Monday 20 August 2007

YouTube row over social services baby threat

This is seriously Orwellian! UK social services removing infants from their mothers because the mother *may* at some point in future cause the baby some harm? What about the damage to the baby of removing it from its mother? It's bloody British officialdom (aka neo-fascists-r-us) thinking it knows best, as always. In reality they are a bunch of morons who have no business being in charge of anything let alone the nation's children. The officials in question are trying to get the video removed from YouTube so I have posted it here in glorious technicolour. If you have a blog I encourage you to do the same and also email the link to everyone you know! As Mike Rivero of WRH.com says "Notice that the social workers had absolutely no qualms about snatching the baby a few days after its birth to hand off to another family for no good reason: they just hated getting caught doing it."


A heavily pregnant woman is at the centre of an extraordinary legal battle with social workers after she secretly recorded them threatening to take away her newborn baby.

Vanessa Brookes, 34, who is due to give birth early next month, smuggled taping equipment into a meeting with social services officials, fearing they would try to take her baby for forced adoption.

She recorded a social worker telling her and her husband Martin, 41, that even though there was "no immediate risk to your child from yourselves", the council would seek a court order to place the child in foster care.

Mother and baby would be allowed "two or three days" in hospital together, but should not leave the premises until social workers came to remove the infant. In a desperate attempt to keep their baby, the couple have published the recorded conversation on the internet.

Calderdale council, in West Yorkshire, last night accused them of breaching the Data Protection Act by recording its staff without their knowledge or consent. The council said it had begun legal action to have the recording removed from the YouTube website. Mrs Brookes said: "Even puppies and kittens aren't removed from their mothers at birth. Social workers always record everything, so why shouldn't we record them?"

John Hemming, the Liberal Democrat MP and chairman of campaign group Justice for Families, said: "I find it very odd that a newborn baby would be removed when there is not any allegation by the authorities that the child is at risk. Yet this case is not unique. There are many cases in which newborns are removed because of allegations that their mothers may at some later stage 'emotionally abuse' the child."

The case returns the spotlight to claims that social services are being heavy-handed in removing children from their parents, in order to meet Government adoption targets.

The Sunday Telegraph has previously revealed cases of mothers who were not told why their children were taken away, and cases of families whose children were not returned even after the parents had been cleared of wrongdoing. More than 2,000 babies aged under a year were taken for adoption last year, almost triple the level of a decade ago.

Full story...

Court secrecy rules hide child abuse errors