12-Feb-09 - BBC - Moray child protection condemned

12-Feb-09 - BBC - Moray child protection condemned

Overlaps with Hollie Greig's case!

Moray child protection condemned

Inspectors said they were not confident children received the help needed
Children at risk in Moray do not have adequate protection, according to a government report.

Inspectors said they were not confident children at risk received the help and support they needed.

SNP members of Moray Council said the report painted an "appalling picture" of child protection in the area.

Moray Council chief executive Alastair Keddie promised action, saying: "We view the findings of this report with great concern."
He added: "We regret that the service our partnership delivers to children has not met the standards expected.

"Child protection is an extremely important issue for all agencies in Moray.
"We have made significant changes in our operations since the initial verbal report from inspectors in September, we have been working hard together ever since to ensure better information-sharing and assessments of children at risk."

Moray Council and NHS Grampian came in for particular criticism in the report from Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Education.

It found assessment of risks and needs was "unsatisfactory", information-sharing and recording was "unsatisfactory" and planning to meet needs, operational planning, leadership, policies and procedures were all "weak".

The report states: "Inspectors were not confident that all children at risk of harm, abuse or neglect and in need of protection were receiving the help and support they needed.

"The immediate response to concerns did not always lead to rigorous assessment of risk and the use of appropriate legal measures."


We have already put in place closer working arrangements between agencies, and will continue to make positive changes to deliver excellence in the protection of our young people

Chief Constable Colin McKerracher
It continues: "There were delays and deficiencies in the identification and investigation of suspected child abuse. Planning for children did not always bring about a reduction of risk within acceptable timescales."

A joint statement from Cosla, the Association of Directors and Social Work and Moray Council said: "Everyone who works in local government - at political and official levels, in social work or any of the other professions - fully appreciates the need to ensure that vulnerable children and young people get the support they need and that they are protected from harm and neglect.

"The HMIE report on child protection services on the Moray Council area poses significant and important challenges for the council and its partners. The council and its partners are already taking urgent and comprehensive action to address these challenges."


This is an absolutely appalling report and I am deeply concerned

Angus Robertson
Moray MP
Chief Constable Colin McKerracher, chair of the North East Scotland Child Protection Committee (NESCPC), which oversees child protection in the area, said: "We welcome this inspection and recognise the weaknesses it identifies.

"It has made a vital contribution to the NESCPC and helps us identify the areas where we can make improvements to child protection services.

"We have already put in place closer working arrangements between agencies, and will continue to make positive changes to deliver excellence in the protection of our young people."

Moray SNP MP Angus Robertson said: "This is an absolutely appalling report and I am deeply concerned at the strategic management and leadership of child protection services in Moray.

"A report like this is bound to be morale sapping for the many dedicated social workers in Moray who have been completely undermined by the systematic and strategic failures uncovered by the inspection.

"The issue of child protection is of major concern to the public and the SNP will be seeking answers from the Moray Council as to how this frightening situation has occurred."

'No excuses'

Minister for Children Adam Ingram branded the shortcomings unacceptable.

He said: "It is clear to me that the leadership in Moray, particularly in the council, now have to demonstrate a real commitment to delivering this action plan.

"They need to demonstrate their ability to improve their performance. There must be no excuses and no passing of the buck by those responsible."

First Minister Alex Salmond last year branded a critical report into child protection in Aberdeen "unacceptable".

Children living at risk of abuse or neglect were not being given adequate protection, according to the report.

Government inspectors have since praised the efforts of the fostering and adoption services.

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SEX OFFENDERS - 11-Jan-2009 News of the World - Guy BASNETT

SEX OFFENDERS - 11-Jan-2009 News of the World - Guy BASNETT

Pervert central
We reveal the nation's places with the highest concentration of sex offenders
By Guy Basnett, 11/01/2009

PEOPLE living in the centre of Birmingham are almost TEN times more likely to have a convicted SEX OFFENDER as a neighbour than elsewhere in the country.
For one in every 410 residents in the city's Central police area is a rapist, child abuser, or other pervert-as shown on our astonishing map.

See the full list at the bottom of this page.

That's a far greater concentration than the country's safest neighbourhood-BARNET in north London-where there's only one sex offender in every 3,777 people.

The startling figures are revealed for the first time after a News of the World investigation exclusively mapped the nation's sex offender hotspots.

Terrified
Our figures have been compiled using the police's OWN data, which details how many registered sex offenders live in each police division.

A police source told us: "For years forces have tried to avoid giving detailed figures showing which areas have the highest proportions of sex attackers.

"They're terrified people living in these areas will start to fear for their safety- or their kids' safety. But the stark truth is some areas have many more sex offenders living behind closed doors than others, and pose a much greater risk to the families nearby."

And Michele Elliott, director of kids safety campaign group Kidscape, said: "One in every 400 people is a huge concentration, and very worrying. If I was a parent living there with young kids you bet I'd want to know about it."

And she slammed current laws that mean police can pose few limits on where freed sex attackers can live.

She said: The police can stop you travelling abroad, but they can't say you can't live in Hastings, for example."

Nottingham City division, with one sex offender for every 748 people and Manchester Metropolitan, one in 777, are the second and third highest risk areas

London's Kensington and Chelsea, with one in 3,423 and the capital's Sutton suburb, one in 3,293 are the second and third safest.

Sarah's Law campaigner Sara Payne said keeping the public in the dark about sex offenders' whereabouts allows them to reoffend.

She said: "If they are going to be allowed out it should be under the spotlight, not kept in the shadows where they like to be."

To view the source with its comments CLICK HERE

'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'.

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/

Posted by Greg Lance-Watkins
of: Greg_L-W@BTconnect.com
on: http://StolenKids-Hollie.Blogspot.com

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TIMES - Frances GIBB - 09-Jan-2009 - FAMILY COURTS

TIMES - Frances GIBB - 09-Jan-2009 - FAMILY COURTS

Family courts: everybody out

The Government has ruled that judgments can go up online, but the press and public can no longer attend magistrates' courts hearings

by: Frances Gibb, Legal Editor of The Times

Hundreds of decisions on children and families are to be made public under plans to counter allegations of secrecy in the family courts. A pilot scheme is to be launched in which the rulings of courts will be released for the first time, Bridget Prentice, the Justice Minister, has told The Times.

Initially the rulings will be published in courts in three cities — the pilot sites are still being finalised — and, if successful, will be extended across England and Wales. The decisions, whether a judgment transcript, decision summary or written reasons, would go on to a central website.

The cases to be covered include decisions about children being taken into care, decisions on contact with an absent parent and on removing a child from the UK. But they will also include decisions relating to disputes over “matters of religion, culture or ethnicity” or that turn on disputes of medical or other expert opinion or on human rights issues.

The courts will also have to look at whether, in all cases involving children, they could provide a transcript or decision summary for parents to keep and a copy kept for the child, when he or she is older.

The move comes after ministers controversially decided against opening up the family courts as of right to the media, arguing that children’s groups were concerned about the invasion of privacy and placing of sensitive material in the public domain.

Rather, in what the Newspaper Society has called a volte-face, ministers have actually proposed further restrictions, so that magistrates’ courts hearings — now automatically open — will be closed, with the press or public admitted only if the magistrates agree to allow them in.

Ms Prentice said: “Some of the judges were in favour of giving media access as of right and others were not. But judicial discretion will still be there because it will be up to the judge to decide whether media organisations or anyone else can be admitted.”

Instead, in a compromise move, anonymised court judgments will now automatically be released in a range of key cases including where children are being removed from parents, she said.

The decision may go a little way towards appeasing critics of the family courts, such Fathers 4 Justice, who maintain that their decisions are biased against fathers and cannot be questioned because they are made behind closed doors.

But critics and newspapers still favour full media access. The Newspaper Society remains firmly of the view that “these proposals are a grossly backward step that will do nothing to restore public confidence in the family courts”.

Yet the reform, if limited in scope, has the backing of Sir Mark Potter, Britain’s most senior family judge and President of the High Court Family Division. He told The Times that the judiciary had been split about whether to open up the family courts and that there was not a clear single view. However, he welcomed “a move to greater openness by the judiciary delivering public judgments, subject to anonymity”.

He said: “This is a welcome step so far as I am concerned and should do a great deal to reduce charges of secret justice by making clear to the public the reasoning of judges in cases of concern.
“The broad view of the judiciary . . .” he added, “was that the media should be admitted to family proceedings, except adoption proceedings, provided the court retains a wide discretion to exclude the media in the interests of justice in appropriate circumstances for whole or part of the case.”

The view was that the general public should not have a right to be admitted but that the court should have discretion to admit one family member or friend. But he acknowledged that, at the same time, there were “wide differences of view within the judiciary”. The decision, he added diplomatically, was “essentially a matter for government”.

The move may be dressed up as a step towards greater openness — if only going a little way in appeasing fathers’ groups whose campaigns are nourished by family hearings and decisions on contact and residence being held in private. But it will certainly not find favour with the media — and not least the argument that as the press never made much use of the right to visit magistrates’ courts hearings, why should it mind if the right is now removed — subject to a court’s discretion?

Sue Oake, senior legal adviser at the Newspaper Society, says the new policy is a “full-throttle reverse” — the equivalent of the fashion industry’s grey is the new black. “Closed courts,” she says, “are the new openness.”

Yet publicising judgments will enable the public and the media to be better informed about what courts are doing in cases that Mr Justice Munby, the High Court judge, ranked as “among the most drastic" [now that capital punishment has gone] “that any judge in any jurisdiction is ever empowered to make”.

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DAILY MAIL - Andy DOLAN - 23-Dec-2008 - 6 Fig. COMPENSATION

DAILY MAIL - Andy DOLAN - 23-Dec-2008 - 6 Fig. COMPENSATION

Social services stole our children from us: Six-figure sum for parents wrongly accused of abuse

By Andy Dolan

Last updated at 2:02 AM on 23rd December 2008


A couple whose children were taken away for two years after a false accusation of sexual abuse have been awarded a six-figure compensation payout.

Tim and Gina Williams's three young children were placed in separate foster homes after social workers wrongly suspected them.

Their ordeal began in May 2004, when Mr Williams discovered a semi-naked 11-year- old boy on top of his daughter, Courtney, then five, following a neighbourhood paddling pool party.

Six-figure payout: Tim Williams and his wife Gina with their children (left to right) Ieuan, Courtney and Zara

He called police, but a medical examination resulted in social services stepping in, after a doctor claimed that the child had been the victim of abuse by an adult.

As a result, social services judged Mr and Mrs Williams could both pose a potential risk to Courtney and her siblings Zara and Ieuan.

In August 2004 the children were taken away.

Their parents were allowed just two 90-minute, supervised visits a week.

But two years ago, the family, from Newport, South Wales, were reunited after a judge exonerated the parents. The case collapsed a week before a final court hearing, after the family consulted a U.S. expert who found no suggestion of any sexual abuse.

A UK doctor agreed - and the original doctor who had examined Courtney then accepted their findings.

Newport council asked for the case to be dropped and the children were returned to their parents in September 2006.

The couple then began a compensation battle against Newport council and Gwent Healthcare NHS Trust.

And on Monday they were awarded an undisclosed sum in an agreed settlement at the High Court in Cardiff.

Afterwards their QC Robin Tolson said: 'The effect of what happened will continue to be felt for a long time. But at least this now marks the end of four years spent fighting for their children and their rights before the court.'

An initial report from the NHS Trust claiming that Courtney was being abused had been 'fundamentally flawed', their legal team said.

The family have previously spoken out to try to prevent other families from a similar fate. The parents said Zara, now 14, Ieuan, 11, and Courtney, nine, were like 'three little strangers' at times.

Zara had always been studious but was increasingly disruptive in class. Ieuan, who had had a sensitive, quiet inclination was often angry. And Courtney was too scared to sleep in case she woke to find her parents gone.

Mrs Williams, who waived her right to anonymity, said: 'None can bear to have us out of their sight because they think we won't come back. They believe they were taken into care because we didn't love or want them any more.'

Mr Williams, now 39, added: 'All three are extra clingy and constantly fight for our attention.

'If they don't see us at the school gates the moment the bell rings they freak out, so we have to get there ten minutes early and stand in exactly the same spot.

'But whenever we see the children angry or in tears, we have to remember that it's not their fault.

'They were ripped from us and still don't understand why.'

Under the settlement, the family are banned from commenting further on the case.

The NHS Trust said a serious case review had established that the doctor who examined the child had been working within her professional guidelines and no fault had been attached to her

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TELEGRAPH - Joshua ROZENBERG - 15-May-2008

TELEGRAPH - Joshua ROZENBERG - 15-May-2008

MP makes 'outrageous' allegations, say judges
But John Hemming says the case is not yet over

By Joshua Rozenberg

Published: 1:26AM BST 15 May 2008

An MP made "outrageous" allegations against the integrity of a consultant clinical psychologist, the Court of Appeal has decided. Lords Justices Thorpe and Wall dismissed as "unfounded" a claim by John Hemming, the Liberal Democrat MP for Birmingham Yardley, that the expert was "in the pay of" a local authority that was seeking to take a child into care.

"Mr Hemming's allegation that [the psychologist] is part of an 'evil' system only warrants comment because it comes from a Member of Parliament, and thus from a person in a responsible public position whom one ought to be able to trust only to make serious allegations when they are based on evidence," Lord Justice Wall said.

"I am astonished that somebody in Mr Hemming's position should have seen fit to put such a disgraceful allegation into the public domain. I reject it unreservedly."

The story begins two years ago, when a woman of 21 gave birth to a premature baby, born at about 27 weeks. The mother had not realised she was pregnant until shortly before the birth. Her baby, known as KP, was born with "very many serious medical conditions" requiring skilled management.

The mother, referred to as RP, has a "significant learning disability". According to the psychologist, RP's limitations "are too extensive to allow her to parent KP successfully on her own".

And the father? He "does not play any part in the proceedings, or in the life of KP," the judge laconically recorded. A man of about 65, he does not appear to have cohabited with the mother at any stage and they "do not appear to have any form of ongoing sexual relationship".

Nottingham City Council began care proceedings when the baby was about four months old and still in hospital. The local authority was granted interim care of the baby by the City's magistrates and, at the age of six months, KP was discharged into the care of foster parents. She has remained in foster care ever since.

Ahead of the magistrates' hearing, the mother was assessed by a clinical psychologist – whose identity is also protected by a court order. The psychologist concluded that RP's difficulties in processing information would make it very difficult to understand and act on advice from her own solicitor.

So the Official Solicitor, Alastair Pitblado, was called in. As I explained in a column last November, it is his job is to seek justice in the courts for those who cannot speak for themselves and who have nobody else to represent their interests. A very lengthy explanation of this role is annexed to the court's judgment .

RP said she had a close and loving bond with her daughter and there would be no risk of significant harm to KP if the baby were to live with her. The mother thought the local authority had not given her a chance to acquire parenting skills.

But Mr Pitblado told the court that RP did not have the capacity to give or refuse consent to a placement order. The Official Solicitor decided that, in her best interests, he could not oppose the local authority's application.

Judge Butler, QC, sitting in Nottingham, agreed last year that the baby should be placed for adoption, dispensing with the mother's consent "because she is incapable of giving it".

It is at this point that Mr Hemming seems to have entered the stage. Acting with RP's brother, the MP told the Court of Appeal that RP did not know that the Official Solicitor had taken over the case from her own lawyer; that the Official Solicitor should never have been appointed; that the clinical psychologist had "given the appearance of bias"; that the placement order had been made in breach of RP's right to a fair trial; and that she had the mental capacity to conduct the proceedings.

Mr Hemming is highly successful at designing and marketing computer programs for businesses. According to his website, he is "one of the world's leading internet technical experts". Although he is not a lawyer, he and RP's brother were treated as "McKenzie friends" – lay people who are allowed to sit with a litigant-in-person and who were originally meant to whisper advice while the litigant addressed the court. In this case, however, Mr Hemming was allowed to address the Court of Appeal directly at a hearing in March.

RP's own solicitor had acted for her before the Official Solicitor was appointed. The same lawyer was then retained by Mr Pitblado. At the hearing two months ago, Lords Justices Thorpe and Wall read through the Nottingham lawyer's file and found that the local solicitor had explained the position to the mother on a number of occasions. In any event, once the local solicitor had formed the view that RP might not have the capacity to give proper instructions it was the solicitor's duty to seek a professional opinion on the mother's capacity.

Having examined the Nottingham solicitor's file, the appeal judges expected Mr Hemming to acknowledge that RP did indeed know that the Official Solicitor had been acting for her.

"Not a bit of it," said Lord Justice Wall. "In a nutshell, Mr Hemming's response was that the evidence contained in [the local solicitor's] file had been made up: in a word, fabricated."

Mr Hemming pointed to discrepancies in file notes, which he found "very strange".

Lord Justice Wall had no hesitation in rejecting the MP's claim. Any suggestion that the local solicitor had interfered with the file could be dismissed out of hand.

"I find it not only unacceptable but shocking," said the judge, "that a man in Mr Hemming's position should feel able to make so serious an allegation without any evidence to support it. In my judgment, it is irresponsible and an abuse of his position."

Lord Justice Wall then turned to Mr Hemming's allegations against the clinical psychologist, quoting them not from anything he had said in court but from articles the MP had posted on one of his websites.

Describing the procedures in RP's case as "evil", Mr Hemming said they meant that "the local authority's expert can say someone is incapable of instructing a solicitor so the adoption case goes through 'on the nod'".

More generally, the MP likened expert evidence in family cases to "witching courts where the witch finder says 'she's a witch' and then the state dunks her".

Lord Justice Wall said those remarks implied that experts such as the clinical psychologist were "in it for the money" and happy to manufacture evidence.

These comments are not only wrong and ill-informed, said the judge. They also had no foundation in the evidence presented in court. "That they are made publicly by Mr Hemming once again strikes me as an abuse of his position."

Referring to the psychologist, Lord Justice Wall said she was jointly instructed by all parties in the normal way. The judge firmly rejected allegations that she was biased. As he asked, "what was in it for her?"

In rejecting Mr Hemming's criticisms as "ill-informed and tendentious", Lord Justice Wall accepted that the family justice system was far from perfect. Changes were needed, with greater transparency to combat inaccurate criticism. On this occasion, however, "the system has operated properly".

The Official Solicitor's appointment was the only proper course, the court held. Nottingham had considered RP's position carefully. Social services had done what they could. "While RP's love for her daughter is not doubted, her capacity to care for her independently is seriously deficient."

And Mr Hemming's advice to RP had been entirely adult-focussed. "Not once in his argument did he mention the welfare of KP."

But the MP remained unrepentant. "What is most important is that RP herself has still not had a trial," he told me. "I may not be a lawyer, but I believe that all people have rights and that of "hear the other side" and the right to a trial is perhaps one of the most important."

While continuing to allege that changes had been made to the case files – an allegation for which the court had found there was "absolutely no evidence" – Mr Hemming accepted that the alleged changes "were made without malice and indeed that was quite unimportant in terms of the case as a whole".

The MP also stressed that Nottingham did have a say in choosing the psychologist. "Given that the local authority was part of the decision-making as to the appointment of the expert, this results in an apparent bias on the appointment of the agent."

Mr Hemming said that RP would be asking the law lords for permission to appeal against the court's ruling. He was seeking new evidence. As far as he was concerned, the case was not yet over.

First published May 15, 2008

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Related articles

• John Hemming MP: Court of Protection must be reformed (telegraph.co.uk)
• More muscular parliament would make for better lawmaking | Joshua Rozenberg (guardian.co.uk)
• What next for the family courts? - BBC Law in Action (innertemplelibrary.wordpress.com)

TIMES Ross CLARK 08-Dec-2007 - Protect ME from Protectors!

TIMES Ross CLARK 08-Dec-2007 - Protect ME from Protectors!

From The Times December 8, 2007

Protect me from child protectors

This year I was suspected of child abuse over an incident involving my daughter. I learnt some lessons

Ross Clark

I wasn't surprised to hear the words “miscarriage of justice” and “Professor David Southall” mentioned in the same breath this week. What shocked me was how many in his profession wanted to paint him as the victim. Many parents will have been relieved to see Southall struck off by the General Medical Council for what it described as his “deep-seated attitudinal problems” and his “lack of insight” into his failings: parents, that is, such as Sharon Bozier, whose daughter Hannah was referred to Southall with breathing problems and taken into care after he misdiagnosed the problem as parent-inflicted; and parents such as Stephen Clark, wife of the late Sally Clark, whom Southall accused of killing his children after deciding he looked a bit shifty on television.

It is about time someone in the child protection industry was brought to account for their failings. Of course we need the State to intervene when parents mistreat their children. But there is too long a history of child protection agencies pursuing obsessive campaigns against families and carers, devoid of evidence, sheltered from criticism by the secrecy of the family courts — and escaping with their jobs when their incompetence is exposed.

Remember the Cleveland scandal of 1987 in which 96 children were wrongly taken into care, most as a result of Marietta Higgs and her horrible, discredited anal dilation test — after which Dr Higgs was allowed to carry on working as if nothing had happened? There was the Orkney scandal, where social services ploughed on with their fantasy of a satanic abuse ring in spite of protests by the children that they had not been abused.

Then there was the case of Christopher Lillie and Dawn Reed, the nursery nurses falsely accused of abusing their charges. After being acquitted in court, Newcastle City Council found them “guilty” through its own inquiry, forcing them into hiding. The authors of the report, led by a consultant paediatrician, Camille San Lazaro, were later found to have libelled the nurses, the judge ruling that their work was “unbalanced, obsessive and lacking in judgment”. Yet the GMC declined to strike off Dr San Lazaro, and she carried on working.

As Charles Pragnell, who was head of research at Cleveland social services at the time of the 1987 scandal puts it, child protection agencies “are racked with too many theories for which there is little or no evidence. Social workers' training does not equip them for undertaking investigations. There is a group conditioning among social workers and paediatricians which prevents them ever accepting they are wrong.”

BACKGROUND
Paediatrician struck off medical register
Dr David Southall struck off medical register
Sally Clark doctor faces being struck off
Innocent remarks by children, he adds, are blown up into full-scale investigations because of the requirement to report immediately to their appointed “child protection officer” anything that could possibly be interpreted as a sign of abuse. Child protection workers then begin with the assumption that abuse must have taken place. The consequent deluge of investigations makes it all the harder to pick out genuine abuse.

I know what he means, because I have been at the receiving end. I have a pubescent mentally handicapped daughter who, besides tantrams and uncooperative behaviour, this year started taking her trousers down at her special school and playing with herself. The school went to some lengths to reassure me and my wife that this is common behaviour when you have a two-year-old mind in an adolescent body, but would we mind if the local child development team helped?

We agreed, and soon afterwards were met at home by two health workers. It soon became clear, however, that the pair did not see their remit as offering useful advice: rather, before even meeting our daughter, they had jumped straight to the conclusion of child abuse and were on a fishing expedition for evidence.

There followed another visit from one of the workers, who waited until I had left the room before accosting my wife with the suggestion that our daughter “may have been interfered with”, adding: “How do you react to that, Mrs Clark?” One could almost see the cogs of the health worker's brain clunking round: men are child-abusers — must be something going on. She added menacingly that if our daughter carried on removing her clothes an investigation would follow.

So that's the thanks you get from the State after ten years of bringing up a difficult child: no help, no praise, just put under suspicion of child abuse. Fortunately, in the absence of an official inquiry, I can speak and write about our experience. Many others, some of whom have had children taken away, have been silenced because of the secrecy surrounding the family courts — which allow no reporting and have no juries.

“The system is dysfunctional and deeply flawed,” says Mr Pragnell. “Parents are being ambushed in child protection conferences and allowed no legal representation. I am getting e-mails all the time from parents who have been mistreated by the system, in some cases where social workers have fabricated evidence. Yet there is no outside body to keep an eye on child protection officers.”

It is about time we did have one, before more David Southalls are let loose among the nation's children to break up families and ruin lives.

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CLEVELAND - ABUSE of PROFESSIONAL POWER 1987

CLEVELAND - ABUSE of PROFESSIONAL POWER 1987

The Cleveland Child Sexual Abuse Scandal

Children UK - 08/10/07

An Abuse and Misuse of Professional Power

by Charles Pragnell

In early summer 1987, the United Kingdom and the world were rocked by allegations of child sexual abuse occurring in Cleveland, a major industrial conurbation in the North-East of England.

The Cleveland area was mainly comprised of three major towns, Middlesbrough, Stockton-on-Tees, and Hartlepool, and was administered at that time by a single local authority, Cleveland County Council, which had been formed in 1974. The area has since been divided into four local authorities and the name Cleveland only forms part of one of those councils.

Historically, Middlesbrough only came into existence at the beginning of the 19th century when iron ore was found in the nearby hills and it became a steel-making area, attracting workers from Ireland, Scotland and many other areas of the U.K. and from Eastern European countries such as Poland. Being at the mouth of a major river, the River Tees, the area then began to develop as a shipbuilding centre, and in the early part of the 20th century, petro-chemical industries were introduced and it became one of the largest centres in Europe for chemical and plastic production.

In the 1970s the steel-making, ship-building, and chemical industries went into rapid decline leading to high levels of unemployment which still persist among the mainly working-class population.

In the years leading up to 1987, the incidence of allegations of child sexual abuse for Cleveland was no greater than other parts of the U.K. but in January 1987 the numbers began to escalate rapidly, reaching a peak in May, June, and July. The total referrals to Cleveland Social Services for all forms of child abuse during the period January to July 1987 were 505 referrals compared with only 288 referrals in the equivalent period in the previous year.

Increasing numbers of allegations of child sexual abuse were being made by two consultant paediatricians at a Middlesbrough hospital and were based on an unproven medical diagnosis termed the anal dilatation test. Once these allegations had been made, social workers were removing the children from their families on Place of Safety Orders, often in midnight and dawn raids on the family home where children were taken from their beds and placed in foster homes and residential homes.

The initial crisis came when there were no more foster homes or residential home placements to accommodate the numbers of children involved and a special ward had to be set up at the hospital to accommodate the children who continued to be diagnosed as having been sexually abused.

Increasingly the diagnosis using the anal dilation test was being challenged by the police surgeon, who questioned the validity of such a test, and the police gradually withdrew their co-operation in the cases referred by the consultant paediatricians. Relationships between the police, social workers, and the paediatricians broke down as the dispute in medical opinions escalated.

It is alarming to note that there is no requirement for paediatric diagnoses to be scientifically-based, despite the present emphasis on `evidence-based' social work and medicine, and there is no system of verifying and validating paediatric diagnoses on which child abuse allegations may be based, before they can be used in clinical practice. This was acknowledged by John Forfar, the then President of the British Paediatric Association, who wrote to one of the paediatricians involved, Dr. Marietta Higgs, in July 1987 and gave an admonishment in regard to the use of the anal dilatation test :

"The regulation of medical practice is achieved best when it is accomplished within the medical profession. New stances based on a new awareness of clinical signs, or new significances being attached to them, require first to be established within the profession. This takes some time and requires persuasion and scientific evidence of validity, based on the accepted method of communication to professional journals or scientific meetings."

In the early months of the crisis, the allegations involved working-class families, who were confused, bewildered, and angry at being accused of sexually abusing their children, but they were powerless against middle-class professionals with the authority, power, and legal sanctions to support their actions. Gradually, however, the allegations began to involve middle-class families who were highly educated, employed in professional occupations, and with access to legal and political advice and to the media. They were to use such powerful allies to considerable effect. From a sociological perspective, therefore, the events in Cleveland could be seen as a punitive form of middle-class oppression of working-class families by middle-class professionals and an imposition of middle-class values on the working classes. Some aspects of the Cleveland Child Sexual Abuse Scandal have been likened to a mediaeval witch-hunt by at least one author (`When Salem came to the Boro' - Rt. Hon. Stuart Bell, Member of Parliament for Middlesbrough - 1988).

In the initial months of the crisis, public sympathy and concern was strongly in support of the social workers and paediatricians and the media, pursuing their simplistic analysis of all situations as having `goodies' and `baddies', also supported the social workers. Several social workers and managers within the Social Services had serious doubts about what was happening, but although they voiced their concerns to senior managers, they too were powerless to change events.

Public concern centred on the removal of children from their beds at all hours of the night and fear spread among the local population, as these were painful reminders of events which occurred in Germany between 1933 and 1945, when there were similar misuses of state power by police and government officials.

The turning point of events came in late May on the day that the parents decided to march from the hospital where their children were being held to the offices of the local newspaper, and they began telling their versions of events, which of course varied considerably from the narrative constructions of the paediatricians and social workers. Gradually, the media turned to support the parents, and the social workers came under intense public and political scrutiny, which eventually led to the setting up of a Public Inquiry led by Justice Butler-Sloss.

The Inquiry examined the cases involving 121 children where sexual abuse was alleged to have been identified using the anal dilation test and the actions of the paediatricians and social workers involved. Of these 121 cases where sexual abuse of the children was alleged, the Courts subsequently dismissed the proceedings involving 96 of the children, i.e. over 80% were found to be false accusations. There are some social workers and medical professionals who have found difficulty in accepting the findings of the Courts and are `in denial' that they were wrong in their allegations. They have sought to use the findings of a medical panel which claimed that, on the basis of an examination of cases involving 29 of the children, 75% of the children had been sexually abused. Medical opinion is not, of course, proven fact, whereas opinions and supportive evidence given in courts can be challenged and tested under cross-examination as to their validity and veracity.

One of the major findings of the Butler-Sloss Inquiry was that children had been removed precipitately by social workers who had failed to seek corroborative evidence to support the allegations of the paediatricians and had failed to carry out comprehensive assessments of the children and their families. Consequently a requirement was introduced that social workers should not act solely on the basis of medical opinion.

Concerns were also expressed at the Inquiry regarding the use of video-recording equipment for surveillance of interviews with children and the use of anatomically-correct dolls in the questioning of children where sexual abuse was alleged. During such video-recorded sessions, social workers were seen to threaten and attempt to bribe children in order to bring pressure on the children to confirm the social worker's views that they had been abused and leading questions were asked of the children which would not have been permitted in courts. The interviews of the children by the social workers also confused the investigatory nature of such interviews with a therapeutic purpose. Where interviews containing a therapeutic element with children where abuse is alleged are conducted before trial, courts could take the view that such interviews contaminated and corrupted the children's evidence.

Anatomically correct dolls can now only be used by professionals who have undertaken intensive training in their use, and serious doubts have been raised by some psychologists regarding the use of such dolls, citing the difficulties of interpretations of children's behaviours which can be made and how readily false assumptions can be made.

One of the key issues in the Cleveland Child Sex Abuse Scandal was the power of professional groups in U.K. society, and how those powers can be misused and abused in the absence of accountability in law and for professional practice. Social workers are not personally liable in law for their actions in child protection matters, as they can be in mental health work and it could be argued that this is a necessary development. It is only recently that a General Social Care Council (G.S.C.C.) has been introduced in the U.K. under which social workers will now be registered and can be held responsible for their professional practice. However there is little public confidence in the General Medical Council to which medical practitioners are accountable for malpractice and misconduct, and it remains to be seen whether the G.S.C.C. is effective in its role and is thereby able to command public confidence.

There is a belief in some quarters that the events in Cleveland in 1987 led to the Children Act 1989 but this is incorrect. The need for the reform of child care legislation, both public and private law relating to children, had been identified several years earlier by the House of Commons Social Services Select Committee of 1984 (Children In Care) which described the then situation as "complex, confusing, and unsatisfactory". A Review of Child Care Law followed and led to a White Paper, "The Law on Child Care and Family Services", which was published before the findings of the Butler-Sloss Inquiry were known. The Law Commission was also examining the reform of private law relating to children and published its findings in July 1988.

There had been numerous Public Inquiries during the 1970s and 1980s into the deaths of children whilst under the care and supervision of social workers e.g. Maria Colwell, Kimberley Carlisle, Jasmine Beckford, Stephen Meurs, Tyra Henry, etc, and these cases had a major impact on the preparation of the Bill which led to the Children Act 1989. The other major influence on the Children Act was the need to encompass the provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child which was finally signed by the U.K. government in 1991.


There was some delay in publishing the Act during the Inquiry into the Cleveland Child Abuse Scandal and the effects on the Act were the introduction of the Emergency Protection Order lasting only seven days and which could be challenged in the courts by the parents after 72 hours. The previous Place of Safety Orders used extensively in Cleveland could not be challenged for 28 days. The guidance to the Act also required that in Care Proceedings, courts should seek to reach decisions as quickly as possible, as in many of the cases concerning children involved in the Cleveland Scandal, they were left in the limbo of Interim Care Orders, lasting in some cases up to two years. Wardship proceedings had also been used in Cleveland where difficulties would have been experienced by social workers in bringing Care Proceedings and so changes were made to Wardship Proceedings restricting such uses and may now only be used in specific circumstances.

Since 1987, the people of Cleveland have sought to move on from this unsavoury episode in the area's history and to gradually remove the slurs and scars to the reputation of what has always been a vibrant industrial and commercial community.

Perhaps the most lasting effect has been the climate of fear which was created and engendered in the parents of young children by events in Cleveland in 1987, not only in Cleveland but the rest of the U.K. In the 1980s male parents were becoming more accepting of their role as direct carers of their children and to share roles with their female partners, commonly referred to as the `Sensitive New Age Guys' [SNAGs]. This involved the male parent in bathing and dressing their children and performing other acts of personal care. Following Cleveland, many male parents withdrew from these activities from fear that their actions might be seen as unhealthy by social workers and might be misinterpreted by social workers as having an unnatural interest in their children, and they feared allegations of child abuse could be made against them..

In 1987, Charles Pragnell was the Head of Research and Management Information Systems with Cleveland Social Services Department and was involved in the collection and collation of the data and statistics concerning the events which took place.

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GUARDIAN - Tash SHIFRIN 19-Nov-2003 - Margaret HODGE

Timeline: Margaret Hodge Row

Tash Shifrin outlines key dates in the row over how the children's minister dealt with reports of child abuse at a London council that surfaced when she was the council's leader

Society Guardian,
Wednesday 19 November 2003

Article history

1982
Margaret Hodge became Labour leader of Islington council.

1985
Demetrious Panton complained to senior figures at Islington council about being abused while in the council's care in the 1970s and early 1980s. He received no official reply until 1989, when the deputy social services director, Anthony Cousins, wrote to say the council regretted what had happened but did not believe it was at fault.

April 1990
Senior social worker Liz Davies and her manager, David Cofie, raised concerns about sexual abuse to one of Islington's neighbourhood forums. They asked for extra staff to help investigate but were turned down. Ms Hodge wrote a memo to the director of social services saying the budget would not allow extra staff. Ms Davies and Mr Cofie continued to raise concerns, sending "about 15 reports to senior managers and the area child protection committee". The committee decided there was no cause for concern.

February 1992
Liz Davies resigned from her job after being ordered to place a seven-year-old boy in a care home run by someone she had raised concerns about. She took her information to Scotland Yard.

1992
Mr Panton raised his case again with Stephen Twigg, then an Islington councillor, and now minister for schools and a colleague of Ms Hodge at the Department for Education and Skills. In 1996 Mr Twigg, who has also worked as Ms Hodge's parliamentary assistant, told the press he wished he had "taken it up in a more active way at the time" and admitted his failure to raise the case with Ms Hodge "may be a criticism of me".

October 6 1992
The Evening Standard began a series of reports alleging that dozens of children at two Islington council homes were abused. Ms Hodge accuses the Standard of "gutter journalism" and rejected its dossier on paedophile activity in the homes.

October 23 1992
Margaret Hodge stepped down as council leader to take a post with consultants PriceWaterhouse.

May 23 1995
An independent inquiry led by the director of Oxford social services, Ian White, found that the council failed to properly investigate the sexual abuse allegations. The inquiry report said it was possible many of the allegations were true and that abusers "are still working in the field elsewhere". Of 32 named staff alleged to be involved in abuse, only four were disciplined. Two remained in post, including one working in childcare. The White report described the way the council was run at the time of the allegations as "disastrous".

June 13 2003
Ms Hodge was appointed children's minister. Her appointment sparked a renewed campaign against her by the Standard, which had been vindicated in its 1992 reports by the 1995 White inquiry. Liz Davies, previously an unnamed whistleblower, went public in her anger at the appointment.

June 30 2003
Ms Hodge rejected calls for her resignation as children's minister. She acknowledged making one "terrible error of judgement" in 1992. But she added: "I think in the context of those times, people will understand why I made that [error of] judgement. I hope they understand that I've learned the lessons from that."

November 11 2003
Ms Hodge tried to block a BBR Radio Four Today programme investigation into the abuse in Islington children's homes. She wrote to the BBC chairman, Gavin Davies, to condemn the programme, accusing it of "deplorable sensationalism" and called Mr Panton, who spoke to the BBC, an "extremely disturbed person". Mr Panton, now a government consultant, said Islington council had repeatedly ignored claims that he had been abused as a child by Bernie Bain, who was head of the children's home where he lived, in 1978. Bain, described by police as a "brutal sexual abuser", has since committed suicide.

November 15 2003
Mr Panton rejected the minister's written apology for her remarks and said they were not genuine. He demanded a public apology, a donation to a children's charity of his choice and payment of his legal costs.

November 19 2003 Margaret Hodge issued a public apology to Mr Panton, read in the high court. Her statement said she was genuinely sorry for labelling him disturbed and accepted the allegation "ought never to have been written".

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P E N D I N G

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/5417283/Social-services-in-Nottingham-claim-mother-is-too-stupid-to-bring-up-child.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/5419796/The-best-mothers-dont-have-to-be-clever.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/5534188/Second-mother-too-supid-to-raise-her-children.html

YORKSHIRE POST - 03-Jul-2001 - Martyn LOCKLIN

Blair film man jailed for 15 years
over sex abuse at children’s home

Date: 03 July 2001

A Labour councillor who appeared with Prime Minister Tony Blair in the TV documentary Tony’s People was yesterday jailed for 15 years for sexually abusing three 14-year-old boys.

Martyn Locklin, 41, groomed the youngsters for sex, bribing them with
money, alcohol and cannabis before abusing them, Teesside Crown Court was told.

Locklin, of Ladybower, Newton Aycliffe, Co Durham, was found guilty of two counts of indecent assault against each of two boys.

He was also convicted on one count of buggery, two counts of rape and one of indecent assault against a third boy.

Locklin stared impassively at the jury as the verdicts were delivered.

A not-guilty verdict was recorded midway through the trial on a further charge of indecent assault against the first boy. Judge Peter Fox QC said Locklin was guilty of “a gross breach of trust”.

The offences took place between 1988 and 1996 when the boys, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, were aged between 14 and 15.

Locklin, a Labour councillor in Tony Blair’s constituency of Sedgefield, denied all the charges from the outset.

Prosecutor Jamie Hill told the jury Locklin was a “strong and manipulative character” who met the first boy in 1988 when he worked as a carer at a children’s home.

He said alcohol, cannabis and money were used to buy the silence of the first boy, gain the trust of the second and reward the third.

Locklin was sentenced to 10 years in jail to run concurrently for the buggery and rape charges,five years concurrent for the indecent assaults on the two boys,and five years to run consecutively for the repeated abuse of the third boy.

He was placed on the sex offenders register for life.

Passing sentence, Judge Fox said the consecutive sentence was needed to reflect the seriousness of Locklin’s abuse of power while he was in a position of responsibility as a house parent at the children’s home.

In the Channel 4 documentary Tony’s People Locklin was seen showing the Prime Minister around a nursery school in Newton Aycliffe.

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