Justice for Families - Report March 2008
We have made quite a bit of progress in some areas. Adoption targets have now been scrapped and funding for adoption has been "unhypothecated" - which means that councils can now use it to keep families together as well.
A lot of individual casework has gone on which may result in interesting outcomes. We also are in the process of tabling a motion at the Council of Europe and sending a stream of cases to the European Court of Human Rights.
I have an adjournment debate on Public Family law in late april as well. Lots of other things are happening as well - including working with Stuart Syvret in Jersey and the Care Leavers Association.
Remember casework is handled by Emily.Wilson-Gavin@john.hemming.name
Ali's Media Report for March
One million children on the DNA database
One in 10 children will be on the national DNA database by next year - including almost 50 under 10, it emerged last night. The news has prompted concerns from civil liberties campaigners that Britain is becoming a "surveillance state". New figures show the DNA profiles of 44 children under 10 are on the database even though they are below the age of criminal responsibility. They are among more than one million taken from youngsters under 18 - many of whom have never committed an offence. The database now contains more than 4.3 million profiles and is growing at more than half a million a year.
This story has a sound that goes.....Chitty chitty bang bang, chitty chitty bang bang! Proof of paid childsnatchers.
More than 100 children have been adopted in the borough during the last three years, after the Council met a target from central Government target that many experts thought would be unachievable. The Government target, known as a Local Public Service Agreement (LPSA), challenged the Council to successfully achieve 101 adoptions or secure placements during the last three year period in return for £500,000 of funding.
Seven newborn babies have been taken into care in just one
week
Camilla Cavendish. Prisoner X, whom I called Hugh, was jailed for helping his pregnant wife and her son to flee the country to escape from social workers. An MP has named him in the House of Commons, to express concern at his treatment. But The Times still cannot print his name.
In 2005, 860 looked after children went missing, 890 in 2006 and 950 last year. The rise came as the number of children in care fell to 83,400 last year.
A mum has won "several hundred thousand pounds" damages after a hospital wrongly blamed her for her day-old baby's death. The hospital later admitted doctors were negligent. Bosses said yesterday they will "consider if there are lessons to be learned."
Social
workers took our children away...because of an incorrect hospital diagnosis.
Anguished couple Mark and Nicky Webster will this week embark on legal action to overturn a care order that led to the forcible adoption of their three children four years ago. The Websters have instructed their solicitor to apply for leave to appeal against the order obtained by Norfolk County Council on the strength of false allegations of child abuse in May 2004.
Campaigners are calling for extended rights to advocacy for looked-after children to be enshrined in law.
Campaigners have argued for more than a decade that local authorities should not be responsible for investigating complaints by children in their care.
On Thursday, Brendan Harris, 15, and Ryan Herbert, 16, were convicted of murdering Sophie after they delivered a savage beating to Robert, whom she tried to protect. The pair were already well known to local police before the attacks, with
Herbert leading a gang called the Bacup Crew. They would congregate to drink alcohol in a cafe called KGs, which had been given £4,500 of council funding and was staffed by youth workers.
http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id=549438&in_page_id=1879
Eunice Spry was jailed for 14 years in March 2007, after being convicted of 26 charges including cruelty and wounding. Her foster son, Christopher, 19, and his two sisters told the court how she rammed sticks down their throats. Mr Spry said he wrote the book, Child C - Surviving a Foster Mother's Reign of Terror, to put the horror behind him. AND WHERE were the social workers then???
Mrs Henderson was looking after baby Maeve Sheppard in March 2005 when something went horribly wrong. She has since been convicted of violently shaking the 11-month-old toddler to death.
New medical evidence could clear childminder Keran Henderson, who is serving a three-year prison sentence after being convicted of shaking an 11-month-old girl to death.
Keran Henderson was jailed for
three years after doctors said the brain and eye injuries to the 11-month-old baby in her care were caused by her neck being snapped back and forth. But American researchers cast doubts on so-called "shaken baby syndrome" and the link between internal bleeding and violent shaking
Shannon. Was she kidnapped to protect her from Social workers?
Shannon and her mother reunited for just TWO minutes - and were not even allowed to touch
And the plot thickens......As her siblings enjoy Easter eggs and the school holidays, the nine-year-old has still not been reunited with her family and friends back in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire. Shannon is now in the care of Kirklees Family Services on a "voluntary" basis and it is thought that she will not be going home for some time.
Primary school children should be eligible for the DNA database if they exhibit behaviour indicating they may become
criminals in later life, according to Britain's most senior police forensics expert. It would not surprise me if they start skipping the mind altering drugs they are perscibing for children and send them of for brain modification to alter their thought patterns. Watch out those who dare to be creative, compassionate or different from the flock of sheep.
The clear lesson of the Climbié case: our social services aren't working
A teenage mother whose baby was unlawfully removed from her within hours of his birth without a court order is to have a four-month residential assessment of her parenting skills which
could cost the local authority nearly £100,000.
The case of the teenage mother whose baby son was wrongly taken away from her three hours after his birth is a truly terrifying tale.
A UK social worker was sacked after "rocking the boat" about child protection issues at a secure unit on Jersey, an employment tribunal on the island heard yesterday.
The award-winning journalist who exposed terrible abuse in Islington children's homes now reveals horrifying links to sinister discoveries at Jersey's Haut de la Garenne.
Police investigating child abuse on Jersey have been scrutinising allegations of assaults from as recently as the last few months, it emerged yesterday as the first pictures were released of the care home cellar where officers have been searching for human remains.
GUERNSEY The child abuse investigation that has engulfed Jersey threatened to spill over into a second Channel Island yesterday after a man claimed that he had suffered abuse at two children’s homes in Guernsey.
A police inquiry into decades of
alleged child abuse in Jersey has spread to the neighbouring island of Guernsey.
Public inquiry into Haunt de la Garenne abuse claims
More than 100 people claim they were physically and sexually abused at different care homes on the island, with most saying that they were attacked at Haut de la Garenne, where the remains of a child were found buried on February 23.
The UK social work expert leading a child protection review in Jersey has said there is "no evidence" that children are currently at risk on the island but more improvements are needed.
Detectives investigating child abuse allegations at a Jersey children's home are poised to arrest three prime suspects after bones were found in a nearby field.
Campaigners supporting the victims of alleged child abuse at a former Jersey care home have vowed to fight on for greater openness and reform of the judicial system on the island.
The discovery of a child's skull at a former children's home on Jersey last month came as a shock to many on the UK mainland, who see the Channel island as a family-friendly holiday destination.
The punishment room. The room is one of a network of four secret underground chambers at Haut de la Garenne.
Children from the Jersey house of horrors were loaned to rich paedophiles yachtsmen as galley sex slaves, a news of
the world investigation reveals.
The youngsters were told by care staff the boat rides were treats—only to be assaulted and RAPED at sea by pervert toffs.
A COUNCILLOR has been forced to apologise after calling for the legalisation of euthanasia to cut the number of children in care.
Minister tells social workers to have more faith in themselves????Unbelievable.
When I was born, the nurses took me away from my mother before she even saw me. She “yelled the house down” until they brought me back for a brief cuddle. Then they took me away permanently. Not allowing a mother to see or touch her baby after giving birth was standard hospital procedure in 1963
for newborns going to adoption. I would not see my mother again for half a lifetime.
The killing of a baby girl, shaken to death by her father, could not have been prevented by agencies involved in her care, an inquiry has found.
We must take some steps to open up the social services
A nine-year-old orphan who speaks no English and claims to have been kept indoors watching television for several years has been
rescued after being “abandoned” at a bus stop.
Six young brothers and sisters face being taken from their parents and put into care because they are overweight.
A senior nurse at a leading public school has been sacked after smacking her 10-year-old son at home. Susan Pope, 45, was investigated by the police who decided she had done nothing wrong after she hit the boy on his bottom.
A social worker in Northumberland has been barred from practising after having a relationship with a service user whom the General Social Care Council described as "extremely vulnerable".
To ponder thoughts on.....