Mum on the run goes to Spain

[johnhemming]

This is a story of a couple going to spain to avoid the removal of a baby at birth.

I know concern in parliament about the failures of the family courts is growing. However, there really should not be any toleration of a system whereby people have to emigrate to avoid the removal and adoption of their children.

I track a lot of cases that are not in the media. It really is that bad.

Staggerlee - yes it was Dittany that I was suggesting should "get over it"NOT the parents and children caught up in the scandal. I think my post of today's date timed at 11.52 a.m. made that quite clear but of course Dittany has chosen to completely ignore that for whatever reason. I think she just likes a fight and I have refused to be drawn into this with her before and will do so again. Why is she SO obsessed with the fact that MSBP is now called by something different...........oh no I don't really want to know.

I did think the thread was starting to become more reasonable with your posts and wannabe and Cory and a few others and JH was getting exposed for what he is, but now Dittany has emerged I think it time for another rest.

I'm not thick-skinned enough to wade into this debate, but next year David Southall may be granted leave to appeal the decision to strike him off. The case involved was pretty complex and was not examined by a judge with much experience of family law.

There's no black and white in this complicated area of life. Some parents hurt their kids, the vast majority don't, but in a small number of cases it can be incredibly difficult to tell the two apart.

The primary reason mistakes are made is because the water is very muddy, rather than because people are pursuing a malicious agenda.

[NB The below is only part of the full article]

Published 21 October 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b4343
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;339:b4343

Southall wins right to have his arguments heard for appealing against GMC decision to strike him off

Clare Dyer

The child protection paediatrician David Southall has won an important Appeal Court ruling in his battle to overturn a decision by the UK General Medical Council striking him off the medical register.

Two judges ruled that his application for permission to appeal against a High Court judgment upholding the decision should be heard by a full three judge Court of Appeal, including a judge with a background in the High Court?s family division, which will also hear arguments from the GMC against granting him the go ahead to appeal.

There is a valid question as to whether someone should be struck off as a doctor for talking rubbish in the courts or merely prevented from acting as an expert witness.

Dittany, there are a number of other posters on this thread-not all social workers-who are critical of jh. Why focus on Nananina?

I would suggest if you feel its helpful to point the finger of blame that you do it towards the right profession-at the time Meadows/Southalls theories were endorsed by the medical profession. Surely you aren't suggesting that social workers are responsible for flawed medical theory as well as baby snatching?

" .. Surely you aren't suggesting that social workers are responsible for flawed medical theory as well as baby snatching?.."

Let's be totally honest about what social workers are responsible for, they are there to protect the vulnerable in society, there are the bastions of the principle that the best interests of the child should be paramount to anything else, this is what society expects, this is why people get into social work.

But what's happened over the last few decades is not 'protection' it is mass hysteria, someone comes up with some off the wall ludicros idea such as Witchcraft or MSBP and the social worker sector blindly grab the ball and run with it.

Let's be honest about David Southall and Roy Meadows, they came up with a money making agenda, where the put themselves up as 'experts' in the family court senario, latching onto MSBP and basically accused a whole generation of mothers of being mentally afflicted with the rarest of alledged mental illness, they carried on this scam whilst being paid quite handsomely for their 'expertise'.

This we have seen again with Richard Gardner and his discredited PAS scenario.

But, why do people still bring it up, because it's still very relevant, when social services change the name from MSBP to FII to factitious disorder in order to 'latch' onto a diagnosis which has already been discredited under it's 'birth' name, in order to take a child into care.

So MSBP IS still being used, albeit under a psuedoname.

Now, can we blame the sw's for this, yes, it's been discredited, so why is it still being used, looked at as a rational or even talked about in context of the courts, by sw's.

And as for the blame game and sw's being so thorough, how come a sw can look at a parents file and say to themselves, 'hmm, this fits with MSBP, FII, Factitious disorder' send a copy to a shrink for a 'confirmation' without the parent ever actually being assessed in person and that diagnosis is then used in court.

Atlantis, I'm a social work manager in a mental health team. I can assure you that the term factitious disorder is a medical term included in the ICD 10 (diagnostic classification system used in British psychiatry).

Social Services did not change the name in order to latch onto a diagnosis to take children into care. Again distortions based on nothing but your own prejudice

You are also suggesting that social workers diagnose facitious disorder and involve 'shrinks' to rubber stamp the diagnosis?? What evidence do you have for this? Absolutely none because it just doesn't happen

" What evidence do you have for this? Absolutely none because it just doesn't happen "

I'll tell you what staggerlee, you get those courts open to public scrutiny and I will show you all the evidence that has been compiled over the years.

It serves your purpose to say that sw's can't defend themselves because of the law, but neither can decent parents who have been shat all over by sw's... yet.

FII and MSbP have happened. The problem is that what is actually a rare situation is then used at times when doctors don't know what is causing symptoms.

This also happens when children are obese and when underweight. I accept entirely that both situations can give rise to concerns, it is the issue as to how the situation is handled that is key.

It causes me concern that a medic who raises a concern can then get a many thousand pounds expert witness fee for repeating that concern in court. That does give rise to another conflict of interest. I know of one expert who got a fee of £28,000 for a family court report in Cambridgeshire.

Normally these sorts of care proceedings are initiated by medics.

A lot of money can be made.

Dittany,

Yes they said Fran 'could' develope MSBP.

That was diagnosed by a doctor who had never met her.

The staggering word's that sw's use;

Could

May

Might

it's these precognative crimes of parents who have and probably never will do anything wrong that is so disgusting.

In Fran Lyon's case the psychiatrist who had actually met her did not think that she posed any risk to her child. The suggestion that she was at risk of MSbP to the extent that she couldn't even be allowed to breastfeed her daughter or spend time in a mother and baby unit came from social services and a psychiatrist who had never met her.

Fran and Molly have subsequently been assessed by the Swedish version of social services who have found absolutely no need for concern.

I have personal experience of social worker's making rulings based upon what may have happened or what could happen but, as in my own experience the 'may' and the 'could' proved to be pretty well founded although unevidenced, I am happy with the decisions they made in retrospect. What I am deeply unhappy about is the way the rulings they made impacted upon existing familial difficulties and yet no further support was offered and no mechanisms put in place to deal with the additional pressures their rulings created. This is what I refer to when I speak of the lack of resources, experience and empathy.

Personally, I feel that SS are so acutely aware of their failings and inability to do the job well that this creates a preference for dismissing the CAF procedures and continuing to exploit the 'need to know' basis upon which information is shared. To work in partnership with transparency would improve services for families but expose the degree to which CSF fail and fail and fail again.

Every Child Matters is a farce as far as CSF is concerned.

" Every Child Matters is a farce as far as CSF is concerned."

Every child matters is a farce in everyway but then look at the team behind it and there's little doubt why.

Minister Margaret Hodge [shivers].

I think the point is being missed over again as so many people are trying to score it. Parents do harm their children by pretending that they require treatment. Ime it is really rare and I've only heard of one in over 10 years. In this case there was overwhelming medical evidence and a witness to the harm, so there was substantial evidence to point to this. However, Im not stupid enough to think that mistakes don't happen. None of the SWs here have ever said that. What we have all said is that there is NO conspiracy here based on a misunderstanding of adoption targets or fees for experts. Of course we condemn harm to families and most of all children, but this does not mean that we are responsible as individuals on this forum, or as members of the profession, so to make us targets is totally unhelpful and puts me off contributing.

Not sure how Caf fits here, it is not an assessment for CP purposes.

It is not the pracitioners that are evil. It is the system that is evil. A system responsible for making subtle and important judgments is driven by mathematical formulae as to outcome.

This is the consequentialist nightmare. The most monstrous part is that one of the key formulae was wrongly calculated (viz the adoption target). Hence the system was driven to process children through to adoption. All the money went towards this both in hypothecated grants and PSA target funding.

If any area requires a deontologial perspective this area does.

Atlantis, professionals have to use words such as 'could' and 'may'. Our jobs are to try and predict probable harm on the basis of the information and history available to us. We also rely heavily on other 'expert' opinion such as medical.

The alternative is that we deal in absolutes, events which have happened and get criticised by people like you for not intervening sooner.

Actually CAF fits entirely since it is preventative stage work - joined up, cohesive, partnership (however you wish to phrase it) work - that would help to stem the flow into levels 3 and 4. It is precisely this lack of recognition that leaves children underprotected and families unsupported.

If we all accept that Social Services are impossibly tasked with protecting children without the means to do so due to the sheer volume of demand, isn't early support for families crucial to those already at CP level?

It doesn't suprise me greatly to see my mention of CAF questioned, as I deal with this every day in trying to support families who will almost inevitably go on to see their children inadequately provided for by CP services because they were not assisted in turning their own lives around before it became too late.

I level some of this criticism at PCTs also - particularly mental health services.

"risk of significant harm" is the key phrase in legislation. (as will as actual significant harm)

The difficulty is one of how the certainty is deveolped. The phrase in ECHR is "necessary in a democratic society ... for the protection of health and morals"

The Strasbourg court's interpretation of this is massively more narrow than the Court of Appeal.

I spent some time this morning preparing a further human rights appeal for the case known as the RSPCA case. My refugee (Senator Stuart Syvret) did have a good copy oof Human Rights Practice from the Jersey parliament, but sadly that has gone back now. I hence used a less detailed reference book. However, is is quite clear that England is way out on a limb in almost encouraging state intervention in family life.

But 'evil' has such a nice ring to it! I agree that this terminology is offputting, unhelpful and a word of advice here jh, makes you seem a bit beyond the realms of reasonableness.

I think we can all agree that the system is less than perfect as all systems are, but there are some sensible suggestions for reform from Nananina on other threads and IMO jh has a few good ideas, but some bonkers ones too- bit of a curate's egg because IMO again, his starting point is wrong.