Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: MP-Ryan on November 30, 2013, 11:31:19 pm
-
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/10486452/Woman-has-child-taken-from-her-womb-by-social-services.html
A pregnant woman has had her baby forcibly removed by caesarean section by social workers.
Essex social services obtained a High Court order against the woman that allowed her to be forcibly sedated and her child to be taken from her womb.
The council said it was acting in the best interests of the woman, an Italian who was in Britain on a work trip, because she had suffered a mental breakdown.
The baby girl, now 15 months old, is still in the care of social services, who are refusing to give her back to the mother, even though she claims to have made a full recovery.
Apparently, the original journalist might be a little questionable on the facts, but it's now popped up in three different media sources, features on the page of the quoted MP, and hasn't been retracted by anyone... supposedly, a British blogger named Milly Bancroft who blogs about legal issues has questioned some of it on Twitter, but as she restricts her feed to confirmed followers (how irritating) I can't actually see any of it.
Anyway, if true this story is unbelievable. That British social workers got a woman who was in-country for a two week training course forcibly remanded into psychiatric care for two months, forcibly c-sectioned, baby taken into custody, ejected mom from country without baby, and now ARE SEEKING TO PUT THE CHILD UP FOR ADOPTION IN THE UK INSTEAD OF RETURNING IT TO ITS MOTHER AND COUNTRY OF ORIGIN is ****ing unbelievable.
Were I the parent, I might be sizing up some pikes to see if they were suitable for the placement of the caseworkers' and judges heads. (And since I know UK legal precedent is also stupid on free-speech-hating and unable to distinguish rhetorical device from true threat on the Internet, let me be clear that that statement is pure rhetorical device. Should I ever have foreign authorities try to seize and adopt-away one of my children you could be sure that my true promises - threats are promises broken, after all - would be abundantly clear to everyone.)
This story makes my blood boil. I can only hope that the journalist got most of the facts wrong and this isn't as egregiously awful as it looks.
-
I'd be interested in seeing a better source on this.
That being said....
A pregnant woman has had her baby forcibly removed by caesarean section by social workers.
The author of that sentence should be executed by firing squad.
-
Well, the story has now been picked up by various media internationally and still no fact corrections or retractions or alternate pieces emerging from Britain. So, once again... a gigantic WTF.
-
Were you the parent and tried to do any of the stuff you said you'd be presented as a clear cut example on how the social workers were just amazingly spot on on their judgement.
Really, this is like Kafka's worst nightmare.
-
I don't know why you're so hostile here Ryan when we don't know the facts. Such extreme measures surely require extreme circumstances, and a lot of people would have had to agree on this to make this happen, social workers, judge, doctors. Are all those people idiots, or has prudent action saved a child's life? To me, the latter seems more probable.
-
Let me be absolutely clear:
There are no circumstances under which a citizen of a foreign country in another country temporarily and who has not committed a criminal offence requiring a court appearance should be forcibly held against her will from returning to her country of residence, confined to an institution, forced to deliver via caesarean, prevented from even seeing her newly-born child, be sent back to her country without her child, and then be forced to battle in court for fifteen months to prevent the country she was visiting from adopting her baby away to someone else in that country.
None.
Ever.
The story is scant on a number of details, but the really important ones are pretty clear: British authorities forced a c-section on a foreign national, took her child into their care, and are now saying the child is being put up for adoption on their terms - despite the fact that the only legal claim they have to any of the situation is the fact that the woman happened to be physically in the UK when she had an anxiety attack.
-
Can you imagine the things westerners would say if this were to happen in China to a western woman?
-
Can you imagine the things westerners would say if this were to happen in China to a western woman?
Nevermind "Westerners" (judging from Twitter and a number of other sources, Westerners are appropriately outraged about this). No, I'd be very curious about the reaction of the Essex social workers and judges if this happened to a woman from Essex taking a two-week vacation in China.
-
I reside in Essex, I have heard this mentioned numerous times on the radio etc.
She's had a very very serious mental breakdown apparently, causing the situation in discussion.
No more info.
PS-My girlfriend is a criminal and family law solicitor practicing in Essex and her firm may or may not be directly involved.
Free baby anyone?
-
She's had a very very serious mental breakdown apparently, causing the situation in discussion.
I geuss this is ... rather relavant. When I think "Very very very serious mental breakdown", I think towards auto-mutiliation and suicide, which does explain the UKs stance for a bit.
-
The matter is apparently to be raised in Parliament so hopefully we will get more details then, but I will say this...
The child most certainly would not have been delivered in this manner unless there was a real and immediate need to do so for the sake of either the mother or the childs' safety. Also, I find it hard to believe the child could even be put up for adoption in this manner if this had happened, so it leaves one of two possibilities. The first is that the Council behaved in an unspeakable manner, the other is that the mother was having such a mental breakdown that she was threatening her unborn child in some way.
Either way, the operation could not take place without the consent of a Surgeon, and any such one that would do so without medical need would be struck off the register.
Whatever is happening here, there is more to the story than what we have heard. IF this happened as the woman states it has, then questions obviously need to be answered, but, and I know it sounds callous, but there is also the possibility that if this woman is bi-polar or the like, that what she believed happened to her child may be quite different to the actual story. For all we know she could have signed release forms, which promotes the question of why she was asked to sign them if she was mentally impaired at the time.
Until there are more details here, I'm not certain it's healthy to jump to conclusions.
@Luis, ironically enough, I was reading something today about the industry in China of kidnapping newly born boys from villages for selling to rich families who didn't want to take the baby lottery.
-
She's had a very very serious mental breakdown apparently, causing the situation in discussion.
I geuss this is ... rather relavant. When I think "Very very very serious mental breakdown", I think towards auto-mutiliation and suicide, which does explain the UKs stance for a bit.
These are the kinds of scenarios I pictured as soon as I saw this thread.
These people would know their heads would be on the block if they called this one wrong. Normally social workers are criticised for inaction in the news. At least in my experience. I can't recall off the top of my head seeing something where social workers' actions were criticised. All this leads me to give them the benefit of the doubt.
As for you MP-Ryan, well, after the procedure has been carried out, this is a grey area I don't know much about. If anything, you'd think British authorities would be keen to offload the baby to Italian social care if possible, we have enough children in care as it is. So why have they retained the baby? Is the baby Italian, or British, since it was born here?
-
While I can see that having a mental break down and medical issues could require institutionalization and the subsequent c section of the child, the rest seems extremely suspicious. Even if the mother was deemed unfit to take care of the child next of kin should be notified and take possession. It does seem rather bizarre.
-
She's had a very very serious mental breakdown apparently, causing the situation in discussion.
I geuss this is ... rather relavant. When I think "Very very very serious mental breakdown", I think towards auto-mutiliation and suicide, which does explain the UKs stance for a bit.
It explains the initial hospitalization (assuming indeed that it was a very serious mental breakdown, and not a panic attack as she's claiming).
It most certainly does not explain the continuing chain of i-don't-even-know-what-the-****-i'm-reading-anymore after that.
The matter is apparently to be raised in Parliament so hopefully we will get more details then, but I will say this...
The child most certainly would not have been delivered in this manner unless there was a real and immediate need to do so for the sake of either the mother or the childs' safety. Also, I find it hard to believe the child could even be put up for adoption in this manner if this had happened, so it leaves one of two possibilities. The first is that the Council behaved in an unspeakable manner, the other is that the mother was having such a mental breakdown that she was threatening her unborn child in some way.
Either way, the operation could not take place without the consent of a Surgeon, and any such one that would do so without medical need would be struck off the register.
Whatever is happening here, there is more to the story than what we have heard. IF this happened as the woman states it has, then questions obviously need to be answered, but, and I know it sounds callous, but there is also the possibility that if this woman is bi-polar or the like, that what she believed happened to her child may be quite different to the actual story. For all we know she could have signed release forms, which promotes the question of why she was asked to sign them if she was mentally impaired at the time.
Until there are more details here, I'm not certain it's healthy to jump to conclusions.
@Luis, ironically enough, I was reading something today about the industry in China of kidnapping newly born boys from villages for selling to rich families who didn't want to take the baby lottery.
What bothers me is not the c-section so much as all the documented crap that has happened after it. There are innumerable medical reasons that a c-section may have been necessary; I can think of no reasons why the UK has any business trying to adopt-away her child. Both mother and child should have been returned to Italy to be dealt with by the laws of the country in which she is a legal resident and citizen. If there are any rights that citizenship is supposed to confer, one would think the right to not have your baby taken by a foreign government ranks right at the top of the damned list. There are undoubtedly unreported factors here, but every report I've been able to find mentions the ongoing adoption litigation which is what raises my ire the most.
-
My own suspicion is some kind of breakdown where the mother mentally 'ran away' from her responsibilities and hated the child inside her, this may have led to self-harming or threats of harming the child which prompted the C-Section.
I suspect the mistake was made here that no-one took her mental condition into account after the child was delivered. I wouldn't be surprised if a release form for adoption did turn up that the mother had simply forgotten signing because she was in such a desolate mental place at the time.
We actually hold our local government to phenomenally high levels of performance when it comes to the welfare of children, on occasion too high, so there's no doubt some hard questions will have to be answered at some point along the road.
-
Is the baby Italian, or British, since it was born here?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_nationality_law#British_citizenship_by_birth_in_the_United_Kingdom
According to this very quick reference, the child does not have UK citizenship conferred by birth in the UK if neither parent is a UK citizen. Should the child remain in the UK as a resident for 10 years, the child may become a UK citizen.
The UK is not like Canada or the US or several other democracies; being born in the UK does not automatically make one a citizen of it.
-
Even if she was off her marbles shouldn't next of kin have been brought in? If her condition was something fixable shouldn't that be treated and she be of sound mind before they start making decisions about what to do with her child?
-
To be honest, they would have tried to contact the next of kin as soon as she was bought into hospital, one possibility is that she was unwilling or unable to give them contact details, but yes, the first port of call should have been to find someone to contact who knew the woman. Without any information, I can't really say whether that was attempted or what the outcome was.
It's not beyond the realms of possibility that somewhere a horrible cock-up was made and a baby ended up being put up for adoption that should not have been, but its also not beyond the realms of possibility that the woman refused to give her name, and rejected the baby entirely at the time, but does not remember this because she was mentally unbalanced at the time.
I suppose its on the facts like those that the whole 'shape' of what happened here can be defined.
-
Telegraph has an aside article that seems to confirm at least the adoption proceedings ongoing: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/mother-tongue/10488040/Child-taken-from-womb-by-social-services-its-not-always-wrong.html
The mother had been sectioned under the Mental Health Act and after five weeks still did not have the capacity to instruct a lawyer. The Court had to make the Order.
Can someone who speaks UK solicitor/barrister interpret whether that means she wasn't able to instruct a lawyer but had one appointed to act in her interest to oppose the Council application, or if it means she did not have legal representation? If the latter, there's another gigantic red flag.
I would be far less up in arms about this were the woman a UK citizen and resident - but the implication that the UK authorities can take it upon themselves to dramatically interfere in the private life and basic human right to have and raise a child of a citizen of another country that just happened to be briefly in the UK is abhorrent. Yes, the child deserves protection from harm; that said, mother and child deserve the protections of their country from the attitudes of a foreign one.
While lesser than the China scenario Luis posited, imagine the ****storm if the woman was from the United States and this happened. Can anyone spell "international incident?"
-
I suspect she was assigned a lawyer, but without her able to instruct him, there's few arguments to be made against an established court procedure (whether that procedure is a good one or not is a different discussion, of course).
What seems strange to me is that, after 5 weeks, no-one had even managed to find relatives, confirm her nationality, or even more strangely, no-one had reported her missing? Something weird is going on here, but I really don't know what percentage is incompetence on the part of the services, and which percentage was reluctance to give information on the part of the woman.
-
I can think of some reasons why the forced c-section could have been justified. But not holding a foreign baby and putting it up for adoption against the wish of the mother..
-
I suspect she was assigned a lawyer, but without her able to instruct him, there's few arguments to be made against an established court procedure (whether that procedure is a good one or not is a different discussion, of course).
When an advocate is appointed and cannot be instructed by a client in more adversarial rights-based countries, their mandate is to oppose basically all interventions proposed by the plaintiff unless in the best interests of their appointed client. If that doesn't happen in Britain's extraordinarily powerful child welfare courts, it should.
What's frightening here is that it doesn't appear the courts are simply ordering the child continue to be placed in foster care arrangements, where a biological parent maintains some rights and there is the possibility of them regaining custody; here, they are looking to adoption, which is a permanent transfer of parental rights. If the child is adopted out, the biological mother loses all rights to the child, including potentially even communication and visitation. Nothing like further victimizing the mentally ill "for the children!"
-
What seems strange to me is that, after 5 weeks, no-one had even managed to find relatives, confirm her nationality, or even more strangely, no-one had reported her missing? Something weird is going on here, but I really don't know what percentage is incompetence on the part of the services, and which percentage was reluctance to give information on the part of the woman.
Maybe she's too ill to divulge such information. It's also possible nobody cares, or even that she's the only one left of her family.
-
@MPRyan : I'm not an expert at any level on UK Law, but as I understand a court order, it is a proposal to perform an action based on evidence provided by both sides and decided upon by a Judge, not a Jury. They are for matters that are not 'crimes' but are too serious to be dealt with at a Magistrate level.
If the defense lawyer is unable to produce evidence to state why the actions of this woman are not cause to place the child into some kind of protection, then the Judge will have little choice than to rule in favour of the adoption. The thing that doesn't work here is how no-one realized that this system does not apply to foreign nationals because this is not a criminal matter, and so there was no right to remove a child from a non-national.
@Lorric : A few days, I could understand it, but 5 weeks and no-one looked at her passport, or at least didn't notice it was an Italian one? That strikes me as very odd.
-
@Lorric : A few days, I could understand it, but 5 weeks and no-one looked at her passport, or at least didn't notice it was an Italian one? That strikes me as very odd.
Well, the whole thing is very odd, isn't it. It's certainly an interesting case, and with the truth seemingly set to come out in time, I'll certainly be interested to see how all the missing pieces of this jigsaw fit into place if they are found.
-
If the defense lawyer is unable to produce evidence to state why the actions of this woman are not cause to place the child into some kind of protection, then the Judge will have little choice than to rule in favour of the adoption.
If that is true, the child protection systems in the UK Courts are placing the burden of proof not on the system, but on the biological parent. I sincerely hope that's not the case.
-
The UK child protection systems have been through the media wringer several times in recent years for failing to intervene in time to save vulnerable children; I could believe that the legal framework behind this mess is a reaction to that.
-
If the defense lawyer is unable to produce evidence to state why the actions of this woman are not cause to place the child into some kind of protection, then the Judge will have little choice than to rule in favour of the adoption.
If that is true, the child protection systems in the UK Courts are placing the burden of proof not on the system, but on the biological parent. I sincerely hope that's not the case.
I think it's more a question of, when you are a Judge placed in front of two sets of people, one set are people from a professional background stating that the child will be at risk if left with the mother, and on the other is a lawyer who can say 'I'm sorry your Honor, but my Client has been been unable to instruct me on this matter', you are left in the unenviable position of making a decision for two people who are unable to speak for themselves, the mother and the baby, and the ONLY information you have is a statement from professional bodies. Whether the Judge was correct to follow that professional advice is really a roll of the dice in these cases.
I do agree, however, that Fostering would have been the more sensible course to take.
-
Still seems terribly odd for the UK to be making the decisions for a foreign national's child, especially if said foreign national is incapable of making any informed input on the matter. Next of kin should have been involved or barring that, the mother, child and decision should have been handed over to her country of origin to handle. From the information so far in the thread this seems to have been horribly mishandled.
-
Right now I think everyone is loudly trumpeting their views with no actual facts to base them on. It would be much smarter for all concerned to wait until there are more details to base our views off of.
-
I also think we can rest assured that, no matter what happens, it isn't some plan in the UK Machinations to steal foreign babies either, we're still struggling to get large swathes of society to come to terms with those we invited ;)
-
Smarter, but what a boring musical piece without the brass.
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f2/Trumpets.jpg)
:wakka:
-
Right now I think everyone is loudly trumpeting their views with no actual facts to base them on. It would be much smarter for all concerned to wait until there are more details to base our views off of.
I'm almost certain that the social workers wield more clout than solicitors at this point. Lawyers don't exist in the UK and family law is meticulous in this county. My level is redundant in fact.
-
Quite a few more details in this article (http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/dec/03/italian-woman-forced-caesarean-wants-baby-back-essex-county-council).
Of particular intrests.
Essex council said on Monday it "liaised extensively" with the extended family over the baby's future care, that Italian courts ruled in May the child should stay in England and that it obtained permission from the county court to place her in adoption in October. The mother had two other children which she was unable to care for due to orders by the Italian authorities.
I suspected all along that at least half of those things would come to light once we had more facts.
-
More details:
http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/Misc/2013/20.html
The father is an illegal immigrant in Italy.
-
Now we know what happened with regards to the relatives at least.
Thing is, I have seen something similar before, bi-polar is a condition that does tend to make people paranoid and it can affect the way people remember things in order to feed that paranoia, which was why I had a feeling it might all turn out to have been authorised after all. In fact, I just noticed the court document actually mentions her having 'paranoid delusions' as part of her condition.
It's a tragic story on reading through it, but it does look like everything was done through the right channels at least.
-
*boggle* OK, I just read both the Guardian article (which is pretty scant on detail) and Judge Newton's decision (which fortunately isn't).
Essex council said on Monday it "liaised extensively" with the extended family over the baby's future care, that Italian courts ruled in May the child should stay in England
Interesting. Because Judge Newton's ruling makes zero reference to an Italian court decision, and the only details on the Italian courts came not from the Guardian (who offers the vague statement above), but from the Telegraph, which referred to an Italian court finding that the challenge failed on procedural grounds (e.g. was filed too late).
Nevertheless, Judge Newton's decision makes it clear that a council in the UK is applying UK law to the citizen of a foreign country - who wants her child back - and that citizen's daughter. The hypocrisy here is unbelievable; there is not a snowball's chance in hell that the UK would be good with these precise circumstances if it was a bipolar British woman having her child adopted-away in Italy. I note, with particular outrage, this:
But the mother had been later been "dispatched (indeed escorted) from the UK with undue haste", Newton said. By going to Italy, "any realistic prospect of P returning to her care was diminished substantially".
So why exactly were Italy's child protection authorities not contacted and the child escorted out of the country too? Anyone care to explain that? Anyone? Bueller?
It is unfortunate that the mother does not come from a country with a better-established system of rights and citizen protections than Italy (indeed, Italy has a piss-poor record of protecting its citizenry, and is particularly bad when ethnic minorities are involved see: Roma). If the UK authorities tried this with a citizen of a more prominent democracy with entrenched constitutional protections they would be facing an international ****storm.
It is quote possible that this woman shouldn't have custody of her child. However, that is not a decision for the authorities or UK courts to make. The idea that a temporary international visitor to the UK - by all accounts a purported rights-based democracy - can have their rights suspended, their child taken, and then adopted out all within the UK itself is a complete anathema to the sanctity of international citizenship law.
EDIT: Some more on this at the BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-25204276
EDIT: And it's now hit major media in both US and Canada, where there is predictable outrage similar to my own.
EDIT: And once again, the Telegraph out-does both the Guardian and the BBC on details. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/10492936/Caesarean-case-mother-Im-suffering-like-an-animal.html
-
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/10492936/Caesarean-case-mother-Im-suffering-like-an-animal.html
The incident has thrown the spotlight on activities of the Court of Protection, the branch of the High Court with powers to make life and death decisions about vulnerable people in private and send people to prison in secret for breaching its orders. MPs have also voiced alarm at the issues exposed by the case.
What exactly is the Court of Protection and what has happened before?
-
A rather over-dramatically described version of the Court where Social Services, the NHS, the Police and vulnerable people in extreme situations for whatever reason meet to sort things out, often in situations where the vulnerable person is considered unable to speak for themselves clearly. They are supposed to assign a representative to these people in order to support them and put their case forward.
It's one of those damned if you win, damned if you lose places, where everyone is mostly out just to minimize the damage, rather than find a 'solution'. Pretty much like this whole situation, and neither side seems to be giving a full or accurate account of what is going on here.
Edit: And just to clarify, it is mostly for people who wish to apply to become a deputy to someone, so that they make all financial, health and housing decisions, it's one step beyond a carer where you have legal responsibility for that person, as it suggests, enforced adoption would fall under this blanket. The 'sending a person to prison' thing is, I can only assume, the cases of enforced confinement in a mental institution which are always going to be contentious, nothing else comes to mind.
-
One thing which has failed to be made clear is why are we only hearing about this now, after 15 months?
Cause I can see a pretty strong argument that if the case only came up now that the child should remain in the home it's accustomed to.
Basically I don't think this is as big a WTF as people want to make out. While I might not agree with it, it does appear to be a bunch of small decisions (some of them wrong in hindsight but perfectly valid at the time) which have added up to situation which looks wrong. Questions are being asked like "Why wasn't the father involved" but did the people involved know who the father was at the time? It's pretty easy to see how circumstances could have resulted in this mess.