe that everyone should be treated equally by the law.

You need numbers to say that the system is failing a lot of times. I agree that it is often those lacking resources both in the areas of knowledge and money who find themselves at the mercy of the system. Surely though this is not confined to child protection but to every area of the law (inc. benefits, criminal, and tax etc.) This doesn't make it ok of course.

The high profile cases where children have died and SS have been effectively blamed for their deaths will make the taking of children into care more likely. The last 3 cases were in England.

I have never heard a good argument for the secrecy around family courts, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was to do with dv rather than a child's privacy.

"I admit that I tend to see substantially the cases where mistakes are made."

And who determines whether a mistake has been made? The Court of Appeal? The losing party? You?

And the upper middle classes (people on MN who disagree with you) are not as concerned with justice as you? Puhleeeease.

If a child is killed or injured after being returned to a parent, then a mistake was made. If a child is removed from an environment where he or she was in great harm and placed in one that is much healthier, then what mistake was made? Is the child continuing to suffer whatever abuse the parent was dishing out? Or are you saying there are substantial numbers of cases where children are taken from homes for absolutely no reason?

JH is clearly addicted to his maverick role. If he was serious about being accountable to the electorate, which he says is his motivation for engaging on these threads, then he would come on here and address us as intelligent adults, answer our questions, and engage in real debate. Instead he throws in inflammatory grenades, then keeps the fires burning without ever working to achieve mutual understanding.

For whatever reason in his past, JH has a strong need to pit himself against authority/the mainstream, to see himself as the maverick in the flying cape. Even if that is at the expense of small children's lives. It is pathological, it is a complete misuse of taxpayers' money, and if only for his own sake I hope his party find a way to deal with it.

Or are you saying there are substantial numbers of cases where children are taken from homes for absolutely no reason?

I am saying there are substantial numbers of cases where children are taken from homes for an inadequate reason which happens in a secret court.

And you have figures to go with your assertion that the UK is in fact the USSR part II?

And you have a cast iron definition of 'inadequate'?