Last night Researching Reform was very kindly invited by Young Legal Aid Lawyers to talk about how the family courts affect parents and children experiencing the system.
The conference was held at 39 Essex Chambers in London and was hosted by Tara Mulcair and Katherine Barnes. The audience was made up of young lawyers. The panel included Creighton & Partners solicitor Heather Thomas, and Garden Court Chambers barrister Malek Wan Daud.
Heather, who only represents families, spoke about the current gaps inside the system caused by budget cuts which made it harder for her to secure support for families and the legal challenges faced by women experiencing domestic abuse. Malek talked about the history behind forced adoption and the rise in litigants in person inside the family courts as legal aid cuts kicked in.
Researching Reform chose to speak about the unprecedented spike in child removals, the theories as to why there had been an increase in care orders and how families who just need support find themselves trapped inside the system with the threat of care orders looming over them. We explained how budget cuts and entrenched cultural practices created obstacles to accessing support and crucially, created a trend towards child removal.
We are very grateful to Young Legal Aid Lawyers and 39 Essex Chambers for giving Researching Reform the opportunity to amplify families’ voices at the conference, and it was a privilege to sit on a panel with such accomplished and passionate lawyers.
Image courtesy of Young Legal Aid Lawyers
Researching Reform 
“Heather, who only represents families, spoke about … the legal challenges faced by women experiencing domestic abuse”
How do the legal challenges faced by women experiencing domestic abuse differ from the legal challenges faced by men experiencing domestic abuse, persuading Heather to chose to avoid killing two birds with one stone, by simply talking about the legal challenges faced by men and women alike when facing domestic abuse?
Could it be that Heather only ever represents female domestic abuse victims?
Come to think of it, if Heather only represents families, she cannot ever have had any clients facing domestic abuse, actually. A family in which there is domestic abuse is one in which there is inevitably scope for a conflict of interests between the family members, rendering it impossible to represent the intact family as a single entity.
As for domestic abuse victims accessing support, this is reportedly far more difficult for male victims than it is for female victims.
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I don’t know if she represents male victims of abuse, but you can go ahead and ask her yourself. There is a link to her details on the site.
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Thanks for the suggestion. I’ve written to Heather, albeit not asking those exact questions. It may be that she’s a good lawyer, despite the unnecessarily gendered language that makes me wary of the risk of doctrinaire feminism on the part of anybody who uses it.
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Legal Aid lawyers in the family courts are known in “the trade” as PROFESSIONAL LOSERS! They routinely gag their client parents telling them they cannot speak in court to make their points but must in any case agree with interim care orders that result in children being snatched from parents who love them and given to strangers who foster kids for cash !
Only one in 400 care orders refused according to judicial stats below…….
What chance do the poor parents have?
JUDICIAL COURT STATISTICS (page 26)
In 2011, there were 32,739 children involved in disposals of public law cases, including 31,515 orders made, 792 applications withdrawn, 350 orders of no order and 72 orders refused.
Only 72 care orders refused out of 32,739 cases !What chance do these poor parents have in our hopelessly prejudiced “family courts”?
Judicial and Court statistics 2011 – Gov.uk No more recent statistics have been published !
Lord Justice Thorpe said” There is nothing more serious than a removal hearing, because the parents are so prejudiced in proceedings thereafter.”
These lawyers have even formed an asociation called “transparency project” dedicated in fact to jailing any mother who protests publicly naming herself on internet or other media when her baby iis snatched at birthby the “SS”
How do I dare equate kind and dedicated social workers with Hitler’s dreaded SS ?
NOT me ,I wouldn’t dare ! Iam just quoting judge Moore !
Barnsley Chronicle
A JUDGE likened Barnsley social services to the Nazi Party’s SS after a young girl who had expressed suicidal thoughts was subjected to a naked medical examination without her father’s consent.
“Social services were like the SS of Nazi Germany,” Judge Moore said. “They’re literally the SS in their name and their manner of working is somewhat draconian.
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Ian, you speak truth as you have witnessed many cases in person.
LJ Thorpe’s words do not refuse ink.
I wish he would come with me and see what happened to an entire family of children- now almost all adults that he condemned to the corporate “care” business.
I would present the children to him so he could meet them and listen to their words describing the abuse, torture, sexual rapes etc endured in care of SS.
Hitler did remove children from natural families in order to introduce and fashion them in a way that history despises.
LJ Thorpe and other judges will go down in history in a negative way.
LJ Keane on the other hand saw what was happening to these same children, but his hands were tied due to LJ Thorpe.
In time the entire truth will come to light and maybe, just maybe court agents and SS will listen.
However with what I witnessed I doubt it.
I learned so much from listening to those children.
I learned so called social workers, probation officers, child abuse “experts” etc did not even speak the abuse language.
Now we have an entire family living with mental illness,PTSD etc.
This of course will create many jobs for the boys
From what I saw, the entire process was a soul wrecking, money making exercise.
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hope children of this judge won,t be removed.
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In America only woman can receive services for domestic voliance. It is the law. Violence against woman act give legal aid funding only for woman. I know a man in us that was shot twice in the leg. Woman recicved Al the services.
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I am Rosalind Barton from matchmothers and am very interested in researching reform and their possible impact on the family law courts.
Could I be invited to the next meeting or conference please
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Hi Rosalind, thank you for your comment. Any meetings we hold featured on the site. If you’d like to be notified you can subscribe to the site and receive details that way.
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Was this conference filmed ?
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No, I don’t think so.
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Natasha,
I sent you a brief email of my experiences to date.
How does this situation still continue?
If one complains about SS, one is told they are struggling with poor funding and under resourcing. However so are nurses, midwives and other HCP’s but they are held to account by their professional bodies!! Some SW seem to avoid ‘duty of care’ without any fear of punishment.
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Hi there, thanks for your comments. I haven’t received an email as of yet.
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