Domestic Abuse and Care Proceedings - the AWR case (another mum on the run)

[johnhemming]

Hopefully this won't happen to any of the readers, but another mum on the run story has been publicised in the Sunday Telegraph

Here
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/3868100/Mother-flees-abroad-with-her-son-to -escape-social-workers.html

I have put additional information on my weblog here
johnhemming.blogspot.com/2008/12/arw-mum-on-run-with-her-children.html

This is a case which will interest anyone who is looking at how to contest Hague Convention proceedings in public family law.

I know of two cases like this. The other one has been publicised in The Times, but I cannot find it at the moment.

Camilla Cavendish has also written about DV/DA and Care proceedings
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/camilla_cavendish/article5050750.ece

AWR - I watched your video. Sad stuff.

But why did you take your partner back though? After fleeing from him once, just on the recommendation of CAFASS. Was it just because they suggested this would be a way to get your children back? Are you pissed off with them for issuing this kind of advice?

JohnHemming - who are you and what is your connection to AWR? I haven't seen you around before, wondered why you had chosen to post this? Hope you don't mind me asking.

NN perhaps if the housing market crashes completely you can come back to the UK. I can't believe what you've been through with your ds on top of everything else!

beanie - all I can say from my own experience, is that when you are in this situation, you are just so emotionally involved, that you rely to a great extent on the advice you get from other people.

(Sleighgirl, on the minus side, I still have savings in the UK, which have fallen relative to the euro. On the plus side, my euro savings are now worth more in the UK!!
yes, Im hoping to be able to afford a house though one day)

I do get that NighbyNight but having made the choice to escape from a violent relationship and get sorted surely returning to it is not the wisest move however emotionally attached you are. I think it was stupid advice from CAFCASS who are supposed to support victims of domestic violence, surely not encorage people back into situations where the violence may re-occur!

agree it was not the best advice. But having been near this situation myself, I don't judge AWR badly - I am sure that she just wanted her child.

I also recognise the pressure to prove that you are a perfect parent. Really hope it goes well for AWR from now onwards.

John Hemming is a Liberal MP who has been campaigning on this issue.

Thank goodness.

He's googleable but I'm rubbish at links tonight.

www.john.hemming.name/
johnhemming.blogspot.com/

As I chair Justice for Families a lot of people contact me who have problems with the Child Protection Industry. We have a number of volunteers who help in the court processes.

AWR is one of over 500 people who have contacted me and I am working with her and her son to try to stop him being arrested and placed in foster care in England.

I know John Hemming of old (though I am incognito here, John) and you can be sure nobody is pulling the wool over his eyes, nor is he doing this for his personal political gain.

I'm sure he would be happy for me to describe him as a maverick who fights for what he thinks is right. He is a very clever man and I am very glad someone as persistent as him is speaking up on this issue. And he's clearly still on the ball as he has chosen to come on mumsnet.

He has campaigned on this issue for a number of years and is well respected in this field.

How the hell are you, John?

There is no possibility at all of any political gain from campaigning on behalf of families unfortunate enough to have come up against bizarre social work witch hunts. Quite the reverse.

The bosses - senior managers and directors - who were responsible for failing Victoria Climbie were promoted while a junior social worker was hung out to dry. The Rochdale social workers who tormented children in pursuit of their own esoteric theories are still working despite their own recordings proving they lied to the courts.

People who fall into line get kudos and promotion and respect and positions of influence in national policy-making. People who ask reasonable, sensible questions are threatened, bullied, harassed and stand to lose their jobs.

Happened to someone I know who is one of the most eminent doctors in the country when he dared to ask whether the draconian behaviour of SWs to one of his patients was proportionate. If they can try to threaten HIM into shutting up, what chance does anyone else stand?

Doesn't the court judgement on your link worry you though, johnhemming? It describes serious emotional abuse to child S from both parents, as far as I can see. Are you claiming it's all wrong? Are you sure you are not doing the very thing that it has been recently claimed leads to social workers making critical errors, namely sticking to your first hypothesis in the face of important evidence to the contrary?

AWR, I am Irish and I sincerely hope SW here will treat you more justly than in the UK and help you fight your corner. You sound like you've been through hell on earth.

Hi johnhemming nice to see you on here
I have met you at a meeting held in birmingham about 2 yrs ago.. how is freebird from fassit do you know?
Haven't been online for some time so missed a lot
Last time i heard she had the baby and had pissed the ss off by taping them. Hope she is ok.
Pleased to see you are still on the case too with the ss lol

Most emotional abuse social workers come up with is a load of rubbish. I suspect any of us if analysed with social workers with closed minds could have our children taken away, even me as a lawyer with five children. It's not hard to make out these supposed emotional abuse things. Women do it all the time to deny fathers contact post divorce and a few men with money and luck are able to deprive children of their mothers post divorce on the same grounds. In most cases children are better off with parents, full stop and although we've all ready the recent cases of true physical abuse so so many children are not allowed to stay with the parent (or see the other parent in a divorce situation on very spurious grounds.

My father who was a psychiatrist usd to say the forecast for most children in care is so very very dire (more likely to end up in prison than university etc and to be abusd in care) it's even worth the child suffering some physical abuse than being removed from the parents which I know is a very controversial view (and he never did child work) but I suspect in some cases even there a child is better with a parent.

I don't believe that any young (especially pre-school age)child suffering physical abuse should be left with the parent/guardian. If physical abuse at this age has come to light, then it is likely to be serious and the chances are that a lot more has gone on behind the scenes. This would of course entail emotional abuse as well. When children are older, at least they have the chance to speak up if they are given the right opportunity.

Emotional abuse alone is a much more vague issue, and I would be worried about this as a grounds for removing children.

Except in very clear cut cases I agree emotional abuse is a big of a vague concept that is all down to interpretation. When I read John's link to the judgment I think the report said something that you could easily view as the child basically being too close to his mother, as if that was a bad thing.

bit

I suppose I have the advantage in dealing with the "S" case (where dad was imprisoned) in that I also have a DVD from the family where they now are (although I don't know where that is).

The phrase used in S31 of the 89 act is "risk of signifant harm".

Placing a child into care in itself creates a well evidenced "risk of significant harm." The objective of the system should be to improve the well being of children.

I would wish to see some proper research to give an evidence base in terms of outcomes for state intervention with the hammer of care orders for emotional abuse, before being willing to support it.

I follow a number of cases (S being one) where the actions of the state are clearly doing more harm than good.

We have perhaps the most authoritarian system of child protection. We also have one of the worst records in terms of protecting children for a "western economy". (according to Unicef and that was before the recent increase in deaths).

Another thing we are bad at is doing proper research as to outcomes from interventions.

Going slightly off-topic here, as I am more interested in the DV aspect than the court proceedings side, but it is directly linked to this case.

I was with my abusive X for 6 years. I left him when my twins were 4 months old. As I called the police, I was automatically assigned a social worker. She was absolutely lovely; very supportive and understanding. At the same time, however, she made it very clear that, should I get back with my X, I would have a SW assigned to me for the forseeable future and it was possible my children would be removed. In my case, as I had no intention whatsoever of a reconciliation, the case was closed quite quickly.

My point is this: It is only now ? 2 years after the breakup, a lot of soulsearching later, and after a lot of reading on abuse ? that I recognise what really happened in my relationship. I hope this doesn't sound as though I am condemning abused women as bad parents, because god knows they have to go through so much already and through no fault of their own. However, it has to be accepted that children do not have to be the target of DV or even directly witness it, in order to suffer from DV. If you live with an abusive partner, your children are exposed to it no matter how hard you try to protect them - they pick up on atmosphere and the parents' emotions even if they do not actually witness violence or arguments. Also, the abused partner usually alters their behaviour in order to keep the peace, which is also witnessed by the children who will come to see these relationship dynamics as normal, at least (hopefully) until they are older and can see that other relationships do not work in this way. An abusive household is no place to bring up children. End of. For me, having children allowed me to see my relationship from an objective perspective for the first time, and it was the push I needed to end the relationship. Sadly, for many victims, having children just secures the net around them ever more tightly.

I'd like to see some clear-cut objectives for SWs dealing with children in abusive relationships. First and foremost, this has to be about educating victims about why the relationship is so unhealthy not only to them but also to their children. And it absolutely MUST be backed up with adequate support to allow victims and their children to leave an abusive partner. At the moment, the current refuge system, while admirable, is far short of what it could be. The thought of communal living, losing all personal and material possessions, facing weeks without any income before any benefits claims go though - this is enough to make the thought of leaving untenable to many.

Children must come first, before the parents. However, in most cases, supporting the parents is in everyone's best interests, including the child. The financial burden on SS is less if the child can stay with its natural parent rather than be put into care. The child suffers less emotional damage if it can stay with one loving parent rather than be put into care.

SWs need a lot more education about DV. Victims of it need support rather than persecution, though if they still refuse to protect their children from an abusive partner, than sadly the child should be removed. However, to condemn victims to this fate before going to the trouble of providing them with adequate support to leave, is very unfair - not only on the victim, but also to the child. And also to society at large, which then has to pick up the pieces.

We have a huge DV problem in this country. It is believed it is going to get worse as we go through recession. Whether it is worse now than it ever was is debatable, but that doesn't alter the fact that it is unacceptable and that we have a duty to reduce it. I believe we need far greater punishments for perpetrators, but it is more vital to improve the quality of life and education for victims and children. The more children removed from this situation, the more chance they have of growing up able to recognise these situations and avoid future perpetrators like the plague, so sparing future generations this particular heartbreak.

Excellent post, OptimistS.

The judgement says that psychologists had assessed both parents as being unable to put their child's needs first. Isn't that exactly what psychologists identified regarding Karen Matthews, though their findings were ignored?

I take people's point about a significant number of children in care suffering poor outcomes and that is a terrible, shameful thing. It does not mean that emotional abuse is necessarily made up or trivial, however.

I hope there is a happy outcome for S in this case.

But I think if psychologits and social workers got their hands on most of us they could make out a case to take our children away. It's done far too easily and if reporting a violent partner means social workers get involved then I can see why some women (and men - plenty of men suffer DV by the way) choose not to go down that route.

Also so many people say something is abuse when it isn't. It's a word which is abused.

There should be much greater reluctance to order a parent not to see a child.

Of course no one is perfect in their parenting, Xenia. But there is no conspiracy to remove children from good-enough parents, afaik. I think and hope that there is still great reluctance to order that a parent does not see their child, on the whole. And it's not in anyone's interest to make a case for removing a child unless it is believed in good faith on all the available evidence that the child is suffering/has suffered/will suffer genuine harm. I think the judgement indicates that a range of professionals felt in good faith that child S was suffering genuine harm from both his parents over a significant period of time.

I think more transparency is going to swing both ways in terms of opening the pubic's eyes to the family court system. I clicked on the judgement link fearing the worst given the outcry over this case. But in actual fact I felt that the issues highlighted regarding this child certainly gave legitimate and serious cause for concern. Unless the judgement is a tissue of lies, I think it is absolutely right that S was made the subject of child protection proceedings. If things have changed and his mother is now able to meet his needs then that is great and I hope they will be able to stay together but it sounds like that hasn't always been the case and by no means solely because she was the victim of domestic violence.

ScummyMummy - I think you have confused the two cases. L is about DV/DA and S is about Sex change.

johnhemming- have you actually read the judgement you have linked to on your own blog regarding child S? The mother's claims of domestic violence perpetrated by the father are first documented in paragraph 2 and continue throughout. The father's sexual identity problems and seriously disordered personality traits are also mentioned as issues, as is the mother's persistent failure to put her child's needs ahead of her own. I'm afraid your grasp of the case seems rather superficial. "S is about sex change" is not really a good enough summary, in my opinion, and is not based on a rigorous examination of the evidence, as should be expected from an MP. You appear to be sure everything is hunky-dory with this family and that the child protection professionals and courts are in the wrong based solely on your viewing of a dvd, as far as I can gather.

I think it is a very good thing that there are people such as MPs and journalists championing greater transparency of our courts and child protection services. There is always scope for improvement and in some areas vast improvement is needed. However, I am concerned at your lack of research and your apparent failure to grasp that these are complex cases, often without easy answers. The children and families concerned deserve their "champion" to be well informed, at the very least.