‘Stalinist’ social workers ‘took children from loving mothers’ Daily Mail
Social workers behaved like officials in ‘Stalin’s Russia or Mao’s China’ in attempting to remove children from loving mothers, senior judges have said.
They warned that social workers in two separate cases tried to put children in foster care without giving their mothers a proper chance to prove they were fit parents.
Their actions risked fuelling public perceptions that social workers are ‘arrogant and enthusiastic removers of children from their parents’, Lord Justice Wall said.
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In one case, Devon County Council was attempting to remove a baby from his teenage mother because social workers believed she had a habit of forming relationships with dangerous men.
But Lord Justice Aikens warned that social workers were effectively saying to the mother: ‘Whatever you may do doesn’t make any difference - we are going to take your child away.’
He added: ‘That is more like Stalin’s Russia or Mao’s China than the West of England - that is the impression you give.’
In a separate case, Lord Justice Wall criticised the ‘shocking’ failure of social workers in the London borough of Greenwich to support a mother seeking to break free from an abusive relationship to win back her two children, who are in care.
He said the case would do little to dispel the public perception of social workers in care proceedings as ‘trampling on the rights of parents and children’ while removing youngsters into ‘an unsatisfactory care system’.
The judge, who will today be sworn in as president of the High Court’s Family Division, becoming the most senior family law judge in the UK, acknowledged that social workers were often ‘damned if they do and damned if they do not’.
But he insisted they had a clear legal duty to ‘unite families rather than separate them’.
His criticisms will feed public fears that social workers, in extreme cases, behave like ‘child-snatchers’.
There are concerns they sometimes break up families too readily and can be prejudiced against parents for frivolous reasons.
In the Devon case, social workers believed a teenage mother, known in court as S, was unfit to care for her baby boy, H, because of her tendency to form relationships quickly with potentially dangerous men.
Social workers said the father of her first child had been violent and the youngster had already been adopted.
They argued that her new baby should also be placed in foster care and eventually adopted.
But a county court had previously ruled the mother should be allowed a final assessment to see if she was fit to keep the baby.
The council disagreed and went to the Court of Appeal last week seeking to overturn the directive.
But Lord Justice Wall, sitting with Lord Justice Aikens, described Devon’s argument as ‘pretty unattractive’.
‘Local authorities don’t seem to understand that the public perceive them as pre-judging cases of this nature,’ he said.
The judges stopped short of saying the mother should keep her child, insisting only she should be given a fair hearing.
Lord Justice Aikens said there was no evidence the mother had maltreated her baby in any way - or evidence that the violent father of her first child would have anything to do with baby H.
He went on to condemn social workers’ ‘Stalinist’ actions. The council has now withdrawn its appeal.
A council spokesman said: ‘This is a difficult and complex case in which the county council’s first priority had to be for the welfare and protection of a vulnerable child.’
In the Greenwich case, a mother known only as EH was seeking the return of her five-year-old son, R, and daughter RA, two. They had been taken into care in January 2008 after doctors discovered her daughter’s left upper arm had been broken in three places.
Medical staff believed it was not accidental and a judge later that year concluded the children’s father, who had a history of violence, was responsible.
Since June last year, the father had stopped having contact with the children, while the mother remained ‘steadfast in her commitment’ to them, the judges said.
There was ‘abundant evidence that she is a warm and loving mother’. But social workers in Greenwich were accused of failing to support her attempts to break contact with her violent ex-partner.
Lord Justice Wall said the conduct of social services was ‘hard to credit’.
The court said Greenwich should give the mother more support and review its attempt to have the children adopted.
The two cases will further rock public confidence in social services following the Baby P scandal, where social workers failed to spot signs of serious abuse and allowed themselves to be manipulated by unfit parents
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On 8th Jan 2011 at 09:20 PM helen said...
i feel hurt an anger that mothers out there, like myself have their kids wripped from them because they end up in a bad relationship, we try to help ourselvs by gettin out of it an lookin for help, an then along cum the heartless social services an take ur kids away, because they think ur goin to go bk in to another bad relationship, no matter how much you prove to them u dont want any1 els just ur kids back they knock you down over an over and wont give you the chance. WHERES THE JUSTICE IN THAT...
On 27th Apr 2011 at 12:21 AM E.Marriott said...
i would hate that any one can just come and take your child away from you just because some one says that you are a unfit mother i know there mothers and faters that mis treat children only due to drink and having no money but that does not exuse them for mis treating there children i only hope that does children find a loveble home .
On 4th Jan 2013 at 04:46 PM Sharon Franks said...
As I am reading this blog, a mother and son near our house are having their fight. I feel so bad that there are children out there who act like this. Children who fight with their mothers.
On 26th Jan 2013 at 12:40 AM elizabeth said...
woiw i would hate if i still had chirldren in my care that they would be taken from me if i was to have a argument with my partner due to neighbours thinking the worst thing in my house i feel sorry for mothers who have to go through that but if they got proper help maybe they can make a better life with there children in the long run i just dont know how mothers can let some man belt there kids due to drink i think i would pack them up and exscape as soon as i could for your kids are your world .