‘If I wait for evidence it can be too late’ – when dramatic licence goes too far
I watched the first half of Silent Witness: Protection on Wednesday via iplayer and smiled indulgently at some of the more anguished twitter responses to its portrayal of child protection social work. Having spent many months now on various internet groups where the nicest thing anyone has to say about a social worker is that they are evil Nazis, this programme seemed like a reasonably sensitive and balanced account of the pressures and challenges of the child protection role in social work.
It presented well the fear and misery of the parents but highlighted their minimisation and denial of their own abusive behaviours. The dawning realisation of the teenage boy that his mum was never going to put him first above her partner was particularly poignant.
Yes, the court room scene was a bit dodgy with the social worker rushing up to confront the judge at the end – believe me, that’s never going to happen – but I am not one of these lawyers (I hope) who writes long annoyed letters to the BBC because I find the angle of the wigs on Silk unsatisfactory. I appreciate that the narrative arc of a drama often requires that pedantic and slavish adherence to every little detail be set aside.
But as ever, the devil is in the detail.
The second episode was rather different. My smile did not remain for long. I was presented with a number of scenes that were not simply inaccurate in the detail but dangerously wrong in their entire presentation. And the problem with this is because these scenes appeared to be written to chime with what I read time and time again on various Facebook groups; the system is corrupt, decisions are taken without evidence, on a whim, parents are powerless, no one listens, no one will help.
For example
A decision taken about whether or not a child is accidentally injured and whether or not the social worker should apply for an interim care order is taken in a 10 second conversation between social worker and doctor walking down a corridor. ‘The science doesn’t lie’ thunders scarey consultant. ‘People do’.
Er, yes well sometimes they do. And sometimes they don’t. And sometimes doctors don’t agree on what the science actually is. And a decision to apply for an interim care order after a baby is brought into hospital would never, ever be made in a 10 second strut down the the hospital corridor, no matter how eminent the doctor doing the strutting, no matter how dramatic their ‘serious faces’ and the swelling music that plays in the background.
Then brave junior doctor finds a medical cause for the bruising and social worker slaps him down. ‘ I thought we already reached a conclusion!…He’s on the management committee for the British Paediatric Made Up Something! Are you saying he’s wrong?’
Even if this was the way decisions were made and justified about whether or not a child was abused, once it got to court, even a first year law student – no, even a small child, possibly even my dog – could quite easily tear apart that kind of decision making process.
And here is the interesting thing. Where were the lawyers in the second episode? The first had been a bit odd, giving the sense that an application for a care order was somehow just a chat between earnest social worker and irritated judge. But I glossed over that on grounds of dramatic licence.
Where have all the lawyers gone?
The second episode however went even further down a very dangerous road. The nice middle class parents sat alone and terrified in court. No lawyer. Listening to the social worker make a speech from the witness box and hide relevant evidence. The only lawyer who popped up seemed to be to cross examine the poor anguished father. Couldn’t the budget stretch to a few more people in suits? The inference must be that because these were clearly well off people who lived in an enormous house, if they didn’t have a lawyer that was because the Evil Family Courts would not allow it.
What is going on? The BBC writers claim that ‘a family law barrister was consulted and read the script and gave notes’. I can only assume they were the victim of a very cruel deception from someone mischievously posing as a barrister, as I simply refuse to accept that any family law barrister would advise that this kind of scene was acceptable.
It feeds into the narrative which seems to be taking deeper hold of the general perception of care proceedings as rigged against parents from the start, throwing them into court proceedings without allowing them even to see the evidence against them. It is very sobering, as a lawyer, to see just how little impact our profession makes on the various discussions parents have on line. The power to determine what evidence is heard and what decisions are made is often given to the social worker alone. [Edit – see this post from a parents’ perspective of the system]
The corrosive impact of this perception is immediately obvious from even a superficial glance over the various postings on the Facebook groups. A sample quote from five minutes ago:
Try telling that to the Pack of Jackals who run Social Services, Cafcass and the family courts. – I doubt they would have the ability to comprehend it. Stone Age Neanderthal mentality I am afraid. Hell they haven’t even been either taught or learned to be able to tell what the difference is between the truth and lying. – If they cannot reach that stage in human development the hope of them understanding something like this is, well, none existent….
….entering into a family court system is nothing more than a living Hell and that is only from the perspective of the public area…
If this narrative was confined only to internet comments, it would be bad enough. But of course, it isn’t. It spills over into real cases, with real and devastating consequences for families. The recent Baby with No Name case is a horrible example of what can happen when conspiracy theories take hold and the siege mentality develops.
I appreciate that Silent Witness is a drama, not a documentary. Its remit isn’t to shine a light on the true workings of the family court. But it was so bafflingly, stupidly wrong in its presentation of such key elements of the proceedings; the gathering of evidence and the presentation of the evidence in court. And it makes me angry because there are a lot of people out there who want to believe this is what happens.
If anyone is still interested in this debate, Lucy Reed and I are shortly going to attempt the Transparency Project’s first podcast on this subject. Watch this space for further details.
EDIT Podcast is done.
“It is very sobering, as a lawyer, to see just how little impact our profession makes on the various discussions parents have on line.”
Well, it works both ways, doesn’t it? Blogging lawyers rarely take on board the perception that parents form of their profession. Very few parents with direct experience of the family justice or child protection systems have much to say in their favour. Perhaps it would be beneficial all round if those who work in these systems considered the criticisms more seriously, rather than merely dismiss them out of hand. At present it often seems that lawyers and social workers are in denial, and inclined to dismiss the views of an ignorant and misinformed public.
I am curious about the extent to which you actually engage with the legal blogs – certainly mine, LRs and APs consistently engage seriously with parents’ views of the system – because this is a very serious issue.
No one is dismissing anyone ‘out of hand’. But I fail to see how it’s serving parents’ interests – or anyone interests – to promote dangerous untruths about how a system operates.
Re; Dangerous untruths : ‘Having spent many months now on various internet groups where the nicest thing anyone has to say about a social worker is that they are evil Nazis’. Having also spent some months on those same websites, and observed you grapple with those who claim that Social Services are a modern SS, and who quote the lebensborn project tp you, it is untrue and unfair to state that they are the majority.
The majority of the over 6000 who populate the site you are referring to, UK Social Services, are parents grieving over the loss of their children, and bewildered the fact that as far as they are concerned the Social Workers have not been made accountable in court for inaccuracies and misrepresentations; they are outraged at the bias of supposedly independent expert witnesses, and stunned that being a victim of domestic violence so often means losing your children and being allocated less contact than their abuser.
“It is very sobering, as a lawyer, to see just how little impact our profession makes on the various discussions parents have on line.”
It should not come as a surprise if the opinions of the legal profession make little impact – if the impression that you choose to paint of the unfortunate victims of family law procedures is of deluded fanatics, obsessed with linking Social Services and Nazism, and out of touch with reality. What child protection requires is better ethical standards: more truth, more reflection, more… care.
Sample post from 5 minutes ago:
Advocate needed, advice welcome, if we get an advocate what happens with the guardian and child’s solicitor? The children are not being listened too, like they are supposed to be,
I am sorry you believe I chose to paint a picture of ‘deluded fanatics’. I don’t agree that is what I do. If that is what you wish to believe then nothing I do or say is going to reassure you, as it is not a rational belief on your part.
Only a minority of the members of that site post. The majority who do post, in my opinion, refer to social workers in the lurid terms I refer to.
It isn’t helpful, it isn’t creating a debate and it makes it very, very easy for you to be dismissed as conspiraloons.
If a child gets separate representation, the guardian will remain. The solicitors should remain with the child and the guardian should get new ones. I am not sure what the role of an advocate in the court process would be. Haven’t come across that scenario.
Another random sample from the ‘deluded Nazi party’ ( in the interest of balance):
when dealing with the HCPC a complaint system your find unhelpful be prepared for upto 2 months for them to write to SS & reply with their pretty sub standard flog you off letters (have so many of them now) can produce toilet tissue out of them
…Seems a fairly accurate estimation of the hcpc to me.
C, I have obviously upset you by what you think is an unfair portrayal of those who post on the Facebook group. I do not deny there are some sensible posters there. I do not deny that there are people who post in measured terms and ask good questions.
But it is my experience that there are also others who post suggesting that social workers should be killed. I had to intervene and request one post be removed because it was a picture of a social worker, giving her name and her local pub. It read to me as a clear incitement to violence against that social worker. To the credit of the administrators of that site, they responded immediately and that post was taken down. But I strongly suspect that was not the only post of that kind. I am not monitoring the site 24/7 so I can’t say for sure. But whenever I do visit, I find similar posts.
I have provided a link to the site so people can visit and make up their own minds.
But nobody does this essential debate any favours by ignoring any uncomfortable truths.
‘Having spent many months now on various internet groups where the nicest thing anyone has to say about a social worker is that they are evil Nazis…’
All I’m saying is that this statement in your first paragraph is untrue. It is a massive overstatement: ‘a dangerous untruth’, as you put it.
It is interesting how difficult it is for you to accept that what I am saying may be true. Even though you know it is ( you are on the site and you say nicer things about Social workers than that they are ‘evil Nazis’ , I rarely go beyond saying that they seem ‘calloused and chronically inept’).
This inability to acknowledge a mistake is too common in our blame-riddled society. It parallels the way that Social Workers are often unable to acknowledge their own inaccuracies and misrepresentation in reports and assessments. But the consequences of that inadequacy can be horrendous.
Today’s random post from UK Social Services – (this one is hostile, but still doesn’t refer to them as ‘evil Nazis’)
I was brought up in care and the ss didn’t give two shits about me. I was just a thing they placed around to different places all the time coz it was convenient for them or cheaper. They focus on who they can take kids from more than actually looking after the kids properly. And I then have kids of my own and a nice home and they then decide to bully me because they feel they own me still so they wNt my kids too. Perfectic they took my kids away for 8 months but I won them bk. I had a independant social worker saying they should never of took my children. And caffcass was even pissed of with ss
Your eagerness to paint me as a contributer to our ‘blame riddled society’ because I won’t agree with you is also interesting.
I might pray in aid the many, many hours of work I have done pro bono since December 2013 in providing advice and support to those who have undoubtedly suffered from deficiencies in the system. I do not accept the rather snide cricitisms in your comment. But by all means, if what I have been doing is of such little value, please do let me know and I won’t continue to waste my time.
I stand by what I have said, otherwise I wouldn’t have said it. I have been a member of that group since July 2014 and have more than enough evidence to justify any criticism I make of the majoirty of the commentators.
Rather than you popping up to post sample comments from the site every day, why don’t we just invite anyone else who is interested in this debate to visit the site and make up their own minds with regards to the proportions of sane, reasonable comments versus the hysterical, hyperbolic or threatening ones.
No intention to be snide. No inclination particularly to paint you as a contributor to our blame-riddled society: just think society is blame-riddled.
I am just as irritated by misrepresentation as you are. You know very well that I appreciate how much pro bono advice you give, and your contributions to the Facebook posts.
Visiting the site is a good idea. The masses floundering under the spotlight of Social Services would definitely benefit from more professionals advising them before it is too late. It might help offset the victimised outcrying. Which I agree gets in the way of being able to help.
Here’s the link:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/UK.SS.Support
Having read a little about concentration camps, I think the reason social workers get compared to Nazi’s is that parent’s have their children taken away for who they are not what they do. That is they are labelled in a similar way that Jews, Gypsies etc were.They are treated as non people if I can put it like that. For instance a parent who has been in the care system themselves, or has a victim of domestic violence especially if they are poor as well are more likely to have their children taken from them. I suppose what I am really saying it is discrimination.
Sam’s observation is interesting because it’s usually assumed, with good reason, that any comparison to Nazis (embodied by a common sighting of children’s services departments being called ‘the SS’) is a bad sign. However it’s true to an extent that children can be removed from a parent because of who they are. This is because the law is clear that it is the effect on the child, not the actions of the parent per se , that are the grounds for a care order. This can lead to very sad results. Of course you are right that a mother who grew up in care or who is a victim of domestic abuse should not be classed as unfit. The test of a compassionate society is that the rationale for state intervention is the child’s welfare and not ideological.
So, how can we make care proceedings more transparent to reassure the public that the state is only intervening when it has to?
…Sometimes SS is just text speak, like s/w, MhbP, FII, SBS, ICO, EPO, tbh, imho, and all the other acronyms that flood Facebook.
‘children can be removed from a parent because of who they are. ‘
This sounds alarmingly like social engineering. (Which again calls up the spectre of the Nazis, and a crazily genuflecting Tony Blair.) Are S/W’s really qualified to decide who people ‘are’?
Frequently the opinions that make it into assessments don’t come from anyone qualified in more than reading off a screen and clicking in a box. Support workers and call handlers all get to throw in their bent tuppence worth. There are plenty of examples of weird stuff in assessments: ‘serves the children too much raw food and lentils’, ‘ doesn’t have a television’, ‘too many toys’… And dangerous misrepresentations in assessments – and those misrepresentation being taken as evidence by judges, and impossible to challenge. you can read them on the website that Sarah is talking about.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/UK.SS.Support
Here I will only reference an example my own experience: this was written into our referral by an unqualified call handler based on misappropriated misinformation:
‘the father seems to provide all care away from the mother in a seemingly purposeful way. His lack of concern about his daughter’s behaviour and his willingness to discuss it with the nursery worker is also worrying’.
This incoherent, contradictory gibberish is now on our children’s files for 21 years. The ‘nursery worker’ was her class teacher, the deputy head of the nursery. The ‘behaviour’ was rubbing at some rash, or crotch itch, that was written up as ‘masturbation’, that I was encouraging. The ‘all care away from the mother’ referred to an inaccurate presentation of an occasion I spoke about to the nursery, when my daughter had pushed her Mother out of the room. This was written up as the ‘father locks the door’. The room was changed from T.V. room to bedroom. And so on…
We are unable to get this record corrected without taking a private action in court. It was only the nursery blurting out that they had been bullied into a referral they had not wanted to make that prevented our children being removed by police for (completely spurious) allegations of child abuse.
In our case the state intervention was considerably less than in many, but it was still unnecessary, disproportionate, and probably illegal. The film ‘Traffic’ recently produced and presently gagged by an injunction because it evidences brutal Social Service and police removals of babies shows some of what is being hidden from public view.
The public would be reassured if it was true that the state only intervened when it has to. But transparency or no transparency, currently it doesn’t. Currently someone who grew up in care is much more likely to be prey for Social Services, simply because they are already known to them. They already have a foot in the door.
In our case, with coherent, middle class parents, we were able to present a mixture of cooperation and belligerence which made them step back. They came to the door, but they didn’t come in. If they had, I guarantee they would have found things wrong with our domestic arrangements, and quite probably with our relationship. Not because there are, but because they are geared to find justification. How else would it be possible to bear the shame?
Should the question be why do they need to be transparent? If the process is fair no one needs to defend it.
I feel it is so much more than the court process, the whole system needs a decent shake up.
Did anyone listen to File on 4 regarding benefit sanctions ?http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04yk7h6
It mirrored Children’s Services practices for me , right down to managers massaging figures.
I do wonder if we are simply a more selfish society now willing to exploit the weak and voiceless. Possibly I am just getting old!
“It mirrored Children’s Services practices for me , right down to managers massaging figures”.
I was actually thinking of the child sexual exploitation in places such as Rotherham.
I had to make an insurance claim last year, and what happened in trying to get a pay out was similar to my experience with Children’s Services.
Firstly the insurance company who was named on my policy denied I was actually a customer , they passed me onto to another company who of course had no record of me.
This went on for several days , then when the first company admitted I was a customer my excess which was £100 on the policy was now apparently £350. So that by claiming, losing my no claims bonus meant I would actually be out of pocket. So I didn’t claim re insured with no claims bonus intact. Within weeks I had a letter telling me my premium would go up as I had an undisclosed claim. It’s only when I emailed them I noticed that the new company had in fact the same address as the one I had not claimed from, so put them straight.
Parent’s experience with Children’s Services is much along the same lines. Like many in the system I had a child with special needs , which meant endless meetings repeating the same information. A different part of local authority run a service to support parents, I contacted them and was told I could have a key worker, who would support and cut out all of the repeating. Children’s Services denied the service existed. Exactly same happened when I requested a Carer’s Assessment. even though the Carer’s Service said I was entitled
For me transparency , accountability and what lessons should be learnt must go hand in hand.