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Elsie Scully-Hicks

485 replies

Elephantgrey · 06/11/2017 19:38

How can you understand how someone can harm such a tiny baby. My husband knew Matthew Scully-Hicks and said you would never imagine he would be the sort of person to do something like this. When we first heard about it we imagined that he had just snapped but seeing the news report he inflicted so many injuries on her since the day she arrived. It's just heartbreaking.

OP posts:
Jellycatspyjamas · 12/11/2017 06:40

I'm really confused by the idea that adoptive parents don't get all the information about their kids until matching. That certainly wasn't the case for me - by the time of the linking meeting we had all the relevant information about our children and had gone through it several times with our SW to check that we understood the complexities of their needs.

No new information was presented at or after matching and we went into the matching meeting with our eyes wide open as to what we might be dealing with in our children. I know one persons story isn't evidence but all of the adoptive parents we knew were in the same boat - they had all information about their kids in advance of formally being linked.

flapjackfairy · 12/11/2017 09:09

So did we jelly but we did not have much formal info on why he was unable to stay in the birth family ( though as we were his fc we had already worked it out ).
It was literally the day before matching when we saw the full info and found out about birth dads violence and criminal convictions as the privacy of the birth parents and other removed siblings had to be respected. Our child was removed because of future risk etc and thank God for it. In my experience as a fc of 14 yrs i have seen a lot of families given chance after chance and left with subsequent children until they were harmed in one way or the other . And i have never ever met a family whose children have been removed who can admit to any wrongdoing whatsoever even when all the evidence is plain to see . It is always a vendetta against them , sw doesnt like them etc etc.
Are children ever wrongly removed ? Of course they are. The system is at the mercy of fallible human beings and much like most prisoners protest their innocence when convicted and v rarely one of them is indeed is telling the truth then there are families who have a good case for wrong removal but it is nowhere near as much as the media would now have us believe . Personally i think the system is often too heavily weighted in favour of birth families and children are not removed soon enough. That is my opinion with my extensive experience of the system. No doubt i will now be shot down in flames for it but i can only give you my first hand assessment.
What happened to little elsie / shayla was truly shocking and lessons must be finally learned about joining the dots in terms of gathering info to see the whole picture . God love her she was failed all round but it is not a simple case of saying give birth families more support and all will be well . Sadly that is v v rarely the case.

Notreallyarsed · 12/11/2017 09:12

Notreally Why is one expert witness psych not enough? what is the point in the expert status if only a dutch auction of experts is going to satisfy? Why have the parents assessed one after the other, with months in between (pre 26 week limit) when if you want multiple expert psychs you could just have a group/panel interview

Surely even you can see that a situation where one person has the power to say whether a child is at risk is far more open to abuse than several? A group panel could be argued to be intimidating for the parents.

scaevola · 12/11/2017 09:14

I think the suggestion that a group panel could be used is strongly indicative that a poster really knows nothing about psych assessments.

Itstakenawhile · 12/11/2017 14:13

Scaevola 'I think the suggestion that a group panel could be used is strongly indicative that a poster really knows nothing about psych assessments'. Do you have issues with comprehension? The ability to read? Just didn't bother to read at all? Psych assessments have paid my mortgage thank you.

I have mentioned that I hold a Doctorate in Psych, but that I now work as a counsellor. I have mentioned that I know of a case where a Mother in proceedings saw THREE psychs. The first and second reports were both good. These were written by highly qualified men. The third report was written by a lesser qualified (MSc) psych, who gave a bad report. This psychs only source of income was writing reports for the family court. Can you see the issue yet?.

I don't believe that parents should have a panel psych meeting, but what I was asking is, if the social services are just going to keep hiring EW after EW why not narrow down the time frame? Either the expert witness' are trusted or they are not, but why the repeat assessments until a negative appears? they don't hire another psych after they receive a negative, you know - just to be sure it's not a false negative? but yet that happens with two positives.

McTufty mentioned s/he is a barrister, I stated that I could contact the Mum and have her send Mc her files. Mc declined that offer. So at the very minimum in all this, I am able to have a Mum show proof of the repeat assessments that I am claiming she went through.

Yet again with the panel assessments, as I said quite a few comments back now. My ONLY issue with the family courts is the use of expert witness psychs whose only income is their family court work, the potential for 'he who pays the piper calls the tune' is astronomical. In my humble opinion this is the reason why two Dr.s were undercut by an MSc, and yet again, I could have Mum prove that. I stated that the way to prevent this from happening was to have ALL court psych reports prepared by NHS Dr.s because they will get paid whether the parent turns up or not, therefore removing the potential for financial bias. I don't think that what I am saying is that difficult to understand.

NB. When I say parents in proceedings who have been subjected to repeat psych assessments. I am not talking about hundreds of people here, I am talking between 10 and 15 parents (that I know of) here. BUT...... Who wants to be the adopter who finds out (birth) Mum was made to sit psych assessments till she failed? I know I wouldn't want to be. So, the problem may be an extremely small percentage of parents in proceedings, BUT to be on the safe side, why not add another check and balance into the system to make sure that no parents go through that treatment right?

scaevola · 12/11/2017 15:02

Do you have issues with comprehension? The ability to read? Just didn't bother to read at all?

None of the above.

It is simply that the suggestion of panel assessments is so appallingly wrong that it does not fit, even in the slightest, with relevant experience.

(I don't have an issue with McTufty's comments because that's not an angle I know as much about, but based in slight knowledge I don't see anything with which to disagree. My comment about panel assessments is about exactly that, panel assessment, not entire approach).

dottypotter · 14/11/2017 15:05

awful bastard he is. Poor little girl.

eloisesparkle · 19/11/2017 10:46

Heartbreaking.

feelslikearockandahardplace · 21/11/2017 07:10

The findings of the family court inquiry have been released.

killer dad 'was suitable to adopt' [[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-42058430]]

feelslikearockandahardplace · 21/11/2017 07:11

Sorry
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-42058430

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