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?

Claw2 - what do you mean by social services had 'taken advantage of' her ill health?

Do you think they were chomping at the bit to get involved in a complicated and expensive case which would leave them with a baby in a disputed position who will probably be relatively hard to place for adoption because of the general concern for matching ethnic and religious backgrounds of adopters and adoptee? The baby is half Italian, half Senegalese, with one Catholic and one Muslim (?) parent - not easy to find a match for.

The 'undue haste' was clearly at the woman's own request. She wanted to go back to Italy asap.

I can't see in what way SS have taken advantage. One might argue that the judge should have given the woman time to demonstrate she was complying with her medication and able to look after the baby... but given the problems with the older children and the need to give the baby stability I can see why he didn't.

Really tricky risk-balancing exercise.

Maryz,

1. do you think it right to let woman in very poor at least, mental health appear in Court without any assistance?

1. do you think it right to pack a seriously mental ill woman off back home with undue haste, knowing it will ruin any chance of seeing her daughter again?

1. Are you not a little sceptical, that dr's who previously deemed her incapable, now deemed her capable for a court hearing, only to be deemed incapable a short time after once she arrived home?

Surely every single person is entitled to be treated fairly in a Court. If are in poor mental health and might not be able to understand what is happening, surely you are entitled to assistance?

expat I have explained plenty and I am just repeating myself! I have copied and pasted what I put up thread, make of it what you will. Some of us are clearly coming at this from different angles. Hopefully once the investigation of the judgment has finished, it will become clearer.

"She was also of course pregnant with P and an unusual order was made in the Court of Protection on 23rd August 2012 by Mr Justice Mostyn, who apart from giving various directions in relation to the Local Authority and others, gave permission for the birth by way of caesarean section"

9.By that stage it was being asserted by the treating doctors that the mother had regained capacity under the relevant test. I have to say that when the mother appeared before me at that time she did not appear to be at all well, and I am surprised that it was being claimed that she had legal capacity . I am critical of the doctors because it appears to me that she was despatched (in deed escorted ) from the UK with undue haste simply because she wished to go back to Italy. I was led to believe that the mother was in a good state and a good frame of mind but frankly nothing could have been further from the truth, because if one looks at the reports of the admitting Doctors in italy , it is clear that the mother when she arrived in Italy was in a very poor state .She should in my view have been assisted here to participate in these proceedings. I know she wanted to go to Italy but by going to Italy any realistic prospect of P returning to her care was diminished substantially. It is for that reason it seems to me that it was a most ill-advised thing to have occurred. I was critical at the time and I remain critical to this day"

Its a bit like a deaf person appeared in Court, with no sign language, no lip reading, no assistance to understand what is going on etc. A woman with serious mental health issues but no assistance.

Even if the person is as guilty as hell and deserves everything coming to them. They still deserve a fair trial and the right to defend themselves.

"the situation when the mother has not taken her medication is that she has had a number of very intrusive paranoid delusions"

"C [the eldest child] has been particularly upset by the experiences which she has had to witness, that she has been both traumatised and indeed has been terrorised, not by the mother's behaviour, but by what it is that she has witnessed and in particular her mother being profoundly unwell."

Certainly not just panic attacks.

If anyone wants to read the judgment in the adoption proceedings, it is to be found here.

This is interesting: mother was keen to return to Italy after the birth and the doctors said she was well enough to go, a decision the judge criticises:

The District Judge at the early stage gave permission for the Local Authority to withhold contact and I raise that because the doctors appeared to be saying at an early stage in the proceedings that the plan ought to be for P to be placed with the mother potentially in hospital. I was and remain deeply concerned about that. It might have been in the mother's interests but I think the mother, today, would understand that it would not have been in P's interests for that to have occurred. It has been of course of some concern to me because having made the order I did on 12th October concerning the instruction of Dr Winton, a consultant psychiatrist.

By that stage it was being asserted by the treating doctors that the mother had regained capacity under the relevant test. I have to say that when the mother appeared before me at that time she did not appear to be at all well, and I am surprised that it was being claimed that she had legal capacity . I am critical of the doctors because it appears to me that she was despatched (in deed escorted ) from the UK with undue haste simply because she wished to go back to Italy. I was led to believe that the mother was in a good state and a good frame of mind but frankly nothing could have been further from the truth, because if one looks at the reports of the admitting Doctors in italy , it is clear that the mother when she arrived in Italy was in a very poor state .She should in my view have been assisted here to participate in these proceedings. I know she wanted to go to Italy but by going to Italy any realistic prospect of P returning to her care was diminished substantially. It is for that reason it seems to me that it was a most ill-advised thing to have occurred. I was critical at the time and I remain critical to this day.

Mother had bipolar affective disorder, seems previously not to have fully accepted the need to take medication in order to be stable.
Father, Senegalese, not legally in Italy. A non-starter in terms of being able to care for the baby.
Mother's family: not referred to as offering to take the baby in.

The Judge was not prepared to take the risk that a woman who had frequently in the past stopped taking medication, with very severe consequences, really was going to keep taking it this time.

First off they had said she had capacity. If she wasn't mentally well then why did they let her go after treating her for 5 weeks when she was mentally unwell?

By the time she went it was around 15 weeks after she was sectioned. I guess they thought that after specialist treatment for that period she maybe was well enough to take a decision about where she wanted to live? The issue of mental capacity is situation-specific - a person may have capacity to take basic day to day decisions but not, say, to be able to understand money or instruct lawyers. If she had capacity to decide where she wanted to live and was determined to go back to Italy, perhaps the doctors reckoned they shouldn't stop her but should arrange an escort so that she would be safe? But really all this is pure speculation.

What I want to know is why you think doctors would have colluded with social services to break their Hippocratic oath and say she had capacity if they did not honestly (even if mistakenly) believe that to be the case? Why would they risk their careers for that? And why would SS want to go to these lengths just to ensure that they retained very expensive and complex responsibility for her child? With the pressures they have, the easy way out would have been to let her have the child and stop all legal proceedings. And goodness only knows what would have happened to the child then.

Angela, do read the thread - you are repeating things people have quoted some time ago.

Even if the person is as guilty as hell and deserves everything coming to them. They still deserve a fair trial and the right to defend themselves.

Claw, the report of the judgment itself confirms that she was legally represented. Indeed, she would have been given legal aid automatically irrespective of her means.

MaryZ the judge comments 'She should in my view have been assisted here to participate in these proceedings" referring to October proceedings.

He states about previous October proceedings "I was led to believe that the mother was in a good state and a good frame of mind but frankly nothing could have been further from the truth, because if one looks at the reports of the admitting Doctors in italy , it is clear that the mother when she arrived in Italy was in a very poor state"

She was then escorted back to Italy, diminishing her chances. Given that she was unassisted and not in a good state at the time, do you think she was capable of making any informed decisions?

His comments about her appearing much better etc were with regard to the current proceedings, that day.

I have done, nenny, but since people keep asserting the same (factually inaccurate) things, there is no harm in posting the actual situation as set out in the judgment.

@ClairesTravellingCircus

Nope, you've to register it twice if you're born abroad. That works the same for marriage. Until you do it ywice, you're NOT an Italian citizen.
In my opinion, this lady declined to go to the embassy at that time and made a huge mistake.

If you're born in Italy by one or two Italian parents, you go to the 'Anagrafe' in Italy to register the birth with the certificate released by the Italian hospital, you don't need to do anything else to gain Italian citizenship.

It is a lot more complicated than it seems Claire!! I declared myself defeated. There is no way to come out of the Italian bureaucratic mess, you've laws over laws contradicting themselves. Lost battle.

Sorry for the OT ladies.

Angela said:
"Mother's family: not referred to as offering to take the baby in."

"There is no-one within the wider family who today can look after P even though the father attempts to put himself forward but it is not, if I may say so, a starter."

claig: "There was undue haste in despatching her back to Italy according to the judge, and the law contains a principle of no delay"

The principle of no delay relates to the wellbeing of the child: there should be no unnecessary delay in making decisions for their welfare, because of the harm which they will suffer otherwise.

The mother was sent back to Italy because she wanted to go there. That made no difference to the "no delay" principle. Whether she had stayed in this country or not, the fact is that, to stand any chance of getting custody, she had to prove that she would be no danger to the child in circumstances where the result of her illness was that her older child was traumatised and the Italian courts had found she could not look after her other children. She would have needed a very long period to stabilise and to satisfy the courts that she would not relapse - there had been occasions previously when she had improved with medication and then stopped taking it. Allowing her that time would conflict with the "no delay" principle.

The reasoning behind the no delay principle is obviously that the longer the child spends with foster parents, the more difficult it would be for her to adjust to a return to her mother, and the more damaged she would be. It is better for her that she be placed with adoptive parents quickly so that her long term future can be settled now.