Social workers 'took girl from her family on a whim'
 

Judge Condemns Council Staff

Daily Mail, Saturday March 18, 2006

By Steve Doughty - Social Affairs Correspondent

SOCIAL workers took a nine-year-old girl away from her family for more than a year on a whim, a High Court judge said yesterday.

They embellished facts, told untruths and misled a court after deciding to take the girl into care on the spur of the moment, according to a judge.

Social workers decided the child's mother suffered from Munchausen's Syndrome by Proxy - a condition which is said to make a parent wish to harm their child, Mr. Justice McFarlane’s Judgement revealed.

They did not consult a doctor about their assumption until the girl had been living in council care for three months.

He said he suspected one social worker of a 'malevolent and unprofessional motive' and said the attitude of he council bosses who defended her and her colleagues was 'astounding'.

The judgment said that shortly before the girl was taken from her parents for 14 months, a council meeting on the case had noted: ‘home and care good. Mother and child have good relationship. Detrimental to move.’

But social workers changed their minds on 23 November 2004, at the end of a case conference which had decided the girl, an only child, was safe with her parents.

The girl's mother had taken her to hospital asking for her to be examined for stomach pain. Nurses decided there was nothing wrong - and social workers decided the mother was fabricating the illness. They were given an emergency order from magistrates to take the girl into care, and went to the hospital with four uniformed police officers removed her from her mother.

The local authority was not named – but yesterday it appeared that the social workers, the team manager suspected of malice, and the senior officials who protected them are still working and are responsible for the welfare of parents and children.

The case, which has cost the tax­payer half a million pounds, was fol­lowed by demands for action against the social services department.

Tory MP and former council Chief Sir Paul Beresford said: 'We must be told the name of the local authority and we must know whether the social workers have been disciplined.

'I spend my time assuring parents they can tell the truth because police and social workers have to stick to the rules when they deal with families - this will give parents very severe doubts.'

The girl has been reunited with her parents, but the case is likely to add to concern about unaccountable behaviour by social workers.

The judge said he agreed with coun­sel for the family that the social workers' behaviour led to 'the destruction of this family's ordinary life'.

'Misleading or incomplete or wrong

A social services team manager made 13 assertions to magistrates who granted the order for the girl to be removed from her parents.

These include charges:

That the mother suffered from Munchausen's Syndrome

That there were allegations of sexual abuse against the girl

That the father had threatened to kill the girl

The judge said: 'Every single one of the elements of the team manager's evidence was misleading or incomplete or wrong.'

The team manager might have had malevolent or unprofessional motives, he said, but added: 'I am not able to express a concluded view.'

Mr. Justice McFarlane’s said: 'No doc­tor had ever raised any question relat­ing to induced or fabricated illness'.  s.doughty@dailymail.co.uk

See Also:

Council must pay £500,000 for wrongly taking girl into care March 17 2006

Mr. Justice McFarlane castigated the social workers for "multiple failings" and criticised the family court magistrates who had granted the emergency order. He laid down guidelines to prevent future miscarriages of justice which are certain to lead social services departments and magistrates courts to re-examine their practices.

Read More:

http://society.guardian.co.uk/children/story/0,,1732966,00.html

Our Correspondent:

I can also confirm that a number of elected councillors are now going to be making enquiries concerning a number of important issues:

1.......The secrecy is withholding relevant information concerning expenditure by the 'mysterious' council and the liabilities accruing to the 'mysterious' council. The elected councillors are therefore voting on a matters involving huge payments that are being concealed from them.

2.....Similar ' secret' payments by the council might well have occurred previously and the extent of the payments and liabilities could run into the tens of millions of pounds.

3......The public in the ' mysterious' local authority are being kept in the dark about what is going on, the payments and the liabilities of the 'mysterious' council. Yet the same public are liable to pick up the ' tab' for further 'secret ' payments!

4.....That there is a senior local government official ( fraudster social worker ) involved in creating such expenditure and financial liabilities, yet is protected from disclosure and prosecution by the authorities themselves, is a matter now concerning many elected county councillors and others.

This 'fraudster' social worker, because that is the appropriate term for this senior social worker is still ' in post' and could have been responsible for many other such cases that have already been brought before the Family Courts and these could become further liabilities on the 'mysterious' council concerned.

I bet if you were a councillor or resident of the ' mysterious' local authority, you would want to know just what the hell is going on!

There is too another more serious issue:

IN 2004, the Children's Minister Margaret Hodge, made a statement that reviews were to be carried out into over 575 cases because there was concern that there might have been miscarriages of justice in these cases. She was then informed by the local authorities that in only one case reviewed had the decision to take a child into Care been found to be incorrect.

Since that announcement by Margaret Hodge in 2004, other cases have come to light. This particular case of the ' mysterious ' local authority and fraudster social worker is just a further example that the Minister was hopelessly misled.

The fraudster social worker in this case has probably given perjured evidence in other cases. All the cases he was involved in should be immediately independently reviewed. They certainly cannot be reviewed by his ' pals in local government'. An independent lawyer with a police assistant should be appointed to look into every case of the social worker fraudster...............................And immediately.

But do remember there are other similar cases:

Martin Thei ( Essex County Council senior social worker ) committed suicide on 23 June 2000, after he was arrested by the police for down loading child porn. He had given evidence in a number of cases in the Family Court in which children had been taken into Care and been adopted. None of his cases has ever been reviewed despite Essex County Council informing the press they they were going to do so.

Gordon Oliver ( Senior social worker. Brighton ) was jailed last week for paedophile activity with children in his care. How many cases was he involved in ?

The list of such social workers is extensive. But it is being kept from the public, the press and our elected representatives because such is the scale of the scandal, that the authorities are afraid of meltdown.

The public already have a very good idea as to just what purpose the 'secrecy' of Family Court proceedings and all the smoke and mirrors, serve..........I hope you do too!