Posted on 02/23/2008 9:08:51 AM PST by kiriath_jearim
Last autumn a small English congregation was rocked by the news that two of its parishioners had fled abroad. A 56-year-old man had helped his pregnant wife to flee from social workers, who had already taken her son into care and were threatening to seize their baby.
Most people had no idea why. For the process that led this couple to such a desperate act was entirely secret. The local authority had warned the mother not to talk to her friends or even her MP. The judge who heard the arguments from social services sat in secret. The open-minded social workers who had initially been assigned to sort out a custody battle between the woman and her previous husband were replaced by others who seemed determined to build a guilty case against her. That is how the secret State operates. A monumental injustice has been perpetrated in this quiet corner of England; our laws are being used to try to cover it up.
I will call this couple Hugh and Sarah. Neither they nor their families have ever been in trouble with the law, as far as I know. Sarah's only fault seems to have been to suffer through a violent and volatile first marriage, which produced a son. When the marriage ended, the boy was taken into temporary foster care for a few months - as a by-product of the marriage breakdown and against her will - while she “sorted her life out” and found them a new home. But even as she cleared every hurdle set by the court, social workers dreamt up new ones. The months dragged by. A psychologist said the boy was suffering terribly in care and was desperate to come home. Sarah's mother and sister, both respected professionals with good incomes, apparently offered to foster or adopt him. The local authority did not even deign to reply.
For a long time, Sarah and her family seem to have played along. At every new hearing they thought that common sense would prevail. But it didn't. The court appeared to blame her for not ending her marriage more quickly, which had put strain on the boy, while social workers seemed to insist that she now build a good relationship with the man she had left. Eventually, she came to believe that the local authority intended to have her son adopted. She also seems to have feared that they would take away her new baby, Hugh's baby, when it was born. One night in September they fled the country with the little boy. When Hugh returned a few days later, to keep his business going and his staff in jobs, he was arrested.
Many people would think this man a hero. Instead, he received a far longer sentence - 16 months for abduction - than many muggers. This kind of sentence might be justified, perhaps, to set an example to others. But the irony of this exemplary sentence is that no one was ever supposed to know the details. (I am treading a legal tightrope writing about it at all.) How could a secret sentence for a secret crime deter anyone?
Sarah's baby has now been born, in hiding. I am told that the language from social services has become hysterical. But if the State was genuinely concerned for these two children, it would have put “wanted” pictures up in every newspaper in Europe.
It won't do that, of course, because to name the woman and her children would be to tear a hole in the fabric of the secret State, a hole we could all see through. I would be able to tell you her side of the story, the child's side of the story. I would be able to tell you every vindictive twist of this saga. And the local authority knows perfectly well how it would look. So silence is maintained.
And very effective it is too. The impotence is the worst thing. The way that perfectly decent individuals are gagged and unable to defend themselves undermines a fundamental principle of British law. I have a court order on my desk that threatens all the main actors in this case with dire consequences if they talk about it to anyone.
Can that really be the way we run justice in a country that was the fount of the rule of law? At the heart of this story is a little boy who was wrenched from the mother he loves, bundled around in foster care and never told why, when she appears to have been perfectly capable of looking after him. When she had relatives who were perfectly capable of doing so. In the meantime, he was becoming more and more troubled and unhappy. To find safety and love, that little boy has had to leave England.
What does that say about our country? The public funds the judges, the courts, the social workers. It deserves to know what they do. That does not mean vilifying all social workers, or defending every parent. But it does mean ending the presumption of guilt that infects so many family court hearings. It does mean asking why certain local authorities seem unable to let go of children whose parents have resolved their difficulties. It does mean knowing how social workers could have got away with failing to return this particular boy, after his mother had met all the criteria set by a judge at the beginning. It is simply unacceptable that social services have put themselves above the law.
We need these people to be named, and to hear in their words what happened. We need to open up the family courts. We need to tear down the wall of secrecy that has forced a decent woman to live as a fugitive, to save her little boy from a life with strangers, used like a pawn in a game of vengeance. Even if the local authority were to drop its case, it is hard to see how Sarah could ever trust them enough to return. At home, for their God-fearing congregation, the question is simple: what justice can ever be done behind closed doors? And in whose name?
The UK is now firmly in the grip of a facist government. Facists wearing a smiley face instead of brown shirts, but the result is the same. The United States, if the Democrats prevail, is not far behind.
Over 100 comments by readers at the article webpage.
The UK is now firmly in the grip of a facist government. Facists wearing a smiley face instead of brown shirts, but the result is the same. The United States, if the Democrats prevail, is not far behind.
They were free...once.
It appears to me that the United States is headed this way regardless of who wins. If the Democrats win we will get there within 4 years. If John McCain wins we will get there in maybe 6 years.
The only answer is to BLOAT.
bump
Yes. Fascism was State Socialism. It was leftist. Mussolini was a former Communist, and Hitler made a pact with Stalin, before their rivalry caused him to break it.
After the British Conservative party gave the boot to Maggie Thatcher, they lost their way and have essentially become unelectable. So the British Labour Party has no rival for power, and is behaving accordingly.
Yes Alex, I’ll take “Things they would never do to muslims for 500.”
Good gravy...the UK gave up many lives and sacrificed so much little more than 60 years ago to stop just this kind of totalitarian bull$h!+ from coming across The Channel.
I’ve spent the last 30 years as a custody lawyer so I know from social workers. In our county there are three systems. One is okay and generally sane, mostly because of the rather odd man who runs it. Another is not too bad but has some parts which need the light of truth and the worst part are the volunteers who are poorly trained. The last is the state agency. They are evil. They bring hell down on anyone they touch.
One more reminder to be grateful to our Founding Fathers for declaring and winning our independence.
Hate to say it after so many decades of the firmest alliance in the world . . . but is this a case where the U.S. should offer asylum?
Over the past few decades, our own country has lost more and more of it’s sovereignty. We are so close to losing it all.
Our elected leaders, appointed judges, county and state officials, organizations like the ACLU that undermine every concept of the Constitution, crooked lawers, and yes - even the Administration - have ignored and even denegrated our Constitution. The ‘Freedom Bell’ no longer rings very loudly or clearly.
Prayers for that family in England. Prayers for us all.
It's even worse than that. I have heard this story, and the really, really dirty little secret is that the child protective services receive a "bounty" for every child that they take from biological parents and get adopted. They are doing it for money.
Wow, that’s horrible. Do you have a link on this?
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