Panorama - I want my baby back

[BeyondTheLimitsOfAcceptability]

Anyone watching?

This promoting of the idea that SS want to steal babies makes me very uneasy...

If only 10% of forced adoptions are expressly without the parents consent. The other 90% apparently agreeing with the decision. Then maybe these children can be long term fostered with supervised access. The number can't be huge, but if 'hindsight' is an issue then that may be the only possibility that is fair to all.

This country is clearly out on a limb with this within the EU so I think it is time the whole system is overhauled with the emphasis still being on the balance of probabilities but without such a strong bias as there is.

I have seen the extent to which SS go to keep at risk children with parents we would all consider unsuitable. Like the drug addicted mother who sent her toddler to nursery with a burn on his arm from the fire that morning. She couldn't be bothered to take him to A&E as she had to 'scrore'. That child was already distant and not relating to her or anyone else, so harm had already been done.

I'm surprised someone has not taken this issue to the court of HR in Strasbourg but imagine their are funding issues?

Nose, you are of course right.

i hope I have never been deluded or arrogant enough to claim that I know absolutely everything that goes on or that mistakes and miscarriages of justice never happen.

Would I have challenged Prof Sir Roy Meadows in the Sally Clarke case? Probably not, I wouldn't have had a clue what was going on. Would I have realised the Websters' baby had scurvy? Not without a doctor telling me I would not.

But hopefully I can offer you reassurance to say that those of us who work in this field do it because we want to, not because we are too thick or too lacking in ambition to do anything else. My job for clients is to go through the evidence against them with a fine tooth comb - to look for discrepancies, inaccuracies, to challenge assumptions etc.

I belief that EVERY parent has a right to a fair trail over such an important issue.

But JH et al would have you believe that mistakes are made deliberately, out of malice, to earn a cash bonus. He could be agitating for change, but instead he just peddles a depressing and inaccurate negative portrayal of the whole system.

If any one is facing care proceedings, PLEASE don't listen to JH or IJ or any of the others. Read this instead.

suesspiciousminds.com/2012/08/16/what-should-you-do-if-social-services-steal-your-children/

I agree with all his blog, but I particularly agree with this

Don’t believe any of the conspiracy nonsense that all parent lawyers are pawns of the Local Authority, or lazy or crooked; some of them are smart, some are hardworking, some are inspirational, some work wonders – but no parent lawyer is ever, ever in the pocket of the Local Authority or doesn’t care about doing their best for you.

Sneezecake - the UK has often been in the Strasbourg court. Some cases it has won, some it has lost.

A particularly sad case the UK lost was when it was sued by children who had been left in the care of their mother to forage from bins for their food. the children said they should have been taken into care years before they actually were, and the ECHR agreed and awarded them substantial damages.

I realise you are an exceptionally conscientious family court barrister Spero, and that in itself is reassuring to know they are out there!

But we do desperately need to look at the way families can "come back" from cases where there hasn't been such professional and thoughtful input, other than the complaints dept of the same system, imo. Hopefully, a result of all this, and with Munby's input, might be such a change.

the focus on the law is the wrong focus, in my view.

By the time a case comes to me the family has often been through several piecemeal and unsatisfactory attempts at 'intervention'. Problems are often entrenched and the children have already suffered.

the kind of support, access to therapy etc that some families desperately need just isn't there.

the focus needs to be at a much earlier stage, helping families so they don't ever get into such a bad situation that the LA makes care application.

o and btw I don't think I am 'exceptionally conscientious' - I am pretty average for a lawyer in my field.

you can't survive doing this job if you are not going to do it properly. Solicitors won't instruct you and clients will sack you. As they should.

But thank you for saying it.

I don't believe in conspiracy theories, but I do believe in some cases (I believe rare) where incompetence and complacency play a part.

It's this that needs bringing into the open and reassessing.

It's all terrible tbh and what parent cannot say 'there but for the grace etc?'

Sneeze - I agree, but not so much with your use of word 'complacent'.

I don't think that is fair.

Mistakes are made due to incompetence, of that I have no doubt. But we need to look at the REASONS people are incompetent.

When I make mistakes it is usually because I am tired or haven't had time to read something properly, or made a mistaken assumption and didn't have time to put it right.

Case loads for SW are a really big problem.

Sneezecake, I don't think the UK is out on a limb. If anything our system is better than that in many countries. We have been hearing, for example , about how in Italy adoption is pretty rare, with the result that children stay in foster care or children's homes all their lives with no sense that anyone is their "real" mother or father.

I'm not sure that long term fostering in disputed cases is the answer either. Again, that leaves children who may already be harmed by their previous experience in limbo, possibly for years if their parents pursue several appeals. The adoption process is already quite long drawn-out and, where taking the children into care was justified, it is better for them to be placed with permanent parents as early as possible.

I accept this leaves a horrible situation where the care decision was incorrect, but I don't think leaving the children with temporary foster parents for a long time is the answer.

I think the complacency come with the medical doctors and their lack of research into medical conditions that cause fracture risks. They need to look at this more carefully. Complacent doctors cause a lot of problems (I've seen a few in action!). Arrogant and complacent would sum up the expert witness in the Sally Clark case imo

The SW are often overworked but I've always found them diligent. I can't speak for the court system directly but I've no reason to believe otherwise.

My focus is on the medical witnesses, but I accept the cases where their evidence may be flawed is very minor compared to the cases of neglect and genuine abuse. It was what the panorama focused on though the discussion here is much more wide ranging.

You're welcome Spero .

And agree both intervention and services before that is needed could be heaps better.

Out of interest though at the other end, from what you say it could still be possible to be on the receiving end of a new barrister, who then doesn't get used again if they are rubbish, and a vulnerable or trusting client may not always realise their barrister is rubbish or that they have the power to sack a barrister (if on legal aid etc), until it is too late.

Again it is a minority we're talking about, but important none the less that a family has somewhere they can take their issue, which isn't the LA if they are in dispute.

Perhaps what is missing, and is what would give me the most reassurance, is knowing there might be some sort of follow up available which is independent. To ensure whatever can be learnt from a case is taken on board, whether that is legal representation, support services, social worker, expert, or whatever. Or does something like that exist already?

Nenny. It's really a rock and a hard place. Long term fostering is not ideal, but is permanent removal and loss of contact for innocent loving parents either? Could you bear to have your child taken away when you knew you had done nothing? I am sure these cases are rare but so horrifying in a civilised society when they happen, and I am sure mistakes have been made.

I've seen SWs moving heaven and earth to get heroin withdrawing babies back with the birth mother and for the life of me I can't think why. Adoption would be far better at birth than later when harm has occurred. I am in favour of early adoption.

I couldn't bear for my child to go into foster care for life. It's a half life which should be the last resort when no other chance of a family life exists.

And long term fostering doesn't guarantee life with one foster carer - it might still involve several moves with quite possibly several school changes.

I think there isn't an alternative for making a clear decision about whether the child is safe to stay with birth family with strenuous efforts made to come to the right decision for the child.

And no if I were the parent in question I'm aware that I might prefer foster care if I could still have contact with my child but as an uninvolved bystander I have to say thats only in the best interests of the parents not in the best interests of the child.

I wish there were some way of knowing you are making the right decision and I'm heartily glad that I neither have to make a decision about the marginal cases nor do I have to be exposed to some of the abuse the majority of these children suffer.

What I really struggle to get to grips with is why adoptive parents seem to have additional rights to biological ones.

If a biological parent wrongly has their child taken away and that child is then adopted, surely the first course of action, if the reason the child was taken away is proven to be false, is to return the child to its natural parents. Now I completely understand that there will be occasions when this is not the best solution (for instance, if the child now regards their adoptive parents as their 'mummy and daddy' and does not very well remember their biological parents). I don't feel, however, that the 'rights' of the adoptive parents or how long they have waited for the child should come into it. After all, the biological parents waited for and loved that very same child and yet it was taken away for a long period. Whose rights are really paramount.

It seems really odd to me that biological parenthood can be terminated due to a mistake, yet when that mistake is found out, it is insufficient to even question the rights of the adoptive parents over the rights of the child.

I don't think adoptive parents do have additional rights Larry. It is often thought to be too much disruption to move a child again, and in their best interests to stay.

Its not about parental rights larry, as has been explained again and again.
Its about the rights of the children.

"It is often thought to be too much disruption to move a child again, and in their best interests to stay."

Thought by whom?

Again, I could understand if the case went back to the family courts and experts for both sides could put their case and then it was decided one way or the other in the best long term interests of the child. The way I understand it (from the programme) is that even if the child has been adopted for one day, regardless of whether it had been with the biological parents for several years, the adoption was final. That is clearly morally wrong and not in the best interests of the child. Please correct me if I have misunderstood?

MD,

Not explained well enough, I am afraid. I am all for the interests of the child being paramount.

Larry, you don't grasp it because you are viewing the situation through the lens of parental "rights" and not prioritising those of the child.

If the whole of the process if not child-centric then we all should give up right now. This is not about which set of adults has more "rights" over a child, but what is the better situation (emotionally) for him/her.

as soon as that is forgotten it simply becomes a process of who shouts the loudest

Thats very kind of you larry :)

is not child centric

AF,

Please read my previous post. I would happily see it re-examined by a neutral court and decided in the best interests of the child. Deciding to retain a child with adoptive parents in any situation is clearly NOT always in the best interests of the child.

No, it isn't "clear" Larry, it is your opinion like I have mine