Panorama tonight. I want my baby back
Hotgossip
Posts: 22,385 Forum Member
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Investigates secretive world of family courts and asks whether some parents may have unfairly lost their children forever.
There is a family in Norfolk who have lost all three of their children forever. One of the three was not well and they were suspected of harming him. All three were taken into care and then forcibly adopted. The woman at norfolk county council who organised all this ...... Head of children's services, Lisa Christensen, has just agreed to resign although this happened several years ago. I don't know how she can sleep at night because the High court decided ages ago that the parents did nothing wrong but it was too late as the children had gone.
The story was in the headlines for ages because the parents fled to Ireland to give birth to another son and they fought hard for the truth to be told.
Not sure if they'll mention this family tonight but it sounds interesting.
There is a family in Norfolk who have lost all three of their children forever. One of the three was not well and they were suspected of harming him. All three were taken into care and then forcibly adopted. The woman at norfolk county council who organised all this ...... Head of children's services, Lisa Christensen, has just agreed to resign although this happened several years ago. I don't know how she can sleep at night because the High court decided ages ago that the parents did nothing wrong but it was too late as the children had gone.
The story was in the headlines for ages because the parents fled to Ireland to give birth to another son and they fought hard for the truth to be told.
Not sure if they'll mention this family tonight but it sounds interesting.
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I remember the story well but I didn't know about this update. Where did you see it? Feel so bad for these families
1) The Law is an ass
2) Doctors aren't capable of divergent thinking. They aren't trained that way and the public have FAR too much faith in what is just a man with a batchelors degree. Basing an entire case on the interpretation of an X-Ray, for gods sake.
3) Social Workers are poorly trained and more often than not, thick as ****.
How come that I (not being medically trained in any way) came across the idea that fractured bones could be some medical condition and not child abuse?
We've already seen people with conditions such as brittle bones, rickets etc.
I just cannot believe what I am watching.
The family I mentioned earlier who had all their 3 kids forcibly removed ..... Even the family's Health Visitor said she had no concerns about them as parents but social services wouldn't listen.
At the end of the day these courts are too secretive and too close minded. The limitation of what evidence and experts that they 'allow' cannot possibly hope to expose full and complete truth in any way.
I could have cried for the families shown on the show.
I worked for Childrens Services and I resent what you are calling Social Workers.. They are not scumbags but are doing an extremely difficult job. Perhaps they should do a programme on how many children are given a better life by Social Workers but they wont because they prefer to slag off Social Workers as they do not have a right to reply,
I am not a Social Worker but I witnessed at first hand what they have to go through and do a job that alot of people would not even attempt to do. They are leaving wholesale because of the pressure they are under and people with your attitude dont help.
With this case and others I wonder if in 20 years time we will see councils being taken to court by adults who were removed incorrectly as children.
There are generations of adoptees who were removed from their mothers, just because the women were young, single, or the family didn't want an illegitimate baby in the family. Women of all ages were bullied, coerced, shamed into giving up their babies to married couples who were 'more deserving'. Some were sedated or even told their babies had died.
And nobody will ever be accountable for this. In Australia they made an apology for these practices. I doubt it will ever happen here.
It makes me sick that these adoptions are permanent and these women have lost their children, and the children have lost their biological family.
I wonder if the adoptive parents know how unethical the removal of their adoptive child was?
Take a seat Rachie for the first time in 15 years I'm about to agree with you
I had close experience of a forced adoption of the child of my good friend. In that case, the decision was the right one because she couldn't care for him properly due to her learning difficulties. However, I remember being struck by how bullying the social services were throughout ,and how against the mum the entire court process was. Other options really weren't explored fully. For example, social services put a lot of pressure on the mum until she split with the dad, which left him without a home, then they used his living situation to prevent him getting custody of the little boy. A year on, he's a much more mature young man and I often think that with a little bit of support, he could have kept his son and been a very good dad.
Surely not! Bit scared now lol
I don't think closed adoption should be used unless the child is in danger of being stalked or something. It's too severe.
It's cruel to just cut off a child's connection to their family, unless they are in danger.
In your friend's situation, it sounds like they missed a chance with the father or with his extended family or hers.
It's like everything else ... Social services have targets for kids being adopted. So they need kids to adopt and they go for those who,will be the easiest to,remove. ;-)
It's a very difficult subject because some people are just so,desperate to,adopt that they don't care about the background the child has come from. I also know a young woman who,has mild learning difficulties and she very nearly had her first child taken from her. She had very supportive parents who fought long and hard on her behalf and she now has 3 kids who are bright and doing well,at school.
Alternatively some people are so patient and willing to offer a home to an "at-risk" child that they go through a very intrusive and rigourous approval process to be adoptive parents (which can take up to two years), wait six months until a suitable match is found and then wait a year whilst the mother abuses the court process by not turning up for Family Court hearings or changes her solicitor at regular intervals to delay the procedure.
If the Family Courts are to be less secretive this means that ALL the information on birth parents has to come out too into the public domain. So the Sun and the People can pick the juiciest stories for the entertainment of their readers. Which the parents will certainly not like. And will potentially wreck their childs chaace of a future life.
Family courts (and their equivalent in Scotland) in these cases have one objective - to protect the child. Parents don't have an overriding right to retain their child they have to demonstrate it is in the childs best interest.
And prospective adopters and social workers targets have NO influence on the process - as I know too well.
Oh I so agree with you. I was furious at the end when that lovely couple had to say goodbye to their son...for no reason whatsoever! the court STOLE their child!!! I felt so sorry for those grandparents too, lovely people and I am sure that the grndmother's health wont hold up too well after all that stress, she really took it badly and there was no need to give that little boy to another couple. This is where I have problems with the adoption thing...where you have people who think they are entitled to other people's children. I think it is all about meeting adoption quotas - they take healthy children from good parents for the most trivial excuses so that boxes can be ticked and adoption quotas are met. They take children like these because most adoptive parents dont want 'troubled' children likely to cause disruption...they take well cared for children that can be easily slotted in to someone elses home with minimal disruption. Bloody hell, I would not wear that at all, no way would I stand by as my child was given to another couple! and I wonder if the couple who were given that little boy would even be bothered about the fact that 'their' new son is STOLEN PROPERTY!!! >:(
I certainly hope so.