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

I agree with Xenia's comment about most of us not being up for scrutiny on "emotional abuse". Where do you draw the line?

Maybe social workers find it easier to focus on safer emotional abuse issues than the truly horrifying physical abuse cases which include the "big stories" such as Maria Colwell, Victoria Climbe, Baby P but also many other such cases which have been going on for years and which have had much medical and academic research and attention but which seem to keep happening. In these cases the state is not nearly authoritarian enough.

I think there's a long way between most of us "not being up for scrutiny on "emotional abuse"" and accepting that there is some kind of conspiracy to take children from their parents.

I don't pretend to know where exactly to draw the line - but I might have a better idea if I was directly involved in the cases and had access to the actual evidence. I am also surprised, as ScummyMummy is, that John Hemming seems to think the judgement he posted a link to supports his argument as it seems to paint a fairly clear picture of parents - both of them - too focused on their enmity to one another to look after their child's needs.

I do agree that more openness in the family courts would be better - the judgement actual makes reference to this, too - but children deserve privacy and freedom from the sort of public dirty-linen washing that could result from total publicity. I don't know how you square that circle.

I think John Hemmings has a good argument. I just don't he has produced much evidence of it here.

I'm curious to hear if you people realize that nowhere else on this planet are so many babies and small children taken away from their parents.

That doesn't suprrise me. I bet any parent on here could be found to have emotionally abused children. My children didn't benefit that much from a pretty nasty father but no way would I have ever gone an inch near a social worker and nor do I regard the minor physical abuse he meted out as significant or reportable. Better where people are managing to let them sort these things out themselves. My sister deals with her children in a way I don't regard as acceptable but I'd never report it. My mother was pretty bad in some material areas emotionally. On the ski slopes today a father was telling his son he was stupid. It is dead easy to make out "emotional abuse". We need many fewer chldren taken away and much less power given to social workers.

ScummyMummy - the father of the baby is a different man to that who is a party to the care case. The mother was living with a different man to the father of S.

Hence I fail to understand the reason why DV from an ex-partner is good cause to keep a child in foster care particularly when a new relationship has been established.

OptimistS post is excellent. I dont know enough about the case of Child L to pass judgement, but I dont believe that children are taken into care because their mothers are victims of domestic violence UNLESS the mother is assessed as behaving in a way that is likely to put the child at risk (eg taking the violent partner back.)

If it is true that the guardian ad litum advised the mother to resume her relationship with the violent father, I would expect disciplinary action to be taken against the guardian as this was both unprofessional and reckless. Has this happened?

I do feel that as a society we are very hypocritical about social workers. It wasnt very long ago that the papers were baying for social workers blood because they didnt act, with tragic consequences.

Lastly, I dont feel the whole story was being told in the Telegraph article. They conveniently gossed over the mothers decision to resume a relationship with the violent father, and it was not mentioned how the father knew that she and the son had firstly fled to Devon. The social services are not allowed to comment, and put their evidence in the public domain.

There's nothing hypocritical in expecting SWs to distinguish between children who are suffering and sadly do need to be removed from their parents and those who aren't. That's their job. If they can't get the fundamentals right, something is pretty seriously wrong and either the SW, their boss(es) or the whole system needs to be changed.

As for "I dont believe that children are taken into care because their mothers are victims of domestic violence UNLESS the mother is assessed as behaving in a way that is likely to put the child at risk (eg taking the violent partner back.)" - have you read the thread? Especially newname's post? Do you have any basis for this belief or is it merely an assumption?

There are well-documented cases of SWs acting irrationally, including recent criticisms by judges in two instances. SW is not perfect - no system designed by human beings could ever be. Shutting our eyes to failures and insisting they don't exist is very harmful.

And as for social workers not being allowed to comment, in two recent cases it has been the council that has sought gagging orders to prevent their failures being exposed.

Panto - I dont think the system is perfect by any means, and I also dont believe that all decisions taken by SS are right.

My point was we do not have the full story here about Child L. We only have the mothers viewpoint.

So now S is not about sex change but about domestic violence from an ex-partner? I think your approach is more like point scoring than informing yourself properly. I think you have either not read the judgement or not retained the information within or simply not understood it at all.

I therefore question your previous claim to specialist knowledge:
"I look at the documentation produced by the local authority and courts. This gives me a good understanding."

I honestly think you will undermine your campaign by being under informed and not rigorously examining available evidence. That would be a shame for the children and families involved. As I have said before, those families need their advocates, of whom there are few, to be sharp and well-prepared.

I'm a social worker and have also faced my child being subject to a Section 47 (child protection) investigation.

The trigger for this was that I called the police when an argument with my ex partner got out of hand. There had been no previous history of domestic violence and my only concern at the time was that the situation was heading to the point of violence.

It was in retrospect the stupidest thing I could ever do. My child was asleep in the next room at the time of the incident but because she was under the age of 1 social services automatically became involved.

I was informed that due to local 'policy' a statutory child protection investigation would be instigated. This involved liaison with all involved agencies such as GP, nursery etc. I was also told my job could be at risk depending on the outcome of the investigation. Of course the outcome was that my child was not at risk of harm nor was a child in need.
To this day I feel furious that the circumstances of my situation were ignored due to childrens services policies. A one off incident at the end of my relationship triggered a whole chain of events that I had no control over.
I do believe domestic violence has a immensely negative impact on children and acknowledge the need to investigate situations where it exsists including my own. However policies fail to take into consideration individual circumstances.

Social workers are increasingly unable to exercise any discretion when judging individual circumstances. This will get worse as they become a more defensive and maligned profession.

The good thing about my situation is that I know now how it feels to be subject to social services intervention-and hopefully makes me a better worker

Good post, tuttyfrutty. Sorry you had such a horrible experience.

Scummy Mummy - I have never argued that S is about DV. You have argued it is about DV. Whatever DV there may have been was with a different partner to that to which the mother was married at the time.

Do you now accept that DV was not an adequate reason for the child being in care in "S".

Tuttyfrutty gives good reasons why we should be looking at the system rather than trying to blame individual practitioners.

Really thought provoking and excellent post, tuttyfruity.

I honestly think you aren't qualified to do what you're doing if you don't look at and weigh the evidence properly, johnhemming. I am not arguing that child S's case is about any one issue. I know nothing about it other than the judgement I have read. However, that judgement appears to throw up a range of serious and complex issues which I feel should not be superficially dismissed. I am surprised that you cannot recognise this and can only assume this is because you have not taken the trouble to read the judgement.

Have you read your wikipedia entry? This bit seems especially pertinent to me:

"Judge Richard Mawrey QC who heard the petition described Hemming as a "dreadful witness" and also that "his evidence was largely inadmissible hearsay. He possesses an inability to give a straight answer to a straight question"" Judge Mawrey QC did however credit Hemming being right that there was fraud present when others denied that to be the case.

Did that happen? I'm never sure whether to trust wiki as an accurate source.

However, it does sound exactly like what you are doing here- taking a very important issue where there are clear concerns that you are right to raise but then not backing them up with well argued, properly researched evidence.

Thanks for the supportive posts. I can honestly say it was the most distressing thing I've ever been through. My real fear is that such 'blanket' policies put children at increased risk-I sincerely wish I had never contacted the police to diffuse my situation.

I am a social worker and even I was shocked at the automatic child protection investigation one phone call generated.

I understand that social work is an extremely difficult job which inevitably can have some bad outcomes. However I niavely believed that the job involved weighing up the information and evidence and then intervening at a level judged proportionate.

The social workers posting here should try to internally digest what tuttyfrutty is saying. The system is the problem rather than individuals. It results in a failure to protect children as well.

Partial quotations from the judgment in respect of the Aston Election Court. What is relevant is:

The whole quote is:

706. I feel Mr Hemming deserves a mention. True, he was a dreadful witness. His evidence was largely inadmissible hearsay. He possesses an inability to give a straight answer to a straight question which would be the envy of a national politician appearing on the Today programme.

707. But, when all that is said and done, Mr Hemming was right and his critics were wrong. He said that there was massive, Birmingham-wide electoral fraud by the Labour Party and there was in fact massive, Birmingham-wide electoral fraud by the Labour Party. He may have played the part of Cassandra but, like Cassandra, his prophesies were true. He emerges from the case with credit which is more than can be said for those police officers who treated his complaints as no more than Operation Gripe

Hearsay

Funny thing this..the social services are allowed to use hearsay as 'evidence'

LOL

One rule for one....

That's a lot better when you see the full quotation! You should edit your wiki page. Do you think you are generally someone who sees a wider issue and doesn't pay attention to details, especially if they don't help your argument?

I think the only child protection social worker posting on this thread is tuttyfruity herself and I'm sure she has already internally digested her own message.

Whats your interest in this scummy mummy? Are you a social worker or a lawyer? i thought that you were a 28 years old student teacher with 3yo twins, is that correct? Have you been in the care system yourself as a child? are you perhaps a foster carer or have worked with abused children? have you worked with womens aid or other DV organisations? have you suffered DV yourself and knwo the system as a client?

you have a lot of interesting opinions on this subject and i would love to know what your experince is?

No, that is not accurate, kristingle. I think you must have been looking at very old posts! I've been on mumsnet too long, clearly... I'm an adult social worker and work in a multidiscipliary community mental health team. I have also worked in schools and refuges in the past and with children with disabilities. I have no specialist knowledge of the child protection system/courts at all. I guess my interest is general. These are such important issues for children and their families. I really think all the evidence needs to be looked at really carefully and a balanced decision made on a case by case basis.

great cv there scummy. shame you have to post it to have an opinion.

hay ho

Do you think you are generally someone who sees a wider issue and doesn't pay attention to details, especially if they don't help your argument?
No. What I tend to do is to concentrate on the key issues. Also I don't accept nonsense even if it is in an expert's report.

The dreadful paragraph 19 that makes the nonsensical suggestion that adoption for an 8 year old boy is best best option is the one to concentrate on viz:

"19. In their summary assessment, which by now included M, the assessment team made the following findings and recommendations in response to issues raised in the letter of instruction.

a) Overall S appears to be functioning well. He appears to be a remarkably resilient little boy who has adapted to his experience of emotional abuse, neglect and distortion of reality over a long period of time.
b) We have one serious concern with regard to his emotional welfare. S can be emotionally guarded and is clearly sensitised to others' wishes and feelings.
c) Although S clearly stated that he wished to live with his mother he was unable or unwilling to provide any positive descriptions of what his relationship with her was like beyond its 'nice' to be with her.
d) Observation of the relationship between S and his mother suggested a disorganised attachment system. There was only a low level of reciprocity between S and his mother.
e) The difficulty in the relationship between S and his father stems from the father's own emotional personality regulation difficulties. S still wishes that his parents will get back together but does not express a wish to live with his father.
f) The assessment indicates that the mother is aware of some of S's needs and can list these as a need to socialise, have a routine, boundaries and a sense of belonging. However, her awareness seems concrete and sometimes relates back to her own needs. There is a strong sense that S's needs continue to be about her own needs.
g) Overall there has been no significant improvement in mother's insight/approach to S since July 2006. Significant improvements are not possible while the mother continues to be of the opinion that much of the previous judgments has been wrong or exaggerated. She does not accept the final judgment and she minimises and excuses and blames others. The mother did not accept that she needed to make changes to her parenting.
h) The mother's new husband, M, was an unknown quantity. He could be a negative or a positive influence. He presented as well meaning but blinkered. He was closely aligned with the mother's position.
i) The intended measures of change were insufficiently tightly described in the care plan and did not target S's emotional welfare or the neglected issues. The mother was given a number of targets to achieve and she has failed to do this on a consistent basis. S has a very high need for consistency.
j) It is in S's best interest for these proceedings, which have been long and drawn out, to be final.
k) The conflict between the parents is unlikely to change in any substantial way and, with either parent, S is likely to experience split loyalties, to be hyper vigilant, untrusting of adults and cautious not to upset anyone.
l) The father does not accept the need for change.
m) The father requires long term psychotherapy for his narcissistic and histrionic personality traits.
n) We do not consider it advisable to return S to the care of either parent.
o) Contact with father and mother should be supervised and should be suspended in the event that either parent is unable to contain feelings about foster carers, each other, social services or other professionals.
p) S needs stability, predictability, security and permanency as well as his emotional, educational and basic care needs being met. Adoption would give S the best possible opportunity for permanency.
q) Long term foster placement would not offer S the same chances of permanency as adoption, but would be an appropriate alternative. There is a risk of the (current foster) placement being undermined by the parents and the court process. There is a danger that this pattern would be repeated in any foster care placement unless the parents change significantly."

Madness.