Yet another social worker has been exposed for making up evidence in a child protection case, which could have resulted in the mother losing her child to the care system.
Linda Fraser, who works for Bristol city council as a senior social worker, edited child protection records in order to persuade the judge to place the child in care. Ms Fraser then lied to the court about having done so.
District judge Julie Exton found that Ms Fraser had added new information to case notes in order to bolster evidence against the mother. Ms Fraser then tried to suggest she was suffering from poor mental health and stress at the time and could not remember altering the records. The appeal court wasn’t buying it, and details of her conduct were sent to the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC), who then summoned Fraser before a disciplinary panel.
During the HCPC hearing, Ms Fraser denied several counts of misconduct, including suggesting to a court that it was the children’s social worker who had made the edits.
For reasons which remain unclear, the HCPC allowed Ms Fraser to give her evidence in private, using a measure usually reserved for vulnerable witnesses.
Ms Fraser also asked that live tweeting at the hearing be stopped, however upon the HCPC panel receiving legal advice on the matter, the panel refused her request.
Ms Fraser remains in Bristol council’s employment as a senior social worker.
The fabrication of evidence inside the Family Courts has become an epidemic. Google “social worker fabricated evidence“, and page upon page of reported cases come up. And those are just the publicly available ones. There is also an alarming number of Freedom Of Information requests investigating the issue.
The case above throws up the important, though admittedly unsexy, question of whether edits of child protection files should be formally tracked, with names and dates of parties making the changes all recorded. It is something Researching Reform addressed at the beginning of this year, when a similar case was made public. With the right software, and a good document production policy in place, this could be easily achieved, at minimal cost. This was what we proposed in January:
What a document production policy might look like –
- Child welfare professionals must produce documents in line with best practice guidelines whilst adhering to law and local authority policy
- Where the author of a document makes edits during its production, those edits must be tracked using standard tracking software on Word or Pages files.
- Where the author of a document or report wishes to make edits after producing the document, he or she must file a form with the local authority, preferably through an online database, which is numbered and accessible to all parties to a case entitled to see this document.
- Edits would then be added using the standard tracking software available with online text files so changes would also be visible.
- If evidence is required to confirm the authenticity of any amendments outlining facts which are not immediately obvious, this must also be submitted with the form
- The form must then be reviewed by a team manager or judge, depending on the circumstances and the nature of the edits. The reviewing party may also request further evidence or information before approving the edit/s
- If the edits are approved, this must be evidenced on the form, so that a timeline of actions is recorded, preferably through an online system which logs and saves all data for every case, including who approved the edits
- If the edits are not approved, reasons on the form must be given as to why
- Where a professional who has not produced the document which is submitted for editing wishes to make an edit, that professional must also seek permission to edit that document via a form, as above.
- All edits to a document must be tracked on the file itself, and shown to the relevant parties including individuals to whom the edits refer, so that they may raise any objections within a prescribed time frame
- Families who want to address factual errors within such documents, whether they are found in the edits or the original draft of the document, should also be able to do so via a form, with appropriate evidence where required
- Anyone found to have altered a document without permission should face being struck off and/or subject to criminal sanctions.
There may be a simpler way of doing this. Then again, the above process may just deter people from engaging in unethical behaviour in the first place.
Many thanks to Sabine for alerting us to this case.
“a disciplinary panel”?
Why has this ‘Senior Social Worker’ (& the others) not been charged with perjury?
Norman Scarth.
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Yes we are hearing more and more about this sort of Criminal misconduct yet the LAs employing these people are defending them tooth and nail. prosecutions must shurely be the only way forward before more lives are destroyed and in some cases end in suicide.
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“There may be a simpler way of doing this. Then again, the above process may just deter people from engaging in unethical behaviour in the first place.”
Not really, Natascha. It would help identify who did what and when but still does not help much in terms of opinions and incremental smear.
Social workers should not be allowed to express opinions. They should only gather and record facts. Findings of fact under s31 CA1989 require material fact in support. Child protection decisions made under sections 44 etc are made on ‘reasonable suspicion’ or ‘reasonable belief’ but only because action taken is up for immediate review.
Your proposal does not help with accountability. Social services need to be held accountable to the same operating procedures as the police, where investigation of possible criminal activity takes precedence over mere disciplinary matters. Disciplinary matters should be suspended pending immediate criminal review.
The system you propose would be great for identifying discrepancies but not for dealing with them as it leaves the problem in the same hands. In this case, a judge nudged the matter to the HCPC when he should have issued a bench warrant. A local authority too, won’t act against their own, as is proven once again here. The police probably won’t act unless told to by a judge. Complaining to a family judge that the other side are engaging in criminal activity is like p*****g in the wind. For all the rhetoric from senior judges about jailing errant social workers, not one has had the integrity to do it.
I presume we will have to wait until a victim has the money to try a private criminal prosecution; just see how quickly the CPS take that one over and ditch it.
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Reblogged this on Musings of a Penpusher and commented:
All in the name of social services there are lies, damned lies – and statistics it would seem, but what about truth and justice?
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Reblogged this on tummum's Blog.
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This SENIOR social worker was just one (of the increasingly number) who was caught. How many more? No one polices what social workers do. They are above the law in real terms or this social worker and the others before, would have been prosecuted. There should be more accountability for all within family law. We hear time & time again how they collude with each other. Are we to believe this social worker worked in isolation? If she did, why was she able to? Why wasn’t her work checked? No social worker should be able to bring a case to court in isolation. If she didn’t then someone else was aware of what she was doing and equally culpable.
Kudos to the Judge for outing her but should have gone further and procecuted her.
Every meeting should be recorded too.
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Reblogged this on | truthaholics and commented:
How long before the new post-Hillsborough public ‘duty of candour’ applies to local authorities and over-zealous child protection social workers?
And to all public officials with no exception?
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Reblogged this on World4Justice : NOW! Lobby Forum..
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Was the family compensated for what they endured?
This social worker should have been sacked. Why is she allowed to carry on practicing?
All her previous cases should be investigated too. She is unlikely to have fabricated evidence to only this case.
The role of social workers needs to be changed to provide a support system to families rather than take children into a far from adequate care system that is increasingly failing the children on so many levels and is expensive to boot!
With poverty in the UK at an all time high leading to a high proportion of children nationwide to be deprived, it doesn’t make sense to me that there is a huge budget ring fenced for “the protection of children” but fails to protect the majority of those in need of the basics, like food!
It is known there is a correlation between poverty and those who enter the care system but very little is done, if anything, to address this issue. Until the available money is spread around to support all families then this inequality will produce the same merry go round with broken families & more children facing a life in care and all the disadvantages that go with that scenario.
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37% in poverty by 2022 undoing any headway made in the past 20 years! See Natasha’s tweet Child poverty set to soar to new peaks.
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Accountability and criminally charged is what’s needed not a disciplinary panel. A full investigation is desperately needed.
I wonder how many other parents had there children back who were lost through her? I doubt it,that mother was very lucky, they should be criminally charged ,children are being injured and killed,some are surving,others taken away. I see a bigger disaster ahead of many children’s lives,question is how many more have to pay the price ? In the name of “child protection “
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i keep trying to leave a reply but it wont load.
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