A mother on the run

[milliec]

Message withdrawn

I know someone who children were taken from her after her youngest son died of cot death while in a woman refuse. She didn't get them back.

Family courts are 'secret' as you put it to protect the children who are the subject of the cases heard. It is completely inappropriate for the hearings to be public because the children's anonymity must be protected. I'm sure there is more to the story than is reported; the child must have been in danger for some time for such a decision to be made. Remember, it is in the daily mail after all.

I am a social worker (not the childrens team though) and i was also told my children could be placed on the at risk register if i " continue to allow xp to be violant in front of the children"

errm. you dont allow someone to be violant.
and such a threat does not help. all it did for me is ensure that the future beatings i got i didn't call out as i was fearfull someone would call the poilce and it would be reported.

I never felt lower than when the social worker left. i felt humiliated and demoralised. i was hoping she could help me, instead i felt as though it was my fault and that my son was being damaged because of me.
quite frankly if i didnt know what she was saying was so very very wrong i could haev very easily taken my life.

it is a depressing fact that still there are social workers out there who have lead sheltered lives and feel they should judge everyone by their own actions.
depite never being in a violant relationship they think that "i would leave teh very first time" and judge those who do not as being weak.

they are a disgrace to the job.

if i were a child id rather have my identity revealed and know the people deciding my fate were accountable, than feel utterly at the mercy of a few people i wouldnt trust as far as i could spit em.

im sure there are fabulous professionals operating in this field. unfortunately there appear to be lots who arent.

i find all this power and secrecy v v worrying.

though yes i do agree Bessie that there must surely be more to this story than we are being told as it was a judge that ruled the child should be adopted.
that is quite a big step and one that is not taken lightly

There is a campaign running to end family court's secrecy, precisely because of cases like this.

Of course judges are 'accountable'; they have to follow the law and there is the option of appeal. It would not be right for the circumstances surrounding a child's case to be made public, whether you think it would be preferable or not; it could be really damaging for a child to be the centre of a media circus based on the behaviour of its parents.

Perhaps you are confused between social workers' actions and court process..? They are completely different things and are mostly unconnected. Of course, the court will make a decision regarding the child and social services may be one party to a case, but that does not mean that the court will necessarily follow what social services wants.

families being forcibly separated is not a good thing.
in some cases it is the best thing for the child.
i do not believe that the interests of the child are best served in too many cases tho. family courts, and the people who get cases there, ought to be more transparent.
i think there is media circuslike interest in these cases because there is perceived to be secrecy and orwellian power misuse.

Seems to me fairly obvious that justice ought to be seen to be done in family courts just as elsewhere. Otherwise there is far too much of a risk that it is not justice at all.

I had ONE incident of dv with my exp. It was quite violent and social services got involved. After a lenghty interview I was told by social worker that my case is going to be dropped but if EVER in the future they are going to hear about another incident the consequences are going to be much more serious (including removal of my child). I felt sick when she said it.

Now a million dollar question: do you think I will ever call police again ?

The "the children's anonymity must be protected." arguement is no longer valid IMHO. All courts of law are able to put gagging orders on the naming of anyone the judge wishes-parents-kids -witnesses.

If family courts were more open & accountable then good practice would prevail & bad practice would be subject to review & professional critisism within the body concerned. If no-one is ever challenged how can we stop these GROSS miscarriages of justice that keep occuring?

This is a truly shocking story. There needs to be a serious review of the social care system in this country.

A few years ago two of my cousins were placed in temporary foster care as my aunt had apparently 'allowed' her husband to beat them. He was an alcoholic, with controlled schizophrenia had been violent towards her for many years but never physically , but one night just snapped and seriously hurt all three of them. She was accused of neglect.

Fortunatly they were returned after 4 days but she had to deal with a lot of shit from social workers afterwards. Thankfully she left him the same night, I was very much in the thick of it as they all moved into my parents house while they sorted things out.
She was headteacher of the local primary school at the time and ended up leaving her profession because of it.

I understand they are very overworked and have to watch their backs so they don't miss anything, but I think they are far too quick to make snap judgements, and perhaps inevitably cold hearted to the implications of what they do.

"It doesn't help that idiots in magistrates courts often send violent men back to the partners they have abused."

Where do you get this from?? Domestic violence is viewed very seriously in the magistrates' courts, much more seriously than any other type of assault.

It doesn't help matters when victims of DV take back the men who have abused them, but it is very rarely the magistrates who are "sending" the men back. The CPS will pursue charges of DV even when the victim has retracted their statement and indicated that they are not prepared to support the prosecution case.

Just remember you are only being given one side of this story-from someone who has a vested interest in garnering media sympathy because she is in big trouble if she returns here.

There has to be sanctions for taking children from Care-what if the person taking the child had sexually abused the child or had physically injured the child? Imagine the risks to that child whilst on the run.

The simple fact is that we don't know what this child was exposed to in this family-clearly enough to warrant some form of intervention from a Judge.

There seem to be repeated problems with the secrecy of the family courts. I've said before on here I'm surprised that it isn't more of an issue.

It was discussed on here whether something could be done, but it was decided it might be better not to draw attention to yourself (a conclusion that surprised me in some ways).

The secrecy is a big part of the problem. It does create an unaccountable system. Many parents don't understand how the system works and there are lawyers who are also paid by the local authority.

A social worker came to me yesterday and told me that he had been involved in situations in which the lawyers acting for parents had colluded with him to undermine their clients' case.

The secrecy protects the professionals not the children. I have seen a large number of cases where the children have suffered significant harm from the actions of the professionals, but they have no redress.

My understanding of the family court system is limited but am I right in thinking that when mistakes are made there's no way to take that up as you're not allowed to talk about the case at all. Is there a right to appeal? My dealings with 'professionals' (especially SS) has been that incompetence is not that unusual, I would hate to be unable to even to attempt to correct their mistakes.

yes yurt there is a right to appeal just as there is in any other type of case. from the magistrates to the High Court from the County Court to the Court of Appeal.

The law was changed by two things. The government changed the list of people you can talk to so you can now talk privately to family and lay advisors about the details of what happens in court.

Then Clayton-v-Clayton changed the law so that you can identify yourself (and children in fact) as having been involved in a case which has ended and judgment been given.

Local Authorites tend to bully people by frightening them that they will be imprisoned if they talk to anyone. That is not, however, the case.

The difficult is reporting malpractise to professional bodies. Your MP is currently not allowed to do this (which is silly).

John Hemming MP
Chairman - Justice for Families.

it is just chilling.

The problem with appeals is getting
a) Public Funding to do the appeal ... or
b) The paperwork to do your own appeal. Lawyers tend to hang on to this and the court sometimes refuses (or simply fails) to give a written judgment.

It too two years for one case recently to get a written judgment to enable an appeal.

Parts of the system are corrupt and basically use legal sleight of hand to remove people's children. (Mental Capacity etc).

Gosh that is frightening John Hemming.

When was the law changed- it sounds like a step in the right direction....

blimey, i would love to live in the lovely reliable predictable world that freckle does, where the justice system and authorities are always so well intetioned and infallible.

my personal experience of the court system/police etc in a DV and stalking case taught me very well that relying on 'justice' to naturally be served is total pieinthesky stuff.

What I can't understand in this age of accountability is that we are supposed to accept this as being "for the good of the child"

Doctors have systems in place that ensure that on-going researched based practice is the accepted way of keeping up standards. If someone cocks up they are reported to the GMC ( not totally infallible I know but that's another discussion !) From that, new legislation & rules ensue to TRY & prevent it happening again. With this in built secrecy within the SS no new knowledge or research is shared amongst the profession so the knowledge base cannot be improved.

I think we'd all acknowledge that there are some very difficult cases that the SS have to deal with. I'm sure there ARE some VERY good SW's out there doing a thankless job. However until the profession is held to be accountable for it's choice of "expert witnesses", and seen to have a strict procedure for dealing for the incompetant withon their ranks, they will have no support from the public.