Family Court Corruption MP's responses.

Dear Ms Stewart-Taylor

Thank you for your emails dated 21 September to various government ministers about adoption. I hope you will appreciate that due to the high volume of correspondence the Ministers receive they are unable to reply personally to each one. I have been asked to reply.

I can appreciate the circumstances your family has faced must be distressing, however as you are aware the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) is unable to intervene in individual cases as these are best dealt with locally where all the circumstances are known. I would however expect social services to explain to you and your family the reasons for any decision made in relation to your child’s care and to work with you on achieving the best outcomes for them.

Local authorities should issue a ‘letter before proceedings’ to parents. The content of the letter must be explained to parents. It should be written in plain English and avoid jargon. The letter should be written to take account of language barriers, and any learning disabilities parents might have. On receipt of the letter, parents are entitled to bring a solicitor to a meeting with the Social Work team to discuss the local authority’s concerns, and consider what improvements can be made to the child’s care. Parents are entitled to access legal aid. After the meeting, the Social Work manager will send a note of the outcome and agreed plan to the family and their Solicitor so the contents can be explained.

The decision to take a child into care is never an easy one, and it is a decision that is taken by the courts, and not by individual social workers. In every case where a child is taken into care on a care order, the courts will have considered all the evidence and taken the view that the child has been significantly harmed, or would be if they were not taken into care.

In every case concerning the upbringing of a child the court is required to treat the welfare of the child concerned as its paramount consideration. To assist the court, a children’s guardian (who is independent of the local authority) is appointed to advise what is in the child’s best interests. Parents must also be legally represented, and are entitled to legal aid.
Where the court makes an order placing a child in the care of a local authority, the authority will continue to work with the family with a view to the child returning home. However, a stage may be reached when it is apparent that the child cannot return home. It is at this stage that the local authority must make alternative plans to provide the child with a permanent family home, adoption is one way of providing this and is appropriate for some children, depending on the facts of each individual case. The final decision on adoption rests with the courts and before a court makes such an important decision it must be convinced on the basis of the evidence that this is the best way to meet the child’s needs on a long-term basis.

The Children Act 1989 places a duty on Social Services to safeguard and protect children. If you are unhappy with the way in which you were treated by Social Services you have the right to make a formal complaint under the ‘Local Authority Complaints Procedure’. You may therefore wish to consider writing to either the Director of Children’s Services or the Designated Complaints Officer for the authority in which your children have been placed. They must then consider the complaint, appointing at least one person independent of the local authority to take part in dealing with the issues raised and provide you with a written response within 28 days.

If you are unhappy with the council's response, you may request a Panel hearing by writing to the council within 28 days of the response. The Panel should be chaired by an independent person. If you remain dissatisfied with the handling of their complaint under the local procedures and think that a local authority has treated you unfairly as a result of bad or inefficient management ("maladministration"); and that this has caused you injustice (such as loss, injury or upset), you may wish to refer your complaint to the Local Government Ombudsman (LGO).

More information on making a complaint to the Local Government Ombudsman is available at: www.lgo.org.uk or by calling the advice line on 0845 602 1983.

I am sorry I am unable to help you further.

Yours sincerely

Janet McNamara
Public Communications Unit
www.dcsf.gov.uk

Why aren't grandparents considered good enough ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhzBaIPpc...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JI4b3HhZU...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9jlDQpkj...

Dear Lisa Sutton

Thank you for your email to me in response to the comments I made regarding the
news story. I felt I had to respond to offer you an insight into how Children,
Schools and Families deal with complaints from parents who know their
child/children have been failed in the duty of care owed to them by their Local
Authority.
My son was given a Statement of Special Education Needs in July 1994 when he was
7 years old. He went from mainstream school to special school provision in
September 1994.

Educational Psychologists diagnosis, emotional behavioral difficulties.

Having spent the 1st 18 months from birth, fighting for his life in 4 different
hospitals , with many further hospital stays and appointments, it was hardly
surprising, what he had experienced in his early years. He also stopped
breathing on numerous occasions yet he was never and has never been given a
brain scan.

I wrote my 1st letter of complaint to the Special Education Needs Department in
1996 quoting how unhappy I was that the Special Education Needs of my son were
not being met according to his Statement of Special Education Needs. What that
letter led to was a catalogue of failures. The failures by the Health,
Education, and Social Services Authorities in the duty of care they owed to my
son according to Special Education Needs Law, led them to not only waste
thousands of pounds of Tax Payers money but also emotionally damaged my son
further, along with my family unit.

My 2nd letter of complaint written in February 2000, was sent to various
professionals including Politicians and The Local Government Ombudsman.
Eventually my letter was acted on as a formal complaint by the Local Education
Authority. During the investigation I continued to write further letters crying
out for someone to help my sons situation.
In November 2000 the investigation finished, the end result being my complaints
were upheld and 3 recommendations were made. Sadly one of them was not acted
upon which led to me writing a letter back to The Local Government Ombudsman in
January 2001.

The Local Government Ombudsman have jurisdictions and time limits as to what or
whom they can investigate. They investigated only part of my complaint, taking
them until January 2003, to complete. Quite coincidently, I had written to The
Secretary Of State in November 2002, complaining about the jurisdictions and how
long it was taking The LGO to deal with my complaint.

In trying to obtain a fair and just hearing for my son, the response from
Children, Schools and Families and all the other professionals I have contacted
in the last 10 years is seek legal advice. In trying to do just that I have
discovered even more government bureaucracy.

In July 2008, I created a group on Facebook in an attempt to find help. The
result instead is a fast growing list of members who have suffered similar
experiences.
As a member of the public that reported the emotional abuse and mental cruelty
of a child to many professionals over the years, so far, non of them have cared.
The simple answer being, the perpetrator is not the parent but the Local
Authority so fair investigations are denied.

I will continue to highlight such bureaucracy in the hope of preventing other
families suffering in similar ways in future. I will copy and paste my comments
and your email onto my Facebook group and to Children, Schools and Families. I
look forward to any comments that made be made in return.
--------------------

"The 11 MILLION children and young people in England have a voice"
Children's Commissioner for England, Professor Sir Albert Aynsley-Green

WHAT VOICE ? NOT ACCORDING TO THIS THEY DONT

http://nameshamesocialworkers.blogspot.c...

[A letter a dear friend of mine sent to the Judge in the Family Court,( edited to protect identities) the Judge used paragraph 4 to remove them as party. Yet he failed to answer when asked in Court what would stop children’s services coming after their own children if they failed ‘so-called assessments including a psychological assessment that the Council and Judge were trying to rail road them into.]

After our recent LIP experience of the Family Courts regarding contesting the ICO (at your suggestion), in the hope our granddaughters would be returned to live with their grandparents. We now have ‘little faith’ in either the LA professionals who unfortunately, do not appear to act in the ‘best interests of the children’ or the present system that fails to make them accountable for their actions.

It may just be coincidental that I was standing for election in November 2007 after I had complained to the Director of Children’s Services , on a separate issue and took my complaints to the LGO.

Apparently, we could risk being labelled mad or worse if we go to the press; yet it seems pointless to Appeal without the media.

Regretfully, our stance on being assessed has not changed for the reasons given at the initial hearing; having young children of adoptable ages and no belief in the CSW comment ‘that the SS do not canvas for work’ our family has already been destroyed.

Please do not think us paranoid. A continuous stream of high calibre news articles including award winning Journalists, looking into ‘children’s services’ alongside the UN investigation into our Family Courts, EDM’s signed by numerous MP’s and
Jack Straw’s announcement to allow the press (April2009); all suggest otherwise.

There appears to be a mass of contradictions/inaccuracies and double standards.
Selective incomplete evidence, (mainly opinion based) interpreted as ‘fact’ without the full information requested from September 2002 including ‘notes’ from both the SS and CG. A different criteria/ model supplied (non-relative assessment), which is neither objective nor subjective. And discerning to note that there is no record of us receiving £100 cash from the SS .

Ironically, a Councillor on the ‘Children’s Champion Board’ sort my advice about ‘children’s services’ and is aware of our previous experience.
Although I did not ask him, he seems to have attempted to help; I am not his constituent nor did I ask about kinship care allowance and our children are not known to social care or receive services.

Charles J in Re R [2002] 1 FLR 755 and Munby J in Re L (Care Assessment: Fair Trial) [2002] 2 FLR 730In Re R,

Relatives are expected to jump through hoops and endure fishing trips that were simply not required on the two previous occasions, when XXXX and XXXX were placed in our care, on the second occasion after an interview with CPO.
The LA may have been concerned about a possible Judicial Review and this may have contributed to why an offer of a mandatory referral for (FGC) ‘not best practice’ as suggested in Court, was not forthcoming.

D-v- Southwark LBC [2007] EWCA Civ 182
. Munby J Manchester City Council – V – F (2002) 1FLR 43

What is the definition of better than good enough parenting?

The House of Lords (2008) ‘grandparents only have to be reasonable enough parents’

“Innocent yet presumed guilty unless we comply - On the balance of probabilities?”
We probably have far more experience than many of the professionals involved, having raised 6 children.

Supervisory contact is only required we believe, if there is a danger to the children.
Being a XXXX/CRB checked with no previous concerns, it is insulting and degrading to be only offered expensive supervised contact in an unnatural environment. While our offer of contact in our home (with foster carers if need be) and Cllrs/Corporate Parents offering to be present, is ignored/rejected.
Whilst bizarrely XXXX & XXXX have been transported by taxi virtually on a daily basis from XXXX that is 5 minutes from XXXX, to XXXX approximately a hours drive by their first set of inexperienced carers; all at the taxpayers expense?

Where are our granddaughter’s Human Rights to a family life? Having been placed in foster care, where their well-being has deteriorated after being separated and passed from ‘pillar to post’ and respite care, instead of with relatives.

DCSF – figures suggest that at least 2 children a week die and/or are abused in care.

Research suggests that there are well-evidenced advantages1 for children who cannot live with their parents to be raised by relatives or friends:
Farmer E and Moyers S (2008)‘Kinship Care: Fostering Effective Family and Friends Placements’ (Jessica Kingsley); Doolan et al (2004) Growing up in the Care of Relatives and Friends (Family Rights Group); Hunt J (2003) Family and Friends Care; coping Paper for Dept of Health; Broad, B (ed) (2001) Kinship Care: the placement of choice for children and young people (Russell House; Hunt Waterhouse & Lutman (2008forthcoming) Keeping them in the family (BAAF) Dr Lynne Wrenndall, Charles Pragnell. Lisa Blakemore-Brown, Brian Morgan, Dr Helen Hayward-Brown, Bruce Irvine,
Dr Clive Baldwin, Stephen Clark, Cathy Johnson (2004) Taking the stick away: the service users’ joint statement

It is hoped that XXXX (babies are far more sort after for adoption and a marketable commodity) will be given a Voice Child Advocate, (the CSW rejected this in favour of the CG only).

The FGC Co-ordinator’s comment ‘ holding a FGC at a late stage “energises families” is insulting and worthless when the LA holds all the power and should not be advising family members that I must agree to be assessed.
The joint comments from the LA solicitor and CG who later offered to alter her notes? The LA solicitor told me ‘ the LA only had a duty to consider family members.’
If Human Rights and the PLO can be so brazenly be disregarded/ ignored, is it any wonder that ¾ of children end up adopted or on SGO with strangers instead of relatives.

The CG Solicitor’s remarks outside the Court ‘that LA Counsel could speak for me, or XXXX a passing Solicitor could represent me or they would adjourn and the Court would/could not allow my grandchildren to be placed with us on ICO’ (reiterated the CG comment) and meeting immediately after Court, with the CSW/Counsel, but not us. And the CG & ISW lunching in the Café across the road, all show how cosy the relevant professionals appear to be, hardly independent.

‘ Generally speaking, guardians act as cheerleaders for social services departments. They are entirely compliant, and seem incapable of doing more than being a cheering section’. Eric Pickles MP. (We cannot disagree.)

As Corporate Parents we should act in the way we would if the children were our own. I am appalled at what I perceive to be professionals who fail to act in a professional manner and seem to have no intention of working to reunite children with families. The public would be astonished at the costs involved and outraged that relatives are over looked in favour of expensive foster care.

Totally amazed that such draconian measures of removing children without a mandatory referral for (FGC) can amount to; crystal ball gazing opinion backed up by expensive reports paid for from the public purse.
How is it possible to review a past non event and make a decision based on what may or may not have happened if a FGC had been held, when it could/did not take place?

Children are not mere commodities to be passed around for profit; clearly everyone involved is being paid, (the larger the bundle the more costly?), which could be better spent on ‘real’ child protection and desperately needed front line services to support families to ensure that mandatory FGC referrals are completed; improved services.

I came into politics in order to defend the children of the poor and help make sure that families receive the services they deserve. Councillors are more aware of their responsibility to ‘looked after children’ and the CEO is reviewing the case following a subsequent meeting with the XXXX Leader.

The one simple thing that can never be altered is my granddaughters’ heritage, we are blood relatives, our granddaughters will always be dearly loved and wanted; this can never be obliterated. Hopefully they will be reunited with family members, who if given the opportunity could have applied (if need be) for a RO via private law.

The Court has the power to remedy matters and take the more proportional approach that the LA has not done to-date. Please take into consideration our views and concerns when making your decisions about our granddaughters futures.

http://www.notbornyesterday.org/scandal,...

Some strange goings on down Plymouth way, it seems - where earlier this month (October 2009) three police cars and five police officers were required to remove five small children from a mother's home in her absence. In my neck of the woods, you'd be lucky to get that kind of turnout for a murder.

A letter has just come to me, dated the 12 November 2009 from Bridget Prentice MP Parliamentary Under Secretary of State.

It is a response to my lobbying MP's re corruption in the Secret Family Court System. She is responding to David Gauke MP the Ref is MC257983

The letter reads as follows.

Dear David

Yvonne Stewart-Taylor , my address is here omitted.

thank you for your letter of 14 October to Jack Straw, about social services and openness in the family courts. I am replying as the Minister responsible for the family justice system in England and Wales. You refer to an earlier letter which my officials have not been able to trace, but I apologise for the delay in responding to you nonetheless.

I am very sorry for the experience that Mrs Stewart-Taylor has had with social services and the family courts regarding her grandchild. In order to preserve the principle of judicial independence, I cannot give opinion on a specific case but I hope that she will find the following general comments helpful.

It has, since 1991, been the policy of successive governments, as set out in legislation, that children should live with their parents wherever possible and that services should be provided to children in need and their families to enable this to happen.

The child protection system is designed to identify families who may be vulnerable and seeks to offer help at an early stage in order to enable children to remain in their family. Social workers must work closely with parents to identify and evidence where change or improvement is necessary in order to enable a family to stay together.

I assure Mrs Stewart-Taylor that local authorities are not given financial incentives to increase the number of children in care or remove children from care of their parents in order for them to be adopted. The decision to take a child into care is never an easy one, and the decision to make a care order is taken by the courts. In every case where a child is taken into care on a care order, the courts will have considered all the evidence and taken the view that the child has been significantly harmed, or would be if they were not taken into care.

where the court makes an order placing a child in the care of a local authority, the authority will continue to work with the family with a view to the child returning home. Happily, the vast majority of children are returned to their parents. for those children who cannot return home to their parents, they have the right to have alternative plans considered to provide them with a permanent home; adoption is only one of the available options of providing this.

The final decision on whether a child should be adopted rests with the courts. Before a court makes such an important decision it must be convinced on the basis of the evidence that this is the best way to meet the child's needs on a long term basis. where the parents/guardians have not given their consent, but it may only do so in limited circumstances. The court would have to be satisfied that the parent could not be found or is incapable of giving consent, or that the welfare of the child requires the consent to be dispensed with.

The Government does not have, and has never had, a national target to increase the number of children being taken into care. the target on adoption reflected the Government's desire to reverse a long-term decline in the number of children already in care finding a permanent home through adoption. The adoption target ended in March 2006. Similarly, the Government does not set adoption targets for local authorities, although authorities themselves may choose to develop targets with central Government through the Local area Agreement/Local Public service agreement process.

Mrs Stewart-Taylor is also concerned about the ability of parents or families to speak out about their case. The extent to which a parent, child or the media can publish information about individual children is complex and determined by a number of different aspects of legislation. The issue is the need to balance the rights of children to privacy, with the rights of other parties, and those of the media, in relation to freedom of expression.

The government has already taken some action to make family proceedings more open- the media can attend most proceedings, and the rules about disclosure of information have been amended to make it easier for people to seek the help and support they need.

these changes do not yet apply to adoption cases.Adoption is the most difficult and life changing decision a family court can make and needs special consideration. There are concerns that the identity of children and adoptive parents might be exposed, particularly in small rural populations or ethnic community areas. we are therefore considering, along with people most involved in adoption work, how best that these proceedings can be made more open but alongside legislation to ensure that identities are protected.

We will also introduce new legislation that will put the reporting and admission regime for all tiers of family court on the same foundation as that for youth courts. This will allow the media to report the substance of what they witness, but not any information that would lead to revealing the identity of the families involved. The Government will revise the law on reporting restrictions as soon as parliamentary time allows.

I hope that this letter is helpful. I am enclosing a copy for you to forward to Mrs Stewart-Taylor, should you wish to do so.

Kind regards

Bridget

BRIDGET PRENTICE

I would be interested in what anyone thinks about this. It has taken 6 years to get to here. I have been lobbying every MP for many years, repeatedly and finally we get this response.??

My MP has been similarly unhelpful - best wishes, Liz

http://www.mediafire.com/?igb0f758y7ed677

Download a real life case study on how children are kinapped by CAFCASS through the secret family courts.

http://www.ukcolumn.org/events/blowing-w...

Open this link and come on mass to this event. this site will give you full instruction as to how to present your evidence.

Now is our chance to bring the monsters down and reclaim our Common law rights, expel corrupt officialdom and expose this mass corruption, treason and tyranny in the UK. Lawful, peaceful, non violent mass non compliance is our weapon against all those responsible for destroying innocent families and abusing OUR CHILDREN. Thank you.

http://www.ukcolumn.org/events/blowing-w...

Sorry the above link did not work. Here it is again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8b7ujQ0-KsA

Update child stealing by the state october 2011

In November 2010, the broadcast of Florence Bellona on the problem of the adoption forced Britain had caused the stir. The words "forced adoption" refer to scandals such as that of "l'arche de Zoé" in which Westerners embark foreign children under the pretext of extract to their misery, and without checking if they are really abandoned, for the placing on the market of international adoption.
But the fact that European countries such as the United Kingdom knowingly removes his own children and make them adopt without the consent of parents of birth remains a little-known phenomenon, because the affected families do not have the right to refer their case outside the Court of justice family, still less than in talking to a journalist under sentence of imprisonment.
The United Kingdom has a questionable history in "child protection" since the 19th century. One of the most dramatic episodes lasted 70 years: children stolen from poor families were sent to Australia State program "Migrant Children" to create "a good white strain"! 40 years after the end of the program, the beginning of 2010, Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg have produced a public apology in the House of Commons for this historic disaster.
Recognition of forced exile, despite decades of campaign by the families of victims, has virtually been no media coverage and its managers were never punished. Today, the "gagging order" (gagging order) protects the State, the press freedom, but freedom of expression. The parents came to use alternative media to describe their ordeal and above all, to find their children.
In recent years, is more material poverty but the charges of child abuse which precede the withdrawal children by social services. First, Florence Bellone listened to the explanations of MPs wishing to abolish forced adoption, those of associations for the defence of families and the testimony of parents. It soon became apparent it that parents really abusing would pass not 10 or 15 years to find their children and to all courts including the European Court of Justice to obtain their returns… And above all, there are thousands of women accused of "future negligence" or "future emotional injury" of their child, since the early days of the grossesse… It away the infant at birth and were thus removed each new baby, on the sole basis of a psychiatrist paid by social services. Their crime: have been a victim of domestic violence, either by their parents, or their partner, and very often by the family of home or orphanage or themselves were placed. Several hundred mothers, alone or in couple, fled abroad to keep their baby.
Legal records of these families and stories have him know the extent and variety of the tactics used by social services to parents. Subsequently, by becoming "MacKenzie friend" (legal support to which parents are right when they have no lawyer), Florence Bellone was able to attend hearings in the courts as well as the examinations of the parents by social services. Very often, what appears first as the false evidence are only statements not verified the Court and accepted by the judge as compelling facts. The same is true of the legal "guardians" of abducted children, who represent the child in court!

The continuous survey

In a second report on the "stolen children", Florence Bellone gives more speaking parents who have lost their children, but children who were themselves adopted force or at least, force from their families. Some are now adults, others have only 11 to 13 years. A raid of the police to take an infant and a maintenance of a woman pregnant with a social worker will also give an idea of the nightmarish situations generated by "child welfare". Finally we will discuss the issue of foreign children whose families, on the British territory, fell in the trap: Matilde, girl French 11 year removed with his little sister Louison in June, managed to call his father, late August - abusing his family of home - and -surveillance. It says "their life in prison", and especially request assistance to find their father and leave the England…