family courts - times campaign

[tatt]

I've no personal experience of these courts but the stories I have read make me pretty concerned about the secrecy around them. Read the story here and if you are also concerned sign up to their campaign

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/camilla_cavendish/article4271773.ece

Spero -

"What exactly is your problem with this?"

Do you have a problem understanding English?

Maybe seeing that sentence in context will help:

------
In the recorded meeting, the social worker tells the couple: "It's our intention as a local authority that when your baby is born, we go into court on that same day and ask for an interim court order because we would wish to place your baby with foster carers."

The social worker admits to the couple that a back-up plan is being drawn up in case the judge refuses the application for a care order. He says: "What we also have to think about is a child protection plan that looks at you, at home, with your baby. There is no immediate risk to your child from yourselves, that's my understanding from reading documents."
---------

That is, SS intends to put newborn in care (although admitting there is no immediate risk to baby from parents). 'Child protection plan at home, with parents' is being considered only as a contingency plan, in case judge refuses his application for a care order.

Is it clearer now?

Spero, I find your posts chilling.

If this is the attitude of social services, no wonder there are so many gross miscarriages of justice going on in England and Wales.

Quite ex-pat.

Message withdrawn

Message withdrawn

Cote dazur, thanks for the repetition, but sorry, still don't understand why this is so outrageous. LA are doing their job, the court is the ultimate arbiter of whether or not a child will be removed. In this case, LA seem well aware that child won't be. They obviously have valid concerns or they wouldn't be arranging a case conference. This isn't done for fun. I note a comment that the parents' house is 'disorderly' - would you care to think for a moment what that word indicate? I'm not talking about a bit of clutter, a bit of mess; 'disorderly' is usually shorthand for the kind of living conditions you would be ashamed to keep a dog in.

No doubt a discussion about removing their children is VERY distressing for the parents ents but I stand by my main point; when there is serious doubt about the welfare of a child, one errs on the side of caution and distress or not to the parents is not allowed to stop a serious consideration of what is the best interests of a particular child.

With regard to the child with brittle bones; of course medical opinion was sought. That medical opinion as I understand it, supported non accidental injury. That turned out to be wrong,when subsequent medical opinion was given. Are you saying the original doctors were incompetent or deliberately made a mis diagnose because they got a kick out of traumatising parents? Sometimes medical experts disagree, that's life. They are not necessarily incompetent.

Dilemma, thanks for your concern. I'm not brainwashed. I'm simply pointing out that i have a lot more experience of what really goes on in the system than those who rely on what a friend has told them or what they read in the newspapers.

If you really think you are getting the full picture because you have read some newspaper articles, you are on planet mad.

to say a social worker finds 'joy' in a day in court is just the sort of comment that supports what I am saying. That is frankly a moronic comment. No one finds 'joy' in giving trauma to parents.

do you really, really think that is what motivates those of us who work in child protection?

Some people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.

Message withdrawn

Got a letter back from my local MP today.

Thank you very much for your recent fax regarding the issue of family courts.

My colleagues and I are well aware of the widespread concerns about the secrecy of the family justice system. The Government announced plans to reform the family law system over two years ago, yet have since made no moves to change anything. Recently Bridget Prentice MP, the Justice Minister, once again spoke of the need to reform this important area of the justice system. Unfortunately, very little seems to have happened since then.

A number of pilots are underway aimed at giving courts the power to publish their rulings, but there are a number of questions which need to be answered before any such scheme is rolled out, including how to protect vulnerable people and children from identification, how to avoide 'trial-by-media' in high profile cases and how any restrictions on the press will be enforced. My colleagues in the Shadow Justice Team are, of course, scrutinising these pilots very carefully and examining and proposals the Government bring forwards.

In addition, my colleagues in the Shadow Justice Team and the Shadow Children, School and Families Team have established a working party to consider the family court system so that if and when we are elected, we may quickly implement the reforms that are needed.

I know that the issue of secrecy is at the forefront of their concerns and I look forward to the proposals they will make on this issue. In the meantime I will certainly make sure that my colleague Henry Bellingham, the Shadow Justice Minister and Conservative spokesman for this issue, is aware of your views.

Once again thank you for taking the time to write to me.

Greg Hands, MP.

Well good for Mr Hands for at least taking the time to reply to you & outline what is happpening behind the scenes, amethyst!

Yes it may be MP's flannel but I find it quite encouraging that at least there are SOME of us who have concerns.

Spero, having bitten my tongue thus far I have to say I find your attitude towards posters on here unbelievable. JUST the sort of attitude that gets your profession the reputation it has today. What makes you think we are" getting the full picture because you have read some newspaper articles" and therefore " are on planet mad" ????

By all means if posters are barking up the wrong tree feel free to enlighten us (as you have done) with your years of wisdom and knowledge. But also stand by to get a severe bollocking from those who have done many hours research into many different aspects of this subject, and who have seen friends and loved ones go through torment due to the continued unprofessional behaviour of some (note SOME) of your colleagues and more than there should be many feel. To deny corruption and bad practice exists is at best naive, it exists in ALL professions only most of them have regulatory bodies to oversee them and police them and the results are made public.

Sir, As a solicitor with the Sally Clark team I can testify to the way in which the justice system can be perverted to convict the innocent and destroy their families. It can prove fatal. Sally Clark died in March 2007, aged 43.

Criminal cases are conducted openly; the standard of proof is guilt beyond reasonable doubt. The public know the identity of those charged, the details of the crime, whether guilt or innocence is the result and the length of any prison term. Possible miscarriages of justice can be fully investigated and victims can voice their complaints to anybody. None of these protections of openness exist in the family courts.

Child abuse is abhorrent and children must be removed from homes where they are abused. But in family courts accusations need only be proved on the balance of probabilities and the proceedings are conducted in secret. Injustice can be caused by experts with invalid theories, social workers abusing their power and pro-prosecution courts. Secrecy guarantees that this will be allowed to continue indefinitely. Successful appeals are extremely rare. There is no legal or moral justification for secrecy. Family court appeal cases can be publicly reported and the anonymity of children ? the justification for secrecy ? is preserved by the use of initials. Their use at the original hearing would abolish the need for secrecy.

As Camilla Cavendish says in times2 (reports, July 7-9), child abuse takes two forms: adults harming children and the State wrongly taking children from loving homes. As with criminal convictions, jail is also the sentence when abuse is by servants of the State, but it is the victims ? innocent parents ? who are sent to jail if they breach the secrecy, not the perpetrators of the abuse. It is called contempt of court. This is a misnomer; it is contempt for loving mothers and fathers and contempt for the suffering of their children. No humane society should allow it to continue.

John Batt
Solicitor, Batt Broadbent
Mickleham, Surrey

Like dilemma, I've come across SWs who enjoy bullying their clients. Every 'caring' profession attracts a certain proportion of bullies who get their kicks out of wielding power over the vulnerable.

There are also SWs who are not deliberately cruel but just prejudiced to a severe degree. Or plain incompetent. Or suffer from groupthink and the latest fashion - Roy Meadows did a brilliant job convincing the whole profession that MSbP a. existed in the way he described and b. was widespread.

The Rochdale SWs presumably didn't set out to torment children - a charitable interpretation would be that they thought they were doing good and got swept away on a tide of hysteria, without stopping to consider that they were harming the very children they claimed to want to protect.

Marietta Higgs (not a SW, I know) presumably didn't set out to harm children. I imagine she got carried away with her own cleverness and pet theory. And the SWs went along with it, instead of using the brains God gave them to think 'is this likely? is there any other possible explanation?'.

A few further bits on this thread.

Firstly there is a rolling demonstration based around a Routemaster Bus next week.

Secondly the case about mental capacity has now been issued in Strasbourg. This is the one where I am having a big row with the judges about them saying a mum with an IQ of 74 is too stupid to contest proceedings to place her child for adoption.

She was not allowed to say no. There was an ECtHR case on this called X v Croatia which clarified the law, but their system - having read the judgment is nothing like as corrupt as ours.

Cheering to know that an ex-soviet country has higher standards of integrity in this area than we do.

Hmm actually it's not ex-Soviet is it. But you know what I mean. Tito wasn't exactly a democrat.