For a brief time this week, until it was taken down, there was an
extraordinary posting on YouTube. It was a covert recording, made by a
34-year-old mother, of her meeting with the social worker who wants to take
her next baby into care.
Had it been staged, critics would have called it a caricature. A robotic
official orders the sobbing mother to stay in the hospital until his
colleagues come to remove her new baby. He refuses her desperate pleas to be
monitored with the baby at home. He explains in the tones of a traffic
warden the inconvenience of delivering her breast milk. He then lets drop an
astonishing admission: that Calderdale Council is pursuing a court order
despite there being “no immediate risk to your child from yourselves”. Will
he say that in court? We will not know, of course, for the court will sit in
secret.
Such a chilling drama plays to our deepest fears of state tyranny. There is
something wrong with the system. But posting a conversation on YouTube, out
of context, is not the way to right it. The council argues that Vanessa
Brookes’s recording falls foul of the Data Protection Act. Her supporters
say that she is a victim of social services and justified in publishing what
is essentially her own data. But we do not know whether she is a victim. Who
is abusing whom here?
Mrs Brookes’s case is not straightforward. She is partially sighted and has
suffered bouts of depression. Two of her children have already been adopted.
That does not prove that she is an unfit mother - mistakes can be made - but
it does explain the council’s interest. Equally, I am told that she and her
husband have never been accused of harming any child. But this dribble of
incomplete facts is fundamentally unenlightening. All it does is illustrate
the torturous trade-offs that the system has to make, and our inability to
judge those trade-offs because it is illegal to read family court papers.
How should we treat someone like Mrs Brookes, who has troubles enough to worry
social services but has not apparently yet harmed a child? She is one of a
growing group of people who are categorised as capable of “emotional abuse”.
You can see why the category exists. Ill-treatment comes in many forms, not
just cigarette burns. But in that nebulous phrase lurks the potential for
great injustice.
“Emotional abuse” has no strict definition in British law. Yet it now accounts
for an astounding 21 per cent of all children registered as needing
protection, up from 14 per cent in 1997. Last year 6,700 children were put
on the child protection register for emotional abuse, compared with only
2,600 for sexual abuse and 5,100 for physical abuse. Both of the latter two
categories have been falling steadily. Meanwhile emotional abuse and
“neglect” - which replaced the old notion of “grave concern” in 1989 - have
been rising. Both are catch-alls. But emotional abuse is especially vague.
It covers children who have not been injured, have not complained, and do
not come under “emotional neglect”.
The Department of Health defines emotional abuse as “persistent emotional
ill-treatment . . . [which] may involve conveying to children that they are
worthless or inadequate . . . and may feature age or developmentally
inappropriate expectations being placed on children . . . Some level of
emotional abuse is involved in all types of ill-treatment of a child, though
it may occur alone”.
Local authorities have printed their own, wildly differing, interpretations.
In Enfield emotional abuse includes “swearing”, “conditional love” or
“discriminatory remarks”. In Nottingham, it is “an ingrained pattern of
interaction . . . which it is essential to observe and understand over
time”. Under that definition, a baby could never be removed at birth.
Nottingham also states that emotional abuse should rarely be a cause for
removing a child. Meanwhile the NSPCC, the charity that has never knowingly
undersold a statistic, states in its briefing on emotional abuse that “18
per cent of children experience humiliation and/or attacks on self-esteem”.
Should we put them all in care, then?
“You’ll know it when you see it - except that you can’t see it” is no way to
make law. Abuse literature repeatedly states how often parent and child are
unaware of the damage done by their relationship patterns. How do we weigh
that damage against the trauma of the conveyor belt of foster care? In most
such situations, isn’t removing a child utterly disproportionate?
Just imagine that some social services departments were crusaders, seeing evil
parents everywhere but unable to prove conventional abuse. It is plausible
that the number of vague allegations would rise, backed by psychiatrists of
a similar mindset who are prepared to enter a “maybe”. How else can one
explain a 50 per cent rise in emotional abuse cases in ten years? How many
of those cases are utterly marginal?
Next, imagine that the rise in these cases had left social workers even more
overstretched. They would have less time to monitor children at home and to
keep families together. They would also have less time for the hard-core
cases. No system can ever protect every child. But the toddler on Haringey’s
at-risk register who was found dead last week with fractured ribs, a broken
back and two missing fingernails was surely more deserving of removal than
those at risk of low self-esteem.
So many cases are gut-wrenchingly complex. We need social workers to be
properly accountable. We need the family courts to be open. Mrs Brookes is
clearly not perfect, but she deserves to have clear grounds for the removal
of her child. Right now, it looks as though around 6,000 people stand
accused of abuse, or potential abuse, that no lawyer can even define. That
is an appalling vista that we must not continue to hide from public view.
i am a student at Staunton Community Sports College and we r learning about child abusive and i think it is a vile and disgusting thing to be doing. If anybody does it they must be sick in the head or has a disability.
Thanks for reading x
Katie Snarey, Portsmouth, England
i am in a similiar situation myself, and now have no faith in this system.I am 20 years old and have a 3 year old little boy,i have no history of violence,criminal record or drug abuse problems.I am a part time student and also work,i have my own home and have always cared for my little boy.I began a relationship 5 months ago,and suffered domestic violence,the police came to my house and found my boyfriend had drugs on him i was also arrested,but realised without charge as he explained i knew nothing about any of it.I spoke to the police about eveything i knew had drug tests which were all negative,but still a social worker with no right from the court or her legal team,told the father of my child to keep him with him,even though there was no risk of harm from me or my now ex partner who is living at another address with bail conditions.I have not had contact with my little boy now for over a week,i have become very ill with the stress have had to leave work.
Bethany, manchester,
CAFCASS officers who write welfare reports for the Family Courts are not accountable for the contents of their reports under CAFCASS' Complaints Policy. They can write what they want without fear of redress.
Brian Hitchcock, Coventry, England
There is no "law" in Family Law
Why is the emotional abuse of children by social workers, and courts acceptable.
Why can social workers, contort and distort the truth, and inspite of growing public alarm, the judge will rubberstamp their recommendations.
It is a untrue, the guardian is there to work with the family, and protect the child.
They work against the family, and all it stands for, in the name of the state , and not the child.
Are the closed courts, there to protect the child....NO
Are the closed courts there to protect the social workers, and their cohort of helpers...YES
Family Law Courts, solicitors and social workers, damage more children than they help.
Family Law Courts make judgements, not on evidence, they discount police reports, but on probability.
They can send you to prison
If you were found innocent in a criminal court, if they didnt agree, they can retry you, and then send you to prison.
As Family Law Courts stand, we should all be affraid of them
maureen Brown, Saughall, Cheshire
One interesting facet of the Family Courts scandal is Liberty's view on the matter.
Liberty responded to the Office Of Constitutional Affairs consultation about opening-up the Family Courts system to scrutiny. Here's their specific response to the question about whether the media should have access to the Family Courts;
"... The exception to this rule would be in adoption, for this is a very private matter and once a placement order has been made there can be no public interest in the adoption proceedings themselves particularly if the birth family have not given up the child for adoption themselves."
Yes you have to re-read the last bit which concerns Forced Adoptions and are the source of most concern - Liberty reckons the Press should have no access in the case of Forced Adoptions - thus allowing the corrupt system to continue unchecked. I guess that the Facist Left defined to a tee!
John Iddon, Bradford, United Kingdom
The judges are the real villains as they approve the taking of newborn babies at birth for adoption by strangers from sane mothers that have never caused them harm
This is a crime against humanity .A burglar facing a possibility of 6 months or more in prison can demand a trial by jury.Any parent facing a possible life sentence if their child is removed for adoption or long term fostering should have the same right.
No jury would remove a child for "risk of emotional harm" or would punish parents not for anything they had done but for what some hired "expert" predicted they might do in the future!
Sack the rubberstamping establishment judges and replace them by juries so that over zealous social workers would become powerless and the whole rotten family court edifice would crumble and fall!
ian josephs, monte carlo, monaco
1:-Abolish the family court secrecy that gags parents who wish to complain.
2:-Abolish "emotional harm" and "risk" as justifications for putting children into care
3:-Abolish "forced adoption"when a parent opposes an adoption in court
4:-Abolish decisions by family court judges to take children into care .(let juries decide )
5:-Abolish the power of social services to regulate and control contact between parents and children , to censor their conversation or to restrict phone calls.The court must control contacts.
6:-Abolish the restriction preventing a lay advisor from presenting a case for parents refused legal aid
7:-Abolish hearsay evidence in family courts and require witnesses to stick to facts without "speculation.
8:-Abolish the right of social services to remove children for non life threatening forms of neglect such as absences from school or untidy or insanitary dwellings unless a written warning has been served and the situation has not been remedied;
ian josephs, monte carlo, monaco
1:-Abolish the family court secrecy that gags parents who wish to complain.
2:-Abolish "emotional harm" and "risk" as justifications for putting children into care
3:-Abolish "forced adoption"if a parent opposes an adoption in court
4:-Abolish decisions by family court judges to take babies and young children into care.(let juries decide)
5:-Abolish the power of social services to regulate and control contact between parents and children , to censor their conversation or to restrict phone calls.The court must control the frequency of contacts.
6:-Abolish the restriction preventing a lay advisor from presenting a case for parents refused legal aid
7:-Abolish hearsay evidence in family courts and require witnesses to stick to facts without "speculation."
8:-Abolish the removal of children for non life threatening forms of neglect such as absences from school or insanitary dwellings unless a written warning has been served and the situation has not been remedied.
ian josephs, monte carlo, monaco
The expert witness scam needs to be broken. My wife and I were incrementally de-childrened: first by a false MSbP-like claim, then by an over-zealous primary school teacher reporting normal childish scatalogical language to Social Services who read it as an indicant of sexual abuse, and finally by four ‘experts’ in assessing ‘risk of emotional abuse’. Social Services claimed to be ‘breaking the cycle of abuse’ in which the abused child becomes the abusing parent, and the experts agreed with the theory. When we forcefully pointed out in court that we had not been abused, the experts accused us variously of: failing to report our abuse because of shame, guilt or ignorance; suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder causing bad memories to be ‘blotted out’; or lying to conceal from Social Services the ‘fact’ of our abuse, knowing of their policy. None of the experts interviewed all of us or any of the children and relied on Social Services paperwork. The children never returned.
Phil, Suffolk,
What is most disturbing about the recording of the social worker threatening & bullying Vanessa Brookes is the sheer hubris - he is obviously very used to bullying & browbeating parents knowing that he (& his team) will not be held accountable and whatever he does can be done with absolute impunity.
We had exactly the same kind of treatment when our children were removed by Barnet Local Authority (Joanne Pymont, Jo Belton, Catherine Jones, Siew Tan) because of a RISK of neglect, no evidence of actual neglect required. After 3 years and £400K, we eventually were able to get our children back (scared, vulnerable & traumatised).
I was incensed at the way our rights were being trampled & the way our children were emotionally abused (openly! with no attempt to pretend otherwise) because it was claimed that WE were the ones who were being 'uncooperative'. Our attempts for legal rights were immediately quashed and we (& therefore the children) were punished for standing up to our rights
Gary Orman, London, UK
Current practice in the Family Court and Social Services on assessing "risk" of abuse revolves around the Nelson-Teicher-Moore doctrine, together with a re-introduction of the admissibility of spectral evidence. It is all junk science and junk justice.
The Nelson dogma is that all adult mental health problems stem from child abuse decades previously and that all child abuse will result in adult mental health problems.
The Teicher theory is that behavioural eccentricities such as hallucinations and borderline and other personality disorders are created by child abuse.
The Moore component is that people who as adults report memories of having been abused have accurate memory of such abuse, and that their memory is not impaired by any mental disorder, especially borderline, or from the results of medication or psychotherapy.
Spectral evidence is evidence in the form of dreams, flashbacks or hallucinations, still acceptable in the Family Court but not the criminal justice system.
Phil, Suffolk, UK
If the posting on u tube of the recording is "not the way to fight it" what other remedy do the parents have? Supine legal aid solicitors who as usual advise parents to "go along with everything social services tell you"?
Social services ineviyably claim that taking a child is always a "very last resort" . In this case neither parent has a criminal record,or any problems with drugs or alcohol.There are no learning difficulties or incidents of domestic violence.How therefore can the"SS" justify seperating a newborn baby from its mother on the grounds that she might one day subject it to emotional abuse,?How is this removal a last resort?
Lastly a decision in the high court by Mr Justice Munby Citation:BLD 160403280;(2003) EWHC 850 ruled that to stop a mother breastfeeding by substituting the "expressing" of her milk was contrary to the human rights of bothmother and baby and consequently illegal!
But when did such matters ever worry social services or inhibit their illegal actions?
ian josephs, monte carlo, monaco
A child was recently taken from loving Mom by Haringey social services for a fast track adoption !
and guess what ? the adoptive mother were paid over £2000 !!!
I wonder how many more kids she can apply to adopt ?
By the way, the chilld is now in care !
Where is the money ?
Oh, stop asking silly questions .
Who fabricated the lot ? Who else ? Haringey social services. God bless your soul Victoria Climbe
Nagwa, London,
Due to the reduction of Legal Aid (rates and scope) from 1995 to date, there are now a lack of competent lawyers willing to challenge Local Authorities so they are a law unto themselves. By this I mean the true awkward squad who read the Legal Action Bulletin on a regular basis, and who were prpeared to fight injustice. Now you have career managers of Legal Aid and Social Welfare Law. This is presumably what the public wanted when they wanted 'fat cat' lawyers restrained? They will also get more of this probably even closer to home when Tesco take over the legal 'market' (profession?).
And don't dare mention anything controversial like the hysteria over peadophilia as illustrated in the Brass Eye Paedophilia special in Local Authority circles (or presumably now politically correct Legal Aid firms), you will be dismissed. Particularly in the North of England where the witchfinder generals were let loose not so many years ago...
Pete Balchin, Solicitor , Bristol, UK
There is already another story running on this subject. If I remember the story correctly, Local Councils receive bonuses from Central Government on the number of children they have adopted and of course babies are the easiest to place.
Martin, Reading, UK
Yet again I am horrified. Less than a few weeks ago the social workers failed to protect the young girl who was seen standing in the windows each day.
Now they pursue with this approach, it is not even per se, or a rule of reason approach with legal facts. And not to publish the hearings of the court is possible breach of Charter of Fundamental rights of the EU (right to defense). If they do not have access to the decision then this impacts their appeal and right to defense.
I would welcome the legal approach to take these under Arts 47,48 and 49 in the ECJ. Then this could set a precedent if the secret meetings are really legal.. There is a disparity in policy on protection. Social Services should assist these families not punish.
Additionally carry out psychometric tests on the Social service personnel in case they are on a "personal crusade" based on their own personal past....
Gareth, Munich,
In response to the person arguing that the Churches would be better entrusted with the welfare of children...I presume you are not a Catholic?
C. Duke, London, UK
Social Services in Britain today are removing children from good and loving parents on false grounds and there is a network of people helping this scandal. The BAAF is being run by some social workers and money is exchanging hands in this disgraceful human trafficking business at the expense of our childrens health and happiness. Children placed in fostering or adoption experience high levels of the stress hormone cortisol which in turn affects their immune system. This child stealing HAS TO STOP. IT WILL STOP, mark my words, and every single evil person that has promoted this child snatching: which includes some court officials, solicitors etc in the secret and corrupt family court system will be brought to book: mark my words they will. We parents will not allow these people to make our children suffer in this way anymore. PS: WE WANT OUR CHILDREN BACK! Well done Camilla Cavendish and all the other brave reporters for exposing this horrendous scandel.
Lady Heywood, West Midlands, UK
I was/am a single parent - my daughter is just about to set off to University & all is well with her but 5 years ago after the death of both my parents (who lived 350 miles away & me as an only child had all to sort) my daughter hit adolescence with all guns flaming-I had always bought her up with no smacking, always talking/explaining to her about everything, love her so much, she was the centre of my world-she started not eating, a small amount of self harm & heaven knows to this day what she told the school & other 'professionals'. As a result of all this-to my shame, utter humiliation, grief & horror (I used to work in SS on NAI cases!) my child was put on the At Risk Register-she went into what was termed 'respite care' for periods-this helped neither of us.Id lost my parents, then my child was taken from me for no real reason. I lost friends, felt I had to move town with the shame, my career was ruined & to this day I am a broken & destroyed person who seldom leaves the house....
Broken Human, SW England, UK
Why was Calderdale Council trotting out the very feeble plea
that Mrs. Brookes was in breach of the Data Protection Act?
Was it simply that the social worker was found out?
It has long been my view (after many year working in civil litigation) that many social workers' authority is far too great and is not matched by intelligence. They should be immediately accountable for all their actions and decisions or better still replaced by a much more qualified and capable body.
Social Workers are frequently together in secret meetings with each other making very important decisions about peoples' lives. What a pity we can't film them as Mrs. Brookes did.
Rodney Barker, Gainsborough, England U.K.
Social work is too complex a task to be entrusted to the state.Churches and charities would have far more success in dealing with the many different types of cases involved and the services users would have choise in deciding which source of social capital they wished to use.Clearly this lady has no faith in the state,she may however listen to the vicar or other religious leader .
Edicius, Worcester,
This is an absolute disgrace and the social worker who took part in this travesty should be making his way to the dole queue. Calderdale council managed to get Youtube to remove the video but it has already been posted on hundreds of other sites and servers world wide. A previously anonymous part of northern England is now known to thousands of people across the globe. What a pity they had to find their 5 minutes of fame in the guise of the inquisition...
John Hand, St Helens, Merseyside
Social Workers and the Courts are paid from the public purse. They need to be accountable to the public.
Children are our precious future. They need to be protected, from harm, from abuse, from malign Social Workers and the secretive locked boxes which are our (ho-ho) 'Family' Courts.
Any Justice which is not allowed to be seen to be done is not justice. The starting point for fairness in dealing with anyone - but particularly children - is openness. If Judges, Barristers, Solicitors and Social Workers cannot see that, they should never be allowed to stand in judgement on anyone - or to take our money for overseeing and taking part in a corrupt system.
If there is secrecy there is also usually corruption. Why visit that on innocent children?
Charlotte Peters Rock, Knutsford,
The secrecy involved in all this is truly frightening. The rules seem to be made completely arbitrarily with no right of appeal. Any kind of secrecy allows abuse to flourish - when small children are at risk, it becomes evil. Why on earth is nothing being done about this?
Angela, Cambridge, UK
Camilla Cavendish is describing a scene which we are seeing up and down the country. Whilst children are being allegedly "protected" to meet adoption targets, no-one is documenting the serious damage being done by social work intervention. Pregnant women are being targeted - yet there is well-documented research showing that stress in pregnancy inflicts lasting damage on the growing fetus. We have been supporting mothers in the UK for over 40 years, and have seldom seen such intense stress as suffered by women threatened with losing their baby. Breast-fed babies are removed, losing their supply of breast milk, and we know of a number which have suffered harm as a result. As advocates, we are privileged to see many court documents which must remain confidential. Psychiatrists and psychologists are making confident predictions of future risk to children which are merely assertions and assumptions, and for which there is no adequate evidence.
Jean Robinson, AIMS , Oxford,
Most of the social workers I met (through adoption) were woefully under-educated as to attachment, child development, parenting etc. Asking them to make sophisticated judgements is unreasonable. They need really clear guidance, not vague platitudes.
Also, an underlying problem here is that the foster care - the alternative to keeping a child in an abusive home - is often just as inadequate and disruptive. Why aren't we doing more to make foster care placements better and longer-lasting(ie fewer moves between foster homes, not keeping kids in foster care longer than necessary)? We are letting our most vulnerable children down when they need help most.
adoptivemum, London, UK
Emotional abuse is just another term in the rich lexicon of the so called social services. It is accepted but poorly defined, and therefore open to interpretation in a subjective way. It can be used in meetings and reports to bolster otherwise weak arguments or positions. It is just another example of a whole raft of terminology which has subverted another accepted but ill defined term "common sense".
Clifford Forsyth, Pinner, UK
chattering classes again,its not the childred who are caught by the net of social services. Try for once to live the nightmare of the children who never show on the radar,child abuse is a taboo subject that why is thrieves in the areas well all avoid.Social workers,foster homes do the best ,in acountry where family life subject to change on amonthly bases.
michael joseph heavey, cahersiveen/adams town,
It is always in the interest of social services, agencies like CAFCASS, and quangos like the NSPCC to overstate the statistics on abuse and violence, and inventing new definitions of abuse is an excellent wheeze. There are careers and fortunes to be made.
Secret family proceedings hide many abominable practices; they MUST be opened to public scrutiny, and and public servants, including judges, must be accountable to those who pay for them.
Taking children from their parents on the shallowest of pretexts feeds the hugely profitable forced adoption industry. Of course it is only parents who present no danger to their children who have them abducted ; no potential adoptive parent wants a damaged child.
Nick Langford, Portsmouth,
Thank you Camilla Cavendish for exposing that it looks as though as many as 6.000 people stand accused of abuse or potential abuse, that no lawyer can even define.
How is the public to be enabled to understand the 'undefined' reasons why a child can be removed from the care of their natural parents and given to a strangers to be looked after?
No wonder there is so much public suspicion and mistrust in child protection in practice and a lack of faith that children are being served by justice.
No wonder there is the perception that all matters to do with child protection and the very secret family courts are masking covert and sinister goings on!
For these reasons alone it is paramount that something is done to make this situation better.
The sooner the whole 'system' is opened up and made accountable and transparent the better.
If things are enabled just to carry on like they are the children will soon be left with no child protection ability, at all.
Darnthesafetynet, London , W11 1NR
sadly this so wide spread,my grandchildren were removed on the grounds of RISK of emotional abuse,how can this be happening in this country.Adoption targets must be abolished or at least be monitored to ensure the ones they were intended to help are then helped ( older children already in care ) . How can they justify removing a baby the moment it's born,words fail me,it makes no sense. Risk of emotional abuse surely should also not be permitted as grounds to remove small children from caring,loving,law abiding homes/families.
MARY DOCHERTY, dartford , kent / england
I had parents who did their level best by me. BUT I was left handed and they tried to make me write right, sometimes we had shouting rows, they made me go to church, they made me go to bed early. I guess I'd have had to go into 'care' today.
Any 'court' which is secret is wide open to abuse - we are very critical of other countries when we find justice is not seen to be done. We need to apply the same standards to ourselves.
Sally Evans, Rugby,
I Am Amazed That This Sort Of Thing Has Not Been Made Public Before! They Hold Secret Court Cases, But When A Mother Who According To Calderdale Social Services Is Not A Danger To Her Child Records A Meeting To Protect Her Child From Social Services, There Is A Big Fuss About Data Protection ect. The Fact That Their Is Not A Court Order, And The Fact Both Vanessa & Martin Brookes Are Venerable People That Wanted To Protect Their Child From Being Another Adoption Target. Calderdale Social Services & Many More L.A.'s Should Be Very Ashamed That They Employ Tatics Like This To Remove A Child From It's Parents For No Reason Other Than Say It May Happen In The Furture.
If I Had A Forsight Like That I Would Win On The Lollery Or On The Next Race At Wherever. They Are Clearly Abusing The Power That Has been Given Them To Protect Children And Not To Steal Them For Adoption Target's, Which Means Extra Cash For The L.A.'s Involved. I Give Them My Support, & Want To See A Change In he Law.....
Ian Walton, London, United Kingdom
This describes the dire situation families are in perfectly.
There are parents who have been accused of possible emotional abuse and lost their children. the children plead to come home and are being damaged in care homes where they don't want to be.
Any social worker can label a parent with learning disabilities or mental health problems guilty of possible emotional harm in the future.It is discriminatory and would never have happened in the past. If a parent has depression or mild agoraphobia then a social worker labels them emotional harmful to the child because the child may be influenced by the parent.It is cruel and unfair.
In other European countries the child is only removed if there is strong proof of physical or sexual abuse.
The harm done to children through removing the children from parents who love them,although not perfect by social worker's standards,is far more emotionally abusive than leaving them with a family they love and have bonded with.
wendy Johnson, Lincs,
finally some one who mentions that old crock "emotional abuse". My grandchildren were removed from my care after two years for "AT RISK OF" and "POSSIBILITY". Mrs Brookes and her husband deserve to be given the opportunity to prove themselves,also in the tape on you tube there is a statement made by that social worker that he COULD NOT get a court order but then very quickly changed that to MAY NOT,i'm surprised that no one picked that up.Having said Mr and Mrs Brookes should be given the opportunity to prove themselves,i,apparently had an assessment which resulted in a positive outcome ( where exactly did that get me? ) I am left,therefore very dubious and i really don't trust any social worker now and please let us not forget to mention CAFCASS and the legal guardians provided by that organisation set up by the courts ( government ),they have an office in the principal registry of the family division in holborn london. MR and Mrs Brookes have my full support.
MARY DOCHERTY, dartford , kent / england
The every child matters book, states as you say "repeated" I know this lady, she never had an assesment of needs which she was entitled to by SS because she was partially sighted, Her other children also had disabilities, now someone else is parenting her children and being paid lots of money to make sure they dont have the same problems as Vanessa and Martin, this is what makes me sick, had this help and money been offered to Vanessa she would not have been in the position she is today, one of her children are now in a far worse state than if he had stayed at home, why because they cant control him because he is also partialy sighted, so they have shoved him in a EBS school, no love just fear, was that in the best interest of the child, I don't think so.
Christine, Lingfield, England