The Children Act 1989 marked its 30th anniversary on 16th November.
The legislation, which pioneered a child-focused outlook inside the family courts and introduced controversial measures which gave councils the power to remove children from parents using a risk-based threshold, is both loved and loathed.
Advocates of the Children Act 1989, whose architect is President of the UK’s Supreme Court, Baroness Hale, admire the legislation for its child-centered approach and its elegant infrastructure. Critics of the law point to its “risk of harm” threshold, which allows social workers to remove children from parents without robust evidence showing targeted parents are unfit carers.
To mark the Children Act’s 30th birthday, Lady Hale gave a speech at the Law Commission, which was published today, looking back at the Act and the history of the family courts.
Lady Hale talks about the challenges inside the courts around marriage, divorce and child protection and explains that those problems galvanised her into helping to produce the Children Act. She goes on to outline the difficulties in trying to create a body of law which focuses on often deeply complicated legal, ethical and social issues.
Her speech also offers a balanced look at both the achievements and the disappointments around the Act.
Researching Reform 
3 SHOCKING FAILURES OF THE “SS” AND THE FAMILY COURTS
NO,NO Lady Hale !The Children Act 1979 was NOT a “huge step forward”for children’s rights ;In my opinion it was a huge disastrous step “backwards” !
1:- 4 fatal words authorise the removal of children from parents for future risk. These 4 words are “likely to suffer harm”
This Act allowed children to be taken from law abiding parents via crystal ball predictions of future abuse ! Police will arrest a person who commits a crime but will never arrest anyone simply because they think that person just might commit a crime in two or three years time ! Social workers and other so called experts deprive children of parents on the basis of pure guesswork but as recent political events have shown us experts very often get their predictions all wrong !
Both Children and parents are punished by this system and are ;victims of “Punishment without crime”
2:-Even more dangerous is the way this Act suppressed our democratic right of protest against a perceived injustice.Any parents protesting online or in the media when their babies are taken at birth (or later) are threatened with jail for contempt of the secret family courts if they do not stop immediately; This on grounds of protecting the families from unwelcome publicity even when it is the parents themselves who wish to protest ;Harriet Harman when she was Home Secretary revealed that about 200 parents per year are sent to prison for contempt;
Crowds in London can with impunity block roads to protest against Brexit,or Global Warming but a mother who has never committed a crime and whose baby has been snatched at birth will be warned to keep quiet and will be jailed if she persists in protesting publicly !
3:-Even more cruel for older children is their treatment when taken into care;Uniformed police take terrified children from their homes at about 7am .Their lap tops and mobile phones are immediately confiscated to isolate them from family and friends.Once in foster care FREE SPEECH is dead for them .They are allowed only closely supervised visits from parents who have to sign an agreement not to discuss the court or even the possibility of returning home.They are also forbidden to speak their own language with parents or siblings if it is not English ! Both children and parents are forbidden to mention or discuss,abuse suffered in fostercare;Any breach of these regulations results in contact being stopped immediately and sometimes for good……..Murderers and rapists in prison are treated much better than children in care as they can phone out to friends and speak with visitors about anything they like in any language they like .What have these innocent children done to be treated worse than hardened criminals in jail?
How can anyone applaud these happening in our so called democracy?
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They applaud because they are corrupt. I have only had experience of the family courts from one aspect, that of child removal, so that is what I comment on.
Before I became involved with the family court in 2009 I had no knowledge of their existence. I had always considered the legal system in the UK to be one of the best, I no longer think that. The family court system is corrupt in both aim and application.
It is inherently flawed by accepting supposition, assumption and perjured statements as factual evidence.
It is a system of crystal ball Justice more at home in a fairground tent. The judges sit under the emblem of the monarch “Dieu et mon droit” and refuse to honour that. They respect neither God or Right. For Right to be done it must be seen to be done before a jury. Not hidden behind closed doors.
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Totally agree with Ian.
The Children’s Act was an unthought out token gesture. It has been & continues to be abused, in the true sense of the word, by those making money off the backs of those families caught within the social services web. It’s not just the professionals making money but extended families losing their savings trying to keep the child within their family. Grandparents for example do not get legal aid.
Thousands of children have been damaged & continue to be so when they are taken away from their WHOLE families needlessly. Contact is stopped once a child is taken into care. Families are devastated & broken.
Being in care as a child has become synonymous with poor education, mental health Issues, homelessness & prison inmates when they become adults. Having no contact with family whilst in care, they have lost any family continuity that would help when they leave care.
There is no care within the Care System. It’s a blunt instrument that doesn’t deliver on it’s promises. The law is ignored by those working within it.
Reforms haven’t helped so radical change is needed. Keeping the child within the family & supported to do so would be better.
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I agree with name withheld.
I too believed that our family court system was the best in the world. Innocent until proved guilty. However my belief changed after I was involved in Family Court trying to keep my grandchildren out of care. I then witnessed the total corruption of justice from Social Workers to Judges & spent my savings in the process of trying to keep them with me. I found out that the process was based on the balance of probabilities. A nebulous concept that is not based on facts & no proof is required. This meant you are subjected to the bias of whoever deals with you. I’ve had to jump through hoops in the process & it felt like I was in a parallel universe where nothing was clear & everything was topsy turvy. I am appalled at how the System is & how it treats families. The chances of keeping your child with their family are very low. Of course parents & family unwittingly go through the system thinking they will keep their child but they don’t. The courts know exactly what percentage of families are successful but they don’t publish it to the public. Appeals just generate more money for the courts coffers & still the children don’t come home. It’s a disgrace. The Children’s Act has given unscrupulous professionals carte blanche to make money on the misery of families.
The Children’s Act. Family Courts, The Care System. Social Services. Professionals. All are misnomers. All a contradiction in terms. They all need to change their names to reflect the truth.
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Some stats were published in 2011 but none similar since then !
JUDICIAL COURT STATISTICS (page 26)
In 2011, there were 32,739 children involved in disposals of public law cases,(cases where the dispute is between a local authority and parents) 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”?Legal aid lawyers (often recommended to parents by “helpful social workers”) inevitably speak “for parents” (effectively gagging them) and agree to everything that the local authority demand ! Who needs a lawyer to surrender?Anyone can do that !
Judicial and Court statistics 2011 – Gov.uk
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Yes Ian, More transparency & up to date info is needed. How can people make informed decisions for the future unless they are aware of the past?
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She has a nerve to sit there smiling. can she even comprehend the corruption, pain and suffering she has brought on many a good family. i doubt it.
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I 100% agree Dr Manhattan, the suffering and pain she has caused family’s can never be rectified, because every second, every minute, every hour, every week, every month, every year, every decade, that goes by, can never be retrieved again, its painfully lost in time, its so sad, she is a disgrace, and I’m sorry Natasha but i think the word loathed is the only word fitting to describe the pain this act has caused.
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An anniversary certainly not to be celebrated and absolutely nothing to gloat about…..ask the numbers of families that have lost their children to this disgusting regime.
Never mind the parents that take their own lives caused by their despair at losing their most precious gift. Entire families destroyed to fuel a corrupt money driven industry.
They should rename it the Child Snatcher’s Act!
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