Child taken by from womb by forced C/S for social services!

[StarlightMcKenzie]

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/10486452/Woman-has-child-taken-from-her-womb-by-social-services.html

Could there ever be a justifiable reason for this?

good on you. Its nice to see someone realise their mistake.

Madame I could not believe the high-handed and rude tone you took with Things earlier upthread. To say she should not be posting is arrogant in the extreme.

And fwiw, I'm with you Claig. Unless Family Courts are made open then miscarriages of justice (which we know do regularly happen: Birmingham 6, Hillsborough, Stephen Kizko etc) cannot be challenged.

This encourages abuses of power - which certainly seems to have happened in this case. Even if the cs was necessary and consent couldn't be given, to continue to refuse the mother's right to her child and vice versa on the grounds that she might become ill again is the most outrageous argument. If that's not the most appalling case of discrimination against people with mental health problems, I don't know what is.

what is your problem?

I thought her post not in the slightest bit pertinent to the thread.
I said so, and also suggested posting elsewher on MN where she could discuss her issues properly.

Of course courts are open to miscarriages of justice. we just need the real facts, not a couple of selected facts guaranteed to get everyone frothing.

I fail to see how hard this is to understand.

'Please don't peddle your truncated version of your own life as a reasonable contribution to this thread.'

Very rude and aggressive.

Also when the President of the Family Division of the High Court says that family courts need more transparency I think we are safe to assume that there is a genuine problem with addressing miscarriages of justice in those family courts. How hard is that for you to understand?

no, just not being all touchy feely about people's contributions which do show them up as less than ideal parents.

Or are we not allowed to challenge people on threads anymore>

her dd was in foster care for 11 years ffs. Not exactly perfect parenting territory.

That is something she felt willing to share on the thread.

I commented on it. end of.

Not sure this has been posted yet - statement from Essex council.

www.essex.gov.uk/News/Pages/Essex-County-Council-responses-to-interest-in-story-headlined-Essex-removes-baby-from-mother.aspx

Yes, it was posted earlier and the bit I commented no was
"The long term safety and wellbeing of children is always Essex County Council's priority. Adoption is never considered until we have exhausted all other options and is never pursued lightly."

Because I suspect that is not the case. Have they really contacted the father? Have the grandparents refused to have this new grandchild? Have any siblings refused to have the child?

As said above even judges think the family courts are too secret. If they do good work we need to see that so we can see the good that is done. I think the privacy rights of the child should be trumped by the importance of seeing justice done and both sides having the right to full representation, their own reports and the like.

I wonder whether the Mail and Express would be so interested in this story if the mother were black or Roma?

nananina It still doesn't change the fact, that all social services have to do is slap 'child protection' on a case and they can then withhold all the information they want from parents.

My evidence is it happened to me and many others from the SN board I know. As soon as social worker shouts 'child protection' (it doesnt even have to be written) she then does not have to share information with parents.

They can also speak with other professionals or call meetings without inviting parents or having their permission. They can have access to all of your medical records etc and share this with other professionals to paint a picture if they like

My evidence is it happened to me and many others from the SN board. Social worker can share whatever information she chooses, not matter how inaccurate with other professionals. Telephone calls are made without your knowledge and meetings are held.

They don't even have to rely on actually 'evidence' they can base it purely on opinion and make woolly accusations.

My evidence is it happened to me and many others. My sons long well documented medical history for self harming didn't come into it. Social worker decided, obviously without seeking advice from any professional, that I was making it up.

They can gain reports from 'experts' who do not work in a clinic or such like, but make a living purely from writing reports for them.

This is fact, a whole industry has been made from it, the LA employ 'experts' just to write reports just for them. They even all work in the same office building.

Please can we distinguish what happens in SN tribunals from care proceedings.

I have no experience of the former. I am sorry that your experiences there sound so dire.

But in care proceedings, expert reports are independent. They are not 'in the same building'. Parents have non means and non merits tested public funding to get a lawyer of their own choice. The child has a guardian and a lawyer. There is no way evidence is held back from anyone in care proceedings.

The two often spill over Spero. Social services are often used by the LA in SN Tribunals.

Spero expert reports are not totally independent, who pays them? These people make a living from writing reports for the LA and court cases.

Parents are also not allowed to gain independent reports for the court case.

CAFCASS, how independent are they. They are social workers employed by the government, providing evidence in court for other social workers employed by the government.

I'm genuinely not saying that mistakes don't happen and that power is not abused. HOWEVER, there were so many individuals involved in this case, do you (anyone here) think they put their heads together and made a conscious decision to collude against this woman to take her child?

Also, please stop saying her child was removed because she is bipolar. You are so wrong and have no idea of how it works!

"Historically, the mother has two other children which she is unable to care for due to orders made by the Italian authorities."

www.essex.gov.uk/News/Pages/Essex-County-Council-responses-to-interest-in-story-headlined-Essex-removes-baby-from-mother.aspx

This statement is very telling. It makes the people who think she was sectioned for having a panic attack and then had her baby taken away only because she has bipolar disorder, look very silly.

Yes I thought that too Candy, also the fact that the Italian courts believed it was in the childs best interest to stay in this country.

It certainly appears to be a very complex case.

Unless Family Courts are made open then miscarriages of justice (which we know do regularly happen: Birmingham 6, Hillsborough, Stephen Kizko etc) cannot be challenged.

I think there are huge misunderstandings about how the courts work. The Birmingham 6 were tried in the criminal courts as was Stefan Kiszko. These trials were open to members of the public, and reported. The question about the 'justice' in relation to Hillsborough concerned the suppression of information by official bodies - chiefly the police - which was not made available to the 1990 enquiry.

The fact that miscarriages of justice occur both in open criminal courts, and that police withhold evidence from official reports whose findings are made available to the public, isn't relevant to the question of what degree of openness balances our right to private life, and the need for public accountablility in either a) the Court of Protection or b) the Family Proceedings Court.

Candy, I don't think anyone is saying that, I think what some are saying is that it could have been handled better and that mistakes are made, maybe in this case or maybe not.

However 'child protection' on the whole is very one sided and often not 'in the best interests of the child'. Obviously SS do get it right sometimes, but they also get it very wrong sometimes too.

But how can anyone know whether this could have been handled better or not? The facts we have are incredibly sparse, and SS are not in a position to publicise any more than they have done. The mother and her advisers could do so but seem to be choosing not to.

Nennypops, this a woman with clear mental health issues, I think that is pretty undisputable. I cant help but feel she has been badly let down by the 'system', we are just looking at the consequences now.

No woman with serious mental health issues, should find herself in a foreign country, having enforced medical procedures to remove her unborn baby, regardless.

But claw what if the woman would have died without having had the c-section? Surely a line has to be drawn somewhere to protect the life of the mother even if that means going to such extreme measures as this?

I think the most telling fact is that she has already had 2 children taken into care and the italian courts seemingly are in agreement with the decisions made in this country. That suggests that this poor womans problems are quite severe. Perhaps things were handled badly, we will never know that but perhaps the decisions made are actually what is best for the child in the long term.

But the point is she was in this country and our health service had to look after her. Look at this possible scenario - Italian woman with serious mental health issues is also pregnant and has serious pre-eclampsia which will kill her if the pregnancy continues. She is so ill that she cannot understand the medical issues and refuses to consent to an operation. In her right mind, she would consent. Are you seriously saying that she and the baby should have been left to die in preference to "medical procedures to remove her unborn baby"?

Sirzy, exactly 2 children already removed and serious mental health issues, kind of the point I am trying to make, that she has been badly let down by the system.

Maybe, if social services provided more support, more services to the woman in the first place, she wouldn't be in this situation now.

Nenny, you don't know that she had pre-eclampsia or any other medical condition, neither do I.

The implication from information available is that c/s was performed due to the womans state of mind and that her state of mind posed a risk to her unborn baby.

Don't think UK social services can be blamed for lack of support for somebody who was habitually resident in Italy and whose two children were born and brought up there - and who only came to the UK for what was to be a brief training course while in the later stages of pregnancy.

More details about how it seemed to have happened from Christopher Booker in an article today

"Preparing to return home to Italy, having successfully passed the course, she had a bipolar episode at the airport and became over-excitable when she thought she had mislaid the passports of her two daughters who were still in Italy. She contacted the police for help.

When they arrived, she was on the phone to her mother, so she handed one of the officers the receiver. The mother explained to the police about her daughter’s mental condition and said she had not been taking the medication and needed to calm her down.

The police then apparently contacted Essex social workers — as they are routinely instructed to do in such cases — and told the woman they were taking her to ‘a hospital to check that your baby is OK’.

On arrival, she was startled to find that it was a psychiatric hospital.

She protested that she wanted to return to her hotel, but was forcibly restrained, sectioned under the Mental Health Act and told she must remain in the psychiatric hospital.

What happened next, however, was truly astounding."

www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2517239/CHRISTOPHER-BOOKER-A-terrible-act-inhumanity-shows-justice-secret.html