Increased number of children in care
By Katherine Sellgren
BBC News education reporter
28 September 2011
http://www.forced-adoption.com/introduction.asp
The number of children in care in England has increased slightly from 64,400 last year to 65,520 this year.
Department for Education data shows 27,310 children were taken into care during the year ending 31 March 2011, down from 28,090 the previous year.
---------- STOP PRESS !The agency above has been sold for £130+million!
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Ministry of justice :- Official Judicial statistics
In 2011, there were 32,739 children involved in disposals of public law cases, including 31,515 orders made, 792 applications withdrawn, 350 orders of no order and 72 orders refused. What chance did those parents have as (to quote L.J.Thorpe) "parents are so prejudiced in proceedings" ??
NSPCC figures show that the “baby P factor” is a myth !
Children subject to a child protection plan were over a 3 year period as follows:-
Physical abuse 2010=5000,2011= 4800,and 2012=4690 A steady decline in the number of children subject to a child protection plan for physical abuse..
Emotional abuse:-
2010=10,800, 2011=11400,2012=12330
An increase of 14% over the last 3 years!
Clearly “emotional abuse” is the “buzzword” for social workers................
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Statistics: England
http://www.baaf.org.uk/res/statengland
Children in public care
67,050 children were in the care of local authorities on 31st March 2012
Placements
75% (50,260) of children looked after on 31st March 2012 were living with foster carers
9% (5,930) were living in secure units, children’s homes or hostels
5% (3,600) were living with their parents
4% (2,680) were placed for adoption
3% (2,340) were with another placement in the community
3% (1,980) were placed in residential schools or other residential settings
Where are the placements with kinship carers???
A BARRISTER REVEALS THE TRUTH
Michelle Freedman, a barrister with 10 years' experience representing parents in the family courts writes: "Clients are like lambs to the slaughter. Every client I met filled me with sadness (except of course in cases where there was obvious abuse and not in the Local Authorities' and court's interpretation of the word). I would sit with desperate mothers and / or fathers with their eyes wide open in worry repeatedly asking me what I thought the outcome to the case would be. How to relay to the client that the reality is that the children will most likely be made subject to care orders and ultimately adopted. How to tell the client that we are merely going through a kangaroo court process whereby the majority of children are taken from loving parents once the machine (i.e the court process) has been switched on."
"Throughout proceedings clients would genuinely believe that 'justice would prevail' and the courts would see that the children are better of at home with mum and dad. As any other barrister, and for good reason, I told parents that there is no certainty in proceedings.... I did not have the heart to crush their spirits from the outset. I truly believe that we are living in tragic times at the moment."
TRIUMPH OF A TEENAGER !
Hello Ian,
I'm not sure if you remember me, my name is Harriet i'm 19 years old and i'm from Grimsby in Lincolnshire. Some months ago i contacted you after finding your website whilst heavily pregnant and in great distress as i was facing the prospect of losing my first born son to forced adoption. Their concern was risk of emotional abuse, due to me being neglected as a child (ironically whilst under their watchful eye) and also due to the fact that my child's father, has a previous child in the care system.
I worked continuously with the social workers throughout my pregnancy but despite this they arranged for him to be taken at birth regardless. I was gagged at the PLO as my legal aid solicitor attended the meeting behind my back whilst i was waiting in the waiting area waiting to be called through and her explanation was this "They were not going to change their minds Harriet, i didn't want you to endure any more upset today"
I went into labor on Saturday 10th August two weeks before my due date knowing full well what was going to happen, a social worker came into my hospital room just minutes after giving birth, i hadn't had chance to bath and was still sitting on a blood soaked sheet cradling my newborn son and told me she wanted me to sign the section 20 which gave them permission to take him into care. I refused and she told me that he would be going regardless as the local authority were making an application to court and if i refused to sign now then i would have to remain in hospital until Monday when they would receive permission from the court to take him. I opposed and politely asked her to leave whilst agreeing to remain in the hospital with my son.
I spent an amazing night getting to know him, taking in all his features and meeting his needs, the midwives were fantastic with me - to my surprise they didn't look at me as some child abuser who deserved to have her baby removed, i was told that even in my area this happens so, so often. I was disgusted to find that i was the second girl that month. What i did next was very silly of me (depending on which way you look at it) i called my friend and told them to go and buy a newborn car seat with my card and bring it to the hospital, whilst she was doing so i called around local hotels and made inquiries as to weather there were any with facilities for babies, fortunately i found one after rejection after rejection and made a reservation for us, i pretended that i'd had a burst pipe at home and it wasn't suitable to have my son there until it could be repaired in a few days hence needing the hotel.
I confided in the midwife who'd shown me particular kindness and told her what i was planning to do, she tried to talk me out of it but not because she was on their side, she said it would give them all the more reason to take him and not return him and said i stood a much better chance by showing the court i'm responsible and fighting the right way. I told her how they would not support me no matter what i said or did so i was taking him regardless, upon seeing how desperate i was she said she was duty bound to report my leaving the hospital but she would not do so until we were off hospital grounds, i called a taxi and took my son.
Upon arriving at the hotel i placed him in the cot, began pondering my next moves which in all honesty were very uncertain. I had money but nowhere to go, as my family support is very limited. Within half an hour i received a telephone call from a friend, they informed me that there was a number of police outside my house and circling the area, they were also knocking on doors. I was absolutely terrified and at this point convinced i was going to prison for abduction, i looked at my son in his cot now sound asleep and couldn't believe i had just cemented the fact i'd never see him again.
Due to the extreme reaction to my taking him from the hospital i became worried that they assumed i would hurt him, at this point there was no care order as it was Sunday and court was not until Monday. I telephoned the police and informed them that my son was safe and i told them our location, they then came and collected us and to my surprise - was as sympathetic as the midwife. They told me i wasn't under arrest, that they didn't feel good about having to come and do this given the circumstances but it was for our own safety, which in essence i can see now as although my son was diagnosed fit for discharge by the pediatrician, i was not technically fit for discharge as i suffered trauma during birth. The police took us both back to the hospital where to my surprise, i was placed back in the same room with my son overnight to await social services arrival in the morning.
The interim care order was granted, i was told to stay in hospital with my son and my legal aid solicitor attended in my absence. At the time i thought this was nice of her as it allowed me more time with my son, now i know she did this only so she could ensure the order was granted as she was working alongside the social all along, just like your website proclaims.
I was granted two 90 minute supervised contact sessions per week at a secure contact center whilst my son was fast tracked for adoption, my world began to crumble as my solicitor told me i had no chance - but then something amazing happened.
I woke up and smelt the coffee, realized just how much they had been railroading me into my own fears and instead of attending an appointment with this solicitor to file my statement, i did my own. What she told me would take her two weeks to complete took me two hours and upon finding out i had written my own statement she tried so damn hard to stop me giving it to the judge directly. She began changing her tactics and promising to support a mother and baby unit ' a little later on ' despite telling me endlessly that this will never happen. I stood strong, even threatened her with legal action myself and ensured that the judge received my 12 page hand written letter exposing each and every flaw, every lie, every underlying motive and every aspect of malpractice and gross misconduct that had occurred.
The judge was appalled, everything has changed Ian! He has ordered a mother and baby fostering placement, he addressed the social worker in court directly and said he was appalled at how i'd been treated and said he expected social services to behave in a holistic manner not an abusive one. He said i needed support and that they had gravely let me down. I am stunned, shocked, surprised, words cannot explain what i am feeling right now. I expected the judge to be worse than social, but now i see that a lot of them only act and discriminate on the facts that they are given, which in so many cases including mine - are lies and fabrications of the truth.
Instead of my sons fast tracked adoption process being complete in just 6 weeks time, he will now be spending his first birthday with me! This is fantastic news for me as i have been given the much longed for chance to show these people that i am more than capable of raising my little boy.
I was expecting to be criticized in court, expecting to be told how i evidenced my incapability to care for him due to absconding from the hospital, at least. Yet i was in fact complimented, i was complimented on my intelligence and dedication to my son and most of all i was complimented on the letter i had written. My world has been fixed, all because of a letter.
When i was represented by my legal aid solicitor, she would constantly patronize and undermine me constantly using the phrase "Harriet, you aren't a solicitor" so guess what my last words were to her? I'm a better one than you!
She was actually annoyed when i was given this chance, the woman who proclaimed that she was working in my best interest, was actually p*ssed off that i was being reunited with my son. The corruption i saw unfold today was shocking, but the outcome is amazing.
I cannot thank you enough for the time you took to talk to me, advise me and show me the way forward. Without your website i would not of been armed with half of the knowledge and facts that i am today, with the help of your site i have stopped a baby, my baby, being taken away and forcibly adopted by strangers.
I thought i had no chance, after reading stories of adults with jobs, mortgages and family support losing to social services i never imagined that somebody like me, a teenage girl whom was neglected as a child then victim to domestic violence, would be able to emerge triumphant in an area of corruption that seems impossible to contest. If i can do it, others certainly can.
Please do share my story on your website. I would love to hear from other parents and advise them as best i can, writing to the judge directly was the best thing i ever did and right now i am on top of the world!
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you from me and my gorgeous little boy
HARRIET
NON MOLESTATION ORDERS :- can forbid a mother from molesting her own daughter ! It is a total distortion of the English Language to pretend this includes sending a birthday card or waving at one's children in the street as happened in previous cases.To Molest =To intentionally annoy (Oxford dictionary) but no proof has ever been produced in these cases or any other cases that children have been intentionally annoyed by parents from whom they have been forcibly separated.
Judges guidelines instruct them to interpret statutes in such a way as to give effect to the intentions of those who drafted them.
Non molestation orders were clearly drafted to protect one person from violence committed on them by another person.(more often than not by a man on his wife or partner);There was no way that it was intended to cut off mothers from their children and no way that "molestation" could in most such cases apply to contacts between non criminal parent and child .The judges in Vicky's case and many other cases have acted "ultra vires", outside their powers and should be restrained by police and by parliament if nothing else has any effect.
NO CONTACT ORDERS:- These can forbid all contact face to face ,by email,phone ,or via a third party even when the child initiates the contact.There is no statute or other legal authority permitting judges to make such orders and to make them penal.
These orders are often made for long or even indefinite periods as happened in the case of a father recently jailed for breaching a no contact order (made 15 years earlier) because he congratulated his son on facebook on his 21st birthday long after a care order had expired and was therefore discharged.
It is contended that no judge has the legal authority derived from any statute to make such draconian orders infringing Article 10 of the Human Rights Act and also the United Nations Convention.Such judges act "ultra vires" outside their powere and should as a last resort be restrained by police and by Act of Parliament.
Legal aid lawyer, secret court and social workers ‘colluded’ to adopt boys
TWO YOUNG children were taken from their distraught mother and placed for adoption because her own legal aid lawyers “colluded” with social workers, according to an MP’s extraordinary allegation in Parliament.
By Ted Jeory Daily Express, November 10, 2013
In a highly unusual accusation, John Hemming said lawyers for Jacque Courtnage colluded with Derbyshire County Council to prevent her analysing a document he believes would have cleared her of abuse allegations.
She and her husband have lost their two sons, now aged six and eight, for ever after a court ruled on the balance of probabilities they were responsible for harming their youngest when he was a baby.
They have never been arrested nor charged with any criminal offence due to lack of evidence.
Their heartbreaking story emerged in a Commons debate two months ago when Mr Hemming used Parliamentary privilege to name the mother and to make accusations against her lawyers and Derbyshire County Council.
He says the parents are the victims of a miscarriage of justice in the secret family court system.
Full article: http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/442241/Legal-aid-lawyer-secret-court-and-social-workers-colluded-to-adopt-boys
WHAT DO THE JUDGES SAY?
1: Lord Justice Thorpe said “There is nothing more serious than a removal hearing, because the parents are so prejudiced in proceedings thereafter.”
2: Lord Justice Wall (the former Senior family court judge) said that the determination of some social workers to place children in an "unsatisfactory care system" away from their families was "quite shocking".
3: In a separate case on which Sir Nicholas Wall also sat, Lord Justice Aikens described the actions of social workers in Devon as "more like Stalin's Russia or Mao's China than the West.
4: Lord Neuberger, president of the Supreme Court said that other than in exceptional circumstances judges should treat requests to hear cases in closed courts with ‘distaste and concern’. In a blow to ministers, Lord Neuberger said hearing evidence behind closed doors was ‘against the principle of justice’.
5: Baroness Hale (the only lady judge in the UK supreme court) said "Taking a child away from her family is a momentous step, not only for her, but for her whole family, and for the local authority which does so. In a totalitarian society, uniformity and conformity are valued. Hence the totalitarian state tries to separate the child from her family and mould her to its own design. Families in all their subversive variety are the breeding ground of diversity and individuality. In a free and democratic society we value diversity and individuality. Hence the family is given special protection in all the modern human rights instruments including the European Convention on Human Rights (art 8), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (art 23) and throughout the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. As Justice McReynolds famously said in Pierce v Society of Sisters 268 US 510 (1925), at 535, 'The child is not the mere creature of the State'. "
Lady Hale: Dissenting judgement in the Supreme Court "B" a child.
143. This case raises some profound questions about the scope of courts' powers to take away children from their birth families when what is feared is, not physical abuse or neglect, but emotional or psychological harm. We are all frail human beings, with our fair share of unattractive character traits, which sometimes manifest themselves in bad behaviours which may be copied by our children. But the State does not and cannot take away the children of all the people who commit crimes, who abuse alcohol or drugs, who suffer from physical or mental illnesses or disabilities, or who espouse anti-social political or religious beliefs. (Baroness Hale of Richmond in B (Children), Re [2008] UKHL 35 (11 June)
What did the Minister for Children say in 2012 ?
The Children's Minister Edward Timpson said "the outcomes for children in care remain woeful.""For instance, we know that children in care are seven times more likely to misuse drugs and alcohol than others, 50 times more likely to end up in prison, 60 times more likely to become homeless and 66 times more likely to have children of their own who will need public care.
Surely most children would have a better chance with their imperfect parents than take the far worse risk of "care"?