The BBC has produced a radio programme on the UK’s child protection system and the way in which children are removed from mothers.
The website offers further information about the programme:
“With the numbers of children being taken into care in England at a ten year high, we take a look at the women who face the repeat court-ordered removal of subsequent children. We hear the story of one woman who had already had her first two children removed under court orders – and decided to flee the country when she was 37 weeks pregnant with a third child.
Jenni discusses why some women face the repeat court-ordered removal of their children and what support vulnerable mothers require to break the cycle.”
The programme interviewed the following people:
- Sophie Humphreys, child protection expert and board member of Cafcass
- Claire Mason, senior research associate at the Centre for Child and Family Justice Research and social worker
- Paula Jackson-Key, from Doncaster Children’s Services Trust
- Joanne Harris, author of The Strawberry Thief
The programme’s website doesn’t explain that the representative from Doncaster is an agent from Pause, the controversial women’s charity which insists women are fitted with coils before they can receive support to prevent further removal of children from their care.
You can listen to the programme here.
We will forward comments you leave us to the BBC.
Researching Reform 
Prof Andy Bilson has done lots of good research exactly on this topic, he’s also produced this free online course in children’s right and child protection
https://www.edx.org/course/child-protection
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None of the 4 interviewed were mothers whose children had been taken from them….
Perhaps the producers should have discussed the widespread practice of confiscating children for “risk of future emotional abuse” and whether there should be” punishment without crime” and suppression of free speech for children in care and parents who visit them or who wish to protest publicly and openly without being jailed for contempt by our secret family courts !
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The debate is skewed by Jenny Murray framing it as being about women who repeatedly get pregnant when the issue is the systematic targeting by social services of women who have had a child removed. It suggests the problem is with individual women psychologically rather than with the abusive actions of a persecutory system. She implicitly accepts this policy that repeatedly targets certain women. Once a child is removed you are subject to a level of scrutiny and interference that ensures removal of all subsequent children. It would have been a more balanced discussion if someone from “Support not Separation” were included. There was no one critical of the state, only supportive of it.
They all failed to address material reality ie poverty, austerity where parents are experiencing hardship but the state labels this ‘neglect’, which becomes the rationale for removal.
They use ‘childhood trauma’ or domestic violence as a means of stigmatising and labelling women as ‘unfit’ rather than help. Past experience is used as part of their arsenal to attack and undermine mothers. The figure of 40% mentioned should itself demonstrate that the state is an exceptionally poor parent and the emphasis should be on not removing children, instead they use this as a means to cause even more damage to children by removing them and subjecting them to the trauma of state ‘care’. The lifelong harm to children of removal is being completely overlooked and ignored. The outcomes for ‘looked after’ children are dire, has anyone noticed? A quarter of the prison population have been in ‘care’.
The state is an incredibly abusive, neglectful and uncaring parent, so why are these women(shockingly it is women taking children from mothers) so deaf, dumb and blind to the facts? They perpetuate the very conditions they claim to be against. Removing children to ‘state care’ produces damaged people who then have children removed to ‘state care’. They’ve created an ongoing problem. Children do best with their families, this is established fact. If the parents are supported and helped the outcomes are better. All the sanitised language of the industry that talks of ‘safeguarding’ and ‘care’ serves to conceal the reality which is the exact opposite.
The level of debate was lacking in critical analysis of this very unfair and malevolent system that causes huge harm to children and families. The poor young woman featured who on return to the UK had her baby removed shows her actions were correct. That the system would never allow her the chance to be a parent as she would be viciously targeted by them.
It is a form of class war and social engineering. The rich are not hounded for sending children to boarding school as this kind of abuse is being paid for. Had the parents of Madeleine McCann been working class the state would have seized their younger two children. The double standards and hypocrisy, the rampant racism and sexism at the heart of so much ‘social work’ should be a scandal.
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Well said. 46% of adoptions subsequently break down and the children end up back in care – not much of a success rate is it? I am grateful that the likes of Prof Andy Bilson from Lancaster Uni have done/are doing research into the repeated removal of children from within the same family, and also freely educating parents to children’s rights and child protection https://www.edx.org/course/child-protection. depending on which point one wants to make in court , my go to researchers are professors, Liz Trinder, Andy Bilson, Eileen Munro, Lauren Devine and always check out the list of relevent reference articles at the end of their research articles as well 😀 😀
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I totally agree with your analysis of the system and its persecution of mothers who themselves have been in care and/or those families who are struggling with poverty. The number of families in the UK living below the bread line and raising their children in poverty is increasing monthly. To what do we attribute this increase in poverty – Universal Credit. Benefit reform has taken more away from the poor in terms of financial assistance. Yes – the poor have less money and the use of food banks has increased exponentially since the implementation of UC. But there have also been changes in our society and culture, which has taken us back 100 years and has once again drawn a divide between the have’s and have-nots, it has vilified those claiming benefits or on low incomes.
Additionally, the age of austerity has year on year slashed the budget for early intervention. Therefore when a family is identified as struggling, not neglectfully of abusively, Social Services are supposed to step in and provide support and assistance. Refer them to other services who can also help and support. Yet these services no longer exist. So families are placed on Children in Need plans, given unrealistic and unachievable targets to meet without any help. If and when they are deemed to have failed to make the ‘significant’ changes that were demanded of them, their case is stepped up to Child Protection, then PLO and then taken to Family Court for care orders and removal of the children to foster care or adoption. I would like to talk with you further.
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Exactly, there is a state policy to create poverty and then punish the poor by removing children as there is no effective support. There is also a culture within social work of demonising parents and seeing the state as a benevolent rescuer.
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So so wrong. Back to the Victorian era we go wh?? Do you work in the field or have you been personally involved with SS?
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My children’s childhood was stolen by the British family court at [edited] UK. I have spoken about my case on American radio and I am happy to speak out. I have been apart from my children I love so much for 27 years. My number is [edited] I was abused by my ex and judge [edited]. I have written a book about the case and put a video out on facebook. I have never ever been given a reason why. I am happy to talk I have had No contact at all. Being a mother is the greatest thing I have ever done I will always love my children no matter what. I will always be a mother.
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I would like to talk with our further.
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Hi…. I didn’t understood the whole interview to be honest…. But I understood that women’s are are likely to be suffering child removal if they are vulnerable and fall pregnant easily etc.
What about people who are trapped in child custody battle after leaving an abusive relationship. The children are used by perpetrator to harras further to victims and when victims try to protect their children from abuse the courts see it as parental alienation which is only used for mothers and then mothers are under threat of her children to be removed?
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Eggggsactly! this is the ‘damned if you do and damned if you don’t scenario’. If you try to protect your child the ex screams parental alienation. and then you’re seen as emotionally/psychologically harming the child. I know of mothers who rather than risk that, are encouraging and cajoling their kids to keep going to contact to avoid that scenario for fear of losing their child and the abusive ex actually being given residency of the child as can easily happen and has.
The mothers feel forced to do this knowing that the child is actually suffereing emotional and psychological abuse at the hands of the ex perpetrator and has to live with the fear of what that is doing to the child, living their life trying to offset any damage done, on a daily basis, to the child, as it being the lesser of two evils, having to become complicit in the child being abused by ongoing contact, because the child would be much more severely traumatised by being removed from the mother’s care and handed over to the abusive ex.
THAT is what judges are doing to children, all because any and all paternal contact is seen as being a positive. Duh! And when you have judges who even make 14/15 yr olds who express their wishes not to go to contact, to actually have to continue with contact because, ‘children don’t want to go to school either, so you have to make them’ – is it any wonder that mothers are terrified for their child even when they have retained residency. And whatever happened to ascertaining and paying heed to the wishes of the child? That is SUCH a joke. A very sick joke, which I doubt even Shakespeare would have stooped to in one of his farces.
The govt seems to think, very erroneously, that if you force contact between ne’er-do-well and feckless fathers, even physically abusive ones that somehow that will magically make those fathers be so full of paternal love that they will wholeheartedly turn over a new leaf and become model citizens, and, fathers, overnight. Well, does this come as any suprise to you, your honours, that this isn’t actually working??!! And who’s suffering? The children, as usual.
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This is happening to men my partner has now died and they preventing contact with me instead looking at fostering via back doors. Oxford courts .
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The heartless face of our social system is a symptom of the modern society in which we live here in UK. It affects all ages.
This morning I spoke on the phone to an old friend; she too is 82 broaching 83, but has experienced so much more suffering than I in her brushes with ill health and dealings with the corrupt legal system that operates with impunity in so many places, whether in town or city.
In reality, the lives of ordinary people matter little to politicians or bureaucrats, unless they concern election votes or statistics.
I was somewhat dumbfounded recently when I learned that a young friend of my grandson was headhunted by firms in New York and London before opting to return to Italy. The jobs on offer were to gather for sale – legitimately – the data available about people.- that’s you and me. I know his salary is way, way up among the very highly paid, and that jobs such as his are the lifeblood of bureaucrats, politicians and statisticians. Something of vicious circle isn’t it
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This was rather frustrating to listen to as they seemed to be way off base with the actual issue of why Children are being removed in ever higher numbers.
the first 20 mins was mainly centered on the supposedly bad advice of Ian Josephs which i found more of an orchestrated attack on the man with no mention of all the mothers he has helped and are now happily living a normal life with their child.
to me this program did nothing to take a good unbiased look at the nuts and bolts of the problems withing Child protection and its relationship with Adoption agencies which have together resulted in the spike in removals over the past 10 yrs.
closed minds can never be open to the reality of the situation down on the ground.
too many suits, no solutions.
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I listened to the programme and I did not see it as an orchestrated attack on myself since I was only mentioned for about 50 seconds ! any thinking person would conclude that Zara the mum in the programme saved her baby by going to France where the authorities were satisfied with the care she gave her baby so she was WISE to flee .
Her mistake was missing her brother so much that she foolishly came back to the UK wherethe vicious and spiteful UK authorities seized her child the very same day
Noone on the programme answered her final conclusions which were……..
I still cannot understand how I can be a good mother in one country (France) and a bad mother in another (England).
That to me seems a very very strong argument in favour of flight (providing you can support yourself for at least 6 months after arrival;)
She kept her baby in France but lost it in England CASE PROVED I THINK !!
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I have to disagree.
they clearly made you out to be the bad guy who encourages young mothers to flee the country.they even played clips of speeches you made to highlight your stance on the situation. it almost felt like they wanted some kind of action taken against you. the young girl herself said she was mislead by you and went on to say that young mothers should not flee and should stay and fight the SS instead.
the BBC certainly wanted to show you in a bad light thats for shure.
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Agreed the bbc wanted to show me in a bad light and the bbc did not reply to my request to publish my reply or to interview me !
However Zara did not actually say I had given her bad advice (probably because she never asked me for advice just the cash refund for her tickets!).
Yes she said parents should stay and fight but her final words were
“I cannot understand how I can be a good parent in one country (France) and a bad parents in another (England).She kept her baby in France and lost it in England
Surely a very strong argument in favour of flight ??
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One concern I have about this programme is that it is perpetuating the myth that women who have their children removed are somehow functionally ‘damaged’, ‘lacking’, ‘impoverished’, ‘vulnerable’, ‘incapable’. This simply isn’t true. whilst some mothers may be one or more of the aforementioned, many many MANY others who find themselves embroiled in welfare clashes with children’s services are in fact very loving competent mothers, and very capable and highly functioning women, well educated to even post degree standard – even barristers.
I’d like to see the BBC address THAT and their expereinces in a programme, and why they end up in such a situation, which is often due to malicious unfounded allegations being made by vindictive, manipultive ex partners who use the Child Protection system to continue to control and punish the woman who have been strong enough to walk away from them and break the cycle of domestic abuse and coercive behaviour, EVEN when it means their own child/ren suffer un-necessarily as a consequence.
Because what’s the worst way to hurt a woman who is a mother? Hurt her child! That’s how evil these men are. They groom professionals as succcesfully as they once groomed their partners. No-one is more nuanced and professional at playing the victim as an abusive contollling man who has been scorned and disempowered by the woman he used to control, getting away from him. Get stuck into that BBC, and learn how it is well nigh impossible to prove those allegations are false under the current FC system.
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What follows is not my post, but was posted online by another mother, but it exactly describes what happens and the ‘catch 22’ situation that mothers find themselves in. And the last paragraph is exactly the situation we had to face.
And, if there’s no conviction then judges are ordering ongoing contact and therefore ongoing risk to children by giving unsupervised contact to the abuser. That’s the LIFE SENTENCE which is being forced onto children by judges, and why I want to see the investigating police officer in any investigation involving the child, be as a matter of routine, called to give evidence in court.
“WELCOME TO CHILD PROTECTION AGAINST SEXUAL ABUSE IN THE UK.
Let’s just say you discover your child is being sexually abuse by the other parent . Let’s just say it is your word against theirs. Let’s just say there is enough evidence to prosecute under CPS prosecution but they take time to get the case together. Let’s just say by giving evidence for them you have just laid a trail for all of the evidence therefore for you to be accused of parental alienation. Let’s just say on the basis of that evidence social workers, before CPS can prosecute, transfer residency of sole custody to the other parent in family court. Let’s just say that because of speaking about sexual abuse you lose custody of your children. Let’s just say the other parent continues to sexually abuse your children but you can’t speak out about it because you are the abuser by speaking out and if you do, you will never see your children again. Let’s just say that a child is worth £27,000 if social services can remove a child and place it with a foster carer to earn money and the foster carer is….. the other parent. It happens… every day …in the uk. Pretty dark isn’t it. Worse still, let’s pretend that the police believe you but family court destroys their case and the police have to drop the case because family court decide, with no criminal training, that it cannot have been sexual abuse…because the other parent is so charming. Welcome to child protection in the uk
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Noone on the programme answered the mother’s final conclusions which were……..
“I still cannot understand how I can be a good mother in one country (France) and a bad mother in another (England).”
That to me seems a very very strong argument in favour of flight (providing you can support yourself for at least 6 months after arrival;)
She kept her baby in France but lost it when she unwisely returned to England CASE PROVED I THINK
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