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

[saragossa2010]

As the other is full.
There are far too many cases where the authorities rush to remove children and do not give both parents and wider family a say. Adoption is rushed through.
The fact a senior family judge is insisting he is involved in the rest of this case is a good thing and the more cases like this which receive publicity the better.

The point is it is like justice in China and Russia. If it's secret then those involved cannot justify themselves. If we have more in the public domain that is a greater good than any risk from disclosure to the children and parents involved. it is why open justice and published judgments and rights for all those involved in child disputes to use twitter, blogs and emails and no stifling of free speech.

Thankfully things are all moving this way and we lucky to have people like JM and C Booker to give publicity to the issues which need much wider debate. I would imagine most social workers and lawyers involved in this area are very happy that the issues get more public debate not less. Most professions would.

claig, I've already answered your question about her right to challenge everything that happened. You presumably accept that she was legally represented at all stages, and there is no doubt that her lawyers would have challenged everything. Why do you keep repeating the question?

Ok, thanks JaquelineHyde, that sounds good that legal representatives could oppose things along the way.

Madame, would she have had legal representation at the hearing to order a c/s?

Before birth it wasn't a child protection issue, child protection only apply after birth. It would have been a health issue prior to birth.

Warning. This post is pure speculation, and I feel bad posting it. But noone has suggested it yet, so want to put it out there...

First though
She has children already living with her parents, who appear to have refused to take any more of her children
She is unwell, and having already had two children removed, I would guess it is likely italian authorities would have removed this one too. Hence washing their hands of it when uk tried to contact.
She came to the UK for an unconfirmed reason, and was taken ill while here. It has been suggested that this was at the airport to go home, but that is not definite.

In all honesty, speculation I wonder if she was planning to have the baby here and raise it here. Possibly, through the mania, speculation thinking that italian ss were persecuting her, and unfairly preventing her from raising her own children?

Because I didn't understand it nennypops.

yes she would have had legal representation.

I've jsut watched a video clip of Brendan Fleming speaking at the Forced Adoption Conference.

Had no idea who he was before this thread started but thought I would take a look as so many on here appear to be very critical of him.

He said that mothers could return to court to say they wanted the child returned to them if they could show there had been a change in circumstances - and that change could be quite minor. However the judge then had to address the question of the child's welfare and this is where the requests usually failed because the judge would be very reluctant to undo an arrangemnet in which the child was happily settled.

He was also saying there is s big problem with getting barristers to go into battle for the parents and that his particular firm was attempting to use barristers who had not worked for LAs on childrens issues. Seems he thought all the lawyers were not adversarial enough and just agreed amogst themselves what would be done without really considering the parents interests.

He also didn't rate lawyers in the CP field and stated that the quality of barristers was much better in criminal cases.

One interesting thing he said was that years ago social workers would be primarily concerened with the parents and would have provided pratical support to the parents, from which the whole family benefitted. Nowadays he says the social worker is primarily working for the child and against the parents.

TBH I thought he talked quite a bit of common sense. Yes, he has a down to earth way of speaking which could rile people but he didn't make any claims that I considered outrageous - certainly none that have warranted the extremem reactions I've been reading on here.

So what's he supposed to have done that's really bad according to his detractors on here.

Genuine question.

I wonder why child protection lawyer Brendan Flemming might have gone to a conference and sought to denigrate his professional competitors?

that will have won him the admiration and respect of his peers.

to slate an entire section of the legal profession, barristers and solicitors alike, doesn't seem a bit outrageous?

He does seem to swimming against the tide. But have you asked yourselves - why is he so concerned?

It's too trite just to dismiss him as an idiot. He clearly isn't.

In fact, why is everyone who has a high public profile in challenging the current system so hated on here i.e. Booker, Hemming, Flemming....

Is there anyone who is challanging the decisions that you do actually like?

Amnesty International
Liberty

all sorts really.

PEN

Interesting I was just reading about the Court of Protection were the decision for c/s was made. www.lindermyers.co.uk/faqs-for-court-of-protection_757.html

The Court appoint a deputy, who acts as an attorney when someone is not capable of making decision for themselves.

I wouldn't have immeditely connected Amnesty International with child protection cases in the UK.

'All sorts really' is not a proper answer. The question I posed upthread as to why these people were so hared has also been ignored.

I am genuinely curious to understand more about how all this works. I'd gladly take up Spero's offer if she isn't too far away from me. I like to make up my own mind about things. That's why I asked about whether someone having a bipolar episode was capable of making a phone call - which Jacueline kindly answered.

Yes, I've had quite a horrific experience with my LA, culminating in maladminstration compliant and negligence case which I won. I've said I don't subscribe to this 'baby-snatching' is nonsense but can quite imagine, again based on my own experiences, that they just wanted this woman to go away i.e. home to Italy and not bother them again and some bad judgemnets may have been made.

But I seem to be meeting some really entrenched views on here.

Can I just point out that in the court report it does not say that her 2 older children were removed. The judge said (5) that as far as he could understand the translation from Italian SS who the CP team had contacted for info, the children were with their GM, that the children had been traumatised and terrorised by their mother being ill. I strongly suspect that the info will have been that they witness their mother's traumatic and terrified state, rather than they were traumatised or terrorised.

I also think that when the mother first appeared before the court 'certified' by the Pysch Consultant that she was ok, but according to the judge (who certainly should not presume to diagnose) was still ill, that she probably appeared upset and agitated because she was still recovering from the trauma of being sectioned in a foreign country, forcibly subject to major surgery and had her child forcibly removed. I would be so angry and upset if I had experienced these things that I'm sure I would be mistaken for mentally ill.

Lastly, the sickening irony of the ruling by Judge Mostyn is that he explains (13) that he decided to rule for adoption because it was in the interests of the baby to make a decision quickly so that she could be placed before she was 9 months old. He says (15) he can't comply with the mother's (and her Pysch consultant's) request that the child was fostered for 12 mths while she 'proved' her stability because the child should be placed before she was 9 mths old. Yet apparently SS still haven't found suitable adoptive parents. So surely the mother has now had time to 'prove' she is taking her medication and is stable?

wetaugust I think 'entrenched' is putting it mildly.

There have been strange assertions ranging from, that as miscarriages of justice happen in open courts there is nothing wrong with closed ones, to castigating a woman who admitted her child had been fostered for posting about her life on the thread.

Rarely have I come across such unintelligent, illogical, bigotry as has been concentrated on this thread.

There is more information on the case, including excerpts translated from the Italian Press in this piece.

The woman herself says she was in England undertaking training with the hope of becoming a Ryanair hostess. Why the judge appears not to know this (and many other pertinent issues) is very strange.

It's also worth looking at this from Flavia Dzoden which provides the disturbing wider context of race, religion and immigration status (in this case, of the baby's father) in this and similar cases. (The judgement refers to the baby's parents being of different religions - and how is that relevant to the case at hand? The judge also fails to state that as an undocumented migrant in Italy, the father could not legally travel to the UK to be involved even if he wanted to. ) NB: Flavia's article links to the original Italian news article, which names the mother. That's not illegal in Italy or in Holland (where Flavia is) but citing her name WOULD be unlawful in the UK, so make sure not to.

There seem to be two separate but linked main issues in this case. One is how the woman was given a c-section against her will (and details of the judgement that led to this haven't yet been released by the Court of Protection.) The other is how the question of what is in the "best interest" of the child has been "decided" to date.

Putting the first issue aside (and it's a massive issue, but we need to see the judgement to find out what happened and why,) what I can't understand is why Essex LA didn't immediately liaise with their Italian counterparts to arrange for the child to be removed to their care around the same time the mother returned to Italy. Surely the Italian equivalent of Social Services would be far better placed to assess the situation and link with the mother and her doctors' and the child's extended family in planning a way forward.

After all, she was an Italian citizen of Senegalese and Italian parentage with two half sisters of Italian and American heritage. She had no "connection" with England other than being born there. In Judge Newton's judgement, he notes that 3 families were identified as potential adopters, but none reflect her ethnic or cultural origins. Even if the Italian authorities concluded that it would be in the child's best interests to be adopted, at least they could probably find adopters that more closely reflected her background, and enable contact with her extended family.

All of this is weird and worrying on so many levels.

For the people wanting so desperately to find something to jump on,
if you really want something to pick over and publicly flog SS, there are some horror cases you can take on. As much as I can see the Italian lady is not one of them.

I can show you a case where there's been lots of lies by professionals, the guardian took a dislike to the parents, particularly the mother and lots of other horrifying details that I decided best left out.

Sometimes things go badly, but not always. Don't look for it where it doesn't exist just because John Hemming told you to.

Oh and John, if you come back, the family aren't interested in talking to you as their MP or as a crusader.

wetaugust, I know there are several people on here who know what's wrong with Brendan Flemming, myself included, but we can't talk about the things we know publicly like this. He is very very dodgy. You know, like dodgy solicitors can be dodgy...?

KRITIQ - See thread 1 for a very interesting insight into Italian coverage of the case and the reaction of the Italian authorities to it. There's far more detail in thread 1 in terms of links and a breakdown of the processes involved in this case.

I do generally like Flavia's work, but I think, like a lot of what has been written in the media, people are seeing what they want to see, rather then both what is known and what is likely to have occurred from a procedural point of view.

In fact Flavia has just stated that Dr's requesting the C-section makes it all the more dangerous - she clearly doesn't know what she's talking about here.

A C-section is a medical procedure. Does she expect obstetricians to have no say or input into the clinical procedures they do? It there was an urgent clinical need for the mother to have a c-section, such as pre-eclampsia or placenta previa and the mother was not deemed to be capable of giving consent, of course it would fall to the NHS trust to apply for a court order for the surgery to take place on behalf of the obstetric team. It would not be the job of ss, or any other body to instigate this.

Why are some posters so against others questioning and discussing details of the facts as we know them to be?

KRITIQ - religion is mentioned in the context of finding an adoptive match. I am sure the judge knew what the woman said about why she was in the UK, but there was probably complicating information e.g. she wasn't actually booked on the course.

Yes, mumsnet is a very interesting place as regards jumping on anyone who might in any sense challenge social workers and the current family court system, even though in the wider world many respectable people including some family court judges think it needs reform. You come on here and it feels like a cabal of censors and they are so defensive that even if you have a totally open mind you immediately think ah all those criticising the system must have something here. So in a sense these threads provide a lot of covert support for those wishing for improvements to the system.