Myth
1: "family court secrecy protects the identity of the children"
Reality:
In fact social services advertise these same children for adoption on many
websites such as
www.ukkids.info and in
magazines such as 'adoption UK' giving first names, photographs, birth
dates and characteristics. Essex council has also featured a complete
judgement concerning the children featured in the Mail on their website
for all to see. In other words the Councils can break secrecy but parents
risk prison if they do the same. What
the secrecy does do effectively is to stop aggrieved parents going to the
press or revealing their names (like rape victims can do if they wish).
The courts also often issue gagging orders stopping all discussion as
indeed they did to Barry Aspinell even though he was an Essex Councillor
trying to help a constituent.
Myth
2: Social workers pathetically repeat "damned if we do and damned
if we don't " as an excuse for their actions.
Reality:
They get damned because they avoid the violent type of parents and carers
who torture their children as they are afraid for their own safety and
feel damaged children might be hard to foster or adopt, and they therefore
prefer to take the easier option of targeting happy healthy children
whose mothers have low income or low IQs (as pointed out by the Mail and
the Telegraph). Rather like some police who prefer to target motorists
with a defective rear light rather than go after armed robbers. Social
workers often point to the large numbers of children in voluntary care but
do not mention that many of these were given up to care because parents
were promised that if they cooperated by agreeing to this the children
would be returned in 2 or 3 months. Of course this promise is too often
broken and the parents losing their children for good, are betrayed. both
by social workers and their own lawyers who inevitably advise parents to
cooperate with social services when they say "temporary care" is the best
option .
Myth
3: Social workers, judges, foster carers and heads of special
schools all do what they can to reunite children with their parents.
Reality:
In 2000, Tony Blair called for a 40% increase in adoptions. Margaret Hodge
fixed targets for local authorities giving beacon status and stars and
even large financial rewards (Kent got £21 million pounds for hitting 10
out of 12 targets under a public service agreement) to those councils who
were successful. Most social workers are therefore motivated to take
children into care with a view to adoption to meet their targets.
Government research papers have publicly confirmed this. Judges have
admitted in court that it is safer to "go along with social services"
rather than take any risks and that is why parents almost never win their
children back.
As for foster parents who are lucky enough to live in
Slough, they get a tax free allowance of £400 per week per child so a
fosterer with 3 or 4 children is very well off indeed and is not likely to
encourage the children to return home.
Private special schools according to channel 4 charge
the council up to £7000 per week per child so they too prefer to keep the
status quo.
Myth
4 "The welfare of the children is paramount"
Reality:
This phrase of course does not say who is to decide what the best
interests of the children are. Social workers trying to meet their targets
soon translate this principle into "the children's welfare is best served
if we win our case" and they try to win at all costs. Judges, as I have
said freely admit that they take the safe route of "going along with
social services" when their evidence conflicts with that of the
parents. Mothers who come weeping into court to try and recover their
children are not usually the type of person who would abuse or neglect
their children. They should therefore usually win and get their children
returned but they nearly always lose. Even worse CONTACT between mothers
and children is gradually reduced (and used as a weapon if mothers are
"difficult"), phone calls are forbidden and grandparents, aunts and uncles
are frequently stopped completely from any form of contact. Criminals
actually in prison are allowed phone calls and family visits but this is
very often denied to parents and grandparents seeking contact with
children in care or worse still "on track for adoption"
Myth
5: The British legal system is widely admired through the world
and the family courts are fair and highly respected in other countries.
Reality:
The European court of human rights in the case of P, C, and S, vs. United
Kingdom, condemned as draconian the action of the UK family court when
they followed their usual custom of taking a baby from the mother at birth
because on a previous occasion one of her children had been taken into
care many years earlier. The UK was fined but the child was already
adopted. The essential difference between British social workers and those
in Latin countries for example is that in France, Italy or Spain children
are only removed from their parents if they have suffered severe physical
harm. In the UK however children are taken not because they have actually
suffered physical harm but rather some very ill defined sort of "emotional
harm" or more often because so called "experts" (using a crystal ball?)
decide that there is a risk that children might suffer "physical "or far
more often "emotional "harm at some date in the future.
It is
impossible for parents to prove that their children will not suffer
emotional harm in the future when these experts swear to the contrary so
the unfortunate parents nearly always lose.
Thank you
for reading this.
