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?

We don't know she has been let down by the system any more than we could say she shouldn't have got pregnant in the first place. We don't know what happened, we don't know what support had been offered.

"Having been held there for five weeks, pleading many times to be given permission to return to Italy, she was told one morning that she would not be allowed breakfast.
Answers: The judge who heads the family courts, Sir James Munby, has demanded to know why the girl should not be reunited with her mother

Seeking answers: The judge who heads the family courts, Sir James Munby, has demanded to know why the girl should not be reunited with her mother

They would not explain why, and, again, she protested. She was then strapped down and drugged into a state of unconsciousness.

Waking up hours later, she found she was in a different hospital, and that while she had been unconscious, her baby had been removed by Caesarean section and handed over to social workers.

Only later did she learn that this extraordinary act had been sanctioned by a High Court judge, Mr Justice Mostyn, sitting in the secret Court of Protection, and that her baby daughter was to be sent for adoption. The mother was then deported back to Italy.

In the meantime, she resumed her medication (as I have found from talking to her, and another judge has confirmed, she is an intelligent, articulate woman who speaks excellent English) and launched into a legal battle for her daughter’s return, involving lawyers from three countries."

What I would like clarifying is who went to court for the c section? At first it was SS, then a patient's group wanted to know why NHS drs didn't challenge it. Now we are told drs applied to court for the csection, were these private drs? Who funded these private drs and their legal team?

Wow Madame seems to have woken up on the wring side of the bed again, sounding rude again to another poster on the thread.

Not with this case specifically, but in general, although it could apply to this case. In my experience social services have great difficulty differentiating between 'at risk' and 'in need'.

In a complex case, involving mental health, which social workers have no expertise in or training in, if they decide 'at risk', rather than 'in need', all it takes is one key professional in a case, like social worker to follow just one direction, the only direction they have training in or knowledge of ie 'at risk' and bad mother and other professionals fall into line.

"It is quite wrong, he [Lord Justice Munby] says, that, simply in the name of protecting the identity of children, the outside world should not be allowed to know the names of the local authorities and even the social workers involved in cases such as these, let alone the names of the judges themselves.

Since the ending of the death penalty, he goes on, there is no graver issue on which a judge can be asked to pronounce than to decide whether a woman and her child should be torn irreparably and forever apart.

Yesterday came the startling news that Munby, as our most senior family judge, has summoned the social workers before him to explain their conduct in the case of the Italian mother.

If the story of what was done to her serves any useful purpose, it will be to bring home more forcefully than ever just how rotten this system has become and what terrible acts of inhumanity it too often wreaks on those children and parents who have become its helpless victims.

In that sense alone, it must be hoped, the bringing to light of this horrifying case — and Munby’s extraordinary intervention — may be a turning point in a scandal which puts our country tragically to shame."

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

There is a lot more to the article. Worth reading in full.

Fraumoose It resulted in this, does it really matter which branch of social services let her down? As long as UK are not responsible for letting down a mental ill woman, that makes what followed ok?

Sirzy "We don't know she has been let down by the system any more than we could say she shouldn't have got pregnant in the first place. We don't know what happened, we don't know what support had been offered"

The fact that 2 children have already been removed and she was pregnant again while still suffering from serious mental health problems, would suggest she has been let down. The fact she was in a foreign country while pregnant and suffering serious mental health problems would suggest the same.

This Country as well as many others are notorious for not providing adequate or appropriate services/support for mental health.

Why did the original secret court say the family offers were not a starter when "her ex-husband and her parents, who look after her two other children, insisted they would care for the girl."

Thank goodness the most senior judge in this area has stepped in - "Sir James Munby, who is the President of the Family Division of the High Court, ordered yesterday that further moves towards adoption must be heard before him in the High Court."

Incidentally come on all of you posters with strong views about the work of social workers and the decisions taken about a child's future, take up Spero's offer - she has made this offer in the past and I don't know if she's had any takers, but I doubt it. It's one thing tapping away anonymously on a laptop at home and quite another thing to go to court where there are barristers and the Judge and it could all be very intimidating couldn't it............but come on I'm sure she will look after you.........SO any takers.........................NO I thought not!

Nananina before you jump to conclusions... Many of us who have posted about SN on this thread, would not be able to take up Spero's offer because we physically can't. Instead, we are daily dealing with a disabled child together with the consequences of collusion between LAs and other agencies when trying to get an SN education.

Is "collusion" a more palatable word then "conspiracy"? Because in the SEN world "collusion" and unlawful practices are happening all the time to deny vulnerable disabled children proper provision - most of which stem from LAs. But this is not "popular" headline-grabbing news and no newspaper or MP has jumped on it as a personal crusade. So those of us with SN children live in a strange twilight zone of having to go cap-in-hand begging to the kind people at the LAs to help our children and hoping that we don't upset the power-crazy empire-building people within the LA in the process.

Incidentally, I would normally very genuinely jump at the chance of going into court. I have spent my entire extremely long professional career advising some of London's largest international law firms on their back-office (non-legal) business processes. So, from a professional point of view, I would always take up an offer to go into court so that I can understand how I can better help my clients. I used to daily deal with senior lawyers, barristers and judges - but sadly can no longer because I have to support my disabled child and his basic British human right to have an education he can access.

People could do worse than read this.
pinktape.co.uk/cases/never-let-the-facts-get-in-the-way-of-a-good-story-eh/

Deep from what I have read it was SS who went to get court order which allowed them to take the child from the womb. People are questioning why NHS dr's did not challenge this.

and god help you whatagain if you do upset the power-crazy empire-building people within the LA in the process. It is common practise for LA to report parents who are fighting for educational provision to child protection on woolly accusations.

I think one of the major problem is that journalists
a) don't understand the law
and
b) are writing to a tight deadline
and
c) they/their editors/their readers prefer a juicy sensational human interest story with lots of strong statements to a rather dull and complex statement about the statutory duties and powers of various authorities, which confines itself to stating the relatively few agreed facts that are currently known.

Do we honestly trust popular journalists to tell us the truth about the world? Or are they in a branch of the entertainment business, where what's just important to get something - more or less anything out quick, while a story is still 'hot'?

'Do we honestly trust popular journalists to tell us the truth about the world? Or are they in a branch of the entertainment business, where what's just important to get something - more or less anything out quick, while a story is still 'hot'?'

We trust and rely on journalists to bring to our attention issues of public concern so that they can be discussed in the open and so that authorities have to shed more light on issues that affect the people.

It was the ordinary journalists, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, who told us about Watergate, it was ordinay journalists at the Guardian and elsewhere who told us the extent of phone hacking, it was ordinary journalists at the Mail and Telegraph who were instrumental in ending the Liverpool Care Pathway and it was ordinary journalists at the Mail on Sunday who told us about the Crystal Methodist Chairman of one our banks, the Reverend Flowers.

We don't know the facts of this case yet, and I don't think we can yet trust the details in the press fully because they probably remain to be confirmed, but it is our journalists who have started the ball rolling and through that process we may gain a clearer picture of what was done and what is done in an area which Lord Justice Munby rightly states is the most important legal process of all bar none

"Since the ending of the death penalty, he goes on, there is no graver issue on which a judge can be asked to pronounce than to decide whether a woman and her child should be torn irreparably and forever apart."

Deep and Claw 2 it was the NHS trust who applied to the court of protection in the High Court for the order allowing the C-section. This could only have been granted on the basis that 1. the mother lacked the legal capacity to make her own decisions and 2. the c-sec was necessary to protect the health of either the mother or the foetus (i.e. risk of haemorrhage, foetal distress etc...rather than anything to do with the mother's mental health).

Interestingly, while the mother is contesting the removal of the baby from her care, I have not read anywhere that she is appealing the order that allowed the C-section.

The thing that seems most odd is why after the delivery she wasn't reunited with the baby in a mother and baby unit. Today's papers seem to suggest that this was what the medical staff wanted but social services opposed and Court ruled in their favour:

Papers from the hearing disclose that the initial decision to take the child into care almost immediately after her birth was against even the wishes of doctors.

"Judge Newton noted: “The District Judge at the early stage gave permission for the Local Authority to withhold contact.

“I raise that because doctors appear to be saying at an early stage in the proceedings that the plan ought to be for [the child] to be placed with the mother, potentially in hospital.”

But he upheld the earlier decision insisting that this would not have been in the girl’s interests."

I don't follow why the huge rush to place the baby rather than giving the mother the chance to try and care for it herself which would be more usual.

It will be very interesting to find out the full facts to see why this can have been justified.

I assume the Courts will publish an anonymised judgment once the proceedings are finished given the amount of publicity the case has generated.

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.

I didn't say she had, claw. I very specifically posted that as a possible scenario and asked what your response to that would be - and you have swerved it. Just as we don't know whether she had pre-eclampsia, we don't know whether the C Section was done due to her state of mind. My point was that you said that no woman should find herself in a foreign country having to undergo an enforced C-Section "regardless", and I asked whether you would still think that to be the case if in fact her life was in danger if she didn't have the operation. Perhaps you could answer that?

One thing we do know is that she would not have had a C-section due to risk to the baby alone. It is well established that the only criterion is the best interests of the mother.

I think there are some particular difficulties for journalists in the UK today. As opposed to say, Watergate, which was in the US 40 years back.

Rumours and stories spread very quickly via social media, while print sales are in free fall. The Guardian and the Independent are hanging on by a shoe string, and have responded by upping their coverage of celebrity stories, entertainment sections etc etc. News tories have to appear quickly -within hours - on the paper's websites, whereas in earlier eras the daily copy deadline would allow more time for fact checking. There is a much smaller body of employed journalists on any newspaper now, and probably nobody with a specialist knowledge of niche areas of the law.

I think the few really ground-breaking stories - like the extent of global surveillance - that appear now tend to have been researched carefully over many weeks, rather than being instant responses to 'breaking' news. Some newspapers do continue to print good analysis after all the facts are known. (Not the situation with this story.)

So do you think the patients group comments to the NHS drs was why they didn't fight for the Mother/baby unit? So if NHS drs wanted Mother/baby unit, was there a SS private medical report SS used to convince the judge?

Nennypops What I actually said was "No woman with serious mental health issues, should find herself in a foreign country, having enforced medical procedures to remove her unborn baby, regardless"

with the emphasis being on serious mental health issues I would have thought returning her to her country, her family, her support network and stabilising her would have been a better option, unless of course it was a life or death situation. The fact they held her for 5 weeks before the c/s would suggest it wasn't a life or death situation.

and god help you whatagain if you do upset the power-crazy empire-building people within the LA in the process. It is common practise for LA to report parents who are fighting for educational provision to child protection on woolly accusations.

Totally agree with you claw. I did severely upset the power-crazy empire-building people within my LA. Fortunately for me, I had the money to employ a top educational lawyer who was snapping at my heels and kept the bastards away from me and so they didn't dare make accusations like that. Sadly most parents do not have that kind of cash, so get this thrown at them as a matter of course whilst they are trying to cope with with a disabled SN child. All, of course, in the best interests of the child.

Well from little snippets there is coming about about this story it is looking increasingly like an abuse of power has taken place,- and SS are in the thick of it.. once again

Whatagain Same here, I had employed a top educational lawyer, who had to lodge several complaints about SS before social worker was removed. Lots of parents cannot afford to do so, well I couldn't, im still paying back the money!

That is not to mention the emotional cost of having to deal with Tribunals and a traumatised disabled child on top of SS trying to find fault with you.

Social workers need some serious training differentiating between 'at risk' and 'in need', very dangerous ground.

mail are presenting some facts as gospel without ahving access to information which would actually describe how she was when she was taken to the mh hospital etc. typical mail obviously - half the story...

they wouldnt keep her in an expensive psych ward unless for good reason. why didnt her mother come to escort her back to italy? why did mother tell police on phone "oh she has bipolar and isnt taking her meds" ?

mailarticle says "Why, also, were the medical staff so ready to arrange for the baby to be removed prematurely from its mother’s womb and to conceal what was to be done to her? "

well exactly. why was the application made?

until you see the application to court and the explanation you cannot assume anything...

apparent facts: mother had serious mh problems
two other children are NOT in her care due to these problems

fact is that some mothers are not able to take care of their children .

no journalist was there when she was taken to psych hospital. her account cant be taken at face value if she has severe MH condition.
(whether she is now able to cope we dont know - the fact she not allowed care of two others suggests the situation is complex)

for daily mail she got "over excitable"

if it had been a criminal act - she would have been "psychotic" for sure...
we dont know we werent there - but when i witnessed my exp getting "over excitable" in a severe mh crisis attack it was horrendous to see. so i imagine something like that not just a bit of "over excitement". (fixating on one thing - like her lost passports - etc -)

but yeh if you meet him today on a good day you could never imagine it.

The Court's judgment on the adoption has been made public www.bailii.org/ew/cases/Misc/2013/20.html

Fills in quite a bit of the background.

They have just published one judgment in this case from Chelmsford county court. It really is a much more complicated and sad case than the Telegraph/John Hemming are making out.

x-posted with wandymum.