Britains crueliest parents OMG!

[mieow]

link{http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2004542501,00.html\here}

OOOPS...have I just killed this thread?

Not for me, joash. It's interesting to hear how SS can react to people anxious to help. Were there any consequences for your local SS dept after they ignored your input? Did you pursue it?

Oh Joash, thank you for sharing your very personal story. It certainly adds another perspective to this thread.

Nope, haven't killed it joash. It's so horrible to think about! You did all you could; I mean you could have snatched him away, but that would have been extremely counterproductive in the long run. You have custody of him now, right? That sounds like the best result.

Don't have anything helpful to say, but want you to know someone's reading and has thought of you.

Yeah - we have him. We have a full residency order which lasts until he's 18. The SS had it written into the order and agreed by the court that they have no intention, now or in the future of reuniting him with his parents.

He's fab (23 months old now). The sad thing is that I do feel that I've lost his mum. She chose to stay with his dad (even though SS told her that if she left, she could have baby back). She does come to see grandson in short bursts throughout the week, but once we move to Cornwall next year, I've lost my daughter and Grandson has efectively lost his mum. She'll not be able to afford to see him and I've reached a point (no matter how selfish, it sounds) where I absolutely refuse to fund her contacts with her son. As far as I'm concerned - she's made her choice.

And NO - there were no repurcussions for SS at all.

Should also add that even though all evidence pointed to dad - nothing could be done because mum supported him all the way and no-one could say for definate who was responsible. Although the upshot was that they signed an agreement to say that Grandson received non-accidental injuries whilst in their care and that they failed in their parental duties by refusing him medical attention - no-one was actually prosecuted.

joash, what a horrible situation for you to be in. I hope one day your dd comes to her senses and makes more of an effort with her son.

And I just have to share this...

His dad is supposed to visit grandson once a week (when he can be bothered). Anyway, I asked him today why he never has anything to eat or drink at my house - he just looked very sheepish and before I knew what I was saying, I told him that he had absolutely no need to worry that I might poison him. If I was goint to do anything to him, I would use a baseball bat and smiled at him very sweetly. He left very quickly after that - not sure why.

Joash

One of my neighbours has custody of her Grandaughter. Her DS got a girl (17) pregnant and neither of them could cope with the baby so SS got involved and my neighbour applied for custody as she could not bear the thought of her GD going into care - ao all power to you for saving your GS, bless him.

Can I ask, does your DD have contact with the baby still?

Hi Westcountrylass - yes DD has contact with grandson. I let her come when she wants and try to get her to bond with him - for his sake, not hers. She refuses to spend any significant time with him, complains about the very rare occasions when I insist that she bathes or feeds him, very rarely plays with him and its got to the point where he treats her like any other visitor. She constantly moans that he comes to me or his grandad (even DS - his uncle) when he wants anything, or is tired, or upset, etc. I've tried to explain that he doesn't understand what 'mum' is. We're his primary carers and as such he'll come to us for comfort, etc. Because of the limited attention she pays him - he does view her as a visitor. He won't even call her mum and everytime she get of the sofa - he assumes that she's leaving and shouts bye-bye to her.

Your neighbour was very lucky to get her grandaughter - as the baby's parents were not married, she had no legal rights to her. Must have great SS's where she lives.

Don't want to scare her - but, does she know that the parents can apply for the child back at any time in the future unless there is something written into the order?

However, the courts should take into account how long the child has been with the grandparent, and what sort of life she now has, etc.

This is just awful.

But I know from experience at work that this kind of thing goes on.

Social Services are overstretched and underfunded. They are like a huge train that cannot be steered off course.

Trying to get them to take action is very hard. They take about 4 weeks to decide whether to actually do anything IMO.

But once they are involved, that is it, they seem to think they have to take action to justify their involvement.

Teachers, neighbours, relatives-where were they? Why didn't they notify the authorities?

Sorry Joash, just skimmed the thread.

Its great that at least your grandson has you. So many children are not that lucky.

This whole thing makes no sense to me at all.

Joash, what an extraordinary story. SS seem to veer between terrifying ordinary parents whose child has just fallen over, and sitting there doing absolutely sod all about very obvious cases of abuse.

How awful that they lied to you. How can that possibly be following procedure? How comes nobody was answerable for that?

I'm sure they do have cases of "interfering grandparents" where MIL from hell rings up SS just because she doesn't like the pink jacket her granddaughter has been dressed in, but they ought to have a proper procedure to justify their actions in that event, not just lie to shut them up. How can that possibly be seen as a professional way to behave? Unbelievable.

And the fact that no-one has looked at their procedures in your case, and learned from it, is shocking. SS complain about being demonised, but frankly when you hear about stories like this, it's not surprising. It's one thing to make a mistake, like here, but it's quite another not to learn from a mistake. They are just not behaving like professionals, they're behaving like a bunch of cowboys. Horrifying.

What I havn't mentioned is that the SS also cocked up during the court case. We had six different social work teams on the case over a 14 month period - mainly because they kept switching jurisdiction. Each team had to learn about the case from scratch - many often not reading the background info...because they didn't want to prejudge the parents. As part of the process, we had to undergo full psychological and physical assessments to ensure that we were capable of taking care of grandson. It took months of visits from social workers, full medicals, court appearances and the team at that time actually underwent disciplinary action and were sacked because they 'mislaid' everybit of paperwork to do with our case - we had to start everything again in January this year.

One team would prep us for adopting him, another would try and convince us that he was going back to parents, others insisted that he would be taken into care. Another team claimed that we might only have him for another few weeks until his parents were ready to have him back. Yet another also accused us of being over-protective and claimied that it was a little exessive to take a child away from its parents for a few little bruises!!

I have to say I don't agree with everybody saying they should be brutalised. They've done terrible things to their children, but it does sound like the mother in particular had her own problems and shouldn't have been left to deal with them by herself. I know the report said there was no histry of mental illness, but there has to be something wrong with a parent (and it's sexist I know, but particularly with a mother) who is able to have that little regard for her own kids.
Your story confuses me joash -I had always assumed that the parents of kids that got mistreated were probably badly parented themselves, leading to a cycle of neglect. But from all your posts it is obvious that you are a caring parent and granparent, so why do you think that your daughter wasn't able to follow your example (please don't be offended by this - I'm just really interested in what would work to help people who can't parent well, and am sure you've already thought about it yourself)

Joash, thank goodness you were there to intervene and be your grandson's champion, despite obstruction from the SS. I think you are marvellous. It must be so very hard to cope with your daughter's attitude, but whatever else has happened, you have undoubtedly saved your grandsons life.

According to the intial social worker (who, I have to say was fantastic), it is extremely common for young girls from what she called 'decent' families to suddenly take up with people such as grandsons dad, because they feel sorry for them and are convinced that they can take-care of them and give them what they've mised out on.
Yes, I may be biased in her favour, but when DD met GSdad, she was an intelligent, absolutely stunning 17 year old. Doing her a'levels, working part time and determined to get to university to study law - absolutely determined to become a barrister. She was beautiful, very tall and willowy, took great care of herself (had a legitimate modelling offer when she was 14 - turned it down because she wanted to go to university, etc). Monthly hair, waxing, nails, etc everytime she got paid. Loved being around people and had a brilliant social life. Our house was always full of her friends and as a youth worker I loved it. We had a great relationship and I even knew that she was sexually active (I worked as a young peoples sexual health advice worker) she used to ask me to bring condoms etc from work - so at least she was being sensible.

She met GS dad and everything changed. She stopped going to college, refused to go out with her friends and was utterly obsessed with him. He treat her like s**t. I've recently discovered that she would go to his flat and sit outside for three or four hours waiting for him, whatever the weather, even though they had previously arranged to meet. Within five days of meeting him she was pregnant.

She was determined to stay with him. And, we tried to be supportive. Rather than her mmoving into his flat (which was a filthy, infested place, and the local 'place-to-be' if you'd bought drugs and wanted to use them) - we asked him to move in here. We knew some of his background, brought up in care from age 2, supposed 'ex'-drug user, offenses for burglary, etc, but felt that everyone deserves a chance.

The rest, as they say, is history. Over the time she has been with him (3-years in March), she is unrecognisable as the person she was. She has gone from a size 8/10 to a size 26/28, always looks scruffy, never has her hair cut or tidied, wears other people clothes that are either too big or too small for her. Has lost two jobs due to her so-called partner causing trouble for her. She works to support them both whilst he sits on his idle backside doing sod-all. He has had work - a total of 16 jobs over the past couple of years - the longest one lasting three days. He always leaves "because people pick on him".

It's true that even if you report things they don't get taken seriously and you can end up with abuse from social workers - just like joash. I once tried to report that a small girl and her baby brother were begging all day on the underground (this was many years ago - I was only about 25) and that I had talked to the girl (aged about nine, filthy, thin, on a school day, alone with a baby of about nine months ) and she had told me where they lived, that her mother drank and stayed in bed with her boyfriend and sent her out to beg every day. I even had names. The social worker on the end of the line basically accused me of being racist and said that I didn't understand that 'travellers have different ways of doing things" - and that was that. You aren't likely to go back for more abuse are you? The racism card is played a LOT IMO by social services. It happened to me again recently. I suppose 'interfering grandparent' 'racist' etc can be useful labels to deal with people trying to report concerns if you want to shut them up.

Thank you joash.

I am so glad for your grandsons sake that he has you, and hope that one day your daughter will realise where her loyalties should lie.

Joash, I am so glad that you got custody of your grandson and that he will be brought up in a loving family environment. Many years ago I represented someone in a criminal case that would be the equivalent of your grandson's father. he was harrassing and threatening the family members who were trying to get social services involved as they feared for his baby daughter. They were the parents of the mother and sadly she was a drug addict and didn't want to leave the father or listen to reason. He ended up pleading guilty and I mitigated on his behalf. He was given some sort of community sentence, and to my suprise didn't get a custodial sentence. That was the end of my involvement with him. I know there was also a case going through the family courts which was instigated by the baby's family. About 2 years later, I was watching the news one night and a bulletin came on with the man's name on. He had killed the baby, by throwing it against a wall. I have never forgotten or got over it really. I know I was only a small part of it, but I felt bad I had mitigated on his behalf even though I could never have forseen what he would eventually do. I am so glad you saved your grandchild and wish you all the best x

Thanks for the support everyone - I'm afraid that it rather looks like I've hijacked this thread - I was just trying to say that perhaps someone did report their concerns about those children in Sheffield, and didn't get anywhere.

BLOODY FUMING
Just had a call from SS - gs's dad complained that I've threatened him and refuse to let him see GS on his contact day this weekend.

Idiot rang me yesterday to see if he could visit GS yesterday, I agreed on condition that it was instead of his usual day (Sunday) as I'm trying to get some decorating done and can't really give up two days to supervise his contact.

Bloody cheek...perhaps I should be very mature (not) and make sure that I display a baseball bat in the window whenever he's due to visit.

Be glad when the SS's 'supervision' bit is over in July next year and off we go to Cornwall.

Joash, you haven't hijacked the thread at all, but brought your experience to it and given us another dimension to consider, which is very important.

Leglebegle, how awful for you .

How heartbreaking for you to see your dd just disappear like that joash, and turn into someone else overnight. Horrifying thought. You can understand changeling myths when you hear stories like yours. It's frightening how very easily influenced young people can be.