Young mother wins damages against SS who unlawfully took her baby away after it was born

[spokette]

Absolutely the right decision imho. The cavalier bullying exuded by these people is obscene and it is about time they are bought to account.

That young girl needed support and considering that she herself has been in care, SS have failed her miserably.

Interesting that the last paragraph says that she is likely to be reunited with her baby in a special unit. Why wasn't this offered in the first place?

This case when I heard it on the news made me cry, the poor poor girl. The health benefits that baby lost through not being aloud to breastfeed from its mother also annoys me.

very glad the courts have done justice in this instance.

tis is clearly the best outcome for all concerned. hopefully the mother will be seen as a fit parent and the lump sum of compensation will allow her to build a good solid future for her and her child.

BUT i have to raise issue with
"The cavalier bullying exuded by these people is obscene "

"What kind of people are they?"

well they are teh kind of people who work 12 hour days sometimes, who are asked to entre houses where there is known violance. they are teh sort of people who get called by thepublic because they fear for a childs safety. they are teh sort of peole who have to make tough decisions every day based on very limited information gleaned from usually unco operative people.

Yes this was wrong and its good that it has been put right.
but i do gettired of the constant assumption that anyone who works for Social services is an incompetant baby snatcher!

I was discussing this case with colleagues today and was a little shocked by their reaction to it.

According to 3 of my female workmates (2 of whom are mums), the fact that the child was later placed in foster care (by a court order) means that the social workers must have been right to take the child in the first place, the fact that they didn't obtain the correct legal authority is not important and the mother does not deserve compensation. According to one girl "it's no wonder the other baby died (another recent headline) despite 30+ health professionals visiting" because the Social Workers, knowing about cases such as this one, are bound to be deterred from acting to remove a child from danger.

I asked my colleagues why, given their implicit faith in the court decision to remove the baby to foster care, they were not prepared to place a similar level of trust in the court in which she won damages?

I am fairly well aware because of where I work that child care social workers have an exceptionally difficult task to undertake and, to a large extent, can't win no matter what they do. BUT I think that it is absolutely vital that where social workers have acted illegally - they deemed her "lack of objection" to be consent despite her lawyer describing the "uproar" from the mother and her family at the time - it does not go unchallenged.

It seemed to me that, if my colleagues had their way, "not being middle class" would almost be grounds to remove a child from its mother; after all, "better safe than sorry"!

In cases like this, why can't they do it the other way round. Put the social worker WITH the family, rather than taking the child away ? .
It wouldn't actually have to be social workers, but suitably qualified or experienced people.
I can see it sounds expensive to have 24 hour cover, but I believe it would work out cheaper in the long run

Mamazon, when I wrote "The cavalier bullying exuded by these people is obscene" I was referring to the social workers in this case, not to the whole profession!

These social workers did wrong and just because they do a difficult job does not mean that they should be exempt from warranted criticism.

MsHighWater. Social wrokers really think that? Notbeing middle class. Sheesh.
I'm amazed how quickly some grab babies while others do bugger all. When my 14 yo dd ran away to a 38 yo mans house SS did nothing. They said because dd wanted to stay there they had to listen to the child. She was 14. A child wowed by presents etc
It took 5 weeks of legal letters to get them to do a CRB check on this man and when he discovered one was going to be done he heaved my daughter out - telling her it was my fault, not his.
Perhaps cos we are on benefits they didn't consider a 14 yo child worth bothering about or she wouldn't meet any adoption targets etc as she wasn't a cute baby. Their actions contributed to my family being torn apart.
Oh, and trying to get respite care for a 4 yo who needs 24 hour care and screams non-stop is impossible. How many people could cope with 24 hour screaming? Yet we are left to get on with it.
Support my arse.

I don't believe social workers think that "not being middle class" is a reason to remove a child either. That's not what I said.

I said "if my colleagues had their way, "not being middle class" would almost be grounds to remove a child from its mother". My colleagues, like me, work for a local authority but are not social workers. It was an attempt at (black) humour. I'll know better in future!

I also think it's fairly safe to assume that there are grounds for concern about the baby but that is no justification for acting without proper authority. I was shocked by my workmates' double standard in that they were willing to accept without question the court judgement to place the baby in foster care but refused to place the same faith in another court judgement that the mother was entitled to damages.

TBH, I don't envy socialworkers...it's one of the hardest professions and it seems no matter what they do they do it wrong...they remove a child all hell breaks loose, they don't remove a child and harm comes to them, all hell breaks loose...

Maybe the offer of that Support Unit originally wasn't put forward because of costs, etc...their is sadly a rather tight budget that overworked Socialworkers have to work around...it's a disgrace that things are the way they are, but I really think that most Social workers are decent human beings that see a lot of awful things and try to act in the best interest....

Fio - so they say but their budgets are HUGE compared to some NHS departements for instance & far less efficiently used.

bossybritches, do you have any personal experience which informs your opinion regarding budgets? I work for a Social Services Department and whilst I do not know the size of the NHS budgets, I can tell you that for the next three years our budget reduces by 9%.

It's a fact of life that local authority budgets are generally inadequate because whatever they do, there is always more that they could do.

I think it's also almost certainly true that there is huge inefficiency in many, possibly most, local authorities. I speak from some experience.

llareggub - 9% less of what though?!

£100-250k per annum sounds a helluva budget to me. (correct as of 2002)

My (admittedly small) directorate when I was nursing would have given a their right arm for a tenth of that.

i heard form someone int he knwo that the kid ( however wrongly taken0 will be put into care in the end anwyay AND that this kind of thign goes on a LOT

Sadly it does Cod -particularly in Nottinghamshire & the rest of the East Midlands it seems.

(& yes I live there so I do feel I can say that!)

The secrecy of the family courts needs to end.

NOW.

Indeed it does Expat- now where have I heard that before......?

Are you feeling ,like me, like we repeat this statement ad nauseam on different threads!!