#SADS016* - TELEGRAPH - BOOKER 21-Nov-2010
The Sunday Telegraph
Based on the prepublication embargoed proof.
social workers and the police.
This was the case of Tony and Debbie Sims, which I first reported in July 2009 under the headline “Evil destruction’ of a happy family’, and whom I can now name because their daughter, torn from them for no good reason, has now, after three years of misery in foster care and 74 court hearings, finally been adopted.
The story of Mr and Mrs Sims was my first introduction to that Kafka-esque world of state child-snatching which I have so often reported on since, and illustrates so many of the reasons why, hidden behind its self-protective wall of secrecy, this ruthless and corrupt system has become a major national scandal.
Until April 2007, Mr Sims, a professional dog-breeder, and his wife, then a branch vice-chairman of the local Conservative Party, were a respectable middle-class couple living happily with the five-year old daughter who was the apple of their eye. Shortly after Mr Sims had been interviewed by the RSPCA over his unwitting infringement of a new law banning tail-docking of puppies, their home was invaded by two RSPCA officials and 18 policemen, who had been given a wholly erroneous tip-off that there were guns on the premises,
When the dogs were released from their kennels and rampaged through the house, ripping apart his daughter’s pet boxer, Mr Sims strongly protested - verbally but not physically. He was arrested, his wife likewise and they were taken away, leaving their little girl, aged five, screaming amid the chaos. Social workers were called and the child was removed into foster care, While Mrs Sims was being held for several hours in a police cell she had a miscarriage. She returned home that night to find her daughter gone.
When the couple next saw their child at a ‘contact’ months later, she said she had been told they were dead and had gone to heaven. For three years they tried to get her back through those 74 court hearings, The social workers claimed the child had been maltreated because her home was an unholy mess. But this was only because of the police raid and the dogs - a WPC who visited the house a month earlier on other business reported that it had been ‘neat and tidy’.
The child could not understand why she was not allowed to go back home with her parents, The courts were unable to consider a report by an experienced independent social worker which the couple were told described them as responsible and loving parents. The only evidence the court heard was that from the social workers and their own ‘experts’. When the couple were eventually told that their child would be adopted, they appealed.
In a judgment which was last year allowed to be reported, Mr Justice Boden ruled that, because the parents had not shown sufficient co-operation with the authorities (after four psychiatric assessments of the couple, the father refused to submit to a fifth), the adoption must go ahead, One of the first people to contact the parents when this was reported was the independent social worker expressing astonishment, saying he had assumed that, because the social workers’ case seemed so flimsy, the family would have long since been reunited. Last week Mr and Mrs Sims had a two-sentence note to say their daughter has now been adopted.
Since I first wrote about this case in 2009 I have come to recognise many of its features in dozens of others I have followed: the mob-handed involvement of the police; the seizing of children for no good reason; the inability of social workers to admit they have made a mistake; lawyers supposedly acting for the parents who seem to be on the other side; the refusal of judges to look objectively at all the evidence, and their willingness to accept nonsense told them by social workers and their ‘experts’. Too often these proceedings get away with standing every honourable principle of \British justice on its head.
Such is the Frankenstein’s monster created by Parliament in the 1989 Children Act. Yet apart from the tireless John Hemming, and a handful of other MPs shocked into awareness by individual cases in their constituencies, the majority seem wholly unconcerned. So what do we pay them for?
Booker Column 21 Nov 2010
According to the family’s GP, in 43 years of medical practice he had ‘never encountered a case of such appalling injustice’. To their neighbours it was so shocking that up to 100 of them were ready to stage a public protest, until being banned from doing so by
Based on the prepublication embargoed proof.
social workers and the police.
This was the case of Tony and Debbie Sims, which I first reported in July 2009 under the headline “Evil destruction’ of a happy family’, and whom I can now name because their daughter, torn from them for no good reason, has now, after three years of misery in foster care and 74 court hearings, finally been adopted.
The story of Mr and Mrs Sims was my first introduction to that Kafka-esque world of state child-snatching which I have so often reported on since, and illustrates so many of the reasons why, hidden behind its self-protective wall of secrecy, this ruthless and corrupt system has become a major national scandal.
Until April 2007, Mr Sims, a professional dog-breeder, and his wife, then a branch vice-chairman of the local Conservative Party, were a respectable middle-class couple living happily with the five-year old daughter who was the apple of their eye. Shortly after Mr Sims had been interviewed by the RSPCA over his unwitting infringement of a new law banning tail-docking of puppies, their home was invaded by two RSPCA officials and 18 policemen, who had been given a wholly erroneous tip-off that there were guns on the premises,
When the dogs were released from their kennels and rampaged through the house, ripping apart his daughter’s pet boxer, Mr Sims strongly protested - verbally but not physically. He was arrested, his wife likewise and they were taken away, leaving their little girl, aged five, screaming amid the chaos. Social workers were called and the child was removed into foster care, While Mrs Sims was being held for several hours in a police cell she had a miscarriage. She returned home that night to find her daughter gone.
When the couple next saw their child at a ‘contact’ months later, she said she had been told they were dead and had gone to heaven. For three years they tried to get her back through those 74 court hearings, The social workers claimed the child had been maltreated because her home was an unholy mess. But this was only because of the police raid and the dogs - a WPC who visited the house a month earlier on other business reported that it had been ‘neat and tidy’.
The child could not understand why she was not allowed to go back home with her parents, The courts were unable to consider a report by an experienced independent social worker which the couple were told described them as responsible and loving parents. The only evidence the court heard was that from the social workers and their own ‘experts’. When the couple were eventually told that their child would be adopted, they appealed.
In a judgment which was last year allowed to be reported, Mr Justice Boden ruled that, because the parents had not shown sufficient co-operation with the authorities (after four psychiatric assessments of the couple, the father refused to submit to a fifth), the adoption must go ahead, One of the first people to contact the parents when this was reported was the independent social worker expressing astonishment, saying he had assumed that, because the social workers’ case seemed so flimsy, the family would have long since been reunited. Last week Mr and Mrs Sims had a two-sentence note to say their daughter has now been adopted.
Since I first wrote about this case in 2009 I have come to recognise many of its features in dozens of others I have followed: the mob-handed involvement of the police; the seizing of children for no good reason; the inability of social workers to admit they have made a mistake; lawyers supposedly acting for the parents who seem to be on the other side; the refusal of judges to look objectively at all the evidence, and their willingness to accept nonsense told them by social workers and their ‘experts’. Too often these proceedings get away with standing every honourable principle of \British justice on its head.
Such is the Frankenstein’s monster created by Parliament in the 1989 Children Act. Yet apart from the tireless John Hemming, and a handful of other MPs shocked into awareness by individual cases in their constituencies, the majority seem wholly unconcerned. So what do we pay them for?
'Open the curtains, throw open the windows and permit the light of investigation and fresh air into family courts and sexual, emotional and physical abuse of the vulnerable - expose the abuse & the abuse of authority of those acting in OUR name!
No child asked to be or enjoys abuse,
it is for the gratification of the inadequate'.
it is for the gratification of the inadequate'.
To understand the Concept & Services of
Stolen????- where you can help yourself and others:
StolenKids- 4 Those losing kids due to 'authorities' ie Forced Adoption & Care!
GO TO http://stolenkids-bloggers.blogspot.com/
Or perhaps more suited to YOUR needs:
StolenChildhood- 4 those facing abuse past or present sexual or other!
GO TO http://stolenchildhood-bloggers.blogspot.com/ or
StolenTrust- 4 those where or have suffered abuse within a relationship!
GO TO http://StolenTrust-bloggers.blogspot.com/ or
StolenOyster- 4 those who have been abused or raped by a stranger or stalker
GO TO http://StolenOyster-bloggers.blogspot.com/
To See The Links Page
CLICK HERE
Stolen????- where you can help yourself and others:
StolenKids- 4 Those losing kids due to 'authorities' ie Forced Adoption & Care!
GO TO http://stolenkids-bloggers.blogspot.com/
Or perhaps more suited to YOUR needs:
StolenChildhood- 4 those facing abuse past or present sexual or other!
GO TO http://stolenchildhood-bloggers.blogspot.com/ or
StolenTrust- 4 those where or have suffered abuse within a relationship!
GO TO http://StolenTrust-bloggers.blogspot.com/ or
StolenOyster- 4 those who have been abused or raped by a stranger or stalker
GO TO http://StolenOyster-bloggers.blogspot.com/
To See The Links Page
CLICK HERE
Booker Column 21 Nov 2010
According to the family’s GP, in 43 years of medical practice he had ‘never encountered a case of such appalling injustice’. To their neighbours it was so shocking that up to 100 of them were ready to stage a public protest, until being banned from doing so by
No comments:
Post a Comment