Real Fathers for Justice - News

Ray Barry in the media

Wed, 9 May 2012 16:28:15 +0000

Rffj spokesman on BBC radio West Midlands this morning

Ray was speaking about absent fathers that do not pay child support, listen again >Link Here< go to around 53 minutes.

Belfast Decontamination

Wed, 2 May 2012 10:04:10 +0000

Real Fathers for Justice N Ireland Branch stormed Belfast Health and Social Care Office in Belfast yesterday morning.

An Rffj decontamination unit was dispatched with the aim of cleaning up family law in Northern Ireland, police were called when protesters stormed the social services office and staged a sit in.

Regional coordinator Pete Morris said "We wanted to ask social worker managers about their policies of removing children from loving parents, by using reports from often unqualified experts that may not have even met the family involved"

"It's been widely reported that 'experts' like Dr Hibbert were paid huge sums of money, used to vindicate social workers decisions to remove children from parents and put them into care"

"No one would answer our questions, but we know secrecy laws are fuelling a whole industry surrounding the care system"

"This is just the start of the decontaminations in Northern Ireland, we plan to storm the family courts too"

If you would like to get involved with Rffj N/I email: n.ireland@realfathersforjustice.org

BrS BidloW's Fathers & Children

Tue, 1 May 2012 22:51:32 +0000

'A song going out to all the fathers', from new artist BrS BidloW.

Do expert witnesses harm family courts cases?

Tue, 1 May 2012 07:22:21 +0000

A special report by Channel 4 News raises more questions about the role and influence of experts used by family courts to decide the fate of children and their families.

An investigation reveals how flawed expert testimony from paediatricians and psychiatrists is having a profound and disturbing effect on some family cases as they move through the system - at its most extreme, ending with children being wrongfully removed from their parents.

Last month we reported on startling new research which raised a number of serious issues about the quality of evidence given by psychologists in family courts. Among the findings was the fact that some 20 per cent of psychologists were not deemed qualified and that some 65 per cent of expert reports were judged to be poor or very poor quality.

At the time, the Family Justice Council - which part-funded the research - said that it didn't believe that the failings identified would lead to perverse decisions being made by the courts.

It has sparked a huge debate about the role experts play in the family courts - and not just pscyhologists. We have spoken to a number of families where "perverse" decisions have indeed been made on the basis of expert assessments, including one woman, Sharon, who lost her children for years, only to win them back when the expert testimony was deemed to have been disproven.

Sharon's story

The secrecy of the family courts means we cannot relate precise details of Sharon's case. But it hinged on experts appointed by the family court.

Struggling with four young children, Sharon turned to social services for help only to find herself in court her threatened with losing her children. Soon after, her worst fears came true as the court ordered the removal of the three boys and hardest of all - the adoption of her youngest child.

Sharon told Channel 4 News of the moment of her farewell meeting with her youngest child. "I wasn't allowed to say goodbye, I wasn't allowed to say you know I love you, I miss you...I had to go into the room with my four year old little girl, give her a cuddle just act normal....when I came out of there, Social Services told me that I wouldn't see her again.

But she never gave up fighting the experts' opinions of her and in an exceptionally rare case won her daughter back from the brink of adoption and gradually regained contact with the three boys also placed into care by the courts.

Debate

The debate around the role and quality of experts on the family courts is welcomed by SOME experts themselves.

Dr Shazad Amin, a consultant psychiatrist and an expert witness for the family courts, told Channel 4 News that there are improvements to be made in the way experts are used and the quality of their work is scrutinised. But he also told us that experts are only one part of a complex process and that their role should not be seen in isolation.

"It is not the role of the expert to decide whether or not the child is removed or sent back to a birth family or is put up for adoption. That decision is solely for the judge," says Dr Amin. "A whole plethora of information is used by the judge to decide whether or not a child goes back to their parents or is put up for adoption."

Meanwhile, the Government says that reforming family justice and child protection is a critical priority. It wants to speed-up the process and ensure that it is focused on the needs of children - and it wants to improve the way experts are used as well and is working with others such as the Legal Services Commission, experts groups and local authorities to develop quality standards for them..

But any reform comes too late for Sharon as she tries to rebuild her life with her children. "I was ...punished very, very badly," she told Channel 4 News. "I lost my children for mistakes that the experts felt that I have made during my parenting and I'd like to ask the experts um what's going to happen to them," The experts have "absolutely ruined a whole family... and I'd like to know ...where's the justice."

Where's Me Kids? Where's Me Home?

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 08:37:36 +0000

Parody of Britain's Got Talent Mr Zip song Wheres Me Keys Wheres Me Phone audition. Mr Lip (aka The Rhyme Minister) raps to UK Prime Minister David Cameron, asking if he's ever been in a situation where he lost his kids and his home.

Kids in the Middle

Sat, 7 Apr 2012 08:50:43 +0000

>Click Here<
Brian Hill's bittersweet observational film features the story of a separated family whose break up is so acrimonious and the parents are so loath to come in to any contact with one another at all, that it becomes impossible for the father to see his children without the involvement of a contact centre.

This powerful and intimate film explores the lengths to which dads will go to see their kids, the impact of this situation on the children, and the motivations and anxieties that have led mums ands dads to this most specific of locations.

Hundreds of children involved in bitter custody battles are being abducted and taken abroad

Wed, 4 Apr 2012 08:39:55 +0000

By Steve Doughty - Mail

2 April 2012

Hundreds of children involved in bitter custody battles are being abducted and taken abroad, a report revealed yesterday.

Immigration and the rising number of families where at least one parent has links to another country are behind a fast-rising number of international disputes.

In 2007 there were 27 children caught up in such cases but this is expected to rise to 240 this year.
65 per cent of children born in London in 2010 have one foreign parent. It is when these couples split that messy custody battles, across different countries can take place

65 per cent of children born in London in 2010 have one foreign parent. It is when these couples split that messy custody battles, across different countries can take place

The leap comes despite the introduction by Tony Blair of child passports. Labour said that making every child have its own travel document would stop parents taking children abroad in defiance of court orders.

The figures emerged in a report by Lord Justice Thorpe, chief of the Office of the Head of International Family Justice. The body was set up in 2005 to try to ensure that courts in Britain and abroad work together when one parent flees with a child either from or to Britain.

The Appeal judge said: �Sixty-five per cent of children born in London in 2010 had a least one foreign parent. These figures illustrate the potential for significant future growth in international family litigation.�

He added: �The tendency of dangerous parents to bolt when social services are exercising legitimate protective powers is all too common.�

In Europe most cases involve children taken to or from Germany and Poland, the report said. It cited one case in which two Polish children were taken from their home and brought to England by their father and uncle.

Within four days of their arrival they were taken into police protection having been found in a makeshift shelter near live train tracks.

The report said communications between English and Polish social workers had broken down, and �it was proving difficult to establish who had jurisdiction in the matter, whether the children should be returned to Poland and under what conditions�.

It added: �We are seeing a rising number of these types of cases, mostly involving Eastern European countries.�

The report said Lord Justice Thorpe�s organisation tries to act as a �help desk for judges and lawyers at home and abroad who have seen their cases stalled and delayed because two countries� legal systems are involved and when international conventions guaranteeing children�s rights are being flouted by overseas courts�.

Italy and Poland have no judge that British authorities can talk to. The report also complained of difficulties dealing with courts in India, Egypt and Mexico. However it praised swift communications with judges in Germany, Australia, Nigeria and the U.S.

Yesterday�s figures show the main effect of child passports has been to bring in big fees for the Treasury. A child passport costs �49.

�FAMILY COURT KILLED ME�

Mon, 2 Apr 2012 18:25:18 +0000

Cornwall Community News

Social workers and family lawyers are suspected of killing a South West father because he tried to stop them abducting his children

Gary Jenkins was found hanged in the second week of March.

He left a note saying he was driven to suicide by a secret family tribunal, in which social workers had stolen his children, and blackmailed him for the infants return.

The tribunal banned the supposedly �free press� from reporting his case, their abuse of his children � and even finally their victims death.

But in a final desperate act of defiance the terrorised Dad used Facebook to make sure his friends and family in Devon and Cornwall knew what had happened.

Gary�s final Wall post reads: �Change your system so dads can have their 50/50 rights.�

�Fathers have no chance � I could never put my kid through what I went through.�

Shortly after leaving his explicit and clear political message, the tortured father was found dead by police.

The Conservative Party promised when elected to introduce fair and equal 50/50 parental rights for fathers.

But they lied, and depending on the outcome of an inquest, David Cameron may legally have Gary�s blood on his hands.

Friends of the victims said Mr Cameron was morally responsible to Gary�s children for the loss of their father.

Gary came from nearby Exeter but close friends in East Cornwall devastated by his loss told CCN of the tragedy after local papers lied that they �couldn�t run the story�.
One friend told us: �Gary fought hard to see his children but he kept saying he had �no chance� in the family courts.

�He couldn�t tell anyone what was going on because the proceedings are all censored and he started to feel suicidal.

�Social services set out to kill him in my opinion. He wanted equality for Dads, and they know that will mean an end to all their power.

�Most of all though he just couldn�t deal with the fact that the state had taken his children away and he was powerless.

�It�s a terrible tragedy. He was a good Dad. The family lawyers and the social workers who killed him are the ones that should be on trial.�

There is a tremendous cover up going on of an epidemic of male suicide in Devon, Cornwall and beyond directly caused by our social workers and �family court� staff.

Four thousand men every year suicide in the UK: a 70 per-cent rise in less than a decade.

Cornwall�s feminist Coroner Dr Emma Carlyon is a notorious for recording absurd verdicts to cover up the truth behind male suicide in the Duchy.

Married to a social worker, she once ruled that a man who announced: �I want to see my kid � I�m going to kill myself� � suicided because his father abused him: a claim for which there was no evidence of any kind.

Even sensible establishment figures are too scared to criticise or blame the reviled court system and its tyrannical off-shoots.

Other officials bend over backwards not to blame the hated CSA in cases where suicide is often beyond reasonable doubt.

In Gary�s case � none of the local newspapers reported his death.

There are no reporting restrictions surrounding the reporting of a death, and no rules of sub judice concerning Coroners hearings as there are in suspected crimes.

The only pathetic excuse they could give is that the �family court� Gary blamed for his death has itself gagged them � and they are obeying the gagging order.

But campaigners terrorised by the secret tribunals are increasingly rising up against their tyrannical control of the corporate media, police and courts.

The Civil Rights groups are revealing details of suicides of fathers caused by the law online.

Here in the free press, let there be no doubt among our readers as to the reason Gary Jenkins gave for why he died.

Here is his Facebook post in full:

�Change your system so that Dads can have 50/50 rights.

�Fathers have no chance even if we are the best Dads we ever wanted to be, as I could never put my kid through what I went through.

�I will miss a lot of you, hope you are happy now and may think of all the good times some of us had, but I�m afraid enough is enough�..no more bullshit here � you have broke me.�

Do you know who the social workers and �family lawyers� were involved in Gary�s case and whose actions Gary said led to his death? Abducting children is a crime under EU law. The Convention on Human Rights guarantees citizens a right to a family life. Name and shame the culprits in Garys case and help us expose them in the public interest, and bring them to justice. Mail us or just leave a note below

Are you being driven to the edge by child abusers posing as welfare officials, lawyers and police but acting undemocratically and outside of their role in a free and civil society? Don�t despair! :D Contact CCN today. We will do everything in our power to expose any injustice that is being done to you. Don�t phone the local paper: they share offices with a firm of family lawyers. Contact us now

�Wishes and feelings� � the new toolkit against fathers

Sat, 31 Mar 2012 14:53:45 +0000

In the UNCRC, ECRC, and Children Act 1989 the wishes and feelings of children are to be brought into consideration when making decisions in family law. Children are supposed to be able to contribute to proceedings involving them. The caveat in the Children Act 1989 is that their views are to be viewed in the light of their age and understanding. Ignorance of the true meaning of the caveat enables wishes and feelings to be a weapon routinely used to expunge fathers from the lives of their children. I believe it is the means intended to undermine any positive move forwards in family law modernisation and maintain the current levels of industry for family law professionals.

Wishes and feelings has become a battleground. The well-minded and relatively unexplored concept has the potential to develop into a science quickly placing the UK at the top of child development specialism in the world. The opportunity for expertly developing a structured set of procedures, backed by monitored principals, open to public observation and having the opportunity to critically analyse the expressions of thousands of troubled children interviewed under varying circumstances would yield massive benefits for society within a very short time.
If we could understand troubled childhood, we could improve it. Whatever the circumstance, wishes and feelings could be the answer.

However, as always appears to the case in the UK, we go for the cheap option. We undermine the genuine interests of children for profit elsewhere and justify it with good sounding - but specious - marketing slogans. Enter the fanfare called the �Wishes and Feelings� questionnaire/pack.

Instead of a scientifically-guided national program run by accountable experts, the UK produces a cheap and convenient questionnaire administered by unaccountable, hidden social workers and pseudo-social workers. According to the Parliamentary Ombudsman, Public Accounts Committee, Ofsted, and senior judiciary to name but a few, many of these operators are just about literate enough to read the pack themselves. Furthermore, not only are they administering the packs, they are interpreting what the children say. None of them have qualifications relating to empirical concepts in contemporary attachment theory, shared parenting or parental alienation. Somebody has deliberately left these cardinal pre-requisites off of the training menu.

Please read on by clicking the link below:

The child interviews are not recorded. Again, we have one-off situational tools which, once used in an interview, cannot be evaluated. The administrator has sole monopoly of evidence and of interpretation which cannot be subsequently challenged.
Even when reporting verbatim what the child says, some of the content will be included, and some not. A social worker may report this and not that. Practitioners may not care to ascertain and promote from the limited data that which may contradict their own financial or professional interests. Increasingly, day by day, we are exposed to news revealing how corrupt and inept many family law professionals really are behind their cloak of secret courts. The dangers of equipping them with tools to conceal their ignorance or legitimise their financial and ideological frauds is very real and present.

I know of cases where children saying they wanted to see or live with their fathers were ignored. The fathers were accused of coercing the children. But if they say they do not want to see their fathers, that is what happens. If there are siblings, the one who says no to seeing their father over-rides the ones who say yes. But in reality there is no discrimination between adults and child voices; the voice of the child is only paramount when it coincides with what authority is going to do anyway.

There are two prominent persons who could team up and halt this scourge in its tracks. One is an expert in his field; a leading child development and parental alienation guru or �precious resource� (LJ Wall, [2008] EWCA Civ 1181). Prominent person number 1 is Dr Kirk Weir.

A summation of Dr Weir�s research paper:
High‐conflict contact disputes: Evidence of the extreme unreliability of some children's ascertainable wishes and feelings.Weir, Kirk; Family Court Review, Vol 49(4), Oct, 2011. pp. 788-800. [Journal Article] to the FLBA in November 2009 is here: http://pinktape.co.uk/courts/wishes-feelings-reports-no-panacea/

The Abstract (Summary) to the research paper itself is here, along with other research snips. There is one CA case law, but note that the matter had to go to CA to be dealt with.

In the article above, he states that in his practice, he reunites even the most intractable children with their fathers after years of alienation. In the vast majority of cases he reunites the natural pairings with very little problem at all. But he is expensive and his success diverts money from the procrastinating professionals who�d much rather meet in courts ad infinitum to avoid his most obvious remedy; put the father and child together under unobtrusive observation and let nature take its course in swift expression of the existing natural bond.

Dr Weir candidly expresses that wishes and feelings packs measure, well, not very much. In the same way as IQ tests, which have condemned millions to death and lesser opportunities by their dogmatic incorporation into immigration and educational policies, far more important and relevant information is actually left out than measured. How on earth do you measure a natural bond on a piece of paper? Also, how does a child relate what is going on with that piece of paper to the actual purpose of the assessment? How does the child understand the implications? The assessments are designed to be simple to administer by a monkey. It has been established that social workers and supply teachers and whoever else may be available to 'administer' the wishes and feelings pack have no training in the concepts of attachment, shared parenting, parental alienation or any kind of discourse analysis. But the untrained monkey�s interpretation rules.

Also, whatever little validity the wishes and feelings pack has is scrubbed out when the child has been denied a meaningful relationship with the estranged parent for even a short period. If the child has regular contact but was told off last time round, or some other normal life event was uncomfortable during contact, it could affect the child�s response. Training a child to swim, for instance, takes months and inevitably involves the odd uncomfortable moment � but if the child gets a wishes and feelings pack within a few days he/she may say something silly and never get to squeal in delight at the beauty of boldly swimming in the deep open waters of the Mediterrenean Sea next to her trainer father, like mine did last year. Thanks to a glitch in her wishes and feelings, noted by a social worker who I have established has no knowledge of the circles my daughter has to move in, my little girl -and her brother - may never see me again. Her superficial and untested 'wishes' could drown out his - which go in the polar opposite direction. He is older and lived with me when the family was intact. She has only ever had the measly levels of contact directed by the courts.

So, in favour of lazy guestimates, the warnings and advices of true, hands-on experts fall on the deaf ears of elitist, untrained family judges, often themselves with dysfunctional family and/or boarding school backgrounds who sit on their arse all day but loudly proclaim to know it all better - yet produce the most startling directions. For instance, in the PC&S Scandal, Wall severely criticized the evidence of social workers in court but assisted in sexing up their story to nonetheless legitimize the needless forcible adoption of a child. He was subsequently ruled as a serial human rights abuser when the case reached the ECtHR, but the mother did not get her baby back. In the cited case where Wall agrees to Dr Weir�s �precious resource� status, Wall acknowledges Dr Weir�s expertise, but ignores his advice. So, perhaps sadly, Wall is not the other prominent person who could team up with Dr Weir, as their practicalities clash. Perhaps, with such a capricious mindset, Wall may be well advised to distance himself from mental health professionals.

Enter Lord Justice Coleridge. The man many feel will replace Wall. If Coleridge�s deeds are as good as his recent rhetoric, it can�t happen too soon. Of course, we do not at all subscribe to the belief that judges should be at the top of the tree. They should be at the bottom, rubberstamping and giving legal weight to the advices of the likes of Dr Weir, not deciding on his validity.

Here I must digress and caveat the previous sentence. I am not speaking of �independent� witnesses disconnected from their disciplines and producing reports to suit their clients. Reports now forensically revealed as specializing not in expert opinion, but the fraudulent reporting of mental health conditions so their clients can win over opposition in lowly family courts where the value placed on and the need for rigorous evidence is obviated. You see, an �independent� expert can be controlled better because the client can pay another charlatan if he/she does not produce to order. And, being �independent� means their illegal activity creates distance between the client, more often than not a local authority, and liability. (Lord Justice Wall likes independent witnesses). Perhaps the control and liability issues are why there are no hands on psychologists working directly for CAFCASS.
No, I write of real experts tied into their professions. Altruistic, highly qualified and experienced specialists standing on principals and good practice. Someone like Dr Lowenstein (I had to get him in), and Dr Weir.

Anyway, back to LJ Coleridge. He too has made some inexplicable draconian howlers, not least in the case of Mark Harris. But if his recent public expressions are not the copycat marketing (�everything is ok in the family courts, us judges know what we are doing�) of the current Family Division President, there could be some hope. You see, like Dr Weir, Coleridge now, albeit maybe belatedly, believes in Principals. Perhaps he is mindful of ingratiating the Government with the power to stop his accession, as Jack Straw almost did, and should have actually done, with Wall. Coleridge slammed the Family Justice Review for being all about nothing but procedure. And there we find the link as to why he also has grave concerns about the �blue sky� wishes and feelings of children being too prominent:
http://www.judiciary.gov.uk/Resources/JCO/Documents/Speeches/speech-coleridge-j-assoc-lawyers-for-children.pdf

An excellent article on Coleridge by Catriona Murdoch succinctly sums up the problem in two of her paragraphs:
�The crux of the problems facing family courts said Coleridge is two-fold: a reduction in the perceived authority of the family court and the family judge and secondly, an increasing tendency to �listening uncritically to the unfiltered views and wishes of children� in order to decide what is best for the child.
This lack of authority is what Coleridge perceives as a �major contributing factor� to the problems facing the family courts today. Court orders are treated with impunity, �regarded as helpful advice rather than binding edicts to be obeyed�. Coleridge quoted another judge, the then Mr Justice Munby (now Munby LJ), in the infamous case where a �wholly deserving father� left court in tears, (Re D (intractable contract dispute) 2004 1FLR 1226), Munby J, claimed that �flabby judicial responses� encourage the very impunity judges are trying hard to avoid.

Basically what Coleridge is concerned about is judges arming themselves with tools such as the wishes and feelings results and lazily issuing directions by simply taking the results at face value. The government response is that eventually their discretion gets curbed, as is happening under His Justice Ryder�s changes. That�s because you cannot teach an old dogma new tricks. But whether Coleridge is concerned about the interests of children or the potential loss of judicial power has yet to be seen. The belief that the two go hand in hand has most certainly been shown to be fallacious.

Note the word �uncritical� in Coleridge�s speech extract above. True critical psychologists, for example, are independent of any department, dogma, or corporate interest, and their critique flows across inter and trans- boundaries, practices and cultures, always seeking to update and optimize practices. A network of assessment centers run by the NHS on Dr Weir�s model, obtaining real, current, wide ranging, high value qualitative and quantitative interview child data, alongside a rebuttable presumption of meaningful relationships to fathers would soon negate the need for swathes of family courts. We could sell the building off, and pension some judges off. The good child lawyers will still be needed. I have no idea who would want the other feminist 80%, least of all the inflammatory gobshite trying to get between me and my children and whose papers I tore up in court yesterday. She had tried to grab the paper but, for some reason, refused to accept when I offered the pieces. Radical Feminists....you just can't please them.

In family law, optimization threatens legal income - and does not live long. It soon gets stamped out. For instance, the Legal Service Commission has withdrawn funding for Dr Weir�s assessments, on the callous pretence that he is too expensive. Such is the value placed on solving cases. Better to �save money� by revolving the cases through family court doors forever. What really matters, and what will always be protected above all else, is the interests of a grasping legal elite, and their servile New Stasi social workers.

The 'experts' who break up families:

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 07:03:42 +0000

The terrifying story of the prospective MP branded an unfit mother by experts who'd never met her - a nightmare shared by many other families

By Sue Reid - Mail
29 March 2012

A little over a year ago, Lucy Allan led what most people would regard as an eminently respectable life. The middle-class mother, a Tory councillor, was happily married to her stockbroker husband, Robin, and doted on their ten-year-old son, who loved going to school and was a passionate cricketer.

Indeed, such was Mrs Allan�s standing in the community that this accountant and former investment banker was on David Cameron�s A-list of potential MPs and a prospective Conservative candidate at the last election. She devoted her spare time to her council duties. Twice a month, she sat on the local fostering panel, which oversaw the removal of children from their parents and placed them with new families.

It was heart-rending work, as she recalls. �At each fostering meeting we were presented with horrifying cases of abusive parents, almost always depicted as �substance abusers�, mentally unstable or �unable to put the needs of their children over their own needs�.

�Often, this portrayal was supported by an expert report from a psychiatrist, psychologist or medical doctor,� says Lucy.

�It never occurred to me, or any member of the panel, that the information we were presented with might be a distorted, twisted fiction � or that the reports were anything other than independent.�

Now, her view has changed. She suspects that many of the damning reports were written by experts who had never met the families in question, to suit the wishes of social workers under pressure from the Government to increase the number of children adopted.

As a result of this process, more and more children are being taken into state foster care.

So why has her faith in the system she once facilitated been shattered? Because, thanks to a bewildering chain of events, this eloquent, educated woman found herself under attack from social workers and fighting to stop her own son being taken into care.

Social workers took away our baby for nine months: With no evidence against them, couple were banned from looking after their son

Hers is a Kafkaesque story involving family experts who passed judgment on her fitness as a mother without, in some cases, even meeting her.

Lucy�s story is particularly disturbing in the light of a report released this month which found that decisions about the futures of thousands of children are being based on flawed evidence from well-paid �experts�, some of whom are unqualified and, time and again, never meet the families concerned.

The damning study by Professor Jane Ireland, a forensic psychologist, examined more than 127 expert witness reports used in family court cases in three areas of England. She found that 90 per cent were produced by clinicians who no longer practise, but instead earn their living entirely as �professional expert witnesses� paid for by council social work departments. Sixty-five per cent of the reports were poorly or very poorly carried out.

This has led to accusations from MPs, lawyers and families that many of the experts are on a gravy train � �hired guns� paid to write precisely what social workers want to read.

This month the Mail reported how just such an accusation has been levelled against one leading psychiatrist, Dr George Hibbert � who faces allegations that he deliberately misdiagnosed parents as having mental disorders, which led to them having their children taken by social services.

John Hemming, a Lib Dem MP who is calling for a national inquiry into the use of expert testimonies in family court hearings, says this dubious system has resulted in families being torn apart and hundreds of children being wrongly taken for adoption from innocent parents.

It is a scenario Lucy Allan feared could happen with her own son. Her nightmare began last March when, aged 46, and having begun to feel depressed for no apparent reason, she decided to go to see a doctor.

�I am close to my son, so I was worried that he knew I was feeling sad. I went to my local GP surgery expecting to be given a course of anti-depressants and then feel better,� she recalls.

She was seen by a young female locum, who listened to what Lucy had to say, and then told her she wanted to refer her to social services to �see if the family needed support�.

The locum turned to Dr Peter Green, a consultant forensic physician and head of child safeguarding in Wandsworth, South London, where Lucy lives. A flamboyant figure with flowing grey hair and a penchant for bow ties, he has written thousands of reports for the family courts.

According to documents seen by the Allan family, Dr Green told the locum his view was that Lucy was �very self-centred� � this despite the fact he had never set eyes on Lucy or spoken to her. (When she later complained about the conclusions he had drawn without even having seen her, the doctor is alleged to have told her he had relied on a �gut feel�).
Families torn apart: Liberal Democrat MP John Hemming has called for a nationwide inquiry into the use of expert testimonies in family court hearings

Families torn apart: Liberal Democrat MP John Hemming has called for a nationwide inquiry into the use of expert testimonies in family court hearings

To Lucy�s horror, following Dr Green�s assessment, the locum informed social services that Lucy�s son was at significant risk of harm from his mother.

Thus it was that a woman whose job it had been to make decisions on the fostering panel about which children should be removed from their families suddenly found herself under the most intense scrutiny.

�Instead of reading reports on another mother�s �emotionally abused� child or her �chaotic� home life, I was reading the same accusations in reports about me and my family,� she says.

Social services insisted they interview her son, but as the inquiry unfolded, the evidence from his teachers suggested he was happy and thriving. An independent report from a NHS psychiatrist also said Lucy was �no risk to anyone, including her son�.

But social services hired their own psychiatrist from the Priory Hospital in Roehampton, south-west London � at taxpayers� expense naturally.
�Instead of reading reports on another mother�s �emotionally abused� child or her �chaotic� home life, I was reading the same accusations in reports about me and my family�
Lucy Allan

Without meeting Lucy or her son, and based only on information provided by social services, the private psychiatrist stated in an �expert� report that there was an �urgent need� for the assessment and treatment of Lucy.

The psychiatrist added that there was �no way� her depression would not have a �significant impact on her parenting�.

As the investigation dragged on, Lucy underwent a series of interviews by social services and by experts paid by them to examine her and her family. Many of their subsequent reports, says Lucy, were inaccurate, biased and took her family�s words out of context.

For example, her son had mentioned that when he got off the school bus, he always asked Lucy how she was, but this was described in one report as: �Her son demonstrates inappropriate anxiety for the wellbeing of his mother on a daily basis.�

When Lucy admitted taking sleeping pills for insomnia and diazepam for anxiety, another report on her said such �drug abuse would make her barely conscious on a daily basis�.

Her confession of sharing a bottle of wine with husband Robin most nights was written up as �alcohol abuse�, and the risk of Lucy harming her son was deemed to be �substantiated�.

All this begs the question of how often such judgments are passed down by �experts� and social workers on those less well equipped than Lucy to defend themselves.

She has spent the past year trying to clear her name, paid out �10,000 on legal fees and has had to pull herself off the A-list of David Cameron�s potential Tory candidates, quit as a school governor, and, of course, resign from the fostering panel. �I am now ineligible for the Criminal Record Bureau check required for working with children or young people,� she says sadly. Her son�s social services records state that she was once considered a �risk� to him, and it will remain on his file till he is 18.

Finally, at Christmas, the council�s social services said officially no action was required concerning Lucy. She is trying to rebuild her life with the help of husband Robin � who, incredibly, was never interviewed by social services � but still fears she could come under scrutiny again.
'Alcohol abuse': Social Services' verdict on Lucy's confession that she and her husband shared a bottle most evenings

'Alcohol abuse': Social Services' verdict on Lucy's confession that she and her husband shared a bottle most evenings

�The system is designed to silence people,� she says. �I have been prescribed anti-depressants and I am better. But at the back of my mind is the fear that if I complain too loudly about the child protection system they will be back at my door.�

No doubt she would agree with Nigel Priestley, a lawyer involved in family law, who said recently: �Just about the most draconian act the state can carry out is to remove a family�s child. What is at stake is the loss of their children, and on the basis of a report which might, or might not be, questionable.�

Those who write these reports � often psychologists or psychiatrists, but also medical doctors and consultants � do not face the glare of public scrutiny precisely because of the secrecy of the family court system. Lucy can describe her ordeal only because her case never got as far as those closed courts � no parent who appears at one of these hearings, which operate in every town and city in the land, is allowed to speak to anyone later about what has happened there, even to their own MP.

Every year, 200 mothers or fathers are jailed for �contempt of court� for breaking this silence � while the same family courts request the removal of 225 children each week, 97 per cent of whom are never returned to their families.

Now, there are demands for an American-style �class� legal action against the Government by parents who have had dubious or even bogus reports written about them. Paul Grant, a legal adviser at Bernard Chill & Axtell Solicitors in Southampton, says devastated parents have contacted him after his firm took on the case of a mother, known only as Miss A, who claims she was misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder by psychiatrist Dr George Hibbert because social workers wanted her baby adopted.

Now, Hibbert could be struck off by the General Medical Council, which is investigating extraordinary suggestions that he deliberately misdiagnosed �caring� mothers as having �personality disorders� in order to help social workers take away children.

When he was confronted with the allegation about Miss A, Hibbert offered to surrender his licence to practise as a doctor.

This week, his spokesman said he is �unable to comment due to his professional duty of confidentiality�. But I have learned that Porsche-driving Dr Hibbert amassed up to half-a-million pounds a year from his work as an expert witness, and from his reports on parents and children for social services departments.

Accounts for his company, Assessment in Care Ltd, show that profits soared from �23,000 in 2001 to a peak of �468,000 in 2007. It is now worth �2.7million, according to Companies� House records.

Paul Grant says that Miss A�s distressing case �may be the tip of a very large iceberg�. He adds: �We contend that when a practising clinician becomes a professional expert witness with a private company, there is no registration process, and no machinery to vet what they do.

�By failing to put in a regulatory framework, we would argue that the state is failing to protect families under Article 8 of the Human Rights Act, which says everyone has the right to a private and family life.�

As Dr Hibbert�s professional conduct comes under scrutiny, it is emerging that he is not the only one whose actions are being questioned.

The Mail has been contacted by scores of parents who believe they have been mistreated on the word of these �experts�. We have been told by lawyers about clinicians charging �1,800 a day to appear at family courts, on top of the thousands of pounds a time they receive for writing the reports, which often contain lies, ambiguities and insinuations.

One mother said she had her children taken away because an �expert� said she �liked shopping�; another was criticised as mentally unfit for �burning the toast�, and lost her child, too.

In another case, an expert was paid handsomely to write a report based on the observations of a social worker who said a five-year-old girl was �monosyllabic�.
�By failing to put in a regulatory framework, we would argue that the state is failing to protect families under Article 8 of the Human Rights Act, which says everyone has the right to a private and family life�
Paul Grant, legal adviser at Bernard Chill & Axtell Solicitors

Yet we are told a secret tape recording of the social worker�s interview showed the child chatting away about school, her family and her home. The little girl has since been removed from her mother.

We have also been told about a gregarious 47-year-old business adviser in the north of England who had to fight to keep her five-year-old daughter after being labelled a �totally isolated schizoid� by a psychologist, who we understand is trained only to treat children, and should never have been involved in the analysis of adult behaviour.

The psychologist in question (who writes up to 100 expert reports a year) charged �6,000 for his written opinion on the mother, her husband and child. Yet the mother says she was given no chance to deny the �schizoid� report � and kept her girl by the skin of her teeth only after the child�s nanny vouched for her parenting skills.

In another extraordinary case, after a woman was found by a psychologist to be a �competent mother�, the social workers are said to have insisted on commissioning a second expert�s report. It agreed with the first.

They then commissioned a third, which finally found that the mother had a �borderline personality disorder�. All three of her children were taken away for adoption.

So how have such apparent travesties been allowed to go on virtually unchecked in child protection?
Knee-jerk reaction? Since the harrowing case of baby Peter Connelly more youngsters than ever before in British history are being removed from families every week

Knee-jerk reaction? Since the harrowing case of baby Peter Connelly more youngsters than ever before in British history are being removed from families every week

No other country in Western Europe removes so many children from their parents. The numbers taken into care � the first step towards adoption � have doubled in a decade to more than 10,000 a year.

The last Labour government set adoption targets and rewarded local councils with hundreds of thousands of pounds if they reached them.

The targets have been scrapped after protests from MPs and lawyers, but the dangerous legacy persists. Social workers now get praise and promotion if they raise adoption numbers. David Cameron is also demanding more adoptions � and that they are fast-tracked.

Since the case of 17-month-old Baby P, more youngsters than ever before in British history are being removed from families every week. Many say this is a knee-jerk reaction, which is probably true. But it�s not the whole story.
�It�s time the criminal rules of justice applied in the family courts. We need parents to be considered innocent until proven guilty�
Ian Joseph, author and expert on forced adoption

It is the 1989 Children Act � which introduced a blanket secrecy in the family courts � that is the real culprit. It encouraged a lack of public scrutiny in the child protection system and what MP John Hemming calls the �twaddle and psychobabble� peddled there, which has caused dreadful miscarriages of justice.

Ian Joseph, who has written a book on forced adoption, told me this week: �It�s time the criminal rules of justice applied in the family courts. We need parents to be considered innocent until proven guilty and also be free to talk about what is happening in those courts without being thrown into jail.�

Until that happens, hundreds more children may be seized from their families on the word of experts � many of whom are either not qualified or are receiving huge sums of money to play God.