A Welsh politician who was expelled from Plaid Cymru in 2017 for bullying and harassing party members has taken on a child protection case.

Neil McEvoy made headlines in 2011 for accusing Welsh Women’s Aid of “publicly funded child abuse”, claiming the group helped women break court orders involving fathers’ access to children, in a series of tweets he sent out on International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. McEvoy has so far not produced any evidence to justify the claim.

McEvoy apologised  for his outburst shortly before he was suspended from the party saying:

“I apologise for any offence caused and accept I should have used less emotional language than the words I used.”

“I regret letting my emotional baggage of being a father who has experienced what, I believe, are the inadequacies of the family law system to guide my political actions.”

He added, “I particularly regret that the tweeting of comments – originally made 18 months ago – on this sensitive day have allowed the matter to become more about me than the issue itself.”

McEvoy also opposed the Welsh Government’s “Children (Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment) (Wales) Bill, which makes all forms of corporal punishment against children illegal. The politician’s tweet opposing the bill has since been deleted from Twitter.

Now McEvoy, who is running as an independent councillor for Cardiff West, has raised concerns about a child who may have been abused in a care home.

McEvoy, who does not have a background in child protection, tried to engage with the care home and the police, leading to contact between the child and their parents being stopped.

Complaints that the councillor had tried to “ambush” a therapy session involving the child, and had bullied staff responsible for the child were then raised.

McEvoy said that he had been invited to attend the meeting by the child and their parents.

Additional complaints suggested that the Assembly Member had been too ‘demanding’ in the way in which he had approached the care home, and had called the police to request a welfare check on the child.

McEvoy is now being investigated by the Standards & Ethics Committee at Cardiff Council, where he is a councillor, over breaches of the council’s code of conduct.

After the investigation was announced, McEvoy called out his council’s Committee in a series of Facebook posts, calling it “not fit for purpose”, and a Kangaroo Court.

Despite the red flags in this case, which include the social work staff stopping contact between the child and their parents apparently out of spite, and cancelling the therapy session because the father intended to record the meeting, which is allowed, these developments have now been overshadowed by McEvoy’s disciplinary hearing.

Many thanks to Nicky for alerting us to this case.

UPDATE 8 January, 2020: Neil McEvoy contacted this site after reading our post and asked us to amend the piece on the ground that it was factually incorrect.

Among the factual inaccuracies we understand McEvoy has pointed to, are the views that he does not have any child protection qualifications, that he was unable to provide evidence of the allegations he made against Welsh Women’s Aid and that he was expelled from Plaid Cymru for bullying and harassing members of the party during a meeting.

Mr McEvoy told this site in a message exchange that he has child protection training, that he has evidence of Welsh Women’s Aid encouraging women to breach court orders involving contact with non-violent and non-abusive fathers, and knew of other women’s groups who had done the same, and that he was expelled from the party for not preventing members from cheering for him as he entered a meeting. 

We are giving Mr McEvoy the right of reply, which is the fair thing to do, and have asked him to provide the following evidence to allow us to review the piece and make any changes required:

• Evidence that Mr McEvoy has child protection training
• Evidence of the allegations he has made against Welsh Women’s Aid and other Women’s groups he claims are enabling mothers to breach court orders against innocent fathers 
• A copy of his expulsion letter, in full 
• An answer to our question in correspondence over why he chose to oppose the Welsh Bill banning corporal punishment of children

Mr McEvoy has confirmed that he will send this evidence and responses to our questions, tomorrow. 

We have decided to remove our view about Mr McEvoy’s political agenda in this post as the above issues have become magnified in our correspondence with Neil and are far more important than our own views about his assistance in these cases. 

Finally, for added transparency, we are including the links to all the content we accessed to write this article, which confirms the various facts we have included in the piece, as well as additional information about Mr McEvoy. 

Purpler Winter, an annual social media campaign which goes viral every year, highlights and raises awareness around child abuse.

The campaign, which launches tomorrow on Twitter for just 24 hours, urges social media users to wear a purple item and share snapshots of themselves, while also talking about ways to spot, and stem, child abuse in its many forms.

People from around the world use this day to upload images and videos of support in a variety of languages. The campaign is supported by charities, celebrities, and survivors of childhood abuse.

If you are a Twitter user and you’d like to take part in the campaign, log in to the platform and type in #PurplerWinter, for all the latest updates and ideas on how you can get involved.

A family court expert in Australia has been charged with sexually abusing three children. The development could lead to contact decisions previously made using the expert’s reports being overturned.

The psychologist was hired as a Family Court expert to make contact recommendations in cases where one parent had accused the other of sexual abuse.

In one report, the court psychologist – who has not been named – recommended that a child continue to live with the father after the mother raised allegations of sexual abuse, telling the court he found no significant evidence the abuse had occurred.

The news comes after research showed judges were far more likely to award contact to a parent after they make an allegation of parental alienation in cases where the other parent brings up an allegation of child sexual abuse.

The suspect remains on bail and the case’s next hearing is scheduled for October.

The article, which was published by Australia’s ABC news outlet, also talks about concerning problems inside Australia’s care system, which mimic the UK care system’s challenges.

The topics include unfit registration processes for expert witnesses which allow individuals to write up expert reports without the necessary qualifications, to an inability to get complaints properly assessed because ombudsmen continuously claim they do not have the power to investigate them.

Further reading:

• Mothers In Australia Told To Lie To The Family Court About Domestic Violence
• Expert Witness Scheme To Be Rolled Out Across English and Welsh Family Courts
• Loophole Allows Unqualified Psychologists To Practice

Many thanks to Charles Pragnell for alerting us to this case.

The Sunday Mirror has launched a campaign to highlight the number of children murdered by their parents after a nine-month probe carried out by the tabloid. 

The probe found that 63 children had been killed by their parents from 2004 to 2019.

The data collected confirmed that 52 of the 63 children were killed by fathers known to authorities for domestic abuse. A further seven children were killed by both parents in cases where the fathers had similar histories. 

All of the children who died had parents who were known to either police, social workers or family courts for being violent. 

The investigation also revealed that family members often tried to warn authorities about the dangers but were ignored. 

The “Save Kids from Violent Parents” campaign aims to ensure that parents and carers convicted of violent crimes, child abuse or sexual offences and known to the authorities do not have automatic access to their children.

The campaign is calling for an amendment to the Government’s domestic abuse bill which would make it harder for violent parents to have contact. 

Shadow Home Office minister Carolyn Harris is set to table the amendment to the Government’s domestic abuse bill in response to the newspaper’s investigation.

Domestic violence charity Refuge is working in collaboration with the Sunday Mirror. 

Chief executive Sandra Horley told the Sunday Mirror:

“Domestic abuse needs to be taken more seriously by family courts as children are paying for decisions around contact, sometimes with their lives. Ending unsafe contact and improving how family courts respond to domestic abuse is essential if we are to end this widespread problem.”

The Sunday Mirror’s campaign features three demands:

“1. A change in the law, which means anyone who has been convicted of violent crime, child abuse or sexual offences can’t have automatic, unsupervised access to their kids. The same rules would apply to those who’d had similar findings made against them in the civil courts.

The ban could only be overturned by a judge if the parent had undergone a thorough assessment by an independent expert proving they have been rehabilitated.

2. Mandatory, standardised training in domestic abuse for judges, social workers and any other professionals involved in child access arrangements.

We also want to see domestic abuse training for coroners overseeing domestic homicide inquests.

3. More State funding to support the hundreds of thousands of children in the UK affected by domestic abuse – including the 3,627 kids currently being supported by Refuge.

It is only with the right support, such as specialist therapy, that these children can recover from the trauma they have experienced.”

You can read more about the campaign here. (WARNING: The article contains details about child deaths).