Britain: where corruption will buy you someone else's baby

The social services. Families rely on them to offer fair and impartial advice and assistance, and, yes, to sometimes take the decision to break up a family in the interests of its members. They are supposed to be trained, committed, and professional individuals; they are not supposed to be able to force children into homes for their own personal reasons, or to receive financial benefits. But they can, and they often do. In fact, there have been a large number of incidents that show this; each of them relegated to the back page of tabloids, even the harshest, such as the Daily Mail. They are only now beginning to break through to the front pages, or on the comment sections of online newspapers, where they desperately need to be.

I will refer you to the work of Tim Yeo, MP for Suffolk. He has worked tirelessly over the last few years to raise the matter in parliament. He launched an outspoken attack on Suffolk County Council, claiming that it was responsible for ‘child kidnap,’ and was ‘actively seeking opportunities to remove babies from their mothers.’ To those of you who might see this as a remarkable claim to make, then the details of this particular incident, as reported in the Daily Mail, might surprise you; the social services watched the couple’s movements, and then waited for the father to leave before they launched a raid, and took the baby by force. The reason was, as with many other similar stories, was ‘physical or emotional abuse.’ This charge was declared by the council, not any actual authority on the subject, and was, claimed the MP, backed up with no evidence whatsoever. ‘The fact that no fault could be found in the physical and emotional care provided by her parents did not stop the council from destroying this fragile family.’ The council then went on to receive the opinion of two experts, although none of them would endorse the other, and the council eventually claimed that, as there was the ‘possibility of future physical or emotional abuse,’ they took action. Read that again, and count how many principles of a fair justice system that breaks; presumption of innocence, lack of evidence, and even the need to have committed a crime before you are punished. And is there really a harsher punishment for a mother than having a baby taken from her arms through no fault of her own, when the council responsible freely admits that they acted on a ‘possibility?’ She was eventually forced to move to Spain, where she gave birth to another baby, which was seized by the Spanish authorities on instructions from their British counterparts, and she is not the only one. Four babies a day are taken from their parents, just like the above incident.

British families have been scattered to Spain and Ireland in the pursuit of sanity - ironic, as the latter has had to endure our jokes about the export of pregnant girls since the 1920s – and they are often unsuccessful. One of them, also in Spain, and also reported by the Daily Mail, was forced to flee when Suffolk Social Services claimed that she was not capable of raising a child because of mild learning difficulties. John Hemming, a Liberal Democrat MP, had this to say about the circumstances surround her: ‘Evidence is given in secret by experts who depend on local authorities for their income. The system is so biased towards local authorities that they get whatever they want.’ He also raised another important issue: ‘we have to stop gagging people who are victims of miscarriages of justice.’ Yes, you see, the social services know how to cover their tracks. They strictly forbid any communication between any of the parties concerned, outside of allocated times when they meet, usually for no more than an hour a week, and only when supervised. The parents of those who are taken by social services are not permitted to discuss the events, even with friends, and those who are placed in state care are forbidden from talking to anyone about it, as well, even if they believe that they genuinely are being abused at the hands of staff. One woman was locked up for waving to her son when she was surprised to see him on the other side of the road, according to an article in the Telegraph. It is also alleged by posters on the MailOnline comment boards (in a section of the site called ‘Femail’) that some social workers installed CCTV cameras in their bedrooms. It is clear that, on both occasions (if indeed the latter is true), that the security of the individual was not on the agenda, but rather a blanket ban on communication and movement that serves only to protect the job of the social worker, and the integrity of the social services. The same site also has contributors who claim that they are not allowed witnesses, or do not get to hear the ‘evidence’ against them.

What do these social workers do, then, when they’ve won? More often than not, whoever has been taken is then put up for adoption - two siblings were taken and placed in the hands of a gay couple, although there were close relations who were willing to raise the pair. If contact is permitted between the people involved, then it is usually supervised by social services; certain topics are banned, including the court proceedings, or even what the parents think of the situation (something which makes it very easy to convince the individual that the social workers and their adoptive parents act in their own best interests). The individual cannot discuss the details of their adopted family, either, something which makes it very easy to conceal anything that they want to hide. The individuals are exposed to the will of their ‘new parents,’ with no-one to talk to if there are problems. You can use your imagination for the kinds of things that people are getting away with, although it probably takes a quick glimpse at the social worker’s paycheque to see why.

The reason that the family that were mentioned above were overlooked was the government’s equality targets - total numbers of adopted children, and those adopted by gay or ethnic minority families - for which the local authorities get paid for meeting. There are financial incentives to take as many people as possible, often carefully-selected by council workers (although, to be fair, the council workers did mention the age of the two who volunteered to take in their relative’s children - 52 and 46 - as proof that they were unsuitable parents). Foster families are paid up to five hundred pounds per week, and ‘special schools’ pay up to six thousand pounds per week. Those the social services claims are ‘experts’ are paid, by the social services, anything up to four thousand pounds to write a report on a parent, and, well, you can expect what the lawyer’s fees are, when the SS has the limitless pit of public funding at its disposal.

So, what happens to those who end up in care, rather than in the hands of people, the equally responsible adoptive parents? As already said, they are also banned from any non-supervised contact with their parents, and telephone calls are also restricted. In fact, they are restricted just as those who end up in adopted families are. However, there is one important difference. They are also threatened with prison if they break any of this, and they are no safer than those with adopted families. In Wales, in 2006, a hundred and sixty people who were abused in state care received a total payout of three million pounds. A third of young prisoners are among those who have been in state care, and more than twenty per cent of young girls are pregnant within two years of leaving, with over half unemployed. The overwhelming majority of them have no qualifications, and, not surprisingly, many of them are also homeless. The information about their family is still withheld by the social services. Oh, and the babies of those that become pregnant are also adopted, as are any other babies that she has. Even years after she has left the care home, she is still on a ‘list’ because she was one hauled through its doors, at the command of their local council, and an expert in their pay.

This is the truth about family courts in the UK: a social services worker can appear at the birth of a baby, and take it from its parents, and offer many different accounts, each of them unproven or conflicting, as to why, and then the case is heard by a secret court, with secret evidence, and the word of an ‘expert’ who depends on one of the parties for their income. The other party has no witnesses, and there is no jury, obviously, and they are also not permitted to talk about events with their family. When the social workers are successful (which they always are), they impose a blanket ban on communication outside of a small amount of time, and they are often present at meetings to ensure that banned subjects are not discussed. They do the same to the individual, and let many of them suffer physical, verbal, and sexual abuse at the hands of their adopted parents to preserve their own careers, and committed to a life of unemployment, poverty, and having marriages banned and children taken by social services solely because they were in a care home, or because the problems that their lack of a proper education has left them with. The social services need absolutely no evidence to do that, so don’t apply the usual rule and claim that ‘if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.’ It’s false. If you have a baby, then there are plenty of people behind their marbled desks and swivel chairs that will be paid a large sum of money to take it off your hands.