Panorama - I want my baby back

[BeyondTheLimitsOfAcceptability]

Anyone watching?

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

Google Ian Joseph and his Golden Rules if you want to feel a little bit sick.

He is close associate of John Hemming.

he is extremely dangerous, particularly with regard to his advice if you think your child is being sexually abused.

Please, please anyone out there think very carefully before accepting any help from him.

And now I really must go to bed. Good night all.

Night, spero.

bunchoffives. I split up with my ex partner in april. SW got involved beggining of May. Tested positive for opiates in May and my son was born in June. I did eat warburtons 5 seeded batch bread allot (was a craving) that has poppy seeds in it. I wasn't just tested for opiates it was the routine urine test u do when u see the midwife. But when SS are involved ur also drugs tested. I never new at that time poppy seeds showed up as an opiate.

The average assesment is 12 weeks although can be extended mine was shorter. A LA can get bonuses of 2mil read this

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-511609/How-social-services-paid-bonuses-snatch-babies-adoption.html

3000-4000 adoptions a year, most without parental consent, is NOT a massive scale. There are about 70,000 children in care altogether, adoptions are a small fraction. It's a small number

If we didn't use adoption, the children would be shunted from foster home to foster home to care home for all their childhood. Which I'm sure is what happens in some other western European countries. Like Ireland. MN has some Irish posters who are very vocal about the awful state of the care system in Ireland and how abused children are denied the opportunity for a proper family through adoption and are shunted round care till 18 while they develop ever increasing emotional difficulties. It's not good

Most people aren't as lucky as me and don't get to go into a family assessment centre though as the places are limited

If sum1s abused a child they don't deserve to have their child but I believe if its a case of 'at risk of emotional harm' without really allot of evidence a parent should never lose the right to stop fighting for their child. I believe forced adopted is barbaric its been proven children always do better at home with their parents. Some just need support.

Ailee whilst Tony Blair introduced the idea of giving money to LA's who manage to find adoptive homes for the children they had in their care, these rewards were scrapped in 2008

Adoption targets have NOT existed since 2008

They are irrelevent in 2013

Children do not always do better at home. Every child who dies proves it. Every child removed from a life of physical and sexual abuse and hideous gross neglect but we never hear about it

My children are adopted. My eldest is now 28 and she is very glad to have been adopted against the wishes of her birth parents. Adoption has been something amazing in her life

We have to acknowledge the value of a new and truly permanent family in the life of a child who can never go back to their birth parents because no manner of support will ever change things

Thanks for the extra info AileeB.

God that's frightening though isn't it: that you can test positive for opiates just by eating something with poppy seeds in it. I was just thinking I often buy a French stick covered with poppy seeds from Sainsburys.

How did you find out that it was the poppy seeds that gave the positive result?

Yet, as you say Lilka there are about 70,000 children in care altogether, adoptions are a small fraction.

Sadly, the reality is that children are put in care and can end up as severely traumatised as if they'd been left neglected at home. I'm not sure what the answer is but I do think removal has got to pass some really really stringent evidence tests to be considered the best alternative. Preferably one where vit D deficiency or eating poppy seeds can't be mistaken for stringent evidence.

bunchoffives after I tested positive I googled false positives and its very well known in america! In fact in america its one of the things they ask u about b4 testing. Prisoners and people in rehab can't eat them as they give the false positive. I hate to think how many people have been accused b4 me without knowing it was a health food that caused it. Well stay away from the poppy seeds if u have a job u get tested in lol.

Usually the process to take a child into care is a very long process, of assessment, support, support fails to create change and so on. It can take years.

It's much much less common for a sudden medical issue like fractures to come up, but when it does social workers and the courts must go on what they are told by medical experts and doctors treating the child.

Lilka I'm glad things in ur situation worked out positavely. Like I said if a childs being abused they're parents shouldn't get a 2nd chance. But when SWs are making up lies about innocent people do u really agree forced adoption is ok? I mean do u believe because my ex partner was violent once and I pressed charges its right care proceedings were started with me? And the SW was very blatent there was a high chance my son could be forcibly adopted?

I have no idea what should have happened in your case because I wasn't there, haven't seen any of the evidence and I don't know any of you!

But I believe that adoption without parental consent can be a good thing and the best option if a child cannot return home because no matter what happens, their birth parents will not be able to safely parent them.

Adoption shouldn't happen if the parents would be able to parent properly with support, because children will do best in their birth families IF the families can parent well enough. Believe me, as an adoptive parent, it's very important to me to know that adoption was the very best thing for my children

However some people say that all adoption without parental consent is wrong, no matter what has happened. This is what I totally disagree with, because I know full well it can be a very good thing for a child, and the childs interests come first.

As far as I can see there's allot of evidence these bonuses still exist. If u no somewhere that says otherwise I would really like to see it?

I think this all comes back to the family courts being secret courts.

If the case is heard in secret, the parents can't see the 'evidence', the evidence does not have to be rigorous, the parents can't speak about the case, no one can find out what happened in court.... and now quite possibly the parents won't qualify for legal aid - then miscarriages of justice are simply inevitable imho.

I don't condone it, but I do understand why removing yourself and your children from the jurisdiction of such courts is seen as justifiable. When they offer such rough justice would you be happy that you would get a fair hearing? Would you be willing to risk your children to such a court? I wouldn't.

The bonuses were most definitely scrapped from 1st April 2008

I do not like this article because it does the whole 'there's a national conspiracy to steal babies' (and I am not a conspiracy theorist) but it does make it pretty clear - www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1576025/Labours-adoption-targets-to-be-scrapped.html

I guess you don't know about all the false allegations I have dealt with from SWs. They have told me they where wrong to start proceedings as all there initial evidence has been proved as rubbish. And after my final court hearing on thursday I will make sure the prebirth SW loses her job. But if I didn't have such a dedicated solicitor and family support I know my son would of been taken from me. On the basis of a SWs evidence that would give JK Rowling a run for her money it was stuff that just had never occurred in my life in it with no evidence it had. And a violent ex partner who I had protected myself and my unborn baby from. And a false positive opiates test! And to be honest it was only after my aunt and uncle had passed a special guardianship assessment meaning my son would go to them that the LA admitted they where wrong. When they knew they couldn't get my son adopted. Not everyone has as much support as I do and wouldn't of kept their child. When people lose there child on 'what sounds more realistic' rather than 'what's actually happened' how can that be rite? How can they lose the rite to fight for their child an their child call a stranger mummy?

The parents CAN see the evidence against them, and it has to be rigorous enough to convince the judge. The media have been allowed in at least some family court cases since i think 2009 or so but they don't bother coming. One newspaper columnist went and sat in on a few family court cases and wrote an article about what she saw but that's about it. Journalists don't seem bothered to come and investigate for themselves by sitting in on cases they CAN sit in on if they wish

Certain reporting about cases can occur, but the issue is identifying people, especially the child. There's no reason to ever allow a childs identity to be published whatever else we allow to be published. If no one was allowed to punlish details of ongoing cases then tonights Panorama wouldn't have happened, because at least one of the families had an ongoing case

BoF - can definitely see where you're coming from, but just to clarify, the case goes to final hearing and all of the evidence is filed and heard. as a parent, you literally sit there day in day out whilst the case is heard, you hear everything the judge does. the worry for me is for parents that perhaps have learning difficulties, or are just not particularly savvy - you have to be totally and utterly on the ball to have any sort of chance of presenting a valid argument, if you indeed have one. you have to have complete faith in your legal team, too, as it's a bloody minefield!

Coming in late to the thread. Just trying to think of how this would pan out if JH had his way and the courts had no 'secrecy'.
How would we police the mayhem of papers printing all of the gory details of every paedophile/physical abuse case? Surely if convicted the parents and their families and friends/work colleagues will be harangued, threatened and possibly even assaulted as a result?
The kids would probably then have to change their names and go undercover to remain any sense of normality for life.
It just seems very unfair to the majority to possibly help a minority. Not saying they shouldn't be helped, but surely the 'secrecy' side is all that stands between democracy and mob mentality? Daily Fail judgements would be a terrifying reality.

Lilka Even the president of the Family Division of the high court has called for more transparency in family courts

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/10289280/Judge-calls-for-more-transparency-in-family-courts.html

I'm afraid that it's just not true the press are allowed to sit in on hearings. They are not. Nor are any members of the public. Even the family of the child the hearing is about. Only the parents of the child. Not grandparents, aunts, uncles etc. This is apparently about to change. But at present, family court cases are in camera.

inlovewithgarp I meant parents should get to hear the 'evidence' against them before the court hearing. Of course they can listen to that evidence as it is presented in court but then it is too late to muster witnesses to disprove it, or gain an expert witness to refute it, or simply prepare an argument against it.

Link

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/10289280/Judge-calls-for-more-transparency-in-family-courts.html

Lion At present children are often part of criminal proceedings. If someone is accused of say abuse of a child, the child will be called as a witness and cross-examined. Might be done remotely, but child is still part of proceedings.

The press reporting of such a case is handled carefully to protect the identity of the child. Hard though it might be to believe, the press are already privy to a lot of very sensitive information every day. They know what they are allowed to publish and what they are not. The court would simply have to have a rule that identities of sws and children would be preserved. It would be a case of Social worker AB says that this family are neglectful of Child XY and baby FG.

Not too hard to sort in practice really.