Welcome to another week.
Andrew McFarlane – the judge in charge of the family court in England and Wales – published a report announcing that the courts should be more open and transparent in how they work.
The report makes several suggestions including that journalists should have greater access to the family courts; the presumption that people cannot automatically report on family court cases to be replaced with a presumption that they can unless there are good reasons not to allow it, and the compulsory collection of “data” at the end of each case.
However, the current recommendations made by McFarlane – which he says can be challenged in an upcoming consultation — propose a much watered down version of transparency, which include: restricted access to court documents; a tightly controlled reporting regime which involves the judiciary monitoring the media as stories are prepared and published; and only allowing those journalists accredited by the family courts to report on such cases.
The individuals and organisations currently involved in and advising on this initiative include: Anthony Douglas CBE, former chief executive of CAFCASS; Dr Eia Asen, consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist; The Transparency Project; Isabelle Trowler, chief social worker; Jacky Tiotto, CEO Cafcass; and James Munby, the former president of the family courts.
Our question to you this week, is just this: do you think this initiative is going to make a positive difference to families and children going through the family courts?
Researching Reform 
It sounds as though this will be so heavily policed that only that which reflects well on the current system will be publicized which is effective propaganda. Personally, it would have been truly awful to have any of my case made public because of the numerous horrendous untruths in the social work evidence. However, if it was allowed I would very much like to be able to go to the press with the evidence of all the falsehoods used by the local authority against me. I would like the public to know that this does happen, professionals do lie in family court to take children, and is not just a claim so often made by aggrieved parents unwilling to accept the ‘evidence.’
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Andrew Mc Farlane is right to propose more transparency in family courts but that’s not going to be much good if the information to the courts are skewed against the families.
Information must be accurate, not skewed nor embellished to get a desired result. There should be an independent body overseeing decisions before even getting to the courts. Afterwards Judge agreed Care Plans are altered & families have no recourse but to go back to court. An expensive option for families but a money making, self serving system for the courts.
I find it astonishing that children can be removed from their families & contact stopped from the time they go into care with no penalty to Social Workers or to the Judges that back them, based on the information given.
Transparency won’t help in those circumstances.
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Don’t parents realise they are fighting a huge money driven industry with fostering and adoption agencies LEGALLY declaring millions of £s profits quite openly every year? Jailing any mother daring to protest publicly when her baby is taken is only half the story. It is very difficult even for Sir Andrew (if indeed he were so inclined…) to change a system that makes so much money for so few !
What about judges,solicitors,barristers,guardians ,cafcass and the like ? Are they all in a conspiracy to take babies from mothers?
ABSOLUTELY NOT ! No conspiracy is necessary with a secretive set up already designed to make a very good living for some and a fortune for a few.
I will however gently hint that “birds of a feather flock together” !!
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I don’t think it is as simple as saying that courts collude with social workers. A judge only has limited time and uses much of that time on a case to read what the ‘experts’ (who are often only professionals without the expertise) have to say.
Council workers often rely on CAFCASS information, which is often very sketchy and highly ideological. CAFCASS officers often rely on Council information, which is often made up of assumption and hearsay, tainted by the fact that the media won’t report if they steal a child from parents without suitable cause but will report if they leave a child with parents who turn out to be dangerous. The Police rely on both of these to enforce what they are told is the right and legal thing to do, often with little specialisation themselves (though that can be a good thing).
And to make it worse, trials coming into force soon could mean that CAFCASS writes the report on behalf of the council and the police. So the judge will only get to hear one, often slanted and ideological, viewpoint.
And to make it worse, the requirements for even CAFCASS to look into much at all for an initial report are being relaxed (so that courts can make a speedier decision). And anyone who has been through the meatgrinder knows that once that initial report is done, everything else will be an extension on it, regardless of the facts.
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Agreed. In my experience facts are of no importance in family court which is fortunate for social workers whose reports contain so few of them.
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This iniative is NOT going to make a positive difference to families and children going through the family courts, because I learnt already in 2003 and 2004 that said Judge concealed/conceals fraud in his Judgements, making said Judge just as much as a fraud for covering up what the GAL did (fraud) and the 2nd LT SW (fraud) both very experienced, to the point the GAL was due to retire anyway after my Case and asked said Judge in private in the Family Court room, with a Solicitor present to step down off my Case, but said Judge told the GAL this family needs you.
While in their secret meeting, while the rest of us got sent outside the Court room, in the waiting area. A transcript got done.
I never did get to see the full transcript, only a redacted one at a time I still maintained my PR. This was something mentioned since in paperwork when the Council was Court Ordered to hold a meeting with me, after stopping face to face contact the past 18 months, where the 2nd LT SW went against the Court Order, taking it into her own hands to stop it, with a final goodbye contact. In other words, she was in contempt of court.
My major concern is, how many other Cases has this sort of thing happened on since then. I know when I asked on a number of (200) roughly Facebook groups as I recall back then, who else had their Judge find out their GAL and SW had fraud on their Family’s Case, no one said they had this happen to them, which is why I state since my Case.
I also remember said Judge telling said very red face GAL in Secret Family Court, I am very surprised at you Mike, in all the years I’ve known you, I’ve never known you to commit fraud on another family’s Case. One might understand why I quite rightly took and had reason to take what had happened as personal.
With the ones, names you have mentioned involved, it is already well known that they side with SS on the whole, the names I recognise.
I would ask first, have any of said named Professionals besides said Judge, ever NOT worked for Council’s or the LA.
If not, then all good. But if so, the abuse going on in the Secret Family Courts including the Judgements, which cannot be wholly trusted from my own first hand experience, is STILL not going to get resolved and I just see it as another ticking box waste of space/time exercise where they’re continuing to carry on peeing in the same pot together.
There is no reasonable reason to be missing out the fraud discovered in one Judgement, never lone two and all for same said Case too.
One way I think it might work however, is to fully involve some parents, who already have had first hand experience in the Secret Family Court system, then hopefully we have a safeguard to ensure transparency can no longer be watered done.
Thank you 🕊️🦋😘 Xxxx
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Xxxxx
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I wholeheartedly support your concept of being able to bring other parents who have been through the experience into court. The sooner in a family case that you link with people who have been through it the better and more useful the advice can be.
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Thank you Douglas 😘🕊️🦋 Xx
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Natasha ! You write: (3rd para) “which he says can be challenged in an upcoming consultation” – Can you tell us when this “consultation” is – between what dates ?
Ordinary folk rarely hear of such things .. I assume there will be Terms Of Reference too in the consultation …. Can you keep us apprised of all of this ???
Please ? x
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Hi Paul, I don’t think it’s been announced yet but I will share it on RR as soon as it is, with all the terms and links. xxxx
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Thanks …xx
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Xx
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Reblogged this on tummum's Blog and commented:
‘ Do you think this initiative is going to make a positive difference to families and children going through the family courts?’ 🕊️🦋 Xx
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Open the Family Court’s PLEASE do. I honestly feel that would parent’s would DEFINITELY have a much more truthful hearing and that IS the BEST outcome for Children.
My Son along with many others have been extremely damaged by the system as it is through lies. My Son got taken into care with absolutely no good enough reason. Oh yes of course I would say that. But that IS THE TRUTH 100% It’s a very long story, one that I wish would be heard, so this doesn’t EVER happen again. Social services say it’s in the child’s best interest. No, ask my Son, who’s now 18 ask his older siblings,his Grandad, my friend’s, his friends, if it was. Open the Family Court’s and make it as transparent as possible, so the Children who REALLY NEED to be looked after are. Change the WHOLE SYSTEM. I pray so badly that one day, someone will listen and understand the importance. It’s so VERY WRONG, mentally and physically the way in which our lives have been through. PLEASE PLEASE SOMEONE LISTEN and HELP, be a voice for us, for the future. Happy to be contacted.
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I think part of the problem lies with the media, and the public perception of cases where children are removed from parents.
The media will hang, draw and quarter a local authority who did not take a child from a mother, where that mother turns out to be dangerous. But there is no reporting of a case where a child is taken without sufficient reason or care for the child. (Even if they did, a salacious story that sells the media is much harder to build.)
If any of us were in a local authority and having to make a decision, knowing that a mistake one way could cost our career but a mistake the other way won’t ever come to light, that sort of pressure would inevitably make a difference to the decisions we make.
Sometimes, I wonder if the banning of media from naming a child is really in the best interest of the ‘average’ child. In sex cases, I’d say yes, but in other cases maybe not.
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What needs to happen to ensure that opening up the family courts will make a positive difference to families and children going through them is for a journalist to be able to use almost the full extent of journalistic freedom (excluding any identifying information). That means the journalist must be able to talk to the parents and even children freely. A journalist must be free to come to their own decision whether the judgement was fair/correct/socially useful (each of those three being potentially different) or not, and say so.
I’d like to see the ability for parents to deny reporting. If both parties agree to no reporting, kick the press out of court. Maybe the judge should have a say, though with the merging of other areas of law under the same judge (being done for good reasons) I’m not convinced of that as there could in future potentially be civil, criminal and private law matters being raised in one sitting.
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Of equal importance to reducing secrecy would be to introduce juries to any case where a LA proposes to take a child from their parents forever. There’s a good chance that none of the 12 members of public could possibly have the ice cold hearts of those for whom such agonies are just another day’s work. Nancy Schaefer spoke out for this same issue and was murdered.
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With ideologues working hard to remove juries from more types of criminal trials, I think we’re a long way from bring in juries to even more civil trials.
Moving the entire process over to criminal law might be an answer. That, however, is a woefully slow process which will take far too long for a child in genuine danger.
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Children are removed from their homes during care proceedings whilst parents fight to get them back so technically they are in the ‘safe’ care of the state during this time. In actual fact there is probably no worse place for them to be but I still think families deserve some of the rights and safeguards afforded to criminals.
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