Free Britannia

Irish social workers are horrified by their ruthless English counterparts
Families fleeing the interventions of social workers have been finding a far more humane approach across the water.
The number of children taken into care every month in the UK has reached a record level - Irish social workers are horrified by their ruthless English counterparts
The number of children taken into care every month in the UK has reached a record level Photo: ALAMY
Christopher Booker

By Christopher Booker

7:00PM GMT 18 Feb 2012

Such is the reign of terror now being imposed on innocent English families by social workers that scores of parents have been fleeing with their children to Ireland to escape their clutches. I have followed a dozen such stories over the past two years, and in all of them two things stand out. One is that the English social workers seem prepared to stop at nothing to get the children back. The other is the extraordinary contrast between them and the Irish social workers, who again and again have satisfied themselves that the children are at no risk from their loving parents and are astonished by the ruthless behaviour of their English counterparts.

Several of these stories I have reported more than once and they do not have happy endings. A mother and baby were pursued to Ireland by six social workers and police, who sat in Dublin for 10 days of court hearings, until a judge ruled in their favour (with the social workers seen giving “high fives” on emerging from the court). When the mother again escaped to a remote cottage, she was violently knocked down by a policeman, so that her baby could be taken back to England.

Vicky Haigh, a former racehorse trainer, managed to escape to Ireland before her daughter was born. But then she was brought to England to be quite bizarrely punished, in a case relating to her beloved older daughter, with a three-year prison sentence – leaving her baby to be looked after in Ireland.

A 14-year-old boy lived happily with his mother in Ireland for six months until, after an equally bizarre judgment based on evidence neither he nor his mother were allowed to see, he was deported miserably back to care in England.

Last week, another such story came my way. It concerns a respectable family which was hit with disaster last summer, after the semi-autistic 8-year-old son –who tends to make things up – had lashed out at his 13-year-old sister, leaving bruises. When these were investigated, the boy told the police that his father had done it. The girl denied this – and the boy admitted in video evidence what had really happened – but the police stuck with his earlier story and arrested the father. Although he was never charged, the interventions of social workers became so menacing that, last October, the family escaped to Ireland, where the father has his roots.
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There they have happily settled, and the 13-year-old daughter has become a star pupil of the local school. But the social workers eventually tracked them down – after the children’s grandmother, back in England, had been arrested by 10 police officers, handcuffed, held for three hours in a cell, and told she would be charged with perverting the course of justice unless she revealed their whereabouts. The English social workers pressed their Irish counterparts to co-operate in getting the children back to England (there are no court orders), but were told there was no reason for this because the children were in no danger.

The social workers then tried to lean on the school principal, saying that the children were “at risk of emotional harm”. The sensible headmistress gave them very short shrift, saying that the English social workers had behaved deplorably in trying to destroy a perfectly normal family, and that England’s loss was Ireland’s gain, since the girl was a brilliant pupil, who was learning five languages. Thanks to their origins, the family will soon be safely confirmed as Irish citizens.

What is striking about these stories is how often the parents emphasise the contrast between the two countries’ social workers. “In England,” says this father, “we were treated like dangerous criminals. In Ireland the social workers could not be more different, warm, friendly, treating us like human beings.” And of course it is in England that the number of children taken into care has soared to a record level, just having topped 900 a month. There is a phenomenon of group psychology here that deserves much wider attention than it is being given.

Comments on this story have been disabled for legal reasons.

And yet nothing appears to be done about it and the media and the public remain largely disinterested.

I suppose it's one of those issues where most people just shrug their shoulders and assume that they had it coming, until it happens to them.


I know a fella who's cousins child was taken into care because her child is mixed race and his teacher (who is black) complained to social workers that his mother (who is white) was not providing for her childs cultural heritage or some such old bollocks. Last I heard she was still trying to get him back.

The sheeple ....

Long ago I saw that the police and social services, between them, provided the makings of the police state. I mean back in the late seventies, early eighties. Then, as now, no one seemed to care about the erosion of liberty.

Lawd knows why! It seems to me to be one of the most important problems facing our country today.

Notice how no one can comment "for legal reasons". I suppose they are scared someone will inadvertently blow a whistle on the Telegraph site and leave them open to the wrath of the family courts?

And I still can't edit the post to prettify it!

Those stories are pretty shocking.

Morris wrote:Those stories are pretty shocking.

Yup. A bloke near you (I think) is trying to help. Interesting site.

http://www.forced-adoption.com

Bulldog wrote:And yet nothing appears to be done about it and the media and the public remain largely disinterested.

I suppose it's one of those issues where most people just shrug their shoulders and assume that they had it coming, until it happens to them.

Most Brits support our Social Services, & as you say, it's a non-issue here.

Because child-taken-into-care only happens to the bad guys, as BJ noted elsewhere apropos of something else, the death penalty or something or other.

ScepticTone wrote:
Most Brits support our Social Services, & as you say, it's a non-issue here.

Because child-taken-into-care only happens to the bad guys, as BJ noted elsewhere apropos of something else, the death penalty or something or other.

Bollocks.

With bells on!

If the sheeple support the SS it is only because they have never had anything to do with them. The secrecy that surrounds them ensures that most people never have a reason to question what they do. In my former life I saw plenty, at first hand. They are a menace.

Try talking to their "clients" if you want to know what people really think of them! And pray they never get their hooks into you and yours!

I think Booker's articles should have the whole front page, not be somewhere less prominent than the weather forecast!

Whilst I accept that there are some horror stories committed by Social Services, Booker is only telling you about a tiny percentage of what is a horrendous Very Real Problem of Parents (usually single Mothers) treating their Children far worse than they would treat any Dog. I first became aware of this about 6 years ago, when My Kids, asked if they could bring a friend home, because She was on the point of "Running Away". We gave her Sanctuary for a few days (My wife was a Registered Child Minder), until she had calmed down and gained sufficient courage to allow us to contact the Police and Social Services. If we hadn't have done this she would almost certainly have ended up an underage Prostitute on the worst kind of drugs. A Friend of mine was a Foster Parent, and the kind of abuse some kids get from their parents, is so bad it makes you cry. Its mental, physical and sexual abuse of the worst kind imaginable. Our experience of both the Police and Social Services in dealing with this was Extremely Positive. A couple of Years later, the girl came back to see us and thanked us profusely. After being Fostered for a year, many miles away and going to college, she actually had a very good job in a Beauty Salon doing nails, hair etc

At the time, I did some research into the numbers of underage kids who ran away from home,often never to be seen again. It was something like one in nine kids. Its probably even more now.

Tony

No one doubts it, Tony. This is what these social workers are paid to do, and it is hardly a surprise that they manage to do it most of the time. It is the rest of the time that should worry us. If the Family Courts were just, the problem cases would not happen. Secret courts are not what we expect in a "free country". Justice has to be seen to be done. Secret justice is no justice at all.

I am sure you would not even begin to defend the blanket ban placed on the victims of this system, that prevents them speaking to the press, or even to their MPs. Nor would you wish them to be kept in the dark about the "evidence" these social workers present to the court, and to be given no right of reply.

Surely ......

I agree completely. The courts are atrocious especially to Father's who want access to see their kids. Any woman who wants to throw out her husband for any reason whatsoever (even if he is totally blameless - and she is a total psycho) can simply go and see a Family Solicitor/Lawyer and fill out the form claiming violent abuse from the husband, without any evidence or any violence having taken place. The court then issues a protection order banning the husband from going anywhere near what may well have been his home for the past 15 years. I know 3 of such cases personally. In two of them had there been no violence whatsoever. However many husbands do come home drunk and beat up their wives and children. The problem is the courts always side with the woman, and assume that all men are violent, without there being any evidence produced whatsoever. The reality now, is that many woman can be more violent than men, and very much more evil.

Tony

opmoc wrote:
At the time, I did some research into the numbers of underage kids who ran away from home,often never to be seen again. It was something like one in nine kids. Its probably even more now.

Tony

One in nine.

Never to be seen again?

Really?

What happens to all those millions of missing kids then?

The paedos must be running out of places to bury them.