Does anyone know, if your child was taken from you by SS and your DH had custody, would you have access?

[franch]

We were just discussing this story (in relation to the Fran Lyon one) and this question came up - no one knew the answer but I expect somebody here does - ?

I mean, if the child was adopted you'd have no right to see him. And if a child was taken away from an abusive father by its mother, once again you wouldn't expect the father to have rights. But if the father in this story had chosen to keep the child, would he have been obliged to keep the mother away from the child, and how would that have worked?

All these 'child protection' stories really have made me feel very ignorant about our social services/family courts system - I just don't understand how it all works

You would probably get supervised access - supervised by a social worker at a contact centre if ti was in the childs best interests.

I know someone that fosters children and she would frequently have to hand over a child to the parents (unsupervised) and it used to break her heart as the child had long-term problems due to abuse by either one of the parents. One "Dad" who had fractured his 3 month old dd's skull said he'd much rather use the money SS had giving him to visit his "child" to go to a football match instead.

Oh MrsR, that's so shocking I had no idea abusive parents could have unsupervised access. Seems there's a lot I don't know. Thanks both.

If he'd kept the child I imagine she would most likely have had supervised contact with the child. Possibly starting in a contact centre.

So difficult to say what is best in this sort of situation. I mean in a personal sense every cell in my body would find it impossible to prioritise anyone else over my child so that is my first reaction; that it was a shame to give away the child when that child had one parent perfectly able to care for it and bring it up.

Social Services of course deal with many many people who are unable to prioritise their child over their own relationship.

And the boy seems to have made a great life for himself with the help of his foster carers.

IIRC from the Trupti Patel and Sally Clark cases, SS ordered the fathers to keep the children away from their mothers - on pain of the child being removed.

So I guess the only way the father in the original story could have kept his son would have been to abandon his wife. Tragic. Very glad that they have met and built a relationship now the son is grown up.