The latest child welfare items that should be right on your radar:

• President of the family courts issues guidance on expert witnesses
• Forms to apply for a non-molestation or occupation order updated (now includes helpful information on how to fill out the form)
• Government considers axing fund for children’s TV

A new play about a baby who is shaken and sustains injuries while in the care of her parents has been written by a family court judge.

The play, which will be freely available to watch next month, features a sensationalist opening scene described as “graphic” by an article in Family Law Week, and is said to last for around 40 minutes.

The baby’s parents are portrayed as suspects, who are going through care proceedings in the family courts.

But the play, which aims to “show the social circumstances, so frequently encountered in criminal and family proceedings, which lead to this sort of injury” hinges on a largely discredited piece of science, known as shaken baby syndrome (SBS).

According to the Mayo Clinic, Shaken baby syndrome — also known as abusive head trauma, shaken impact syndrome, inflicted head injury or whiplash shake syndrome — is a serious brain injury resulting from forcefully shaking an infant or toddler.

An article in Slate published in 2017 which described the case of a father who was wrongfully imprisoned for the death of his daughter (and later exonerated) offers a very helpful explanation of the background to this syndrome and why the science has lost credibility:

“There used to be something close to a medical consensus that certain patterns of injuries can only be caused by shaking. In particular, a “triad”—swelling of the brain, bleeding on the brain’s surface, and bleeding behind the retinas—was believed to be solid proof that a baby had been abused in this way. The theory was put forward in the early 1970s by doctors trying to explain the deaths of infants and children with no outward signs of abuse. The diagnosis soon became accepted as scientific fact and has since been used to convict hundreds of people of harming or killing children.

But over the past 20 years, a body of new research has shown how diseases, genetic conditions and accidents—including short falls—can produce the same constellation of injuries. As a result, faith in shaken baby syndrome is unraveling.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommended in 2009 that doctors stop using the term. A 2015 investigation by the Washington Post found at least 16 shaken baby syndrome murder convictions that have been overturned.

Scores of other cases that collapsed before trial because of the doubts around the “triad” as evidence. One of those cases was another Sacramento County father convicted of killing his 4-month-old son.

Dr. Norman Guthkelch, a pediatric neurosurgeon who was one of the first to advance the hypothesis behind shaken baby syndrome, recently stated that it is “high time every case of a parent in [prison] for this had his or her case reviewed” because “we went badly off the rails … on this matter.””

The California Innocence Project, which helped to free the father in the story, say that the science behind the syndrome has never been validated. The project’s most recent article on the matter, published in 2019, explains that In 2016, a group of independent experts appointed by the Swedish Agency for Health Technology Assessment and Assessment of Social Services published findings that SBS evidence was “insufficient” and unreliable. (In the interests of balance, this is a piece of research which criticises the findings and argues that SBS is real).

In the UK, experts have warned that at least half of all parents tried over shaken baby syndrome allegations are wrongly convicted. In the US, there have been more than 3,000 shaken baby syndrome criminal cases over the past 20 years, with hundreds of parents and caregivers being prosecuted every year.

The play has been written by family court Judge Stephen Wildblood, who has in recent years tried to raise his profile through television appearances and newspaper interviews.

Wildblood angered parents around the country in 2018 — who were unconvinced by his claim that he cried after removing children from families — when he spoke on a programme for the BBC about Britain’s family courts. Showing what appeared to be complete denial about the state of the family courts he told viewers:

“I don’t think the system is broken, and the judges wouldn’t allow it to be broken. Whether the overall process is fair, that people are coming to court on their own, is not really for me to say. That’s for others to judge.”

Wildblood has now become better known for his use of the media to hunt down mothers and their children (accompanied by publicly broadcasted photos of the children) who “disappear” shortly after being joined to care proceedings in England and Wales.

Wildblood has also been critical in the past about councils who behave negligently.

In a judgment published in 2017, he criticised a council for illegally removing a child from her parents. The failings were so serious that Wildblood set out 9 critical concerns in his judgment and said that Gloucestershire county council had acted with  ‘subterfuge and immediacy’.

At the time, Wildblood said: “In my opinion it is clear that the local authority acted in a way that was contrary to case law and in breach of the article 8 rights of both parents and the child.

The very basis of the original care proceedings was that the mother is an emotionally fragile and socially vulnerable woman… Therefore, for her to have faced the issues that arose on her own is manifestly unsatisfactory.”

Wildblood returned the child to her mother’s care.

The play is going to be followed by a talk by consultant paediatrician Dr Imelda Bennett, who will explain the kinds of injuries associated with shaking a baby. She will be followed by DCI Kristina Windsor who will talk about about the criminal procedures involved. Closing the event, Wildblood will set out the Family Court procedures involved in these cases. Attendees will able to send in questions using the Teams chat function.

We hope the play and the speakers for the event approach this topic with sensitivity, address the need to support parents who may be struggling rather than demonise them, highlight gaps in shaken baby syndrome and remind event goers that only highly trained medical professionals can diagnose non accidental injuries, which are exceptionally hard to detect.

The real debate though, isn’t whether parents harm their children — we know from research that this can and does happen, though it is rare — the real issue is spotting genuine instances of abuse, and not mistaking accidental injuries for non-accidental ones.

The play will be aired on Thursday 4th November 2021 at 7 p.m., and the whole event is expected to last 1½ to 2 hours.

Details for the event are added below:

Judge Wildblood’s email address: stephenwildbloodqc@gmail.com

The event organisers have asked anyone wishing to attend to send a brief email to Stephen on the above email address.

If anyone is turned down, please do let us know.

This event has been designed to raise awareness about how these cases affect everyone involved. Having parents who have been accused of hurting their children at the event can only enrich this learning experience for professionals.

Organisers have also asked that attendees join by 6.45pm on the day so that if there are difficulties with your link, you can email the judge for help before the play starts.

Microsoft Teams meeting

Join on your computer or mobile app 
Click here to join the meeting

Join with a video conferencing device
494469532@t.plcm.vc
Video Conference ID: 124 901 523 8

Alternate VTC instructions
Or call in (audio only)
+44 20 3443 8791,,967692441#   United Kingdom, London
Phone Conference ID: 967 692 441#

We are adding a polite reminder to readers not to use Wildblood’s email address to send rude or aggressive messages. We have every sympathy for families going through this terrible system, but if you decide to use this address in one way or another we would encourage you to be constructive in your feedback.

Welcome to another week.

Herefordshire’s children’s and family services directorate – the group of directors responsible for managing children’s social services in the county – have been trying to cover up the troubled council’s failures, according to a report by the Hereford Times published on Friday.

A senior councillor for the county and Green Party politician Diana Toynbee has accused the directors of trying to cover up the true scale of poor practice at Herefordshire’s children’s and family services, the report said.

Toynbee wrote a review which found that the culture within the directorate did not have “a focus on children and their needs”.

The review also outlined improvements needed to be made by the council, but was met with resistance by councillors who deemed it too critical and warned the findings would further damage morale inside the service.

Speaking to the Hereford Times, Councillor and Liberal Democrat Terry James welcomed the report and said, “most of the staff, and the families that are being dealt with, would be appalled at this debate, given the true state of the service.”

“We are not being told the legal and financial implications of what has happened. We are paying out substantial sums of money that members are not aware of, and are incurring phenomenal legal costs (resulting from) the way staff have been treated,” James added.

The report follows a damning judgment in the High Court in April, in which Judge Keehan said the child services oversights at Herefordshire council were some of the most “egregious and long-standing failures” he had ever come across while working as a family lawyer.

Keehan questioned whether the service was fit for purpose, after children in its care had suffered significant emotional and psychological harm resulting directly from the council’s negligence.

Responding to Keehan’s judgment, the Department for Education (DfE) then issued the council with an improvement notice in May, citing concerns that the voice of the child was not being heard within its service provision.

Council leader David Hitchiner said social workers had been “critical but positive” about change inside the service. Another councillor from the county also questioned whether the directorate and those rolling out children’s services had been “too soft” on themselves when confronted with concerns.

Chief executive of the council Paul Walker said that the interim director for children and families had resigned “for personal reasons”, and had been temporarily replaced by children’s improvement director Darryl Freeman.

Researching Reform believes this kind of cover up is not isolated to just one local authority. There are several judgments in the public domain which show that children’s social services around the country are lying and concealing critically bad practice inside children’s social work teams. We will be looking into this.

You can read the full report from the Hereford Times here.

You can read the May agenda for the meeting of the Children and young people scrutiny committee and Toynbee’s review here

Many thanks to Tum Mum for alerting us to this development.

The latest child welfare items that should be right on your radar:

• Guidance: Relaxation of rules for children in social care come to an end (Effective 1 October, 2021)
• Briefing: Financial support for kinship carers
• Government warning to social care and educational institutions about the use of physical restraint

The child welfare items that should be right on your radar:

• More than 330,000 children were sex abuse victims in Catholic Church in France
• First findings from world’s largest study on long Covid in children
• Data on eating disorders among children to be published in November

A survey produced by Kinship, a company providing support and assistance to kinship carers, has found that only 11% of carers received support from their local authorities to help with contact between children in kinship care and their parents, and a further 23% wanted support but did not receive it.

The survey also noted that 62% of carers they polled believed the children in their care had long term physical and mental health needs.

The figure of 62% marks a 43% increase from the last survey carried out by Kinship in 2010, raising important questions about why these needs may be rising.

The survey found that only 33% of children had received a formal diagnosis and that of those children, 40% had been diagnosed with anxiety or depression, 38% with behavioural issues, and 38% with an attachment disorder. 

The poll also held that 36% of the children had special educational needs, a figure three times the national average (12%).

Kinship care refers to children whose parents are unable to look after them on a short or long term basis and are cared for by other relatives, or by other adults who have a connection to the child, such as a sibling, close family friend or neighbour. The majority of kinship carers are grandparents.

The survey gathered the views of  1,651 kinship carers, which in relative terms is an extremely small sample. We couldn’t find an exact figure for the number of kinship carers in England and Wales but a conservative estimate might be 100,000 adults caring for these children under such an arrangement.

There are currently more than 200,000 children in the UK being cared for by family or a friend.

Useful links:

• Kinship Care: State of the Nation Survey 2021 – Key Findings
• Kinship Care: State of the Nation Survey 2021 – Full Report

The latest child welfare items that should be right on your radar:

• Consultation: Domestic abuse support within safe accommodation
• Advice: If my child is British, can I stay in the UK?
• Research: Babies are full of microplastics

Welcome to another week.

The Ministry of Justice (MOJ) has published a guide to understanding the data it publishes on the family courts in England and Wales.

The MOJ publishes updated statistics reports for the family courts every three months which offer a snapshot of what is going inside the courts.

The statistics have been criticised by family court reformers who say the system fails to collect in-depth data and important information, making the quarterly reports less useful than they could be.

However, they do offer a general overview of what is going inside the system, trends towards or away from legal applications to the courts and rises or drops in those applications.

The guide, which was published on 30 September, has 20 chapters which contain: background to the family law stats; descriptions about how the private and public family sectors work; information on the types of orders in family law and; how to read the charts and statistics in each family law update.

You can access the guide here.

The latest child welfare items that should be right on your radar:

• Removal of indigenous children from families found to be wrongful (Canada)
• Covid: More children hospitalised in last three months in health board than entire pandemic (Wales)
• Manchester Arena inquiry, live updates (England)

A sister and her brother have successfully managed to revoke an order made in an English family court forcing them to return to the UK to live with their mother.

The judgment for this case features several interesting legal principles which enabled the order to be revoked. However it is of greater importance for the weight it placed on the children’s wishes and feelings in an exceptional case which highlights the balance that needs to be struck between damage caused by forceful removal and any damage caused by parental absence.

The family law case involved a Spanish mother, Belgian father and their children who lived in the UK while the parents were married. Upon the parents separating, the mother remained in the UK and the father left for Spain. Divorce proceedings were initiated in England.

During the divorce proceedings, the children were ordered to live with their mother during a hearing in which the father was not present. The order also set out that the children would spend four weeks in each summer holiday with their father.

The following is an extract from the judgment, handed down by Justice Cobb:

“Within a short time of that order, the children visited their father in Spain for a summer holiday. At the conclusion of the visit, the children did not return to the mother or this jurisdiction as planned. The mother issued proceedings under the 1980 Hague Convention in Spain, and an order for their return was made in March 2018. The children finally returned to England in September 2018. Financial proceedings between the parents, consequent upon the divorce, had in the meantime concluded in this country in June 2018.

In 2019, the children visited Spain again for a holiday, this time initially accompanied by their mother, who was visiting the children’s maternal grandmother (“MGM”). During this visit the mother and A had a serious argument; A fled to her father’s home. On her return to her mother and the MGM, further disagreement followed, and A filed a complaint with the police against her mother, alleging mistreatment. The police complaint did not in fact lead to a prosecution, but A was removed from her mother’s care and for three months was placed in institutional care in Spain; there is a dispute between the parties now as to whether either parent could have given permission to the other to make arrangements to care for A in the short-term. Pursuant to an order of the Valencia Court in November 2019, A was placed in the temporary care of her father, where she has remained. The order was “conditional on the girl being on the one hand schooled in Madrid in a centre that follows the British educational system” and secondly, conditional upon the father filing a “request for modification of measures” (custody).

An order for ‘contact’ between A and her mother was further made. A was placed in school in Madrid. B remained with his mother in London.

The Valencia Court had recorded the “very difficult relationship” between A and her mother; in her ruling, the Magistrate-Judge of the First Instance Court added:

“[A], who will be 16 years old in three months, showed a radical aversion to living with her [mother] again, and although this rejection is justified in a way, it is true that the imposition by force of coexistence with the mother at a time when the confrontation with her is very acute, it could be very damaging for a young woman who has already shown her indomitable character, even betting on risky behaviours” (sic.). (Emphasis by underlining added).”

The order needed to be revoked to ensure that the siblings, who were very close, were not separated.

The mother makes a stoic statement during the proceedings, which is added into the judgment. This is what she says:

“I would like my words and my will to be noted in the order … the reaction of my children upon leaving the court has been very revealing … I have decided that we cannot tighten the rope any more …… with this I do not renounce or abandon my two children ……… I do not renounce my rights but to exercise them for the sake of the minors… I prefer to wait for them to mature and come alone ……… I do not wish to make them unhappy or subject them to further investigations or trials to reach the same conclusion …… I give in to the current desire of my children ……… I do not ask for visits, I will wait for them to ask to come and see me when they are ready …… I can confront my ex-husband but not to my children before the Courts …… I can stand to my ex-husband but not to my children before the Courts …… I hope that my will be taken it into account.”.

There is a very good summary on Lexis Nexis for lawyers who can access the service, and the judgment itself can be accessed on BAILII by anyone for free. It is worth reading the judgment in full, both for the legal mechanisms that made the revocation of the order possible in this case but also for the many different and important twists and turns in this case.