Parents 'should go abroad to avoid family courts'

[ScrambledSmegs]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-25641247

Yep, that's the BBC. Currently trending as one of the most read pages on the site.

I know they've tried to make this balanced by referencing CAFCASS, but it doesn't feel like much balance when the headline is something as scaremongering as that. It feels quite irresponsible.

Yes, I know that they're trying to drum up interest in their Panorama program, but I think they'd have been better off not publicising JHMP and his ramblings. Unfortunately, he's dangerous. Ridiculous and foolish, but dangerous.

What, Devora, there are black children in foster care?? All the children waiting for adoption aren't blue eyed china dolls? Wow. Shocked

Sadly Holly I have to disabuse you of the notion that I'm a fluffy middle class pearl clutcher with no experience of the real world, who lives in a lovely big detached house with a (white, obviously) husband who earns £35-40K a year and spends her time piano playing, horse riding and gossiping with my bestie, Petunia Dursley. And phoned up the adoption agency 19 years ago hoping to adopt a little blue eyed cutesey girl who looked like me, so I could pretend I gave birth to her, and ignore the fact that she is adopted.

I'm a way-too-near-50, poor, gay, single mum, working a minimum wage job very part time, who will never be able to afford a deposit for her own house, or a million other nice things that would be lovely to have. The only middle classy kind of thing I have is a university degree. But that's okay, I chose a life trajectory which was all about having children.

So I phoned the adoption agency, and they put me through a very rigorous and lengthy process to prove myself as a parent for a child who had been through an awful lot, and at the end of it I adopted a 10 year old (I have 3 kids now), not a baby. A 10 year old who had been through a huge amount, who was traumatised and hurting and had PTSD. Who was not easy to parent. But that's okay, because I'm not Petunia Dursley etc. I now have years of experience dealing with what leads a child to be adopted, dealing with the end result of neglect and abuse, with dealing with a lot of adoption issues head on. And seeing and hearing the stories of God knows how many other children in similar situations.

I wish my kids and I could live without being stereotyped sometimes. Either I'm a saint (bollocks) or I'm an evil child snatcher who hates birth parents. Either my eldest is a victim of being snatched by evil social services, who must be desperate to "go home", or she's been rescued by a saint of an adoptive mum and she should be "grateful" (even more bollocks). Either she's been "brainwashed" into believing her birth parents are evil, or she's not allowed to see her birth siblings because that's "disloyal", or she's permanantly "damaged" goods who can't be trusted with children because of her terrible past experiences and her behaviour as a child.

And birth parents - either they're stereotyped as all being victims of evil social services, who all have problems which can be easily solved, or they're stereotyped as all being evil and you get the Daily Mail style comments calling for forced sterilisation.

Less stereotyping needed, i think

How much head on experience with adoption issues and adoption cases do you have Holly can I ask?

Oh, and it's difficult for me to talk about birth parents and adoptive parents, without being told either:

I'm a "bleeding heart liberal" and I shouldn't care or have a lot of compassion for women and men who lose their children. Attached to this, clearly I'm an "idiot" for facilitating contact for my children when wanted

OR

I hate all birth parents and I'm horrible, because i dare to point out that yes, sadly, children do NEED to be adopted and some people are just not capable of parenting a child safely.

Or I'm horrible because I bring up the physical and sexual abuse examples, and the permanent brain damage and emotional issues, and I think all parents are paedophiles. Um, nope, but guess what I have personal experience with? Yup. So, of course I'm going to mention it as an example

This can of course lead straight back into "bleeding heart liberal" because I'm not calling for all parents who physically or sexually abuse or very seriously neglect their children to be summarily executed without trial, and tend to talk about things like, an understanding of the situation and, potentially "contact"

I am very working class
I do have a profession now thanks to OU
My DD's BM is very middle class.
Incredibly articulate, well educated and had a good career
Just saying

Yes, same situation with DD1's birth parents, who most certainly had (at the time when I got all the information, i have no clue what they're lives are like now) more money than me, one parent working consistently, "better background" etc.

www.familylawhub.co.uk/default.aspx?i=ce3470

If I were to go off earlier comments in the thread.

First the women Bookerized and sensationalized a story without any evidence to corroborate it. Secondly she leaves the jurisdiction of the country of origin instead of fighting the case in the original jurisdiction of the Pakistani family courts. The court believes that 'possible' british nationality determines jurisdiction, yet as we know from the AP case this is not true, nationality does not determine jurisdiction so much as location. There may be an argument for the 3 older children except the court had not bothered to get the children's input on residence of where they want to live. As for the allocation of the youngest child (you can't return someone to a place they have never been), it would cause extreme developmental and emotional trauma to the child. She hasn't seen the youngest since they were born, unfortunately she is a complete stranger to the child which would cause yet more trauma. The child doesn't know or speak any english making integration into the UK and the school system incredibly difficult. She willing went to Pakistan with the children without coming to any kind of agreement. I feel for this women I really do, however the best interest of the children need to come first and the mother's second. Why the UK court wishes to harm these children is somewhat perplexing.

And that is not right. The only evidence available to us is Alessandra's own testimony, so since it is the only evidence it should be assumed to be correct in the absence of any other evidence.

This is just extraordinary. Imagine, Holly, that you are a judge. On the one hand you have evidence gathered over several years in Italy and the UK from very well qualified doctors to the effect that Ms Pacchieri has bipolar disorder and has had a number of manic episodes so severe that she has had to be hospitalised. You have the views of her mother who was so concerned about her behaviour when in London that she called the police. You have the evidence of her father who agrees that she is so ill that she is not able to look after her children. You have the evidence that her children have been seriously traumatised by witnessing her in a manic state. You have the evidence of a judge who saw her in court at a point when she was thought actually to have recovered to an extent, but who was nevertheless seriously concerned about the fact that her behaviour demonstrated that she was still not well. She admitted that she had stopped taking her medication, and there was evidence that similar action in the past had triggered major psychotic episodes. It is well documented that patients with bipolar disease become convinced that there is nothing wrong with them, which is why they may stop taking medication.

On the other hand, you have Ms Pacchieri telling you that that there was nothing wrong with her.

And you are seriously going to say that only Ms Pacchieri is to be believed, and all the other evidence is to be deemed non-existent?

It seems to me that Alessandra wanted to return to Italy months before coming to term and there was a conspiracy to prevent that by needlessly drugging her up to purposely reduce her ability to fight for her rights and confuse her thinking. Otherwise she would have been back in Italy as that was her clear wish. She worked for an airline for gosh sakes, it's not as if transport or identification would have been a problem.

Actually, no, she was going to go back to Italy in mid June and the baby was born at term on around 25th August. She was in the grip of a manic episode having stopped taking her medication. No airline would have accepted her as a passenger in a million years: they don't put the convenience of their employees ahead of the safety of their passengers.

And why do you think all these people were motivated to drug her up, for goodness sake? What possible reason would reputable doctors have for doing that? What is your evidence for saying it happened? And if you're going to come out with a load of nonsense about wanting to steal her baby, you need to explain why on earth the doctors, social workers and lawyers would all have been so desperate to do that that they would have colluded in a massively risky criminal enterprise for a baby who, by virtue of her mixed race and the possible effects of medication during pregnancy would be far from easy to place for adoption.

redding, you are making some major assumptions about the Pakistan case which are not supported by the report. Where do you get any evidence that the mother sensationalised anything? The report makes it clear that, for three of the four children, the country of origin was Britain; she left the jurisdiction of Pakistan because she feared for her safety and was being held against her will. There is no evidence in the report that the court had not "bothered" to get the older children's views about where they wanted to live. Far from not having seen the youngest child since he was born as you allege, the mother was his carer for the crucial first 7 months of his life. There is nothing indicating that the youngest child doesn't know any English - it is highly likely that he does, given that the father spent the first 33 years of his life in the UK. Not knowing the language doesn't make it "incredibly difficult" for a child to settle into school in the UK - hundreds of children manage that all over the world every year. What is your evidence that the children would be harmed by being returned to their mother?

And the major difference between that and the AP case is that the court where the mother is habitually resident accepted jurisdiction. The courts and authorities in Italy didn't want to know about the AP case when contacted at the time the baby was born.

I can't believe how much we spend here on MN debating people's assumptions and stereotypes about birth parents who have their children taken into care. People like Holly clearly think that there's a very small group of evil paedos - who you can probably spot a mile away - and then massed hordes of salt of the earth, diamond in the rough types who might be a bit chaotic and shouty, but basically love their kids to bits.

They have no feckin idea. And those of us that do try to explain a bit, but somehow what we say about the reality of what our children have lived through and continue to live with is no match for their preferred fantasy scenarios.

Because people like Holly are not interested in debate or discussion.

Note how she pops up every couple of days or so with another bizarre allegation/assertion/frothing.

She very rarely engages or answers questions.

I don't know whether she genuinely believes what she says or whether her primary motive is to bait and upset.

Agreed

Spero just to say I'm part way through my draft of the Q&A, it's rather long so I'm going to have to try my hand at a ruthless edit, which as anyone who has read my various essay posts on here will know, I find very difficult

Don't worry, we can post you in installments, like Dickens.

There's something about this sort of thing in the Mail today.
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2562249/It-never-happen-Appeal-judge-slams-cut-paste-decision-family-court-led-social-workers-taking-baby-parents-unjustly.html

Thanks - FASSIT have already been on the CPR site telling us this is 'proof' of conspiracies etc, etc. I know this case and again, matters are slightly more nuanced than the Mail can understand or would like to admit.

I am going to do a post in response and hopefully get it up by the weekend.

I don't deny that sometimes LA conflate 'likely outcomes' with 'not bothering too much about due process' and in a case involving a woman who has had all seven of her previous children removed from her care, i can understand how they got a bit weary by child number 8.

I accept this doesn't excuse poor practice BUT it is not evidence that lawyers and judges conspire unjustly to remove children.

I googled the name of the judge to find another news report, but there was none, but I just looked again and I think this is it?

Yes, thanks for that link. I will hopefully be able to do a full response for the CPR site today.

What people need to understand is that Magistrates must by law provide full written reasons for all their decisions these are known as 'facts and reasons'. It is not uncommon for the drafting of this document to take very many hours as Magistrates are not professionally qualified or trained lawyers - albeit they are assisted by a legal adviser.

Sometimes we have been at court until 8 or 9pm. this is obviously very hard on parents and often I have been asked to 'help' the Magistrates by drafting all or part of their 'facts and reasons'. Note this is NOT their decision but the 'facts and reasons' that support their decision.

I agree that this can on occasion be poor practice. But it isn't evidence of corruption or collusion etc. If LA put in a document that I don't accept, then I object and it is amended.

I can see what went so wrong in this case was that mother's legal team had no input into the draft and I agree that is profoundly wrong and the judge was right to criticise that in the strongest terms.

I hadn't seen this thread. My other one just reports what is in the Times. What we all want is fairness and justice and justice being seen to be done.If one side's lawyers comments on or wrote something and the other side's did not that is appalling as been said by the judges and must never happen again and I hope everyone is outraged which is why the judge is taking it so seriously and warning all family lawyers about this kind of thing.

Hello Laura, if you are interested I have just posted this on the CPR site as quite a few people have now cited this case as something that really worries them.

I hope you find it a useful read
www.childprotectionresource.org.uk/response-to-commentators-4/

@nenny

The harm would be uprooting the youngest child from the only home it has ever known to an alien country in the arms of stranger, how is a newborn supposed to remember the mother after several years. Assuming English was the official language used in the home while they were living in Pakistan is rather foolish. If the mother felt she had suffered a DoL she should have gone to the local Pakistani police to file charges. You claim the court had statements from all the children on where they wanted to live, can you link it?

One major difference is in the AP case the NHS kept the mother incarcerated against her will, while keeping what was going on secret from the Italian embassy. Also if you could link the Italian ruling in which they ruled in favor of essex I would find it illuminating. How was the Italian government supposed to help two of it's citizens when they were kept in the dark and blocked from participating in the any of the decision making.

The harm would be uprooting the youngest child from the only home it has ever known to an alien country in the arms of stranger, how is a newborn supposed to remember the mother after several years.

The mother applied to the court within a very short time after her return to the UK. She seems effectively to have been held prisoner with her children and prevented from taking them back with her to their home. It would clearly be wrong to allow the person who is responsible for that to take advantage of it.

It's not "several years". If the father had accepted the original decision it would be a matter of a few months, and even with the appeals it was just over two years. And remember the court didn't actually order that the youngest child be returned to the mother.

Assuming English was the official language used in the home while they were living in Pakistan is rather foolish.

Why, given that the father and his siblings were born and brought up in the UK, as were the older children? Putting the case at its highest, you can't assume that they never spoke English.

If the mother felt she had suffered a DoL she should have gone to the local Pakistani police to file charges

Do you seriously contend that she could take the risk that that wouldn't simply result in her being returned to her husband?

You claim the court had statements from all the children on where they wanted to live, can you link it?

Well, I suggest that the first thing is for you to link where I made that claim: I did not. And the second thing is for you to provide the evidence that they didn't: as I pointed out, there is no suggestion of that in the report.

One major difference is in the AP case the NHS kept the mother incarcerated against her will, while keeping what was going on secret from the Italian embassy.

They didn't keep it secret. How on earth could they have done so, given that the grandmother knew all about what had happened, and Essex was busy making inquiries amongst the family as to whether any of them could take the baby?

I don't have the Italian ruling, but the reports are to the effect that they decided in May 2013 that they would not intervene and the baby should stay in England, and no-one, including Ms Pacchieri's supporters, has ever contradicted that.

By the way, before you make the predictable link between the Pakistani woman being held against her will and Ms Pacchieri being sectioned, the difference is that one is legal, being for the protection of the patient, whilst the other is not.

@nenny

You are stating that the Pakistani police and courts are corrupt, that is rather bold of you. Can you back that up with court cases please?

They didn't keep it secret. How on earth could they have done so, given that the grandmother knew all about what had happened, and Essex was busy making inquiries amongst the family as to whether any of them could take the baby?

So it was up to the Grandmother to inform the Italian embassy or are you suggesting that the Grandmother IS the Italian embassy. From now on Consular relations are henceforth the domain of Grandparents? IS this the new guideline?

Speaking of guidelines why didn't the NHS file an application of DoL? The NHS can now legally hold people against their will without applying for DoL? I guess that is new.

@nenny

I don't have the Italian ruling, but the reports are to the effect that they decided in May 2013 that they would not intervene and the baby should stay in England, and no-one, including Ms Pacchieri's supporters, has ever contradicted that.

Is that why the Italian government hired lawyers in London in context to the AP case, so as not to interfere?

Redding, you say this was kept a "secret" from the Italian embassy. I pointed out that no sensible LA could have thought it was being kept secret in circumstances where the patient's relatives knew all about it. Indeed, given that they produced extensive medical evidence from Italy, together with evidence about the father's immigration status and the legal status of the older children, it does look very strongly as if the LA had a great deal of contact with the Italian authorities.

If you think the authorities didn't comply with the law on sectioning people and deprivation of liberty, do produce your evidence, and tell us why Ms Pacchieri's lawyers don't seem to have done anything about it. If the Italian government has been involved at all, it has only been since the case hit the headlines; in May 2013 the Italian court decided that it was not a matter for them.

@nenny

The parents of AP were not notified of her treatment much less of the c-sect. It is common practice to cite DoL apps in such cases as this, yet it was not noted in the rushed hearing. Please produce evidence that they applied for a DoL. Also under MCA the closest family member available is to notified and involved in decisions, this obviously did not happen.

I see you believe that consular relations under the Vienna Convention are on the family to notify the proper authorities. If a UK citizen is detained in Austria and the Austrian authorities contact the family it is apparently up to the family to notify the proper UK authorities. You also state that AP's lawyers don't intend to file case against these things, I didn't know you had direct contact with them. Can you tell what is in their appeal, I would find interesting seeing as you know what her lawyers are going to file.