When angelic, middle-class Madeleine was stolen away from her doctor parents in Portugal, we all agonised and sympathised. We still do. Yet other children are being kidnapped week in, week out in the UK and nobody lifts a finger because the parents are poor, or ill-educated, or not articulate or don't have the McCanns' media awareness.
Now that the arch-fiend Bliar has taken himself off to annoy people in other countries instead of us, this is the one matter that needs sorting out urgently. It's probably the worst and most scandalous injustice in recent British life, and to my mind eclipses the ineffectual flailing-about of "disaffected" (that's PC-speak for "bloody-minded") Muslim youth, the preposterous failings of the NHS, the cynical manipulation of global warming hysteria by self-seeking politicians and scientists, our inability to control or prevent rampant immigration, or any of the other things with which we fill these pages.
After all, most of these problems we can avoid if we choose. The GOS rarely visits an airport and would cheerfully sacrifice his right leg and both b*ll*cks to avoid ever having to go to London so isn't likely to be blown up by a dusky freedom-fighter, if we don't want to catch a lethal disease in hospital or wait fifteen years to have our boils lanced we can always go private or better still nip across the channel, the global warming thing will go away soon enough, just like the global cooling scare of the 1970s, and if we get fed up with this glorious multicultural mélange and want to live in a place where ordinary people enjoy the same rights as minorities, well … property in France is still far cheaper than in the UK. We're grownups, after all. We can get away if we want to badly enough.
Kids can't, though. We have written before, at length and some time ago, about the dreadful, vicious injustices handed out by social workers hiding behind the secretive Family Courts (click here, here, here and here). Now we learn that, surprise, surprise, we were right all along, and campaigners are making renewed efforts to right the situation now we are no longer governed by the prime minister who in 2000 set a target for councils to increase adoptions by 50%, a task which they set about with self-righteous glee.
Norfolk County Council have now admitted that they no longer believe that Mark and Nicky Webster (formerly Hardingham, for some reason), from Cromer, abused one of their three children. They accept that the broken bones were caused by a medical condition and have allowed the parents to keep their fourth child, born after the other three were snatched away.
This is good news, I suppose, but it comes very late in the day for the Websters' three older children who were snatched from them by Norfolk social workers, processed behind closed doors by the Family Court, and sent for irreversible adoption. The Websters will never see them again. You can read the newspaper report here.
And has anyone been called to account for this crime? Have the doctors who advised, or Lisa Christensen of Norfolk Children's Services who supervised, or the lawyers and the judge who decided, been sacked? What do you think? In fact Lisa Christensen is far from apologetic, but is still insisting publicly that, despite the Websters' complete exoneration in the High Court, "there are still question marks around the previous case" and passing the buck by saying it was the fault of the medical advisers.
No doubt many Grumpy readers will have watched the eloquent and moving Panorama programme about the Websters on BBC1 this evening (2nd July). Thanks to the sensible and humane decision of a High Court judge to lift reporting restrictions, we learned that the injured child, who was lactose intolerant, was prescribed a soya diet by the local GP which contained inadequate vitamins, and that this was the direct cause of his brittle bones. We also learned that it was the mother herself who finally made the correct diagnosis by searching for bone diseases on the internet. Even then, some of the medical "experts" refused to accept the truth.
The Family Court proceedings, normally completely secret, were described in sufficient detail that we now know that the family's Health Visitor was confident that the children were not in any danger from their parents, but was bullied by her supervisor into backing down. We also know that the oldest child's Head Teacher was prepared to speak out on their behalf.
And we know the most dreadful cruelties the Family Courts visited on this innocent family. Despite having been exonerated, they can still not call their children by their proper names on pain of further prosecution. And Norfolk County Council Children's Services sent them a video to watch. It was a video of their own children, being advertised for adoption.
It is common for social workers and other workers in the adoption field to claim that it is in the interests of the children that they err on the side of caution. The Family Courts don't have the same burden of proof that applies in normal law - it is only necessary to prove that abuse has "probably" taken place before children can be seized. And the secrecy that allowed the Websters to be victimised is total. It is an offence for a parent even to tell anyone that they are being targeted. The Websters were lucky - a judge became convinced that it was in the public interest for reporting restrictions to be lifted. Other families are not so fortunate. As North Norfolk MP Norman Lamb says, "My heart goes out to the family, who have suffered the most horrendous injustice. The county council may have acted in what they thought was the best interests at the time, but the evidence was wrong, and it was why such important hearings should not be held behind closed doors."
A major report in this Sunday's Telegraph revealed that the number of babies aged less than one week being removed from their mothers has risen almost three-fold in a decade. More than 900 are now being taken and put up for adoption every year. Adoptions of very young children shot up after targets were set in 2000, and the suggestion is that the targets, intended to encourage councils to get older children out of care homes, were actually used to satisfy demands for childless couples and thereby earn the councils large handouts of government money.
Now, with Tony Blair and Lord Falconer out of the way and Gordon Brown and Jack Straw taking their places, legal campaigners are newly optimistic of forcing a change. Sarah Harman, a solicitor who has specialised in family law for nearly 30 years, said she would step up her fight to open up proceedings. Ms Harman is the elder sister of Harriet Harman, the new deputy leader of the Labour Party and leader of the Commons. Harriet Harman was Justice Minister until last week's Cabinet reshuffle and has supported her sister's campaign.
Family courts in England and Wales hear 400,000 cases a year, mostly divorces and child custody hearings following divorces. In 20,000 cases a year, councils apply to the courts to remove children temporarily from parents who are abusive or neglectful, often because they are addicted to hard drugs. The courts also rule on bids by councils to put removed children up for adoption, which is irreversible. Yet, while criminal cases must be proved beyond reasonable doubt, family courts take decisions on the balance of probabilities and unlike criminal courts, cases are heard in strict secrecy. A mother whose child is taken from her commits an offence if she tells anyone outside a tiny, approved list of people.
John Hemming, the Liberal Democrat MP for Birmingham Yardley, who wants more openness in family courts, said of the latest adoption figures "We are seeing a massive growth in the forced removal of newborns from their natural parents. Babies are being taken into care merely to satisfy government adoption targets. There are clearly masses of miscarriages of justice, but ministers want to prevent parents from campaigning against them by preventing these parents from talking about their children after a case. This is fundamentally wrong. The secrecy in the family courts acts generally to protect misbehaviour by some professionals, rather than to protect children."
Under the current law, reporters and members of the public cannot attend family court hearings, see documents, review evidence or obtain copies of judgments. Sarah Harman says "Social services are the only department other than MI5 who undertake their work in complete secrecy. It's not the welfare of the child that is being protected, it is the welfare of social workers."
Figures prepared by the Department for Local Government and Community Cohesion show that two councils - Essex and Kent - were offered more than £2million over three years to encourage additional adoptions. Four others - Norfolk, Gloucestershire, Cheshire and Hampshire - were promised £1million in extra funds. Critics say very young children are specifically selected - even before birth - by social workers to get the bonuses. It is believed that 1,000 each year are wrongly taken from their parents.
Beverley Beech of the Association for Improvements in the Maternity Services - a body which advises new mothers - said "The Government is denying that social workers are targeting babies for adoption. But the desperate calls on our helpline from pregnant women who have already been told by social workers, for no good reason, that they will lose their babies immediately they are born, or from mothers of new babies taken for adoption, prove these denials are not true."
Workers in the child protection industry are always very quick to quote the occasions when they have been criticised for not acting promptly or drastically enough. The best-known example was that of Victoria Climbié, systematically tortured then killed by her aunt and her aunt's boyfriend in London. She was seen by dozens of social workers, nurses, doctors and police officers before she died - but all failed to act on the abuse. Quite rightly, an outpouring of anger rained down on the responsible adults involved in the case. They failed to do even their basic duty, and a child died.
They say it's a case of "damned if they do and damned if they don't", but this is a fatuous and dishonest argument. The great difficulty of protecting children from cruel and devious abusers should not be used as an excuse for doing the job badly, and that's exactly what happened in the Webster's case - the so-called experts and responsible professionals did their job badly. They misdiagnosed injuries, they made wild and unsubstantiated guesses about likely causes, they failed to search for other, more innocent explanations, and they never bothered to consider that there might have been another, kinder and less permanent solution.
If there is suspicion that a child is not safe in its family, there are other means than adoption. Families can be closely supervised; a child may be removed for a period of time; the suspected abuser may be invited to live elsewhere for a while. But of course there are no government subsidies for that. Adoption is quick, clean, final and profitable. No contest, really.
It's odd, isn't it, that in this modern "blame" society where everything has to be someone's fault and anyone who makes a mistake can be sued, there are still some professions who manage to remain invulnerable. A doctor who messes up a patient's treatment runs the risk of legal action. A motorist who makes a mistake on the road and kills another driver can be sent to jail. Just the merest hint of impropriety is enough to see a teacher suspended for months or years, often never to return to the classroom. Yet has there ever been a social worker sued or imprisoned for getting it wrong?
As we said when writing on this subject some months ago …
Charles Pragnell, a former social worker who is now an international adviser on child protection cases, believes that the Government has good reason to avoid an inquiry. "The health, education and social services have diverted children and their families into the child protection system," he says, "blaming the parents for causing harm to their children to avoid providing them with services".
More than 85% of reports of child abuse are subsequently found to have no basis in fact and to have been made for mistaken, mischievous, malicious or monetary reasons. Every year more than 450,000 children are involved in child protection investigations that cause them unnecessary harm and distress.
In the Irish Republic, it's a criminal offence to make a false allegation of child abuse. Now that's one new law the GOS would welcome.
If you'd like to read more about the Webster case, click here.
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