If It Saves Just One Child-False Positives

[Elaine Kirk]

After seeing this on Maire's wall I thought I would use it to start a 'False Positives' thread

Louise Mason is finally a mother again, leading a family life for the first time in more than five years.

She presents a calm — if brittle — front as she talks of her ordeal since she was falsely accused of harming her baby and having her children disappear into the care system one by one.

The long battle to clear her name and have her children returned to her has left this 38-year-old single mother utterly drained and emotionless. She pauses before answering questions, chooses her responses with caution, and, even as she insists that she is happy, can barely raise a smile.

Shadowing her happiness is the knowledge that, despite being cleared of all claims, she may never have her middle child — taken from her at four weeks — returned. He has bonded so well with his foster family that she may lose him permanently into enforced adoption.

[Ali P]

There is reference to Lousie Mason's case and other travesties in this blog,so thought I'd add it in here and sticky the thread.

Open season on home educators but we aren't all game

Apart from the headline grabbing cases in which the State has failed to take action to save a child, there are numerous cases where families have been wrongly accused of abuse or worse. Louise Mason's case was one which made headlines; many others go unreported. Her story makes chilling reading for any parent and demonstrates the extreme fallibility of a system which is supposed to protect children but instead can lead to the persecution of innocent parents. Louise was falsely accused of child abuse when her baby was in fact suffering from a rare form of cancer, and social workers took all three of her children away. Athough two have been returned, one child remains in foster care where she is settled, since it took Louise years to clear her name. What a travesty.

In another particularly disturbing case, the reputation of a home educating family, whose child had tragically died from natural causes, was deliberately sullied in 2004 by the general secretary of the Association of Education Wefare Managers. In a letter to the then Children's Minister Margaret Hodge, it was erroneously claimed that the child had been removed from school "then subjected to child abuse". A retraction was duly made and a full apology issued, but the episode marked a new low in the mud slinging stakes by an opportunist who hadn't bothered to check her facts in a desperate bid to smear a minority community on the basis of one case twisted to suit her own purposes.

There have been other high profile travesties, such as the Orkney child abuse scandal, the Cleveland scandal and the Rochdale satanic abuse case. On the basis of no more than rumour, hearsay, suspicion and improper medical diagnoses, social workers removed children from their parents who were all subsequently absolved of any wrongdoing.

[Elaine Kirk]

Thanks to Blogdial I have found the case you mention Ali From the BBC 2004 , building bridges they say !!

There are moves to build bridges in the sometimes acrimonious relationship between education authorities and people who teach their children at home.
A leading education welfare manager has apologised for stating wrongly that a child, who died from natural causes, had been subjected to abuse.
Jenny Price, general secretary of the Association of Education Welfare Managers, said she regretted that the information, published in good faith, had been incorrect.

The error was made in a letter from Mrs Price to the Children's Minister, Margaret Hodge, saying the Children Bill was an opportunity for the current guidance to be reviewed.


It is very clear that there is an enormous gap between home education and LEAs
Jenny Price
Association of Education Welfare Managers
It described home education "as a situation where children may be at risk" and passed on some of her members' concerns.

One of those referred to a child being removed from school "then subjected to child abuse".

The family was not identified but it emerged that the case to which she was referring involved a child who had died - from natural causes, it was later established.

"We ... would want to withdraw that particular statement and at the same time apologise for whatever distress we may have caused," Mrs Price said in a new letter to the Department for Education and Skills.

Blogdials post

[Elaine Kirk]

If that judge hadn't intervened to stop the nightmare...

Last week a High Court judge denounced the “nightmare” suffered by a couple who were wrongly accused of harming their baby son. They were separated from that child for 12 months, the first and formative year of his life. During that time the mother became pregnant again but had an abortion, because she could not bear to risk the authorities taking that child too. So those who rushed to judgment ruined four lives.

[Elaine Kirk]

In 2008 Camilla Cavendish wrote a series of articles in the Times
July 6, 2008

Soon after this encounter I met Denise and Nigel Clarkson, who had lost both their daughters after one sustained an unexplained injury, and who fought like tigers to get them back. Through the Eaton Foundation, which they founded, I met American doctors and radiologists who were challenging many of the assumptions made by British doctors who were diagnosing abuse from so-called “shaken baby syndrome” and certain tiny bone fractures.

July 7, 2008

In 2003 Sally Clark, Trupti Patel and Angela Cannings were all cleared of murdering their babies. Lord Justice Judge declared that no one should go to prison again solely on the basis of expert witness evidence, and the criminal law was changed. But there have been no such changes in the family court system. “Expert” evidence almost always takes precedence over evidence from relatives and people who actually know the family.

[Elaine Kirk]

Another horror story

Fran Lyon will be a mother by now.
All alone, in a hiding place somewhere in Europe, the 22-year-old student will be cradling her newborn daughter Molly and hoping that one day she will be able to return home to Hexham in Northumberland, and share the joy of the birth with her family and friends.
Last November, at seven-and-a-half months' pregnant, Fran fled the country after social workers warned her that her baby would be taken away ten minutes after the birth and placed with foster parents.

John Hemming took the case to parliament and Fran escaped to Sweden

A PREGNANT woman who had been told that her baby would be taken from her when it is born has been told she can keep her child.

Fran Lyon fled to Europe last month to escape the social services ruling - and now she has been told she is safe to be a parent after all.

"They simply shouldn't be allowed to do this, put somebody through this, and then turn around and say they were wrong."

Fran Lyon

[knorman]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ning-away.html Irish authorities have taken Scottish baby away as requested by Fife.

[Elaine Kirk]

The Mail exposed this story

Norfolk couple Mark and Nicky Webster last week finally won their landmark legal fight to keep their fourth child, Brandon, after a false allegation of child abuse robbed them of their three older children.

In what has been described as a "gross miscarriage of justice", the Websters' children were taken away by Social Services and forcibly adopted after a family court hearing that lasted just one day.
Here, the shattered parents tell of their ordeal and their joy at the High Court judgment on their youngest child. But the battle is not over.

And followed it up

Anguished couple Mark and Nicky Webster will this week embark on legal action to overturn a care order that led to the forcible adoption of their three children four years ago.
The Websters have instructed their solicitor to apply for leave to appeal against the order obtained by Norfolk County Council on the strength of false allegations of child abuse in May 2004.

And more

A couple forced to give up three children for adoption despite a judge ruling they may have been wrongly accused of abuse yesterday vowed to take their legal fight to Europe.
Mark and Nicky Webster said they will never give up the battle to win back their daughter and two sons after the Appeal Court ruled this week that it was 'too late' for the family to be reunited.
The couple have not seen the children, now aged nine, seven and five, since they were put up for adoption four years ago.

Here is a Daily Mail search result page

[Elaine Kirk]

Callous

Heartbroken Donna said: "They destroyed any happy memories I should have had of Bonita's first Christmas and I will never forgive them for that.

"I took my daughter to hospital to get help and was treated like a criminal for it.

"When I asked how they could do this to a baby at this time of year they told me not to worry because she wouldn't remember.

"But what about me? I will remember it."

Donna added: "They kept saying it was in her best interests. "How can taking a baby away from its caring mother be in its best interests?

[Ali P]

In Ben's Name... love from Elisha

More support for Kerry and Mark from someone who has had a similar experience at the hands of the abusive Essex Social Services.

I'll copy to the false positive thread as well.