Reforming
Family Law...
Family Law:
Family Law Consensus Report
Please ask your MP
to read the Consensus report called 'Mismanagement of Social and Family
Policy' (this can be downloaded from the link below). This report was
produced to get the social services guide lines withdrawn which allow
them to take innocents parents children away from them for no good
reason.
Please visit
mensaid.com for more UK News reports plus a 99 pages fully-sourced and
referenced report released
19 September
2005
http://www.mensaid.com/fl-consensus.htm
1. SECRECY
More than 200 MPs have called for the abolition of all secrecy in family courts;
www.parliament.uk/EDMDetails.
There should be no
gagging orders on parents who should be free like rape victims to waive
anonymity and go to the press with their history, their identities, and their
complaints (including details of the court proceedings, the witnesses who
testified, and the judgement) if they believe their children have been unjustly
taken.
These children are
routinely advertised for adoption like pedigree dogs by social services in
magazines "Adoption UK" etc., on the internet
www.ukkids.info etc., and even in the Daily Mirror! All with full colour
photos, first names and birth dates, allowing easy identification by the
neighbours! The secrecy exists to gag protesting parents not to protect the
identity of the children and should be scrapped! Also abolition of "jail with no
public hearing" (a parliamentary question revealed that more than 200 persons
were sent to prison in secret last year by family courts!).
Please sign this
petition
www.petitionthem.com/endsecrecy
2. HARM & RISK
The notion of "emotional harm" is a vague concept impossible to either prove or
disprove and should be scrapped. Most important of all however is "RISK".
Parents and children are split up, and in effect punished not because of
anything they have done but only for what the “professionals” think someone
might do! Perfectly happy and healthy children are declared to be at risk of
harm at some time in the future by social workers and hired "experts"
(psychologists, therapists, psychiatrists and the like!) who base their opinions
very largely on the reports from social workers which are always so thoughtfully
provided for them!
Any experts that
are consulted should start "with a clean sheet" unbiased by reports favourable
or otherwise from social workers, expert "colleagues”, or other outside
sources. Parents are asked how they can possibly know better than these highly
qualified (and very highly paid!) professionals! In fact the answer is both
simple and financial. In the Louise Woodward case for example, top experts
disagreed about a possibly shaken baby but each expert gave evidence for the
side that paid them!! Some supposedly “top experts” like Professor Meadows,
Professor Southall and Dr Marietta Higgs, caused literally hundreds of children
to be legally kidnapped on evidence based on their crackpot theories that have
now been thoroughly discredited!
In any case, the
experts hired by social services always tend to take the side of their social
service or family court paymasters so children and worse still, newborn babies,
are then sent for adoption. This is said to avoid any more risk from parents who
are naturally angry and upset that their children have been removed and who can
then be declared to be emotionally unstable. A result as unjust as it is absurd!
Would any genuinely loving mother be able to remain calm and cooperative with
those who had taken her children or worse still, her newborn baby?
On the continent in
France, Spain, Italy etc. children are only taken from parents if they have
suffered severe physical harm. The concepts of "emotional harm" and "future
risk" quite rightly do not exist there! Children from these countries are only
taken if a parent has committed or at least been charged with a CRIME against
their child. "NO CRIME NO CARE ORDER" should be the rule also in the UK. The
simple fact that "other children from the same mother have previously been taken
into care" should no longer be considered an adequate reason for removing
children, and ESPECIALLY NEW BORN BABIES from parents. Circumstances can and
often do change, and it is wicked to ignore such changes.
To take a baby from
a mother of sound mind who has never in any way caused it harm must be a CRIME
(as an article in The Times clearly states). Every completely blameless mother
in the UK is now at risk of having her baby taken at birth because the father
has merely been "suspected" (not charged or convicted) of some violent incident
in his distant past.”
Links:
www.timesonline.co.uk and
www.news.bbc.co.uk
»
3. JURIES
Decisions in contested cases in family courts THAT INVOLVE LONG-TERM FOSTER CARE
OR ADOPTION must be decided by jury. Any burglar or other criminal facing a
possible 6 months or more in prison has the right to demand a jury so why not a
parent facing the loss of a child to adoption? In effect a life sentence! A jury
would be less likely to "rubberstamp" demands of social services than
"establishment judges", who inevitably take what they often describe as "the
safe option" and agree with highly-paid experts who foretell that children are
at risk of emotional harm! It is very rare that any judge will restore children
or babies to parents against opposition in court from social services. THESE
JUDGES ARE THE REAL VILLAINS AS THEIR JUSTICE SHOULD PROTECT THE WEAK NOT
OPPRESS THEM. I believe (like The Times article)
www.timesonline.co.uk that these establishment judges commit a wicked crime
every time they condone the taking of newborn babies from sane mothers that have
never caused their babies harm. At Nuremburg after World War II the Nazi judges
were condemned to prison as criminals and many of our family court judges
deserve the same fate. Most of the decisions that now divide children from
loving parents would be decided quite differently by a jury! This would soon
reduce the number of cases brought by social services before the courts!
4. CONTACT
Telephone contact must never be forbidden between parents and children. Letters
and conversation between parents and children must NEVER be censored or
restricted by the social service "thought police". Frequency of contact visits
between parents and children in care should be decided specifically by a court
and NOT left to the discretion of social services who sometimes use their
discretion as a weapon to subdue "difficult" parents.
5. NEGLECT
Parents accused of neglect that has not endangered the life of the child
(absences from school, dirty or cluttered house etc.) should be given a written
warning to put matters right, and a chance to do so before children can be
taken.
6. ADOPTION
The Government’s own research in 2001 already showed concern that the needs of
the children were being overlooked because of the struggle to meet ‘adoption
targets’
www.local.dtlr.gov.uk/research . Our top priority should be the abolition of
forced adoption, i.e. when a parent who has not been convicted of any crime that
might affect the child opposes adoption in the family court.
Adoption targets
and large government rewards for achieving those targets (under public service
agreements) should be scrapped. Kent got £21million(!), fosterers get as much as
£400 per child per week, Special Schools up to £7000/week per child, adoption
agencies around £18000/placement, lawyers as much as £50,000 per case, "experts”
up to £4000 for a 3-hour interview with a parent. Without these rewards, social
workers and others might be more motivated to keeping families together instead
of splitting them up! Over 60,000 children are in care and more than 3000/year
are adopted, of which over 700/year are taken after hearings contested by
distraught parents who nearly always lose! These figures are extremely
disturbing. 20 MPs from all parties have signed early day motion 626 deploring
the way social workers take babies and young children into care NOT for the
benefit of the child but to meet the adoption targets set by the Government.
www.parliament.uk/EDMDetails
»
7. WITNESSES
So-called "experts" and "professionals" should no longer be allowed to make
"prophecies" and "risk assessments" in court but should confine themselves
to the present. It is incredible that in the UK families are ruthlessly split
up NOT for events that have happened but for events that so called "experts"
think one day might happen! As already stated the Louise Woodward case
demonstrated the fallibility of "professionals" when the most distinguished
experts in the country disagreed about a "shaken baby" case. "Experts” that are
selected by social services or by "the court" unsurprisingly almost always end
up by deciding that the hapless parents are "in denial" suffer from "paranoia"
or have a "personality disorder" simply because like many journalists, from The
Times, The Telegraph and the Daily Mail, broadcasters of programmes like “The
Real Story” and thousands of other people, they see social workers as "child
snatchers" rather than kindly helpers devoted to the public good! Parents are
rarely allowed by their lawyers to call their own "experts" and if they
represent themselves they cannot afford to.
Parents who risk
losing their children to adoption on the word of a medical expert should ALWAYS
have the right to a second opinion by an expert of their own choice
Most legal aid
lawyers are widely known as "professional losers" because they collect large
fees for simply advising parents to give up the fight. They almost never win
cases in the civil family courts as they rarely call all the witnesses and often
forbid parents to say anything in court at all!! Parents should be able to
testify and to call their children, their family doctor, and other family
members as witnesses. According to the UN convention on children's rights, to
which the UK subscribes, children capable of understanding the nature of a court
have the right to testify in proceedings that involve them, and the right to an
undisturbed family life including contact with their siblings .These rights are
normally completely disregarded by the secret UK family courts. Both parent's
human rights and their children's rights should be respected at all times.
Hearsay and recorded or video material should no longer be allowed as evidence
in family courts.
8. EMERGENCY PROTECTION ORDERS
These must be abolished as parents have no opportunity to oppose them or defend
themselves. The police have authority (police protection) to remove children
they believe to be in danger and they alone should decide if any immediate
danger really exists.
9. ADVISOR
A McKenzie friend (parent's lay advisor) should be allowed to present the
parent's case and cross-examine witnesses. This clause is doubly important when
parents have been refused or are not eligible for legal aid. Such a person would
usually stand a better chance of winning a case for parents than most of “the
legal aid lawyers” (PROFESSIONAL LOSERS) who collect huge fees for advising
hapless parents not to fight social services but to go along with everything
they say. Parents have no need for lawyers to do that, but how those legal
sharks must laugh as they cash in! Parents who represent themselves and who wish
to appeal should be supplied by the court with a copy of the judgement within 7
days so that they can put the appeal into court before expiration of the time
limit.
»
10. ACCESS
A parent who loses custody of children to an ex-wife, ex-husband, or ex-partner
should have an enforceable right to such contact as the court awards. If such
contact is denied or persistently prevented by one parent the court should warn
the offending parent that if there is any more refusal to obey a court order for
contact then the court will transfer custody to the parent that has been
deprived.
Reforming
Family Law...
1. Reform - All secrecy in the UK family courts should be abolished
2. Reform - All Forced Adoption should
be abolished
3. Reform - Babies should never be removed at birth
by Social Workers
4. Reform
- Abolish Family Court probabilities laws
5. Reform
-
'Emotional Abuse' used as a excuse in the
taking of children abolished
6. Reform
- Twin Tracking and adoption targets must be abolished
7.
Reform -
Adoption Proceedings
in a family courts decided by a jury
8. Reform - More meaningful
contact between families and children in care
9. Reform - That all councils
comply with Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
and HRA (1998)
More to follow...
1. Reform - All secrecy in the
UK family courts should be abolished
All secrecy in the UK family courts should be abolished making them transparent and open
to public scrutiny, to incorporate the present laws being used in the
criminal courts concerning the identities of individuals/cases.
The public/media should be admitted into
family courts. Any person feeling that they have been unjustly treated
should be free to complain publicly. No parent or family member claiming
that they have suffered an injustice should ever be restrained by
secrecy rules from making public their own names or any details of
family court proceedings.
Judges have forwarded proposals on more openness to
the Constitutional Affairs Committee. MPs, too, are examining the family
courts system and, says the
Times, one issue of concern is the culture of secrecy
surrounding the family courts and the fact that the media cannot report
on family court cases unless invited to do so by the judiciary.
http://www.fassit.co.uk/eric_pickles_commons.htm
http://edmi.parliament.uk/edmi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=29194&SESSION=875
http://www.lag.org.uk/Templates/system/PrintFriendly.asp?NodeID=91428
http://www.msbp.com/secretcourts.htm
2. Reform - All Forced Adoption
should be abolished
No child or baby should ever be
adopted if one or both of the parents opposes the proposal in
court.
It is inhumane and barbarically
disgraceful to legally force a child into adoption with strangers.
http://www.fassit.co.uk/parents_forced_adoption_140905.htm
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/08/03/ftchild03.xml
http://www.forced-adoption.com/introduction.asp
»
3. Reform - Where babies should never be removed by birth
by Social Workers
Social services
should not remove babies at birth from mothers who already have a child
or children in care for that reason alone. Babies and children should
only be removed if they have already suffered very significant
physical harm such as sexual abuse, broken bones, extensive bruising or
burns, or malnutrition caused by the parents or persons tolerated by the
parents. Such harm should be proved by a criminal conviction of the
parent or parents. Poverty must NEVER equate to neglect.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/08/03/ftchild03.xml
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,1130638,00.html
4. Reform - Where FC Judgements are based not just on
probabilities involving the risk or harm to a child
No parent should
be judged guilty in family courts of abuse, neglect, assault, or any
other crime on the balance of probabilities. Guilt should be proved
beyond reasonable doubt and persons who have been cleared of any
wrongdoing in a criminal court should never be deprived of their
children by social workers backed by a family court that still believes
that guilt though not proved is still probable. It is totally unjust to
take a child from a parent if there has been no harm simply because
there is a risk that they may harm that child in the future
http://www.opinion.telegraph.co.uk/opinion
http://www.parents4protest.co.uk/p4p/stolen_children_ss.htm
5. Reform -
Where the term 'Emotional Abuse' used as a excuse in the taking of
children from Families should is abolished
“Emotional abuse” is too subjective to
judge. Children are being judged as emotionally abused simply because
their parents have argued in front of them, or if the parent has raised
their voice to the child. Allegations are being backed up by very well
paid experts. Thousands of children are being taken from parents and
adopted to strangers for pathetic unjust reasons. Between 2001 – 2004
there were 440 children taken into care simply because their parents
were on low incomes. See first link below (page 12)
http://www.dfes.gov.uk/adoption/adoptionreforms/CLAbulletin2003-04final1.pdf
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/01/18/nkids18.xml
http://www.fassit.co.uk/sir_roy_meadow.htm
http://www.innocent.org.uk/cases/MargaretSmith.html
6. Reform
- Where Twin Tracking and adoption
targets
must be abolished
Adoption targets were set by this
government in the late nineties. Local authorities are being awarded
millions of pounds for meeting set targets. One of which is to increase
adoption by at least 40%. This is forcing local authorities to procure
children from vulnerable families for fostering and adoption.
Social services now run a Twin
Tracking system when children are taken into care. This means that when
a child gets taken into care, plans for adoption are run alongside (twin
tracked) against any other plans, such as the child coming home or being
placed with another family member. The apparent logic behind this
is that if for any reason it is judged that the child cannot be returned
to the birth family, then they have adoptive parents ready and waiting
for them and do not have to "languish" in the care system. The
government are also encouraging Local Authorities to drastically reduce
the time it takes from a child coming into care, to being adopted. This
is giving the parents hardly any chance to get a case together and fight
for their child.
http://www.dfes.gov.uk/adoption/lac200133.shtml
http://www.dfes.gov.uk/adoption/adoptionreforms/index.shtml
»
7.
Reform
Proceedings in a family
court that involve adoption or permanent care should be heard by a jury not
just a Judge
A jury would be less likely to
rubber stamp demands of social services unlike judges who freely admit
that they find it safer to "go along" with social services than take the
slightest risk, which may mean that they could be thinking more of their
careers than of the welfare of children.
A jury would be quite capable of deciding if children
should be taken into care or returned to their parents.
In
criminal cases where a prison sentence of six months or more is
envisaged the accused has the right to a trial by jury. In the family
courts when children are taken from their parents and either freed for
adoption or put into permanent foster care this often amounts to a life
sentence to both parents and children. Abolition of secrecy in the
family courts would give parents unjustly treated the right to complain
whilst having a jury would actually change the majority of unjust
decisions that are made at present by judges. Bill Bache, the solicitor
for Angela Cannings is one of many distinguished people who agree with
this reform.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/wiltshire/3306271.stm
8. Reform - Where children in care should be
allowed extended, meaningful contact with their parents and other
members of their birth family and friends
The law places a duty on the local
authority in respect of all looked after children to promote contact
between the child and his/her parents, friends or relatives, unless this
is not reasonably practical or consistent with the child’s welfare. But,
there is no stipulation as to how much this should be. At present many
parents contact with their children is usually reduced and reduced until
it is a few hours once a week/fortnight/month or less. The grandparents
have less contact if any and the extended family usually only get
indirect contact. Friends are not even considered. This is totally
inadequate for the children. Research has shown that children actually
do better if they are visited frequently by their family despite the
stresses this can bring, and that children need contact with important
people from the past in order to develop their sense of identity that is
essential for their well being.
Also children should be allowed to write/phone or e-mail their parents
and other family members or friends at least once a week. These calls
should be unlimited in length up to a maximum of 30 minutes, and the
conversation should not be restricted in any way. Social workers stop
children from contacting their parents as they claim that asking the
child if they want to write/phone/contact to the parent is putting
pressure on the children and that the parent may be talking or writing
things to the child that is “inappropriate”. Even convicted criminals
are allowed a telephone call home once a week.
9. Reform That all councils
comply with Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
and HRA (1998)
The standards are
informed by Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the
Human Rights Act 1998. The Convention sets out a wide range of measures to
safeguard promote the physical, mental, emotional, social and behavioural
development of children. UNCRC recognises that children are able to express
opinions, to participate in decision-making processes and to influence
solutions. The standards should be complied with by councils when commissioning
independent advocacy for looked after children.
Convention on the Rights of the Child
http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/k2crc.htm
Family Law:
Family Law Consensus Report
Please ask your MP
to read the Consensus report called 'Mismanagement of Social and Family
Policy' (this can be downloaded from the link below). This report was
produced to get the social services guide lines withdrawn which allow
them to take innocents parents children away from them for no good
reason.
Please visit
mensaid.com for more UK News reports plus a 99 pages fully-sourced and
referenced report released
19 September
2005
http://www.mensaid.com/fl-consensus.htm
»
