Social Services punish mothers for DV

[SantasSackura]

Why do they do this?
Why is it that no-one is under any obligation to keep the abuser away from the mother, and yet the mother has a responsibility to keep her children away from the abuser?
The very fact that the authorities need the mother to "prove" she is taking steps to keep the children save show that they believe the husband is abusive/violent. ANd yet it's not him who is hounded or punished.
I'm so at hearing women whose partners are given bail after committing some atrocity against their wife or children, only to do it again as soon as they get back home, and for the mother to be told she is endangering her children.
The law is so backward
Surely if the man is known to be abusive, you take steps to remove him from the home????

CPS Policy for Prosecuting Cases of Domestic Violence

There was a beermat campaign in North Yorkshire, and I think in one other county.
Sackura, I wasn't saying that you shouldn't target the abuser, just that with the law as I believe it stood required evidence rather than unsupported accusation, and that if the accusation was withdrawn, the case collapsed.

I'm sorry that you see me as being on the opposite side to you, protecting the abuser, but I still feel that the children should be the priority. So as we may just end up in an argument rather than a debate, I'm going to leave the thread.
I truly hope that the law has changed, if the police don't need support from the victim to make a case, that will ensure the children's safety is the responsibility of someone for whom it is the most important item on their agenda.

Sakura I know what you mean. It isn't logical, it doesn't make sense.

The authorities accept that one partner (usually the man) is violent, to the extent that they are prepared to threaten the mother (the person without any power in the situation) with removal of her children. But they are not prepared to accept it enough to actually do anything about the man. It doesn't make sense.

There also seems to be a disconnect that I have read about on some threads, where women and children leave due to violence and are assisted by the authorities in doing so, but then when it comes to contact the authorities push for the father to have lots of contact. It's been a theme on a few threads on here.

I do think that your point about the current set-up putting all of the responsibility for children on women and affording them less rights is correct (sometimes). A lot of people have very sexist mindsets (even if they don't realise it) and all of this is to do with people and the judgements they make.

If you haven't gone goblin - if there is evidence, why do they need the victim to go ahead? That isn't the case in other crimes I don't think. In some circs the victim can't complain or give evidence, and while it makes things more difficult, prosecutions happen. It seems really strange if it's different for DV.

For a successfull prosecution the CPS does not need the victim to give evidence in every case. It does, however, need evidence sufficient to prove the case beyond reasonable doubt, and as in most cases DV does not happen in front of witnesses other than the victim (and frequently young children, who it is obviously not appropriate to call) it is often the case that there is not sufficient evidence without the victim's testimony. This is different from most other cases, where there are often other witnesses unconnected with the Defendant and victim, or certainly less likely to be intimidated by him into not giving evidence.
There have been successful prosecutions where, for eg, the victim has been seen by officers to have visible injuries and has said to them that the partner has caused them. The CPS review every allegation of DV to see whether a prosection is possible without the victim's evidence.
There are 2 common problems in pursuing prosecutions without the victim. Firstly, if the partner claims he acted in self defence, and there are no other witnesses, and the victim won't give evidence, how do you disprove that he was? The claim of self defence is made a lot of cases. Secondly, there are some cases where the victim makes a retraction statement saying either she made it up or cannot now remember what happened, and this obviously makes a prosecution much more difficult. These statements have to be disclosed to the defence.
Of course there are many and complex reasons why a woman won't support a prosecution-I won't go through them here. The deceision regarding the children and whether they stay with the mother is a seperate one and is made by social services, independantly from the criminal case. However, I do think that whether the victim is supportive of a prosecution is relevant to the welfare of the children, particularly in a case where she is actively trying to derail a prosecution by making a statement saying her previous statement was untrue. If she is unsupportive of a prosecution and is not taking steps to protect the children from a violent situation then I am afraid that I do think someone else needs to step in to protect the children, because they cannot protect themselves. Obviously it goes without saying that she should then be given all the support possible to get out of the situation herself and care for the children.

Thanks for the clarification bellsa.

For what it's worth, there is contact and cooperation between SS and the police because both bodies have a responsibility to protect children from harm.

The first child protection case conference I had to attend because of the risks my DCs were facing had representatives from SS, the school, the police and some other local authority body (I forget exactly who). The police were only involved in the first case conference as, after that, it was clear that there was no need for their continuing presence. But that was the chair's decision, not the police's.

The social worker that was assigned to my DCs also told me that SS can and do assist victims of DV in getting the abusive partner to move out. It wasn't a factor in our case but it came up as part of a discussion we were having about what SS can do. I think it's covered by the Children's Act - Section 47 rings a bell. Apologies for the vagueness here but it's been a few years since I last had contact with SS and I've forgotten a lot of the fine detail.

One final thing - the events that triggered the need for the case conference did culminate in a (different) social worker calling me and telling me that if I didn't take my DCs full-time to protect them from my ex, they'd be going into care that day.

Although that was one of the scariest days of my life I didn't look at it that they were making threats as a means to try to punish me for my failure to shield my DCs from my ex's problems. They were stepping in at the last resort to protect my DCs from continuing harm. It gave me the kick up the arse I needed to realise that I should start taking control of the situation myself. And the SW we ended up with helped me enormously with that, too.

Both parents are being abusive, that's why the children will be removed. If the victim is not protecting their children then they're just as much an abuser as if they were beating them. That's why the person being abused is told to leave because you're more likely to get through to them than you are the abuser.

I apologise if that's harsh to some of the people who have told their story on here but some people who aren't in that situation need to hear it.

What does the none abusive parent get charged and given custodials for when a child dies of abuse? "Failure to Protect"

I've not heard about a law that makes it possible to prosecute in cases of DV, I'll check it out tonight though. If there is one I don't think it is being enforced because I'm still hearing many stories of people being told if they return to their abusive ex they will lose their children.

Oh and yes, I will defend social workers because I've seen first hand what they go through and what they do. Maybe there are some bad ones but there are many more who put their heart and soul and every minute of their day into their job. I know someone who has 3 months of TOIL and AL to take in March because they don't get overtime. The same person has such a good reputation that their name only has to be mentioned in court and judges know they've got quality work in front of them.

Don't believe that all of them are bad or rubbish.

confuddled it must be the case that if the police have evidence etc they can prosecute even without the victim, otherwise it would mean that DV is treated differently to other crimes.

When you talk about DV in this instance presumably you mean ongoing DV? I mean, if my DH came home now and punched me in the face out of the blue, then I'm not abusing my children, surely?

I've just remembered that recent case which I think highlights sakura's original point. Where the woman was experiencing DV and rape, and the children had witnessed it. The husband had had a restraining order against him which he had broken. The woman went to the police and told them about it, the prosecution started to happen, she lost her nerve and withdrew her allegations. At that point she was sent to prison and the children had the children. He kept the children even though the arrangement was that they should go to relatives of the mother. The whole thing was mind boggling, and illustrates teh sort of thing that sakura was getting at.

Sorry that doesn't read right. The father had the children, the mother was sent to prison.

confuddled I can see by the title of this thread that you have jumped to defend SS, and maybe I should have phrased it differently, because really the issue here is not SS, it's mothers who are victims of DV, and how the "system" (SS? The Police? ) appears to hold mothers responsible for children in a way they do not hold the father responsible...
And the reason I find it so ridiculous is because when it comes to a father claiming "rights" suddenly the system rallies around him.

OH, that case ISNT... there are no words left on the planet to describe that case

"Women don't "choose" to be in DV situations - abusers target women and won't let them go. That's feminism 101 and if you don't know that maybe you need to actually educate yourselves on domestic violence and the power dynamics involved. Women do actually fear for their lives and theirs and their children's safety when leaving a violent man. "

dittany, from a CP POV, it actually doesn't matter if a woman has 'chosen' to be in a DV situation or not. If children are in an abusive situation, they need to be removed.

Outcomes for children in care are dire, statistically. It is not necessarily the care system which causes this, though; children in care rarely come from stable beginnings. Yes, care should be (and is IME) a last resort- but it is essential in order to keep children safe.

Women need to be better supported in order to escape DV situations, but this potentially requires risking children's safety during the process.

"It's funny how people talk about the emotional abuse of being in a DV home but ignore the massive emotional harm that children experience when they are taken into care away from their families."

I work with children in care. Most of them would return to their abuser in a heartbeat- in fact it is their dearest wish. The emotional harm is done by the abuser, not the process of taking them into care. I am not saying that it doesn't harm children to be removed from their families, of course it does- but the situation wrt emotional damage is far, far more complicated than you imply.

Snorbs Thank you for your input, although your case was slightly different, because you weren't fearful for your life in the way victims of domestic violence are. And it's not in their head either: Women are most frequently murdered as they try to leave their abusive spouse, so it seems particularly cruel to tell such women that they're going to lose her kids, as opposed to telling them they will never have to see their abuser ever again IYSWIM

But in this situation, the woman does not come first. I'm sorry, but she doesn't- and nor should she.

tethers I don't think anyone on the thread is underestimating how complicated it is, least of all dittany. This is not about putting the welfare of the mother above the children. It's about comparing the treatment of the father-abuser and the victim-mother and highlighting the gross discrepancies in the what's expected of them both

I find it sort of offensive that you think I think the woman comes first. It is not the point I'm making, sorry