AHEd letter to NSPCC

[Ali Admin]

AHEd has sent this letter to the Chief Executive of the NSPCC and its Child Protection Policy Advisor Vijay Patel.

Dear Sir,

AHEd has received a number of member complaints concerning the outrageous comments of Mr. Vijay Patel reported in the Independent newspaper today which we believe abuse the memory of a murdered child for political ends to falsely conflate her death with a minority group and to express a causal link between home educators and child abuse.

Mr Patel is quoted: "Some people use home education to hide. Look at the Victoria Climbié case.”

We object in the strongest terms possible to these comments. It is our view that the comments demonstrate a clear prejudice against home educators and a deliberate attempt to implicate home education with false evidence and scandal in order to prejudice the outcome of the government Review into Home Education.

Mr Patel has already admitted publicly that there is no link between home education and child abuse. Now, however, he is deliberately implying that Victoria Climbie was home educated, hidden from the authorities, abused and murdered without their knowledge by home educators!

This is shocking considering that both Mr Patel and the NSPCC must know that this little girl, who was not a home educated child, but was known to a number of authorities and to the local education authority was not murdered in secret hidden from their view whilst being home educated, as confirmed by the Laming enquiry; and in view of the fact that the NSPCC was forced to
apologise for its part in the failure of those responsible to help Victoria over an extended period prior to her death. In fact, Victoria is one of the many cases now in the public domain in which it has been demonstrated that those charged with helping children in need failed in their duties towards a child, resulting in further suffering and death. [1]

We note that the Victoria Climbie Foundation are also very worried about this misrepresentation from an official of the NSPCC.

We are appalled that Mr. Patel, the NSPCC Child Protection Policy Advisor, is propagating libellous attacks against a conscientious and law abiding minority and wonder if it is NSPCC policy that home education is linked to child abuse? We call for a full and prominent public apology and retraction of the comments by Mr. Patel in the Independent today, and a withdrawal of the NSPCC from the review.

Yours etc



[1] Excerpt from Lord Laming's Speech at the National Social Services Conference 2003:

I remind you that in the ten months Victoria was alive in this country she was known to no fewer than four Social Services Departments, three Housing Departments and two specialist Police Child Protection Teams. Furthermore she was admitted to two different hospitals because of suspicions she was being deliberately harmed and she was referred to a specialist Child and Family Centre managed by the NSPCC.

[NSPCC]

Dear Sir,
Further to your open letter, I would like to take the opportunity both to reiterate the NSPCC’s position regarding home education and to address the reference made to Victoria Climbie in the Independent article to which you refer.

We would like to make it absolutely clear that the NSPCC takes no position as regards home education from an educational perspective. Our concern is for the safety of children. Our view is simply that chi;dren educated at home should have the same right to protection as those taught in school. This is what we have asked the government to consider in its current review.

As regards the reference made to Victoria Climbie in the Independent, I accept that this comment should not have been made and regret the offence it has caused. We stand by our concern to ensure that every child can be protected by the authorities. However, clearly there is no connection between home education and Victoria’s tragic death. We have already spoken to the Victoria Climbie Foundation on this matter.

In light of some of the comments made on the NSPCC’s Facebook page and in your letter I would also like to make clear that in her statement to the inquiry into Victoria Climbie’s death, the then NSPCC Chief Executive, Dame Mary Marsh expressed profound regret and apologised to Victoria’s family for the missed opportunity to help her. She also explained that we had reviewed our services as a result. The NSPCC was not named at the inquiry into Victoria’s death as one of the original nine agencies involved with her - we volunteered evidence ourselves.

To conclude, the NSPCC has a legitimate concern about the safeguarding of all children whether they are educated at home or at school and that will be the basis of our involvement with the Government review.

Yours sincerely

Andrew Flanagan
Chief Executive

[Ali Admin]

Shameful and unrepentant or what! But hey, AHEd (that's not us by the way) must have pissed you off.

Talking to people at the Convention on Modern Liberty today, I couldn't find one with a good word to say about the NSPCC, but lots who were concerned about its predilection for child snatching, money grabbing and grave robbing (thanks to Vijay's 'unwise' but undoubtedly deliberate comments about Victoria Climbie).

Sack yourselves now or we'll do it for you. Your involvement in any inquiry about home eduaction is utterly risible and more than a bit sinister.

[noschool]

No one seems very reassured over on Facebook.

More interesting reading here.

I'd almost forgotten about the NSPCC involvement in the Rochdale and Orkney scandals. Their arrogance knows no bounds.

[Gawain Towler]

Dear Mr Bloom,

Thank you for contacting us with your enquiry.

The NSPCC would like to clarify its position regarding home education. We would like to make it clear that the NSPCC is not against home education and that as regards schooling we believe parents should have the right to decide what is in the best interests of their children.

We sincerely regret any offence caused by the quote attributed to Vijay Patel in The Independent. There was no intention to imply a connection between home education and Victoria Climbie's tragic death.

Our concern is about the safety of children. Those educated at home should have the same right to protection as those taught in school. This is what we have asked the government to consider in its current review. Our mission is to end cruelty to children, and to ensure that all children are effectively safeguarded, however or wherever they are educated.

Regards,


Duty Enquiries Officer
NSPCC Library and Information Service
Weston House
42 Curtain Road
London EC2A 3NH

Not even the courtesy of a signed letter. It could have been produced by a machine.

It was in response to this
Dame Mary Marsh
Director
NSPCC
Weston House,
42 Curtain Road,
London
EC2A 3NH

26th February,

Dear Dame Marsh,

I am writing to you on behalf of numerous of my constituents who are utterly outraged by the comments of one of your staff, Vijay Patel who had the sheer gall to tell the Independent newspaper, "Some people use home education to hide. Look at the Victoria Climbié case. No one asked where she was at school. We have no view about home education, but we do know that to find out about abuse someone has to know about the child." (Independent - Is the Government right to be concerned about home-schooling? 26 Feb 2009).

How dare he as a supposed professional make such an outrageous suggestion, that Elective Home Educators are in any way linked to such a horrific murder. It is as fatuous as saying that 'all men are rapists'. What is more this self same Mr Patel had been forced only days before to admit on BBC Radio - "We.. the inf.. We don’t have the evidence there statistically, no."

This is deeply wounding to the thousands who take the opportunity to educate their children at home, with the absolute safeguard of the 1996 Education Act.

I expect to hear from you that Mr Patel has not only publically apologised for his demonstrably false smears, but also that he has either resigned, or if he will not resign, been sacked.

It is not worthy of a National Charity such as yours to engage in such underhand tactics, particularly when as you and he well know, it was singled out for serve criticism itself over the deeply sad case of Victoria Climbié.

Yours

Godfrey Bloom MEP

You will note that the response skates over the points and fails to address, entirely the concerns. Pathetic.

[Ali Admin]

The only difference in this response is that an MEP merits a "Dear Mr Bloom" rather than a "Dear Godfrey" salutation.

That is perhaps because our "Mr Grant" ticked them off about over familiarity (though it's still the same anonymous "Duty Enquiries Officer" who has sent it out).

Otherwise, it's an identical response to the hundreds of complaints they had and clearly plan to ignore.

[Gawain Towler]

Thus I suspect there may well be a rather stormy follow up. It is Bloom's way.