The new definition of domestic violence, which has been expanded to include 16 and 17 year-olds and elements of coercive and emotional control has only been in force a week, but already at Researching Reform we are seeing cases where the broader definition is being abused. Here is a case study which highlights the problem, not with the definition, but with the way it is translated. (There is no legal definition of domestic violence at present. That is, the above definition is not enshrined in law, but is a working definition being used in the family justice system).
Mina and Mohammed (not their real names) are originally from a South Asian country. They have three young children and together they have lived happily in England for several years. English is not their first language, but they are able to articulate themselves well, and can be understood with ease. There have been no complaints about the family and they are not known to social services. Until now.
Mina and her husband have an investment abroad but they are worried that it may be fraudulent. The money they were hoping to raise with it is intended for university fees for their children once they reach 18. They are worried about being able to provide their children with higher education. They have had arguments about this, but these arguments have always been controlled and the children have always been placed in a different room prior to any discussions on this delicate issue taking place. Neither Mina nor Mohammed have ever physically hit or coerced each other in these conversations. They finally decide together that the best thing to do would be to go to their local authority and see if they can help.
Together, they both arrive at the local council and ask for help. Upon hearing their story, the social worker decides that there must be more to the story and after the couple leave, they receive a surprise visit from a social worker, at their home.
The social worker decides that Mohammed must leave the home and that the mother and the children must go to a refuge. The oldest child wants to stay with the father, and the social worker initially agrees. She then changes her mind. Mina asks if she can go to the pharmacy to collect her medication which she needs, only to be informed by the social worker that she can wait for a couple of days. Mina needs her prescription now. Mina and Mohammed are terribly confused. They do not understand why Mohammed has been asked to leave or why the social worker says one thing and then another.
The social worker tells Mina and Mohammed that they mustn’t fight in front of the children. Mina and Mohammed try to explain that they don’t and they understand the impact of doing so. The social worker does not listen to them and insists they do not understand. She tells them that if they do not try to understand this, their children will have to be removed from their care. No other behaviour or incident has been cited to justify removal, other than this. There is no evidence at this point, that the arguments have caused the children any harm.
Mina and Mohammed are frightened and anxious and they don’t believe the social worker when she tells them she is not there to break up their family.
Mina is then told by the social worker that there are no refuges she can go to at this time, so she must stay at home. She is told that a support worker will come around to help her. Mina begins to feel threatened and very frightened by the social worker.
When Mina tries to explain that their issue lies with the investment problem they have and has nothing to do with Mohammed, the social worker tells her that she is trying to protect her husband and that Mohammed is emotionally abusing her. Mina feels so strongly about this that she writes an email outlining her grievances. The letter is strong and insightful and not at all typical of a domestic violence victim.
Mohammed and Mina are now asked to sign an agreement plan. They are both scared to sign it. They instinctively don’t trust social services. No one has listened to them, trusted them or spoken without frightening them.
Mina is very disappointed by social services. She can’t understand how a request for help has turned into a full-blown investigation of her, her children and her husband. Mohammed is staying in a hostel. He doesn’t know when he is going to get to see his family again. No one has told him. He is not sure whether he should sign the agreement plan. Both he and Mina don’t agree with what is written in it, but they are afraid that if they don’t co-operate, they will lose their children.
The question remains: who is abusing whom?
Researching Reform 
And can either of them seek independent advice from someone suitably qualified? Probably not as legal aid has been so sharply circumscribed. There isn’t any domestic violence, plainly, so that exception won’t apply. In short, there’s no accountability any longer. The degree of accountability may not have been great prior to LASPO but it’s certainly reduced to a negligible level now.
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It looks unlikely.
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I think they have a reasonable case for bringing proceedings of malfeasance in public office against the social worker and engage a independent social work consultant to undertake a family assessment to use in their case.
If the social worker has evidence of domestic violence, then she must be asked to produce it under full disclosure principles.
There must be some legal means of preventing such misuses and abuses of statutory powers by public officials.
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The discretion afforded to social workers makes all this a very grey area, I think. We really need tighter protocol and people who are seriously sharp to do this kind of work.
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Possibly, Ragnvald. But how do they obtain access to the expertise to get these remedies off the ground? “There must be some legal means of preventing such misues…” Unfortunately I rather think we are now in the situation where this needs to read, “There ought to be some legal means….”
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Or for that matter, “There used to be some legal means….”
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it is simply madness,schizotypalism if you like but the term madness is unequivocal.to see abuse and risk of harm in any disagreement is clearly the product of a mind not in touch with reality.There is a problem that with the growth of the industry projecting any disagreement as requiring”professional” help, counselling or some kind of “therapy” . people are taking their disagreements to outsiders who have a vested interest in presenting that as some flaw requiring their “help” and out ofthe present social neurosis about “abuse” and child”protection” referrals to social workers with a “heroic saviour” self image and need are bound to result in this type of situation
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Yes as happens so often the JUDGES are the culprits not the laws they are supposed to enforce !Judges who say children should be removed for witnessing violent non physical arguments should think again the meaning of real domestic violence; Black eyes,broken bones,twisted arms or ankles yes ; but shouting?Nearly every couple in Italy or France would lose their children if that rule applied in those countries.
Yes emotional abuse exists but seldom justifies removal followed frequently by adoption even when physical violence is absent.
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It is not the nature, extent, or seriousness of the violence which is the primary consideration, but the harm caused to the victims of that abuse and the evidence substantiating such harm. In Australian Family Law the primary issues are whether the violence was used as a means of controlling the victim(s) and whether the victims were in fear of the assailant. To be subjected to a constant or frequent verbal tirade can be violently abusive (see for example the US TV programme `Dance Moms’ to witness open and unrestrained verbal abuse of children).
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Bur Ragnvald even those terrible Moms do not have their children removed and given to strangers !And nor should they !
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I certainly think those Dance Moms and teacher should be psychiatrically assessed for serious Personality disorders and their children assessed for the psychological harm they have suffered. The outcomes would determine whether, or not to send those parents on parenting courses, psychological counselling etc, and whether some of those children needed to be removed from such parents, at least until such parents are able to change their parenting behaviours..
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In law, there is the option of prosecution of the social worker. In practice, the CPS will simply take over the prosecution and drop it, claiming there is insufficient evidence. Thus has been destroyed the only real protection against State excesses.
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What an awful ordeal this must be for this family. I feel for the children here, it must be very unsettling for them.
I’m rather shocked to read the couple feel they can’t trust…….. well, that they can’t trust much at all it would seem!
This is where very accurate translation and a full understanding of what is happening here on all sides of this case need to be achieved. It appears that something has gone terribly awry here, doesn’t it?
I would imagine without Legal Aid, the wording of documents will have to be in simplified text, to ensure everyone has a complete understanding of what they are reading and what is happening to them. Taking into account that parents will be in a state of extreme distress while they are facing such a traumatic experience as having their family divided and their children removed.
And certainly there needs to be a situation whereby the couple and their children can all feel comfortable enough to express their concerns in their entirety.
I wonder what the social worker’s grounds for taking this action were.
I also wonder if anyone is overseeing the social worker and this family, and if so, are they unbiased?
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I think it is the social worker here who should be examined. Having studied the behaviours of British social workers over several decades, I am quite sure that some have serious psychopathic personality disorders with strong needs for sadistic schadenfreude. Or that they have all traces of empathy and compassion surgically removed during their training, in the same way as happens with most lawyers.
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So here we are again. ANOTHER family being BULLIED by a SINGLE social worker. May I start by saying that the Family went for HELP. WHAT help did they get ?.
Is there a LAWYER BRAVE enough to challenge the SS. NO. social services(lower case) are INVIOLATE, My definition being”cannot be touched” Is there no one in ENGLAND who will BELL THE CAT of social services, I read the story as a boy, I remember the title but not the full story. Perhaps someone will help me with the details. .
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PHILIP:- Here is a lawyer “brave enough to challenge the ss and look what happened to her !
By Christopher Booker
4:45PM BST 06 Apr 2013
Whenever I report a new story of parents struggling to prevent social workers seizing their children for what seems no good reason, I try to give a new slant on the wider picture of how our ”child protection’’ system has gone so tragically off the rails.What
makes this week’s example so unusual is that it centres on a barrister who for 10 years fought hundreds of cases on behalf of parents trying to hold on to their children, in a system where she describes them as being “like lambs led to slaughter” – only to find herself a victim of the same system after she complained to the police over serious allegations made by her older daughter against the girl’s father.
The police called in Barnet social services, who initially shared the mother’s concerns, advising that the girl should have no more contact with her drug-addicted father. But when a new social worker took over, she took the opposite view, working for the child to live with the father. This made the girl so miserable that she took to self-harming by slashing herself, leaving her mother distraught.
The more the mother expressed unhappiness about the situation the social worker had created, the more she was told she was being ”obstructive’’ and that there were “concerns about her parenting”. Last December she was summoned to a meeting to be told that the council wished to apply for care orders on both her children. Knowing how automatically the courts grant such orders, the mother – who although British was also an Israeli citizen – saw her only hope of retaining her children was to escape to Israel.
Within 36 hours, having obtained written permission from the older girl’s father, she took her daughters, now aged 14 and five, on several flights across Europe, terrified each time they landed that she might be arrested by police.
Scarcely had they arrived in Israel than she heard that the council had been granted care orders. Barnet approached our embassy in Tel Aviv to arrange for the children to be deported to Britain, with the co-operation of Israeli social services. After assessing the family, however, the Israelis advised that they could see no reason why the children – now having nightmares about being returned – should not remain in Israel.
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In Britain the matter returned to court before a circuit judge, who criticised Barnet for its “relentless” pursuit of the family, ordering a further hearing in February. At this, although the social worker testified that the older girl had said that she would be happy to live in foster care in England, the mother was allowed to take part by video link, along with a “guardian” from the court advisory service, Cafcass, who had interviewed the 14-year-old on Skype. When the guardian supported the children’s wish to remain with their mother, the judge ruled that the children were now out of English jurisdiction, ordering Barnet to withdraw its case.
The two overjoyed children are thus free to continue living with their mother in Israel, with no more nightmares about being bundled on to a plane to live with strangers 2,000 miles from what they now regard as their new home.
Says the mother, in words many other parents would echo, “It seems my only real mistake was to dare to seek help from the authorities in the first place.”
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That sounds like a case of ‘who does one believe’? And unfortunately there are some people who are very good at convincing many others that what they are saying/stating/experiencing is actually the truth.
It may be why we need complete and honest disclosure by all concerned in family/child cases.
Children’s concerns should be taken into account.
Children and youths may not have a full understanding of how the law works to know the legal implications, but they do know their hearts and emotions with regard to their parents, one would think.
But I am by no means person with any authority to say what’s what here, it’s just my own opinion (as a parent).
I’m interested in what might sometimes go wrong and how to improve on that to prevent it continuing to go wrong. As I’m sure are many!
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Dear Forcedadoption. Thank you. I would add TRAGICALLY off the rails and DRIVEN by CORRUPTION. I have corresponded with many people who are of that opinion. Here is another thought. Mr. Booker has been writing of these crimes for a long time. Why do the Governments past and present who MUST know of these calumnies(I have written to at least 150 MPs) stay SILENT. To my mind one of the reasons that we are not noticed is that none of the abused FAMILIES have torn down flags, broken shop windows, rioted etc. I do not know if i am allowed to do this but here goes. Youtube:– Walsall ss-forced adoption
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An interesting nuamce here is that the EWL, the European Women’s Lobby in Brussels, does not recognise child abuse as domestic violence. In particular the withholding or preventing of access rights of the fathers is not abuse or DV using their definition.So I wonder how they would dleal with elements in “Domestic Violence Extended – Early Case Studies” ?
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Domestic violence and the inherent abuse of children rarely ends at separation. These are the researched types of child abuse and domestic violence which continue.
Click to access Using%20Children%20Wheel.pdf
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Please don’t offer up the Duluth wheel as any form of considered answer to this question as its designed to give only one type of answer – that of guilt (I take it you are familiar with how it is used ?)
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Dear posters, thank you, as always for taking the time to write. There still seem to be a few of you though, who will insist on being rude to other posters. Please note that this will not be tolerated. Points can be made politely and constructively without resorting to snide comments with a personal bent.
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