Twin babies case reopens debate over when social workers should act
SOCIAL workers and health experts admit the decision to remove a baby from its parents' care is a difficult one to judge.
Taking no action could expose a child to the risk of physical harm or even death – while wrongly choosing to separate a baby from its family could also prove harmful.
Nottingham City Council came under fire in 2008 after admitting it had acted unlawfully in taking away a new-born baby boy, known as Baby K.
And now the decision to remove twin baby boys from their mother has drawn criticism from a top family judge.
City social workers have been ordered to return the babies to their parents after Lord Justice Thorpe ruled they should not have been taken.
The boys were taken from their mother in hospital soon after their premature birth.
A Nottingham County Court judge made an interim care order in favour of Nottingham City Council authorising their transfer to temporary foster care.
But in a hearing at the Court of Appeal, Lord Justice Thorpe said there had been "no welfare concerns" brought up about the parents' ability to raise the boys "on a day-to-day basis".
And he said the reasons given for separating the twins from their parents "do not begin to meet the high threshold set by the authorities of this court".
He said although there were "historic" concerns about the parents' care of their older children, they had both striven to prove their parental skills.
The Court of Appeal's ruling means the boys must be returned to their parents as soon as possible, though a court hearing set for the autumn will decide their long-term future.
The ruling prompted loud sighs of relief from the mother and father – both in their 20s.
Their solicitor, Paula Bloomfield, accused the city council of adopting a "Draconian" approach to the case. She claimed social workers focused too much on the family's history.
Ms Bloomfield said: "To have the door shut in their faces, as the last judgement did, was just plain wrong."
The Baby K case ended in the city council paying damages to the 18-year-old mother after admitting it acted unlawfully by taking away her baby.
The council admitted it failed to give the mother proper care when it removed her child within hours of birth.
The day after her baby was taken, the mother was reunited with him after an emergency High Court ruling that he was removed without authority.
But within days the council placed K with a foster family after a judge at Nottingham County Court granted an interim care order.
The child was ultimately placed for adoption and the council still insists it acted in the best interests of the child.
Council director of safeguarding, Satinder Gautam, said there was "no suggestion" it had acted unlawfully in the latest case.
But he admitted he was disappointed with the appeal court's decision to overturn the original ruling. He said: "The Court of Appeal's ruling is focused on how the County Court arrived at its decision and the evidence relied upon.
"We have a responsibility to assess the welfare of children, particularly when there is reasonable cause for concern of potential harm.
"We acted appropriately, within our powers and in the interests of the children."
He added: "We would rather our social workers did something rather than not."
The case adds fuel to the debate about when social workers should act to remove children deemed to be at risk.
John Hemming, a Birmingham MP and chairman of the Justice For Families Campaign Group, welcomed the Court of Appeal's verdict.
But he said social workers were still focusing too much on "minor cases".
He said: "We need to take fewer children at birth and try to focus on children at risk.
"Social workers are going after emotional abuse and that is a waste of time."
Margaret McGlade, independent chair of the Nottingham City Safeguarding Children Board, said the legal system safeguarded the rights of all involved.
She said: "If someone feels they have got serious concerns and don't put them before the court they may be in danger of not safeguarding the children.
"In terms of public response it is very difficult for social workers to get it right."
On Saturday, the Post reported that the council was struggling to cope with child social services cases because of a lack of staff. It has 15 vacancies out of a total 96 frontline social workers.
As a result, 300 cases have had to be redistributed among remaining staff, meaning four more each on average.
Jean Thorpe, a city social worker and Unison branch officer, said she did not know the specific details of the twin babies case.
But she said: "We are probably vilified more if we don't take action. There has been a really big increase in referrals since Baby P."
13 Comments
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by FW, Nottingham
Saturday, June 19 2010, 6:18PM
“
If the system is so perfect, why are over a hundred families and counting, signed up for a major Class Action in the World Court against the Family Proceedings Courts and the Local Authorities of the United Kingdom on Human Rights abuses, malfeasance of office, kidnap and torture?
Since when did anyone say the system is perfect? By its nature, where one is forced to weigh up the damage that could be done to a child by removing him from his parents against the damage that could be done to a child by not removing him from his parents, there is seldom a good outcome to such cases, and not surprisingly there are a lot of angry parents, some of whom almost certainly have legitimate grievances.
Just as a matter of interest, how much personal remuneration do you stand to gain from this class action?”
by Earl Manvers, Nottingham
Saturday, June 19 2010, 7:36AM
“FreedomAdvocacy&Law
I followed your link to "the Wright Stuff".
There were two callers, one who had asked for her unborn child to be taken into care as she described her life as being in a mess. The other caller said he recognised how he and his 9 other siblings were taken into care for the right reasons.
Nobody is saying that these events or outcomes are perfect but this is hardly evidence one way or the other.”
by Earl Manvers, Nottingham
Saturday, June 19 2010, 6:44AM
“Danz
You have no children or any dealings with Social Workers and have gleaned your in-depth knowledge from a sofa and youtube.
Thank goodness we have such clear-eyed guardians of justice”
by FreedomAdvocacy&Law, Nottingham
Saturday, June 19 2010, 2:46AM
“If the system is so perfect, why are over a hundred families and counting, signed up for a major Class Action in the World Court against the Family Proceedings Courts and the Local Authorities of the United Kingdom on Human Rights abuses, malfeasance of office, kidnap and torture?
http://www.freedomlaw.co.uk (the Litigants)
http://legallykidnapped.blogspot.com/2010/06/parents-to-sue-family-courts.html (one of several THOUSAND blogs on the subject)
http://demand.five.tv/Episode.aspx?episodeBaseName=C5150270109 (Thursday's The Wright Stuff, 30 minutes in)
http://thelostpacket.wordpress.com/2010/06/16/daily-telegraph-16-june-2010-page-two/ (clip from Wednesday's broadsheet)”
by Danz, Nottingham
Saturday, June 19 2010, 1:44AM
“Earl...I don't doubt for one minute you "do not realise how out of touch you are"! (rolling eyes). Youtube, for what its worth, tends to present far more truthful facts than ANY main stream media I could name presently. And your attempts to ridicule what information can be found there, SHOULD PEOPLE LOOK, only goes to highlight the fear in you that some may see social workers for what they have BECOME...lying, scamming, total incompetents who accept a corrupt system because either they are (a)too damn lazy to do anything about it or (b) too damn comfortable enjoying the power trip!
S, Out & About; The reason you only hear about the 'things that go wrong' is so that when you hear things like this, that children, from decent parents are being taken, you have already been 'programmed' to remember those time it HAS been got wrong and that helps you to accept this more easily, to brush it aside as a mere error in a, normally, perfectly 'good' system, unfortunate if one or two families are 'mistakenly' ripped apart, least we can say we tried to save them all, blah, blah.....don't make me laugh! And people do not ardently vilify social workers because of sour grapes, I for one, and there are many like me who see the truth of the scam, do not even have children, never mind have any dealings with social workers, shudder the thought! Some people simply see a system that is corrupt to the core and cannot stand by and watch family after family be torn apart. By the way, did you check youtube, or couldn't be bothered?”
by S, Out & About
Friday, June 18 2010, 9:47PM
“I do wonder when people so ardently vilify social workers whether it's a case of sour grapes.
Most people who will have their children adopted aren't going to agree with it.
It's always the things that go wrong that are hilighted, not when people have been helped by a social worker.”
by Earl Manvers, Nottingham
Friday, June 18 2010, 9:45PM
“Danz
Thanks for the tip, I can find the real world on youtube?
Brilliant tip, I did not realise how out of touch I was ....”
by Danz, Nottingham
Friday, June 18 2010, 3:04PM
“The comments here amaze me, although why I don't know! Do any of you have any idea how many children are STOLEN by these, so called, 'great, hard-done by social workers'? No, I doubt it or you wouldn't be on here posting such garbage as you have been. What you really should do, instead of coming here and posting on matters of which you do not have all the facts, is get yourself onto youtube and search 'forced adoption', 'children stolen by the state', or such like, then, when you have a better idea of what really does happen, in the real world, you can come on here and spout your load. Just try looking at things from all angles, not just the one your obviously limited intelligence allows currently! A mind is like an umbrella, useless until its open!”
by Danz, Nottingham
Friday, June 18 2010, 3:04PM
“The comments here amaze me, although why I don't know! Do any of you have any idea how many children are STOLEN by these, so called, 'great, hard-done by social workers'? No, I doubt it or you wouldn't be on here posting such garbage as you have been. What you really should do, instead of coming here and posting on matters of which you do not have all the facts, is get yourself onto youtube and search 'forced adoption', 'children stolen by the state', or such like, then, when you have a better idea of what really does happen, in the real world, you can come on here and spout your load. Just try looking at things from all angles, not just the one your obviously limited intelligence allows currently! A mind is like an umbrella, useless until its open!”
by Mr. Sensible, The Real World
Thursday, June 17 2010, 2:50PM
“I entirely agree with you Helen; the Judge may have his reasons for overturning the previous decision, but as I have said on another thread on this we must be cautious following the terrible events in the Baby Peter case.”