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SOCIAL WORKERS ‘STEAL’ CHILDREN TO MEET ADOPTION TARGETS

Dated June 2007

Babies and children are being forcibly removed from their parents so that councils can meet adoption targets, a number of MPs have recently claimed.

Lib Dem MP John Hemming tabled a Commons motion to address what he calls the ‘national scandal’ of children being taken from their birth parents and put into care to enable them to become eligible for adoption.

The motion warns that ‘local authorities and staff are incentivised to ensure children are adopted’ with the consequence that ‘increasing numbers of babies being taken into care, not for the safety of the infant, but because they are easy to get adopted’.

In 2000, ministers set a target that by March 2006, the number of children in local authority being adopted should increase by 50%.  The latest figures reveal the number of ‘looked after’ children being adopted had gone up from 2,700 in 2000 to 3,700 in 2004, an increase of 37.7%. 

Councils receive subsidies depending on how successfully they meet adoption targets.  For example, in 2002 the London Borough of Bromley made an agreement with the Government for the three years, designed to improve services in 13 areas, including adoption. The council was told that if it could increase the numbers of children being adopted from public care by 50%, it would receive £0.5 million in additional funding.  Kent County Council was rewarded £21 million for meeting and surpassing their adoption targets.  Many fear this was made possible only because the Council first removed children from their parents and placed them in care where they became eligible for adoption.

‘I have evidence that 1,000 children a year are being taken from their birth parents, not because they were being harmed, but to satisfy Government targets’ the Birmingham Yardley MP has claimed.

‘There are a number of cases I have looked into where social workers have removed a baby from its birth mother without proper grounds’, Mr Hemming says.  ‘This is about breaking the bonds between mother and baby and meeting targets set by government on adoption.’

Other cases abound where children remain with their natural parents but are placed under ‘care orders’, under intense supervision from social workers.  This supervision means that some social workers are ‘gradually taking them away from the parents, step by step, and giving them to someone else,’ the Mr. Hemming has said.

‘John Hemming is right’ said the highly respected organisation the Association for Improvements in the Maternity Services.  ‘Children, particularly newborns, are being snatched away for adoption, and local councils criticised if they don’t meet the adoption targets.  We are appalled by the bias and lack of accuracy in many social workers’ reports, and the selective evidence they give to the courts, which then use the information to decide whether a child is removed from a family.’

Camilla Cavendish, a columnist for The Times, has investigated a number of cases where social workers have removed children on the basis of completely false charges.  Some of these parents eventually got their children back after long and protracted court battles; others were not so fortunate.  ‘The number of calls I receive from parents, some who have lost their children for ever and some who have got them back after dreadful battles, makes me increasingly concerned that social workers and experts are manufacturing evidence’ Mrs. Cavendish reported. (Read full article HERE.)

In one notable case, reported in the Daily Mail earlier this year, social workers actually forged documentary evidence against a parent and falsified existing medical records in order to prove that the mother suffered a mental illness.

SECRET COURTS
Freeing for adoption was first introduced in England and Wales under the Adoption Act 1976, following the Report of the Departmental Committee on the Adoption of Children chaired by Sir William Houghton in 1972. The Children Act 2004 later established secret family courts to oversee the removal of children from their birth parents.  These courts use contempt of court laws to prevent parents going public with their stories.

A Parliamentary question recently revealed that the judges in family courts regularly send more than 200 people a year to prison - for example, for contempt of court for breach of a contact order - in strict secrecy with no public hearing at all.

The secrecy of the family courts means that if an MP does his democratic duty to check out a constituents’ heart-rending story, he will be held in contempt of court, as would the parent approaching their MP for help.

In October 2005, more than 200 MPs from all parties signed a EDM calling for an end to the secrecy of the family courts.  The motion urged ‘the Government to remove the veil of secrecy form the working of the Children Act 2004’.

BABY REMOVED ‘SAME DAY IT WAS BORN’
The children of parents with learning difficulties are also a prime target for social workers.  According to a BBC News report, ‘It is increasingly common for people with learning difficulties to have children.  However, researchers found that in 50% of cases children were being taken from their natural parents.’

Hundreds of other children are being removed from their homes on the grounds that their mothers suffer from ‘Manchausen’s Syndrome by Proxy’. The controversial disorder allegedly compels a mother to make up illnesses in her child, or even to purposely harm him to attract attention to herself.  MSBP was first ‘discovered’ – some would say invented – by Professor Sir. Roy Meadow, a controversial paediatrician who was struck off the medical register two years ago for giving ‘misleading and incorrect’ testimony in the case of Sally Clark, a mother wrongly jailed for killing her two infant sons. Professor Meadow was found guilty of serious professional misconduct.  However, in an appeal last February, the High Court ruled that he is free to continue his work.

As a result of Dr. Meadow’s scientifically unproved theory, scores of mothers have been sent to prison while hundreds more have had their children removed for adoption.

Further Resources:

Children taken by Social Services returned Read Article...

Couple in bid to get their family back Read Article...

Social Services blasted over Adoption Case Read Article...

Social Services blasted over Adoption Case Read Article...

The Stolen Children Sunday Mail Read Article...

Parents win right to keep fourth child Read Article...

The campaign goes on Read Article...

Opening Up Family Courts End the Secrecy in Family Courts Read Article...

The decisions behind closed doors Read Article...

My baby will be taken the moment its born Read Article...

Couple who fled UK may keep baby Read Article...

The forces of secrecy are prevailing Read Article...

The state stole our children Read Article...

MP claims babies taken for adoption targets Read Article...

Babies being snatched for Adoption Aims Read Article...

Babies taken into care 'to meet targets Read Article...

Babies 'removed to meet targets Read Article...

How the State stole my daughter Read Article...

Social Workers attempt to abduct Baby Read Article...