A family court judge has called out a council for acting with ‘subterfuge and immediacy’ for illegally removing a child from her parents.
The comments represent the latest within a growing number of judgments calling out councils for illegal and unethical behaviour in their practices of social care and forced adoption.
Gloucesteshire county council finally apologised to the parents after a hearing in which Judge Stephen Wildblood set out an astounding list of errors, which included:
- Failing to place the child, who was under two at the time, with her father in the event of removal from her mother, as set out in the care order
- Taking 6 weeks to return the baby to the mother, who was breastfeeding at the time
- Breaching their legal duty to give parents 14 days’ notice prior to removing their child
- Failing to seek legal advice despite having a strong feeling that the removal was illegal
- Failing to consider other placement alternatives for the child, including an approved paternal aunt, instead of placing the baby with strangers
- Failing to take into consideration the mother’s vulnerability and fragile condition
- Failing to scrutinise and properly manage the child’s care plan
- Failing to keep adequate records of meetings and decision making
- Removing the child from her mother’s care without just cause
Had it not been for the mother’s application to try to get her baby back, these failings would have gone unnoticed, and she would have lost her daughter to the care system forever. Wildblood observes in his judgment that the mother should never have had to bring proceedings herself, without any legal aid, as she was considered vulnerable.
Some quotes from the case:
Judge Wildblood:
“In my opinion it is clear that the local authority acted in a way that was contrary to case law and in breach of the article 8 rights of both parents and the child.”“
The very basis of the original care proceedings was that the mother is an emotionally fragile and socially vulnerable woman… Therefore, for her to have faced the issues that arose on her own is manifestly unsatisfactory.”
The mother:
“[I am] relieved and extremely happy that my child is back in my care… [it has been] an incredibly distressing and traumatic time… While the local authority has accepted its failings, I hope that no other family suffers in the way my family has.”
OFSTED had rated the council inadequate, with multiple failings identified at management level. The Guardian to the case is now expected to file an application on behalf of the child for damages under the Human Rights Act. There will also be an independent review of the case.
Given that these failings are not unique to this council, an independent review is not enough. There needs to be a review at national level, of all councils specifically looking at the rules and regulations in place within each council for care proceedings, how those rules and regulations are being implemented and why councils are failing to follow the law.
We invite the government to undertake a review of child protection practices in every local authority. A review of this kind has not been done before and unlike other reviews, this would allow us to finally understand the gaps in council practice in this area, and even more importantly, to ensure those gaps are filled.
Researching Reform 
the family courts are a total disgrace operating like the Gestapos at times, and even allowing abuse to continue favouring fathers against innocent mothers. If there is an ethnicity issue guess who wins? Also if mothers have been abused as a child this is also used against them and told they are grooming their own child to say things. The whole operation is shrouded in secrecy and Government needs to take a serious harsh look at the processes . The input from some inexperienced social workers adds to this shameful practice .So many professional people do not seem to realise they even are being groomed by abusing fathers using their ” charm” !!!
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Yes she did the right thing. I intend to bring a Law suit against Sheffield City ouncil for the damage done to my children and the long term distress to my children and myself. I have been apart from my children who I have always loved and cared about for 25 years. The damage done by my narcacist ex with the help of Judge Alan Goldsack at the Sheffield Combined court.
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The German “SS” called it lebensborn when they took children from non Aryan families and with the help of compliant judges gave them to Aryan strangers to be raised as good Nazis.
Our own “SS” (social services) do much the same but to ensure political correctness rather than Nazi theology but on a much larger scale than the German “SS” as 25,000 children are taken every year in the UK!
There should be no punishment without crime thus children should never be taken from sane LAW ABIDING citizens
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Same here.. the Gestapo Style “Removal and No Contact” was used against me and my Family as well. We have not seen nor heard from our VIP for many years. Can someone tell me who is the “GUARDIAN” in this Gloucestershire Case? Is it the Newspaper or a Guardian? I need to take this back to court and to a “DIFFERENT JUDGE” at once as Articles: 5,6 and 8 of the ECHR is being covertly and cruelly breached.
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Reblogged this on No Punishment without Crime or Bereavement without Death!.
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Weve got a Similar Situation with Our Case and Our Human Right Article 8 Has been Violated also Because of Staffordshire County Council when They Destroyed Our Loving and Very Happy Life with Our Happy Daughter
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Reblogged this on tummum's Blog.
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Utterly astonishing that councils branded as inadequate can still litigate.
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Reblogged this on Musings of a Penpusher and commented:
Yet more evidence of the bullying bigotry of bureaucrats, masquerading as beneficial bodies operating in the interests of children, being exposed as unfit for purpose.
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“Breaching their legal duty to give parents 14 days’ notice prior to removing their child”.
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is this a new policy or has this always been the legal duty of LAs ?
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I wish I could answer that. If only there was a handbook with this information in it. I’ve tried so many times to access this kind of information. Perhaps a good FOI request to make….
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“Perhaps a good FOI request to make….”
Yes….. i would say so.
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The illegal removal of children by UK social has been ongoing for over two decades, greatly assisted by the changes brought in by the Blair government after 1997, and particularly when Local Authorities were enabled to act as Adoption Placement agencies as well as child removal agencies and were then given financial subsidies to achieve adoption targets.
The Blair were grossly misled into believing there were thousands of children in the State Care system who could/ should be adopted. This was untrue and was known to be untrue. The vast majority of children in the State Care system were and are older children, many with serious emotional/ behavioural problems and who are unwanted by adopters, who want small babies (preferably white and blue eyed).
And so this gross atrocity and these crimes against humanity increased several fold against children and their parents.
Local authorities took little regard for the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights when they were critical of these practices (e.g. P,C,& S 2001) and the UK government ignored the protests of 32 other European countries when they protested to Parliament about babies being taken from their citizens when they came to the UK.
Local authorities are now acting above and beyond the laws in committing these atrocities against children, having been given immense powers by Parliament and a lack of oversight of their activities and an absence of accountability – almost. Only the Courts now can see the atrocities that are being committed and are the final safeguard against such practices albeit, they have only acted in a small number of cases, when such action is needed in far more.
Parliament must completely re-examine the child protection laws and the adoption laws and must act quickly to separate the child removal functions of local authorities from the placement of children for adoption. They must also remove from the legislation the ability of social workers to remove children for the `likelihood’ of harm – predicting future harm is an immensely precarious exercise that has led to `Crystal Ball’ social work practice and has been grossly exploited to feed the adoption market.
The lives of many thousands of children and the psychological wellbeing of parents depend on such urgent Parliamentary action,
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“must act quickly to separate the child removal functions of local authorities from the placement of children for adoption.”
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Very well said indeed Richard.
the Adoption scandal is the primary element of destruction in all this. thousands of parents have gave it their all to try and win back their children when all the time the LA Courts knew they would not be getting their children back. decisions are being reached long before the court proceedings conclude due to clandestine meetings between Social workers and the Judges. how nobody has gone to Jail yet is incredible.
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Reblogged this on World4Justice : NOW! Lobby Forum..
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How many Judges see inaccuracies but choose to ignore them? They rely on the Guardian & social workers for any information and parents don’t get much help from legal aid solicitors/barristers who seem more supportive of the LA stance than the parents. I’ve heard them called Professional Losers and I can now see why.
How many cases are “won” by parents who get their children back? How many grandparents? Even in later years when new evidence comes to light that supports the parents it can be too late, the child being settled elsewhere, especially if adopted.
Oftentimes the family are ousted out of the lives of looked after children the, long term fostered children. Diminishing family Contact, until it is stopped altogether, for one excuse or another, is played out by heartless, badly educated social workers who clearly missed the memo about how better the child fares if in Contact with their real family. With regular contact the child’s mental health is better but that doesn’t surpass the needs of the long term foster carers or Special Guardians who reject any family involvement and of course the social workers agree because it makes it easier for them and doesn’t cost anything as contact supervisors won’t be required nor venue costs. If you go back to Court for Contact the Judge says you can’t force the child! No, you can’t but you can encourage and look for the real reason if the child really didn’t want Contact.
It’s very odd that a child wouldn’t want Contact so if I were a Judge I would wonder why? Which LA’s have a high rate of children not seeing their families after being taken into care? What age is the child? Does the family want to see the child? Are they able to schedule contact to weekends/evenings/days off if they are working? What steps have been taken to facilitate and encourage contact? Are the foster carers/Special Guardians encouraging or are they saying one thing but their body language saying another, that the child, now in their care, picks up on.
The “Voice of the Child” is never heard by the family or Judges only the social workers, who relay their interpretation of what the child has said, fitting in with their own agenda. With the current technology availiable I don’t understand why all meetings between the child & social worker/guardian are not taped. Any allegations made for court should be in writing and investigated by police not social workers. This happens in criminal cases so why not family cases which have life-changing outcomes.
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“The “Voice of the Child” is never heard by the family or Judges only the social workers, who relay their interpretation of what the child has said, fitting in with their own agenda”.
Dana what you have stated here is absolutely true. the problem is that the Govt dont want to look into it. probably because of how big this can of worms is and what the implications would be for a full investigation into the corruption that has been widespread for so long.
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Please understand that Judges have played a vital part is “Parent Alienation” as well and they will not now accept and apologize. This one refused to make an Order to resume the Family contact {which the SW stopped} but misleads in her Judgement and say “the SW tried to encourage contact but, P refused”. The SW then criticizes a relative {who she befriended} for encouraging P to speak to the innocent Parent on a phone while, the Judge knows of this but, does nothing. This Judge is now waiting to dismiss any application made by the parent regardless to what happens. This Judge then gags the parent. Therefore, where is the Justice here? And what does this parent do to re-establish with hi8s/her loved one?
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Dan, Contact or the lack of, is an issue that only comes up after your child is taken from you. I now believe it is done as a matter of course by social workers as part of a strategy which begins with the Care Plan which changes like the weather after the court orders are made.
Human Rights state you & your child should have contact so to enforce no contact it’s easy to say the young child doesn’t want contact,. Who can dispute this when contact is stopped immediately? They don’t allow an independent person, like an MP for instance, or another person to do any checks and balances on what is really happening. One thing I know for sure is if the child doesn’t want contact when before going into care they did, then someone is orchestrating it and it’s not the child. That child will feel abandoned and will end up with mental health issues but that doesn’t matter to social workers because the family is just trouble to them. Once a child is in care the family is irrelevant and ignored, only dealing with them when they say they are going back to court. Needless to say the family cannot keep going back to court as it’s expensive and soul destroying as they keep losing.
Judges are complicit and a few that occasionally take a different stance from time to time to be seen they are doing their job is frankly not enough. The fact these cases make headlines show they are not the norm. What is the norm are most cases are on a judicial conveyor belt without any real scrutiny.
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“They don’t allow an independent person, like an MP for instance, or another person to do any checks and balances on what is really happening”.
Absolutely right again Dana. LAs will put a thousand barriers in the way of parents trying to re-establish contact and no outsiders are allowed to speak to the child. Not even NYAS when they are contracted by the same LA.
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Thanks Dana and Dr. Manhattan but, have a read of just in news by Minister for Care and Mental Health Jackie Doyle-Price. She states ” Funding aside, what pleases me most about this expansion of the pilot is that even more people with learning disabilities, autism and mental health conditions will be given one primary point of contact for their care and support needs. This will mean consistent and constant advice, service coordination with family and carers, and proactive contact with community networks to help people live as independently as possible.
My ambition for the programme – as it is for everyone we seek to help – is for people with learning disabilities and other cognitive conditions to live a good life. The pilots offer the opportunity for social workers to provide excellent person-centred support for individuals and the people around them”.
Now she mentions “COORDINATION WITH FAMILY AND CARERS”. How is this going to come about if the SW, inept Sols and biased Judges pays no attention to her proposals?
It beggars “Who has more powers? Ministers or Judge/Councils/Solicitors? As you may guess Ms. Doyle-Price is coming from a very humane angle which is “family inclusion” the Court and LA opposes.
I have written to Ms. Doyle-Price on this. Fingers crossed maybe I will get a reply. Anyone wanting read the full article please forward you e mail addy to me dannydebideen@hotmail.co.uk as there is no link to post here. Cheers xx
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Dr Manhatten, They social services ring fence the child so any discrepancies in what they say cannot be found out, as you don’t have contact with your child.
Having contact has often been protective for the child as abuses have come to light during contact. We all know that abuse in foster care happens-what was it? Oh yes, 1 in 4! At least that was admitted. The true figure is probably higher.
The IRO is supposed to ensure the well being of the child and keep the family informed but the one in our case aligned himself with social services & failed miserably in his duties and despite being ticked off by the judge, nothing changed and he is still in his job!
The child is also supposed to have an independent person that can speak to them but they have to request it. How many do? At what age? You can ask but will be told that the social worker doesn’t believe it is appropriate, at this time!
If you google Children in Care Rights, the NSPCC pops up. If you look at the policy & guidance for England, you won’t see a list of their rights, you will see adoption policies. Says it all really!
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“social services ring fence the child so any discrepancies in what they say cannot be found out”.
Absolutely correct Dana.
the severing of the children from their family is very well planned and its almost impossible to get to the truth. they operate exactly like Mi5.
the Govt know all about it but turn a blind eye. its nothing short of psychological child abuse and the govt are condoning it simply by their failure to look into it.
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