Judge slams Social Services over forced adoptions

[edam]

this is apalling but sadly doesn't surprise me after all the other cases. 'Best interests of the child' my arse. And see the unbelievably smug comment at the end!

I do hope the father gets legal aid to see a judicial review.

Fucking Hell @ xenia's link

Jaw dropping

Her children were removed on the basis that "?problems working with professionals? ? even though it was agreed in court that she was an ?excellent mother?, that the children were well-behaved and well-looked-after and that they had suffered no physical or emotional abuse."

Seriously? I am utterly flabbergasted.

And Edam's case in teh OP, it's not the first time that there have been cases where adoption proceedings have been rushed through to "beat" the court case of the parents, there have been threads on similar situations before.

The whole system urgently needs to be reviewed in its entirety. The whole lot of it.

If you search the name online you will see the issues and some are of the inflammatory kind which tend not to help people's cases even if there is truth in them.

(Gist which may be wrong... break up with husband well connected mason with a grudge, supposedly, child hurt, nurse in hospital with information murdered before chance to speak to her, someone else killed... and of course all that could be conicidence. The real issue is until we can decide as a society it is better parents and social workers put up with all dirty linen washed in public people can't judge and that's a difficult issue. If your psychologist says your children are fine and another report says they are abused nightly do we want all that published? My view is open ness is more important even if children's privacy rights are breached and there is greater harm done because justice is not seen to be done than is saved by keeping family matters confidential but I suspect 95% of those involved in this area professionally would say that was definitely the wrong view)

You can have openness and anonimity though. Cases can be reported and thus open to scrutiny, while keeping the names of involved parties hidden.

I don't understand why it doesn't happen already TBH.

What is the reasoning behind the secrecy in the family courts?

They have indeed lifted some of it - Jack Straw did.

In supposed miscarriages of justice the mother may talk to the press and contribute to on line fora (if there is no court order against it or even record social workers secretly and post it on youtube as some have done and I am sure most of us would do just about anything to keep our children. Mothers have always laid down their lives even for their children and we all understand all that - it's one reason I'm so in favour of father's equal rights on divorce because I could understand how it might feel if you aren't with a child every day). But the social workers who might have reports can't speak to the press before teh case goes ahead and that's probably right, so we never quite know.

Go back to the 1950s and 60s and it was so shaming to have a child out of wed lock for example that girls hid that and babies were taken away often for adoption. We changed taht and now it's much much better and I don't see why we can't have many more long term fosterings which are not irrevocable than all these adoptions. It's a bit like the death penalty which we dont' have. Get it wrong and that's it too late. Get an adoption wrong and it's too late. the birth parents have lost their rights unless the child seeks them out later.

Anyway here it looks like one child lives with the father so presumably if the child wanted or the mother could get contact that could happen and 2 are already finally adopted so when they're 16 - one is 8, they can if they choose seek out their mother? I'm only going on what I read on line. May be totally wrong.

This is terrifying to read.

We are currently under SS scrutiny, in the middle of a core assesment and the amount of errors that have been made already is sickening.

Poor, theD. I never have been but it must be worrying simply because of the power. I think if things were limited to provable physical abuse and that if parents who were simply observed not interacting very well or who had some different view from SS or were involvedin "emotinoal abuse" of chidlren could not be interfered in.

This is just it Xenia - the absolute power. And the intrusions, though I have fully complied it's pretty horrid having them poke through the fridge and the childrens rooms.

They have repeatedly misspelled the DCs names on their reports, got basic facts wrong and added glaring lies.

To cap all that they are talking to my abusive exH's family as part of the assesment. Including his father who has met the DC three times in their life and has always disliked me.

I'm ready to spend a fortune in legal fees if it ever gets that far and am making my own 'case file' as it were.

The SW was most perturbed by me taking notes when she vsisits.

Very, very good judgement by Wall J. Completely clear from what he says that the father's application had no prospect of success and that the council believed that they were acting in the best interests of the child. However, he argues, these facts in no way make the council's conduct acceptable. On the contrary, the fact that the father's case was doomed if anything makes it more not less important that fair process and good practice should be employed and seen to be so:

"There is no more emotive subject for most parents than the adoption of their children by strangers: it is even more emotive than their child being taken into care. It may be obvious to social workers ? and indeed to the court ? that adoption by strangers is the right option for a particular child. It may well not be so obvious to that child's parents. However, in my experience, parents, even the most abusive, have a sense of justice; and provided the process has been fair, they will recognise and understand that they have been heard, that they have fought the case and that they have not succeeded. They will, on the whole, accept that the judge, who must, of course, give reasons for his or her decision, has taken a different view from that which they have advanced, and that they have ? in short ? lost."

Hope everything will be ok, TheD.

I almost feel there should be PR consultants you can buy advice from on how to handle social workers to keep them on side - what sort of social class are they from, what's the way to keep in their good books, should you join the masons, which are the best lawyers to get you the result you want, when is it better or not better to have a lawyer at all etc etc. Do you rush in thick and fast and even sue them or be all sweetness and light etc etc etc. Thankfully my children will soon be too old for this ever to be an issue but in my view social workers could go into any home of any musnetters and make out a valid case to remove the children and that is very frightening.

Roughly without identifying details TheD how old are your children?

They are 5 and 3.

There is a brilliant website FASSIT. Some of the forum is a little hysterical, but understandable given what people are discussing. It has lots of useful advice.

For now I'm just seeing a Family Law specialist as nothing has really been put in place as yet, there is a LOT of information that needs to be gathered first.

hehe at joining the Masons, worth a shot...

A Gem from my social wored is that polce reports from when exH was arrested will not be taken into account as I opted not to prosecute and in her words 'domestic violence and emotional abuse can never really be proven, especially when the woman is emotionally unstable at the time' (with a pointed look)

ffs I was emotionally unstable because of the DV and abuse.

Sorry should stop hijacking this thread, I'll probably start one of my own once I've seen her tomorrow so keep an eye out.

her three children were taken away, on the grounds that she had ?problems working with professionals? ? even though it was agreed in court that she was an ?excellent mother?, that the children were well-behaved and well-looked-after and that they had suffered no physical or emotional abuse. Two were adopted, one lives with their father.

PURE BULLSHIT

No WAY EVER would children be removed for that reason. Children CANNOT be removed if they have not been sebject to a CP plan, (used to be CP register) and for that to happen there MUST be evidence of abuse. There is NO WAY a child could be removed if the courts believed there was no evidence of abuse and if she was considered an excellent mother. Children are NOT removed because parents don't cooperate - certainly not for that reason alone. All you people who believe shit like that are GULLIBLE and NAIVE.

People DO abuse their children. They do it cleverly and secretly. Then when their children get removed they whine to the papers because social services have no right to reply.

1- the court has to grant care orders/adoption orders etc. Why would the court free her children for adoption whilst simultaneously stating that she is an excellent mother?

2- you can have bad SWs. You can have bad managers and corrupt departments. You cannot have all of the above PLUS corrupt or incompetant magistrates, guardian ad litems, expert witnesses etc etc. For a child to be removed for the above reasons many many many people would have to be incompetant and/or corrupt - with nobody prepared to blow the whistle - well people do. I have personally worked with a SW who blew the whistle in NZ. Very brave.

3- Even, EVEN if the reason was as stated above - they would not have SAID that was the reason! She MUST have been given a proper reason which she is conveniently omitting from the interview.

So you disagree with the judges statements about the actions of SS in Edam's link?

Or are you just talking about Xenia's example. What do you think of what the judges said in edam's OP?

We have had this before, on MN, threads where the adoption order has been rushed through and finalised in order to "beat" the parents going to court.

I don't understand how that is allowed. Especially for something which is final. Once it's done it's done.

There is no legal reason why we have to allowed any forced adoptions ever. We could instead have long term fostering with an order of no contact with the parents to be revisited once a year. Forced adoptions are too radical. I would abolish them entirely.

I agree with EN that in many cases parents are physically abusive of children but I don't have the faith the system and courts are always right and I think plenty of children are better off with slightly sub standard parents than in care where often their outcomes are even worse. We have to decide as a society where we draw the line and indeed we might choose to send some of them to boarding school so they are only enduring the inadequate parents in holidays as an alternative compromise.

In these cases where people seem to sure it is right to take the children away there have been judges criticising what is done.

I know nothing about any of this really except that I doubt it is too hard for a child of any of us to be put on the register. Just film any set of parents over a year and at one point or other we'll have lost our temper or said something which doesn't accord with that social workers think shoudl happen or whatever...

Anyway new open ness, the internet and opening of family courts is something many judges want and indeed those in the system and where a judge does release a judgment it provides very useful insight into why a particular decision was taken. That's why the more openness the better.

Judges in the UK but not in many cases abroad cannot be bribed or not often and they will stand up to the Government and criticise and even strike down laws. We are very very lucky to have them here in the way they operate. The issue of the masons which this case above apparently raised is interesting because that was the only one organisation in the whole world that at one point not to long ago judges were obliged to disclose by law. I think that might have been changed but it illustrates the huge concerns in both Governments and other groups about that particular influence although I don't think they now have to disclose it and may be it was over egging it to suggest the influence was so big... yet another reason to ensure 2/3rds of judges are female as they can't join the masons may be....

Anyway heart rending cases where we never can know the truth.

The other hard ones are fathers denied contact with children after a divorce. Sometimes they get so very very emotional and only want contact on their terms or want 100% of the children but not 25% when it suits the mother or whatever that they litigate and litigate and that becomes the focus more than the best interests of the child.

We probably all remember the case of the British woman who went on to marry the US ambassador who lost her chidlren under the unfair German system in germany. You need the wisdome of Solomon sometimes. What we do need though in my view is much more publicity on both sides so people can form a judgment.

It's this point that we want not just justice but justice being seen to be done.

You would replace adoption with long term fostering? Do you even know what fostering is? I assure you that is unworkable and not in the interests of children. Adoption provides a family, an identity, PARENTS, stability, permanence. You can't just expect an adopter to become a foster carer and expect it to be the same for the child, especially if you are forever leaving it open ended for the parent to come back and 'claim' the child!

Minthumbug- are you talking about the 1st case Edam highlighted, where millyc linked to the actual judgement? If so, I think you've misinterpreted the judge's position, respectfully. If you read the judgement you will see that the judge absolutely does NOT say that there were no valid reasons for the child to be removed. In fact he refers at least twice to the fact that the father's appeal, had it gone ahead, would have had no chance of succeeding. What he is saying is that even when there are completely valid reasons for an adoption to go ahead and it IS in the best interests of the child, a fair process must be followed and be seen to be followed. I completely agree with him.

What seems to have happened is that, for whatever reason, the father only became galvanised into action at the point that the child was cleared to be adopted, by which point she'd been in foster care (without him being in contact, I presume?) for 2 years. Social services got the go-ahead for adoption to take place and at that point he suddenly decided to challenge the decision. Social services clearly thought that as it was obvious that his challenge would fail and that adoption asap remained in the best interests of the child, it was ok to stymie the father's challenge by rushing the process and ignoring his request for information. The judgement makes clear that in the judge's view, though social services were RIGHT that the father's challenge would have failed, RIGHT that the child's best interest was to be adopted, it was still absolutely piss poor practice to deny the father a chance to put his case forward.