One Flue Over The Shepherd's Hut - Discuss The Archers Here

[PseudoBadger]

I do hope Lynda has a carbon monoxide monitor in there...

Exactly Beau!

Maybe going through the Courts about Henry will bring some of Knob's background to light!

I stopped listening to TA when Rob - as expected- awoke from the dead. Now I just check on here to see where SL is going, & so far it seems to tally with what most of us guess. Once we knew Rob was going to leave hospital, we also knew Rob would soon be living at BH with Arsula & Henry.

And I guess that situation - ie Rob & Arsula mentally abusing Henry will now becomes the focus of the SL for the next few months.😱😱

I've rediscovered R4 extra & make sure I'm listening to that at relevant times. I feel a lot better now that Im not shouting at the radio every evening😀

At least pat is waking up and beginning to see what she's dealing with. I expect rob and Ursula will block contact which will go in Pats favour

"Bizarrely Rob seems completely powerless when he's around Ursula"

It's not bizarre at all. It's been clear for ages that anything bad has to be a woman's fault. Grrrrrr

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Days with no access to the thread and the first thing when I get back is AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

fucking story line. just as it was getting all back to normal. now the computer is working I will check in to see if I want to listen to the repeats or not.

I've just read up on parental responsibility. I am extremely irritated with Helen for letting that happen. She is Henry's mother and she had misgivings and went ahead. I wonder at this moment if either Helen or Rob should have responsibility for Henry. Perhaps he should go to a foster family for a little while for his own safety.

I know men are supposed to be wily bastards (controlling ones anyway) but how on earth did Helen manage that one. She's been a bit fragile in her time bit she comes from good, loving people and was not vulnerable I the way that so many women are.

Appreciate I will probably get a flaming for that.

For all those criticising Pat, have you never worried sick about a grown up child and convinced yourself there is a reasonable explanation. I'm not even thinking of massively bad stuff but just a bit of teenage angst, etc.

But still, I can't understand why they want Henry. (Unless it is to engineer a straight swap with SOK.) He isn't a Titchener and they must surely think the Archers are bad blood. Getting the poor child's mother locked up for attempted murder seems a rather roundabout way of acquiring a child.

(So I guess the next outrage will be the changing of Henry's surname?

We don't need to asume that Rob has a previously undisclosed criminal record, although he might - that hunt saboteur incident might not have been the first of its type. However, I thought it was entirely in character that he decided against adoption in favour of getting parental responsibility. He hates being told what to do by other people and he can't stand being questioned. If I understand correctly, he would have been unable to adopt Henry without going through months of extensive interviews with social workers, who would then report to the court. Helen would have been interviewed too - would Ursula and Bruce have gone under the microscope? Experienced social workers might well have picked up on something. In Rob's terms that would have been 'PC dogooding over-feminised jobsworths who know nothing about the real world having the damned cheek to tell me what I can and can't do with my own wife and son and insinuate that I'm not looking after your properly! Lot of red tape and stupidity when we can just go to the magistrate and get it sorted out in five minutes if you agree that I can have parental responsibility, which you do, don't you, darling? You can see I'm right, can't you...' Didn't we in fact get a fair chunk of that speech?

Except, Beau, Helen was vulnerable. Extremely so. Rob chose his victim well.

Still not listening.

Does anyone think that SOC is a member of "Families need Fathers"? He certainly seems to be on the side of the Menz

... Rob is going to dress up as Batman and climb Lower Loxley, to demand to be given his baby, after SOK is born so that Helen can't keep the baby with her in prison.

Well, its as likely as the current storyline!

Henry being happily settled with Rob and Ursula negates any defence in court that H was acting to protect her child.

The more he can portray the stabbing as the act of a mentally unbalanced woman having a psychotic episode, the better his chances of getting custody of the baby.

There's no evidence at all that Rob was abusing Henry. Bunny in the bin could be put down merely to different views on parenting. In fact, with H being sent upstairs to rest all the time, Rob and Ursula have been doing a lot more parenting than H over the last few months. And P&T have been gradually marginalised.

I'm really shocked that it's so easy to become a legal parent to a child tbh.

The Archers has just tweeted: Wondering how Rob's allowed to see Henry? As they're both witnesses for the prosecution, there's no legal reason why he can't. Looks like they've taken legal advice on this point, then.

I don't think we have to assume that the production team is on Rob's side. They are showing (hamfistedly, I agree) how difficult it is for an abused woman and her family to get fair treatment from the legal system. I would still much prefer that they had chosen to have Rob escalate the violence, not Helen, as it would have been so much more probable, but we are where we are. SmallLegsOrSmallEggs has said several times now that Pat and Tony don't have a chance of getting Henry back, and I think that's what they are building up to.

Perhaps he's been placed back at BHC so that thy can behave badly towards him, and be the vocal victim that Helen cannot be? Will be horrible listening, but could be a chance for Helen.

I bet soc is having wet dreams about this sl tbh. Unrelenting misery. What could be more his style?

A few posters have questioned why Henry as a witness is allowed to see Rob but not Helen. Because Helen is the one who has been charged with a criminal offence and is the only party (apart from the Crown) to proceedings. Rob and Henry are both witnesses, and of course Rob is also the poor unfortunate victim of an attempted murder.
The only thing that can stop Rob seeing Henry is if a family court decides there are very good reasons not to see him - and I don't think the evidence is there.

More stuff from TA blog about parental rights.

Rob is grooming Henry so that when Helen's case comes to Court Henry will tell the jury that Daddy is wonderful and Mummy is a loony who shouted all the time.

Yes ... That's more joined up thinking than I've been able to manage Thymeout. (I've been too busy filling in my application to Felpersham Uni for the M.St in Advanced Handwringing ...)

Henry is effectively a hostage.

One thing which I don't understand: if adoption requires such stringent enquiries, why does "parental responsibility", which seems (in Ambridge at least) to be nearly equivalent, require nothing of the sort?

Gruach

As I understand it, parental responsibility applications are for situations exactly like Helen's (without the abuse) - one parent has the children living with her/him, moves a new partner in, wants the new partner to have full rights to make parental decisions. Not something to agree to lightly, but if the relationship was healthy it would be a good idea.

Adoption is designed for situations where the new parents have no previous relationship with the child. I know that isn't always how it is, but usually. So it's understandable that more detailed enquiries have to be made.

In the PR case, the law assumes that the parent has made all the preliminary enquiries and is happy that the new partner is a fit and proper person to become the other parent. All fine, except where the new partners is abusive.

Can I please just apologise for my language tonight. I need to channel my inner Linda Snell

vaara - you can say fucking as much as you like, but you're lucky no-one's pulled you up on the correct spelling of Lynda.

If the Henry situation goes to court, surely it will be awarded to Rob? I mean, what possible case can Pat & Tony make (with evidence that the court will accept as more than hearsay), while the mother is locked up for attempted murder, and the father is living in the family home?

Step parent adoption is different though - my understanding is the child has no further relationship with the birth parent but obviously still with the other parent.
It seems ideal for a single parent by choice situation.