'I'VE GONE THROUGH HELL OF SECRECY IN FAMILY
COURTS'
08 November 2006
Derbyshire Evening Telegraph
BY JILL GALLONE
Tammy is now campaigning for changes to save other
children from the sort of injustice she suffered.
Above all, she wants to see an end to the secrecy that
surrounds family courts.
She began her emotive address to a London conference by saying: "In the best
interest of the child. That's what the professionals state. But even the
professionals and the family courts can be wrong, as they were in my case.
"
Tammy's speech to the conference
She told an audience, including lawyers, judges and MP Harriet Harman, that
she was taken from her mother on the basis of a false allegation, placed
with foster parents for 13 months and freed for adoption by a judge who said
that he was making his ruling on the basis that social services had delayed
her case for two-and-a-half years.
"On reading his decision to my mum, he stated: 'Miss Coulter, if I return
your daughter to you, you will be a stranger to her.'
"And on that decision," said Tammy, "I was freed for adoption and my whole
future was completely changed.
"Finding out that you're adopted is one of the worst feelings in the world
because you feel that all of your identity, everything you've known about
yourself, is a lie."
Tammy told how she learned through a friend that her mother had begun
searching for her, using the website Gene Reunited. Within hours of
e-mailing a message to her mum's mobile phone, the pair had a conversation
that would change both of their lives.
Tammy told the conference: "I was a child who was wrongfully removed from
the care of my mother.
"I am publicly speaking today on behalf of children and parents who have
also been through the secrecy of family courts and the injustices that have
taken place, and do still take place, and the devastation of what one
decision that determines the future of a child can cause to a whole family.
"Since moving in with my birth family, I see the relationship between my
mother, brother and sister and cannot help feeling as though I've missed
out, no matter how much I fit in now.
"I know I'm not the only person to have gone through the hell of secrecy in
family courts. I hope to have expressed the way in which they will feel and
are feeling at my age."
Among the changes Tammy called for were:
Medical evidence used in the courts to be based on facts, not probabilities,
when determining a child's future.
Social services being prevented from "making medical diagnoses when not
qualified to do so".
Social services assessments to be based on facts, not opinions.
An independent body to be brought in when social services are assessing a
family.
A wider range of agencies to be involved in putting together support
packages to help families stay together.
The removal of a child from its family to be regarded as a last resort, and
the need to slowly integrate a child back into its natural family to be of
paramount importance.
Tammy said: "The most important factor of us all being here today is about
the secrecy surrounding the family courts and why they should be opened. I
am of an age where I can talk about the detrimental effects that the secrecy
of the courts has caused to me. Many of the children who have been taken and
are still being taken do not have a voice.
"The opening of the family courts would make it a fairer, non-judgmental and
more impartial system. It would help children who are left in the hands of
abusers and would also work by stopping children from being wrongfully
removed and injustices taking place.
"So please, when considering opening the family courts, take into account
that we're all human and we have feelings. The way in which the courts have
been working up to this day has been inhumane in many cases and human rights
have been exploited.
"The detrimental emotional effects that separation has on children torn
apart from their birth families lasts a lifetime."
comment on this story
Also......
08 November 2006
END THIS SECRECY
None of us can begin to understand the emotions
which Yvonne Coulter, daughter Tammy and Tammy's adoptive parents have been
through - unless we have had a similar experience.
But it is reasonable to assume that it has been a traumatic affair for all
concerned.
Read more:
Derbyshire Evening Telegraph
08 November 2006
BACK AFTER 17 YEARS: GIRL THEY TOOK AWAY
A Mother has been
reunited with the daughter who was taken from her almost 17 years ago.
A Mother has been reunited with the daughter who was
taken from her almost 17 years ago.
Yvonne Coulter, of Ironville, was parted from daughter Tammy when she was
seven months old.
Yvonne, now 34, claimed Derbyshire Social Services wrongly took her baby
into care after an accident at home left her with a bruised cheek.
Read more:
Derbyshire Evening Telegraph
08 November 2006
'I KNEW
IT WAS HER STRAIGHT AWAY... I KEPT TOUCHING HER HAIR AND FACE TO MAKE SURE
SHE WAS REAL'
For
almost 17 years, Yvonne Coulter dreamed of being reunited with the
daughter who was taken away from her as a baby and adopted.
Yvonne
fought to clear her name and launched a group to help other parents in her
position. But, deep down, her only wish was to tell her daughter that she
loved her and would never have given her up. That wish has finally come
true. Jill Gallone reports.
The e-mail arrived like a bolt out of the blue. It said: "You have a private
message on Genes Reunited."
Yvonne Coulter turned to jelly. She knew what it would be about.
Almost 17 years ago, her daughter, whom she named Cheri-Louise, was taken
away from her and placed in care by Derbyshire Social Services. Read
more:
Derbyshire Evening Telegraph
BBC Radio Derby
Tammy are interviewed live by
Ross Fletcher
(7.5mb WMA Audio) or download recording by: right-hand
click
this link
and select 'save target as' to a folder (EXAMPLE Music) on your PC
and 'click save'
Listen here...
