One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after;
that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life  (Psalm 27:4)
© Elizabeth McDonald     http://www.bayith.org     bayith@blueyonder.co.uk
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The State as Parent
State Intrusion into the Sanctity of the Family

"We must remove the children from the crude influence of their families.
We must take them over and, to speak frankly, nationalize them
"

"[T]he most vulnerable children in our society ... are in our care; we, the state, are their parents"

"The first thing that a totalitarian regime tries to do is to get at the children,
to distance them from the subversive, varied influences of their families,
and indoctrinate them in their rulers' view of the world"

"Above all things, the child needs protecting from the state"


In Good Faith: A Bad Excuse

by Camilla Cavendish, The Times
02 March 2006

 

Since the High Court overruled the General Medical Council and reinstated Professor Sir Roy Meadow it has been 12 days and counting.  Yet the implications have not yet been fully understood.  You can get away with being wrong, the judgment seems to say, as long as you were wrong in good faith.  You should not be disciplined by your professional body, even if that body deems that you have broken its rules.  Pull up the drawbridge.

The GMC drew a different distinction when it found Sir Roy guilty of serious professional misconduct.  It agreed that Meadow had not intended to mislead.  But it judged that his conduct in plucking a grossly misleading static from a study (that there was a 73 million to 1 chance of suffering two sudden infant deaths, as Sally Clark did), while withholding the conclusion of that study (that one cot death makes another more likely) was incompatible with what the public expects from a medical practitioner.  Many of us would agree.  We would concur with the judges in the Clark appeal who "rather suspect that with the graphic reference by Professor Meadow to the chances of backing long-odds winners of the Grand National year after year, this (evidence) may have had a major effect on (the jurors') thinking".  Quite.

As the Royal Society of Statisticians pointed out rather huffily at the time, a simple telephone call to its office would have exposed the faulty logic.  But the call never came.  The lawyers never cross-examined Professor Meadow on that statistic.  So he was not the only one to make a mistake.  There is genuine concern that paediatricians have been discouraged from giving expert opinions by the prospect of being singled out for disciplinary action.  But any expert giving an opinion that could lead to wrongful conviction must surely let that opinion be tested.

To what extent should good intentions exonerate harmful actions?  Who should judge where good faith ends and perjury beings?  "Good Faith" was not a defence that cut much ice with those who this week suspended the four probation officers who let Damien Hanson slip through the system to murder John Monckton.  Harry Fletcher, the assistant general secretary of the National Association of Probation Officers, said on Tuesday that "it is absolutely essential that corporate responsibility is accepted".  If only things were so clear-cut in the world of child-protection.

The recent blurring of the lines over Professor Meadow have weakened accountability but not abolished it.  Angela Cannings and Sally Clark would still have their convictions quashed.  But there are many other parents professing their innocence who have never ascended to High Court niceties.  They are still stuck beneath the glass ceiling of the Family Division.  It is a one-way glass: they can see out, but no one else can see in.  To whom do they turn?

I was recently talking to a mother who was accused of satanic abuse as part of the Western Isles case two years ago - long after the whole notion had been denounced as a myth by a government inquiry.  Her husband was charged with offences against children he had not seen for many years.  He was not allowed to see his own children for a year, even to telephone them for months, and was told that if he returned home the children would be taken away.  This woman has evidence that the social worker involved spent several years trying to trump up charges, all of which were proved false.  But her complaints are still doing the rounds of agencies in Scotland, while the social worker continues to work and organizations purporting to support satanic abuse 'survivors' receive government grants.

This is a familiar story.  In England parents who complain find that the ball always seems to bounce back to the social services department they are complaining about.  Each seems to have a different internal procedure.  Some minor complaints are sometimes upheld and filed away in personnel files; others can inspire quite aggressive reactions.  William Bache, a solicitor who acts for many parents accused of child abuse, believes that too many child abuse allegations are made after parents have complained about a service.  "And with hospitals, one is left with the uneasy feeling that some accusations are made to pre-empt an allegation of negligence."  This is another dimension: doctors can put social workers under pressure to make snap decisions on cases they do not fully understand if a child comes in with head injuries or breathing difficulties.

The great conundrum about the world of child protection is that so many people seem desperate to cover their backs, when so few ever face any sanction for making mistakes.  It is hard to find an equivalent to the suspension of those four probation officers.

After the Clark ruling, the Government announced a review of 28,866 Family Division cases where children had been removed from their parents following accusations of harm.  The review took less than nine months: the local authorities that were asked to review their cases responded rapidly.  Fewer than 20 cases were reopened - resulting in another hard-to-believe statistical ration.  Did this really prove that the system works?  Or that those bodies knew that they would lose their insurance if they admitted liability?

The system is in turmoil.  The restructuring of Cafcass (the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service) has led to waves of experienced practitioners leaving.  Some have become self-employed and are trying to instil common sense from the outside.  Many of those that remain are desperately inexperienced.  The Victoria Climbié tragedy has struck fear into every heart.

One of the most telling glimpses in Lord Laming's Climbié report was the excuse of one of the doctors who saw the girl several times but failed to notice the horrific signs of abuse that eventually killed her.  She was "working very hard chasing bits of information about three potential cases of Manchausen's".  No doubt that doctor was acting in good faith to prove Sir Roy Meadow's pet theory.  But is good faith enough?

 

 

 

"And he that stealeth [a child], and selleth him..."
(Exodus 21:16)

"The words of a talebearer are as wounds,
and they go down into the innermost parts of the belly"
(Proverbs 18:8)

"Every fool will be meddling ... Withdraw thy foot from thy neighbour's house:
lest he be weary of thee, and so hate thee"
(Proverbs 20:3b; 25:17)

"Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? There is more hope of a fool than of him"
(Proverbs 26:12)

"Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees,
and that write grievousness which they have prescribed"
(Isaiah 10:1-3)

"Woe to them that devise iniquity, and work evil upon their beds!
when the morning is light, they practice it, because it is in the power of their hand. ...
So they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage"
(Micah 2:1-2)

"It is impossible but that offences will come: but woe unto him, through whom they come!
It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea,
than that he should offend one of these little ones"
(Luke 17:1-2)

"Let none of you suffer ... as a busybody in other men's matters"
(1 Peter 4:15)

 

"Never, anywhere in the Holy Bible will you find God giving civil government
any authority to rear or direct the rearing of children ...
God told parents, not the government, to 'train up' their children."
(Laura Rogers, Societal Structures vs. Restructuring, as quoted in Berit Kjos, Brave New Schools, p185)

 

 

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