Punishment without Crime

The nightmare begins when social workers act like a second police force PUNISHING PARENTS who have NOT committed any crime. They do this by obtaining an emergency protection order “ex parte” (in the parents’ absence) to take away children into foster care. They claim these children have “suffered emotional harm” or worse still are “at risk of emotional harm”!

On this basis an order is nearly always granted without any problem by a “friendly” magistrate. They then pressurise the parents with threats that if they do not “do what we tell you” or if they dare to discuss “the case” with their children or tell them “we love you and miss you” during “contact” the social services will stop contact and maybe never let those parents see their children again etc. Parents are GAGGED when speaking to their own children!

Even worse, when issuing interim care orders the “family courts” have become “Kangaroo courts”. Interim care orders are issued on the basis of written statements from social workers and “hired experts” that cannot be questioned or disputed because these documents are not shown to the parents and in any case the authors are nearly always absent from court!

The parents’ are rarely allowed to testify as not only the judge but also their own lawyers nearly always stop them from speaking !If they do by some miracle manage to testify, what they say is not only disbelieved it is almost always completely ignored!

The interim care orders are usually renewed automatically every month for nearly a year before a final care hearing is held, during which time the unfortunate children are isolated from their parents (except for very limited supervised contact periods) wondering what they have done wrong!

”Legal aid lawyers”, known in the trade as “professional losers” usually advise clients to “go along with social services” earning their fees the easy way! Those few parents who succeed in winning and recovering their children are nearly always those who represent themselves. When this happens, however, judgements, court documents, reports from experts, and position statements are often shown to parents at the last moment or not shown to them at all!

As a consequence, when local authorities apply for an interim care order in the family courts only one in 400 is refused! (official judicial statistics), so what chance do most of the unfortunate parents have? To cap it all social workers only too often, go round schools and friends of parents and, by their loaded questions spread harmful rumours about the parents. The unfortunate parents however are warned (quite wrongly in fact) that they are forbidden to talk to ANYBODY about their case (they actually CAN talk to individuals for advice and support) .

Those bold enough to protest publicly are jailed for their impertinence (200+ per year according to Harriet Harman answering a Parliamentary question, when she was minister for children).

Yes, parents are legally GAGGED yet again, when their babies and toddlers are taken to protect the “privacy “of families and children! Grandparents, aunts and uncles are excluded from the court in order (believe it or not!) to protect the children’s privacy! Social services however have no need to respect this “privacy” as they frequently advertise for adoption the children they have taken, with colour photos and first names in the Daily Mirror and other periodicals, much to the horror of parents when they see their offspring paraded for the public “to choose” like pedigree dogs!

Eventually many of these children get adopted (“Forced Adoption”) and their siblings are often split up into different families despite the pleas of their parents who have been judged to pose a “risk of emotional abuse” to these babies and young children. Alone in Europe, only the UK tolerates forced adoption of children against the wishes of parents in court. In most cases, the parents never see or hear from their children for the rest of their lives, so these children are cut off for ever not only from their parents but also their grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and quite often also from their own brothers and sisters!

The parents (and their children) are in effect punished not for something they have done but for something some so called “expert” (using a crystal ball?) thinks they might do in the future! Babies and young children who have been battered and physically abused (like baby P) are “poor adoption material” and no use to social workers hoping to “hit” their adoption targets, (PAF C23 Ofsted) so they are more often than not left to die alone…. Children, however, with just ONE unexplained injury such as a bruise, a burn, or a fractured arm but with no prior record of abuse or injuries still make good adoption material and are seized for that purpose even when there is no evidence that the parents were in any
way responsible.

IT’S “ONE STRIKE AND YOU ARE OUT”. That is the cry of the “SS” and is typical of the way that “justice” is served up at our UK family courts! This is the REALITY of what actually happens to parents falling foul of the “system”. Is there a conspiracy? No need! Lawyers, fosterers, “experts”, adoption agencies, social workers and even judges all do very nicely out of the present system and have no need to conspire, but naturally they do unite to resist, to COVER UP any mistakes they may have made if anyone threatens to “rock the boat”!

What reforms should the government introduce? Well, the social workers in “child protection” must be ordered to pass their enforcement functions back to the police, who should only remove children if crimes have been committed by parents that could adversely affect their capacity to care for the children. The family courts should adopt the rules of evidence that govern procedures in the criminal courts where fair and just rules of evidence now prevail.

That is how it used to be before the Children Act 1948 when police and criminal courts (not social workers and family courts) dealt with removal of children from cruel or neglectful parents, and it worked much better! Parents would have the right to question their “accusers”, demand final hearings by juries, and would no longer be gagged.

Parents should no longer threatened with jail, if they complain publicly when their children are taken and should no longer be threatened with having their contact sessions with their children in care stopped, if they dare to discuss their case with them.

The Children Act 1989 should be amended to remove all gagging of parents wishing to discuss publicly matters concerning their children or to talk about their case with those children. Once again in the criminal courts those accused of being paedophiles and child traffikers have the right to speak out to protest their innocence publicly and even go to the media if they wish, without fear of punishment.

I only suggest that parents have the same rights to freedom of speech as the worst type of criminal. Surely that is not too much to ask?

The Human Rights Act clearly states that all should be free to enjoy a private family life undisturbed by any intervention of a public authority.This provision was clearly drafted to provide parents with protection from the State. Unfortunately perverse UK judges alone in Europe have twisted this Act into a protection for the State against protesting parents! They actually rule that if parents protest publicly, they disturb the privacy of their own children and should be sent to prison therefore, if they do dare to protest openly when the State confiscates their children.

HEARSAY evidence should never be preferred to live evidence (from children for instance) when live evidence is available.

Strasbourg’s ruling on hearsay evidence could change its relationship with UK

There would then at last be an excellent chance that most of these injustices would be eliminated.

Yes, family courts should be criminal courts and children should only be taken from parents, if they have committed or been charged with a crime. At the moment, however, babies are snatched at birth from perfectly inoffensive and law abiding parents for “risk of emotional abuse”. This accusation is the social worker’s” favourite” as it is quite impossible for parents to prove their innocence when so called “experts” predict what they might or might not do at some time in the future! Incredibly, mothers lose their children to forced adoption not for anything they HAVE done but for what some overpaid charlatans (reading tea leaves or tarot cards?) predict they might do! No you couldn’t make it up!

Yes it’s punishment without crime!!!

By numbers: The shocking statistics that show how the care system blights youngsters’ lives

Tom Rahilly, the NSPCC’s head of strategy and development for looked-after children, added: ‘While the continued high level of care applications looks dramatic, we must remember that the majority of children come into care as a result of abuse or neglect.

‘Care provides a safe and supportive environment for these children. This continued rise could simply indicate people are being more alert to situations where children are at risk, which can only be a positive development.’

Did he REALLY say “safe”? 10,000 children taken into care: Numbers doubled in the past four years – Daily Mail – 12 April 2012

Even the actual family court proceedings are fatally flawed. Only too often parents resisting a local authority application for an interim care order are faced with reports from social workers and “experts” who do not come to court and so cannot be questioned. Barristers read these reports as though they are themselves witnesses and present these reports made by absent officials and experts as though they are “gospel truth” . When the parents contradict them with live evidence in court the hearsay evidence coming from the local authority barristers is nearly always preferred! Furthermore, when the local authority employs an “expert” to rule on parents’ mental state, non accidental injury to a child or parents’ general parenting skills those parents are routinely refused by a judge the opportunity to call experts of their own to counter those “expert opinions”.

The result is that parents are then faced with reports by these experts who rarely turn up in court to be questioned. The parents are then informed that they have no qualifications so when the local authority’s expert says they are not fit parents, then that is the evidence that must be believed!

The theory is that “adoption targets” (still very much in force via Ofsted PAF C23) are set to encourage social workers to find children languishing in care for years new permanent homes. The reality, however, is that adopters want babies, not older children so social workers seize babies and toddlers to be put into care and from there into forced adoption with the agreement of compliant judges so that targets can be met!

Disgracefully in our family courts all the rules of evidence are casually “thrown out of the window”. SHAME on our family court legal system and all those who support it!

In family courts, ‘experts’ are paid to get it horribly wrong – The Telegraph – 21 April 2012

EXAMPLES OF HOW RULES OF EVIDENCE HAVE BEEN DISCARDED IN THE FAMILY COURTs WHEN GRANTING INTERIM CARE ORDERS.

1:- Statements from the local authority are shown to the judge but rarely to parents. Family and friends of parents are routinely excluded from the court but groups of social workers are allowed to stay in the court to listen to their colleagues’ testimony whether they are witnesses or not.

2:- Parents representing themselves are denied the opportunity to cross examine witnesses appearing against them. Judgements, reports from experts and position statements are either withheld or given to parents at the last minute (too late to read and analyse them properly).

3:- Parents are routinely refused permission to call for a second opinion when “experts” and Doctors have testified against them. If parents record contacts with their children, or interviews with experts or social workers judges routinely refuse permission for these recordings to be heard yet they always allow recordings and video evidence to be heard if produced by police or social workers.

4:-Parents whose children have been taken are routinely and wrongly told that they may not talk to ANYONE about their case.

5:-Parents are jailed if they protest publicly when their children are taken. They are also jailed for “breach of the peace” or “harassment” if they dare to trace and then contact their own children after adoption. Parents are therefore “twice gagged” contrary to the Human Rights Act, Article 10 entitling all persons “freedom of expression”, i.e. freedom of speech.

6:-Local authority barristers in court often read out statements from absent persons as though they are themselves witnesses but they cannot be questioned.

7:- Most solicitors refuse to let their clients speak and then agree to all care orders demanded by social services.

8:-Judges routinely castigate parents who wish to speak or who represent themselves even though they have the right to do so. Their evidence and their arguments are usually ignored in the judgements.

9:-Parents representing themselves are often given an hour or two’s notice to appear in court but solicitors are given weeks!

10:-Parents are punished for “risk” i.e. not what they have done but for what they might do in the future! “Risk of emotional abuse” is favourite because there is no legal definition of this and it is usually impossible for parents to defend themselves against “predictions” by so called “experts”.

11:-Judges give social workers the power to withhold parent’s contact with their children” in care” as a punishment for saying they love them and miss them or that they are fighting to get them back. They use this power to gag parents and force them into complete submission!

12:-Parents are in effect condemned for offences against their children on “probabilities” 51% instead of beyond reasonable doubt.

13:-Parents who were themselves in care or who were abused in childhood are often judged unfit to be parents as a result.

14:-Parents often forfeit their children for “failing to engage with professionals”.

15:-Parents faced with forced adoption lose their children for life, without being allowed a hearing by jury.

16:-Under the UN Convention on children’s rights children have a RIGHT to be heard in court but are usually denied that right.

17:-Solicitors routinely tell client parents to agree to interim care orders or they risk never seeing their children again. A lie!

18:-Social workers are legally obliged to place children with relatives if possible but either ignore this or find pretexts to fail them on assessments.

19:-Human rights to free speech and freedom of movement are breached by gagging orders and confiscating parents’ passports.

20:-Parents are routinely forbidden to call witnesses on their behalf contrary to human rights. Family and friends are wrongly prevented from entering the court. The “SS” and family court judges often accuse PARENTS of being paranoid and of believing that there is an absurd conspiracy to take their children. The reply, should always be that in common with so many government employees social workers and experts never like to admit that they were wrong. They therefore are willing to do anything and say anything just to COVER UP the mistakes they have made in nearly every case! Their behaviour is only too often, both dictatorial and shocking as three senior judges confirm!

Family torn apart in 15-minute court case: Judge condemned for decision to remove children – Daily Mail – 22 February 2011

“Lord Justice Wall (The Senior family court judge) said that the determination of some social workers to place children in an “unsatisfactory care system” away from their families was “quite shocking”.

In a separate case on which Sir Nicholas Wall also sat, Lord Justice Aikens described the actions of social workers in Devon as “more like Stalin’s Russia or Mao’s China than the West of England“!

Lord Justice Thorpe said on Appeal

“I am completely aghast at this case. There is nothing more serious than a removal hearing, because the parents are so prejudiced in proceedings thereafter. Once you have lost a child it is very difficult to get a child back.”

The hearing above lasted only 15 minutes after a doctor “expressed the opinion” that bruising in the ear of one of the three children looked as though it was caused by pinching .

The parents were not allowed to give any evidence! Their three children had all been forcibly removed until they were ordered to be returned by Lord Justice Thorpe on appeal. Some will criticise this site for my so called “extreme views”. If the three family judges above describe the family courts respectively as “shocking”, more like Mao’s China and Stalin’s Russia and “prejudiced against parents” who am I to contradict them?!!!

1:- The UK is the ONLY State in the WORLD that gags parents whose children have been taken by social services.

2:- The UK is the ONLY State in Europe (except Croatia and possibly Portugal) to permit the horror of “forced adoption”.

3:-The UK is the ONLY State in Europe to allow “Punishment without crime” ie the taking of children by social services from parents who have not committed any criminal offence.

4:- The UK is the ONLY State in Europe taking children for “emotional abuse” and worse still “risk of emotional abuse” (on the basis of predictions from overpaid charlatans that one day parents just might harm their children).

5:- The UK is the ONLY State in Europe to censor conversation between parents and children in care. Children are left wondering what they have done wrong as parents are forbidden to explain the situation, or discuss the court case in any way. Phrases such as “I love you and I miss you” are also forbidden under the threat of contact being stopped immediately if the parents “transgress.” Children naturally begin to think their parents might not love them or want them back any more.

All this is a disgrace to democracy and a disgrace to freedom that could be instantly rectified by legislation to make all the above five practices illegal and to allow parents threatened with permanent separation from their children to demand a hearing by a jury.

A WORD OF WARNING
from Lord Denning, rated (by some) as the finest judge of the 20th century.

“Every court should be open to every subject of the Queen. I think it is one of the essentials of justice being done in the community. Every judge, in a sense, is on trial to see that he does his job properly. Reporters are there, representing the public, to see that magistrates and judges behave themselves. Children’s courts should also be open. Names should be kept out but the public should know what happens to the child and proceedings should never be conducted behind closed doors……”

After all can anyone answer this question?

HOW CAN SOCIAL SERVICES JUSTIFY THE REMOVAL OF HUNDREDS OF BABIES AT BIRTH FOR “RISK OF EMOTIONAL ABUSE”, AND AFTER HEARINGS IN SECRET COURTS, THEIR FORCED ADOPTION BY STRANGERS?

You don’t believe this happens? Just read this SUNDAY TELEGRAPH LEADING ARTICLE: The unnatural justice of secret family courts – The Sunday Telegraph – 26/08/2007

The Sunday Telegraph highlights today yet another case in which a mother has been threatened with losing her baby to local authority care. The mother had not shown any sign at all of harming her child, for her baby has not yet been born.

The local authority, however, is convinced that there is a possibility that she might harm the child.

To most people, it will seem grotesquely unjust that any child could be removed on such a basis. Northumberland County Council is, however, far from unusual in acting in this way.The courts have endorsed the removal of hundreds of children from their natural parents on the basis that there is a possibility that they might “abuse their child emotionally”.

Some of those forcible adoptions are appalling acts of injustice. How can such things happen in Britain? The answer is simple: the courts that enforce the taking away of children from parents on local authority say-so operate in secret. It is illegal to reveal their proceedings, or even their judgments.

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The above extract from the Sunday Telegraph is from but one of many articles from respected journalists confirming what I myself have alleged concerning the “SS” and “forced adoptions”;

Why do the “SS” act like they do?Well like most “public servants” social workers NEVER admit to the public that they have made a specific mistake!.

Once they have decided to take a baby or young child away from its parents and into “care”, no matter what new evidence comes out in favour of the parents, they still stick to their original decision . When possible they pursue their instructions from the government to increase the number of adoptions(in order to avoid the expense of paying thousands of foster parents an average of £400/week per child !).Their prime interest then, is NOT the welfare of the baby or child but WINNING their case in court against parents who dispute their decisions .The sad sequel is that the judges nearly always back them up regardless of the evidence of parents who more often than not, have never been accused let alone convicted of any crime! !

It is true that accredited journalists can now be admitted at the discretion of the judges, who however ban them from any cases likely to be controversial. Even when they are admitted they cannot print names of witnesses or word for word details of proceedings.

It is however the gagging of parents not the media that is so unjust. Protest can only be effective when like rape victims parents (and teenage children who wish to express their views) can shed anonymity and campaign under their own names The new rules (just like the previous rules) state that parties to a case can give information in confidence to individuals who can offer them advice OR support Despite this judges still regularly warn parents whose children have been removed by their courts NOT to discuss their cases with anybody! They pretend to protect the privacy of parents and children by gagging them both! You couldn’t make it up!

Yes,they gag parents to “protect their privacy” but allow local authorities to advertise their precious children for adoption in the Daily Mirror,and other periodicals, with first names, colour photographs, birth dates and ethnic origins rather like pedigree dogs, who of course do not need privacy! HYPOCRITES ALL!

Ian Josephs, Publisher of Forced Adoption.