When my son was 4 months, he got rushed into hospital (he was fine) but they noticed what they thought was Mongolian blue spots which is rare for a white baby, so they wanted to take photos of them and us come back in a month to check They were still there.
My wife turned up a month later and they didn’t even have an appointment for us, they didn’t expect us to come back. This was the state of these sort of checks
What a horrific experience for the parents highlighting the wicked excesses of the nanny state.
Don’t let these stories trick you into believing the myth that social services regularly over step their boundaries and take away children from safe and functioning homes.
The reality is they very often aren’t able to take kids away from homes they know are abusive. Because it’s not bad enough.
Mistakes happen and it’s awful for the parents. It shouldn’t take so long to solve and that’s a problem with our courts being unable to handle the load they are under.
But overall our social services are not some tyrant waiting for any chance to remove the child from their home.
I was a firefighter and I’ve reported safeguarding concerns so many times and then returned to the same house months later with nothing changed. I often felt like they didn’t have enough power. Not that they overstepped.
Baby taken into care for six months because initial tests were missed, and then the legal process ground on through two medical specialist examinations.
If a person kidnapped a baby for six months, the judge would throw away the key. I’m not suggesting compensation be paid but it would be nice to know that the council and family courts have tightened up their procedures in light of this case.
When I was a toddler I’d only wear wellies, but I’d keep taking them off, swapping them, losing them at play school.
So my mum wrote my name on the inside of the wellies in felt tip pen.
The ink rubbed off onto my legs and made my back of calves black and blue.
The school phoned social services and told them I was being beaten. They turn up at the home, and my mum had to convince the investigator that I wasn’t being beaten around the legs. She did this by licking her thumb and wiping the bruise off my legs.
But we were still ‘on file’ for years.
Maybe an unpopular opinion, but I feel nothing but sympathy for the professionals who make these decisions. They’re human beings working under extreme pressure and sometimes they get things wrong.
Of course that doesn’t mean I feel no sympathy for the families caught in the middle, but when it’s baby P the media says the authorities didn’t do enough and allowed a child to die. When the pendulum swings the other way, as it did here, they’re child snatching monsters who acted too rashly. They’re damned if they do and damned if they don’t.
I spent half an hour being interviewed after I took my daughter to A&E for checking after she fell over with a chopstick in her mouth and bled everywhere. Eventually I couldn’t answer a question and the administrator was obviously very disappointed that, actually, this happened at school.
How are they going to get this overzealous about 1 bruise yet allow multiple kids to be beaten to death after months to years of torture?
I reported my neighbour to social services and the RSPCA multiple times. They never even came round. We had 5 years of hell living next to them.
I think people here are angry at the social workers (fair enough) but don’t understand that the paediatrician in the first instance said categorically the injury was no accidental (ie caused by physical abuse) for a baby which is very serious, and then a judge decided on the basis of this and the council and independent social workers recommendation that the child should live with family members.
Social workers cannot override the professional paediatrician, and therefore they had to get a second opinion. Social workers are not doctors and legally cannot say whether an injury is non accidental or not.
I think people are often annoyed at social workers for their decision making, but in this case I can’t see how they could have done any differently?
There’s so much more to this story. Social services don’t turn up on day 1 and take a baby. It takes months at best and it’s a last resort. The parents are liars and we should all back social services in cases where a baby is at risk. If it’s a mistake then it should be put right later.
Well (as a social services child) they parents will be able to prove it’s not their fault.
So reading the article they couldn’t adequately explain the bruise on a 3(ish) month olds chest.
The Social followed the procedures.
The Judge also wasn’t happy with then explanation.
The baby was with placed family (possibley with supervised contact, it doesn’t say?)
Blood tests were ordered and carried out, showing a minor blood disease.
The council then withdrew their application with CAFCASS agreeing.
The family agree it was the right way, even though its been shite for them.
Seems like the system was working as intended, with the child’s interests and safety at the centre of it.
I feel sorry for the parents and child here but reading the comments I feel more sorry for the social workers who are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. No wonder there’s such a shortage of them, which of course only leads to more mistakes being made – in this case the baby being in care for six months but in some leading to the death of a child.
15 comments
When my son was 4 months, he got rushed into hospital (he was fine) but they noticed what they thought was Mongolian blue spots which is rare for a white baby, so they wanted to take photos of them and us come back in a month to check
They were still there.
My wife turned up a month later and they didn’t even have an appointment for us, they didn’t expect us to come back. This was the state of these sort of checks
What a horrific experience for the parents highlighting the wicked excesses of the nanny state.
Don’t let these stories trick you into believing the myth that social services regularly over step their boundaries and take away children from safe and functioning homes.
The reality is they very often aren’t able to take kids away from homes they know are abusive. Because it’s not bad enough.
Mistakes happen and it’s awful for the parents. It shouldn’t take so long to solve and that’s a problem with our courts being unable to handle the load they are under.
But overall our social services are not some tyrant waiting for any chance to remove the child from their home.
I was a firefighter and I’ve reported safeguarding concerns so many times and then returned to the same house months later with nothing changed. I often felt like they didn’t have enough power. Not that they overstepped.
Baby taken into care for six months because initial tests were missed, and then the legal process ground on through two medical specialist examinations.
If a person kidnapped a baby for six months, the judge would throw away the key. I’m not suggesting compensation be paid but it would be nice to know that the council and family courts have tightened up their procedures in light of this case.
When I was a toddler I’d only wear wellies, but I’d keep taking them off, swapping them, losing them at play school.
So my mum wrote my name on the inside of the wellies in felt tip pen.
The ink rubbed off onto my legs and made my back of calves black and blue.
The school phoned social services and told them I was being beaten. They turn up at the home, and my mum had to convince the investigator that I wasn’t being beaten around the legs. She did this by licking her thumb and wiping the bruise off my legs.
But we were still ‘on file’ for years.
Maybe an unpopular opinion, but I feel nothing but sympathy for the professionals who make these decisions. They’re human beings working under extreme pressure and sometimes they get things wrong.
Of course that doesn’t mean I feel no sympathy for the families caught in the middle, but when it’s baby P the media says the authorities didn’t do enough and allowed a child to die. When the pendulum swings the other way, as it did here, they’re child snatching monsters who acted too rashly. They’re damned if they do and damned if they don’t.
I spent half an hour being interviewed after I took my daughter to A&E for checking after she fell over with a chopstick in her mouth and bled everywhere. Eventually I couldn’t answer a question and the administrator was obviously very disappointed that, actually, this happened at school.
How are they going to get this overzealous about 1 bruise yet allow multiple kids to be beaten to death after months to years of torture?
I reported my neighbour to social services and the RSPCA multiple times. They never even came round. We had 5 years of hell living next to them.
I think people here are angry at the social workers (fair enough) but don’t understand that the paediatrician in the first instance said categorically the injury was no accidental (ie caused by physical abuse) for a baby which is very serious, and then a judge decided on the basis of this and the council and independent social workers recommendation that the child should live with family members.
Social workers cannot override the professional paediatrician, and therefore they had to get a second opinion. Social workers are not doctors and legally cannot say whether an injury is non accidental or not.
I think people are often annoyed at social workers for their decision making, but in this case I can’t see how they could have done any differently?
There’s so much more to this story. Social services don’t turn up on day 1 and take a baby. It takes months at best and it’s a last resort. The parents are liars and we should all back social services in cases where a baby is at risk. If it’s a mistake then it should be put right later.
Well (as a social services child) they parents will be able to prove it’s not their fault.
So reading the article they couldn’t adequately explain the bruise on a 3(ish) month olds chest.
The Social followed the procedures.
The Judge also wasn’t happy with then explanation.
The baby was with placed family (possibley with supervised contact, it doesn’t say?)
Blood tests were ordered and carried out, showing a minor blood disease.
The council then withdrew their application with CAFCASS agreeing.
The family agree it was the right way, even though its been shite for them.
Seems like the system was working as intended, with the child’s interests and safety at the centre of it.
I feel sorry for the parents and child here but reading the comments I feel more sorry for the social workers who are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. No wonder there’s such a shortage of them, which of course only leads to more mistakes being made – in this case the baby being in care for six months but in some leading to the death of a child.
Oh look [reach plc](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reach_plc) who owns the paper…..
Comments are closed.