Written evidence (CFA0090)

HOUSE OF LORDS CHILDREN AND FAMILIES ACT 2014 SELECT COMMITTEE INQURY

[***]

My experience of attending Court.

1 For many years my son smoked drugs.  He is what I now know as a narcissist.  The daughter who was in his care needed counselling for mental health issues.  Several independent counsellors came to the conclusion that it was the over bearing controlling she received from her father.

2 He has denied the two children in his care access to their sisters and family members including grandparents who they keep asking to see.

3. Upon attending court he presented a multitude of lies.  Not ONE single piece of contradictory evidence that we supplied was read.  To quote the Judge “everything is in the past”.  He was not interested in anything. However, he did go on to tell us about his days as a child on his dads farm?????????????

4.  I have been told I am on the Autistic Spectrum and twice he was very rude and off hand with me.  This reminded me of my awful school days and I felt gagged, afraid to speak again and put at a disadvantage.

5. After a very brief telephone call from *** a report was written.  The report had absolutely no bearing of anything that I had said.  When speaking to *** I used my ‘Professional Childcare’ way of wording everything and know that other Childcare Professionals would, without doubt, agree with what I said.

6 Have been told that I am not allowed to repeat anything in the *** report or what was said in Court.  So HOW can YOU find out the truth about what goes on in Court.

7.  I know of a second person who had the same *** agent and the same thing happened regarding her resulting report.

8  *** said they interviewed my mother (she was well then) but this again was not true.  All mum said was “yes, yes, it is not fair on the children”.  From this my mothers part of the report was written.

9. During no part of any of the proceedings was anyone interested in confirming any of the information given.

10.  Court could not find any of the paperwork I had submitted until about a minute before I was due to go in.

11.  Support Through Court knew I had been told I am on the Autistic Spectrum but, due to Covid, needed to sit a distance from me in Court.  Upon leaving the Court their representative said to me “I wish I could have sat with you because I could have explained what the Judge was saying to you”.  It was obvious to her that I had been treated badly and, in my opinion, was put at a disadvantage.   Twice the Judge was quite off hand and rude to me.  I did reply that I did not understand and I thought I was answering what he had asked.  NO explanation or clarification of what I did not understand was given.

12.  As a result of this we are allowed to see the children 6 times a year.  This was decided on the one sided information given by my son. The children want to see more of us. 

13  As my mother is dying I emailed and requested that any other person could be here to sit with my mum when the children are here.  We are due to see them soon.  As in Court many lies were told by them saying we and others would put them down in front of the children (a lie), the Court stated that nobody else could be here when we have the children (not even family including their sisters).  As I had predicted the answer was NO.

The whole system needs to be open and not kept secret.  I understand that the secrecy is ‘supposed’ to be in the interest of the child but, I and many others, feel that this promotes shoddiness both in proceedings and desire to ascertain all the information available and creates a much more dangerous situation for the children.

New Subject

14.  So much has been written about the benefits of children having access to their grandparents. The automatic right for children to see grandparents/family members they wish to see is so vitally important.  Particularly in this day and age when many people use drugs.

15  The onus should be on the PARENTS to go to Court to remove the automatic right.  Then the parents would need to provide evidence of the reason for this.  Also, professionals who are trained to speak to children should be included to ascertain if any of the parental information can be verified.  Persona dolls are very useful in this respect. Also, so called CAFCASS interviews should be recorded to enable verification when a CAFCASS representative ‘makes up’ a report which is inaccurate and full of untruths.  Sadly, I feel, the CAFCASS representative would be believed over even that of an experienced Childcare Professional (that is IF the Judge reads anything).

16 As you may well know, in this country at least one child is KILLED each week by PARENT/STEP PARENT.  I wrote to the NSPCC and asked how many of these children had full access to their family, grandparents in particular.  This reply was that they did not know.  Shocking… the first question asked should be where were the rest of the family, why did they not spot something was amiss?

17 When grandparents DO report worries, it appears as far as I can read, that they are not taken seriously enough.

18 Once a grandparent highlights a problem the parents can instantly deny them access to their loved grandchildren as they have NO automatic right to see them.

19 It is about time that a ‘family unit’ is seen to encompass grandparents, brothers/sisters, uncles/aunts.  ALL people who would then be able to keep an ‘eye’ on the wellbeing/safety of the child.

Mediation

20 When offered mediation my son would not attend.  Sure if a person was working in the ‘best interests’ of a child, they would want to attend mediation to air their views and bring to light what needs to be changed in the relationship.  However, I was told that mediation is separate to the Court.  Therefore, the important fact that for example: a parent is not willing to try to mediate with grandparents is something the court should not be ignorant of.

21 I cannot say too much on this point because experience is through my profession as a ***.  I do know of a case where the Court knew of the ‘mishaps’ a child had suffered with his ‘drug’ user father.  They still allowed access (apparently ignoring all the evidence against this, perhaps as in my case not even reading anything) and the child whilst growing up experienced a LOT of problems due to his connections with his father.

22 I feel by making Courts Open, investigating information given, recording (with permission) CAFCASS conversations and giving children the automatic right to access grandparents and other family members this would create proper informed decisions by the Court and make a child’s world much safer.

I repeat sorry about for format of this information.  Since starting this a few days ago my mother has died.  I just wanted you to know what really happens in the Courts.  If you belonged to some of the Grandparents groups you would hear my story over and over again.  It is a disgrace.

Thank you for reading this but I have no doubt that nothing will change.  Just because the Courts have been this way for far too long it does not mean it is the right way.  Too many parents take drugs these days and Children need the members of their family to keep an eye on their wellbeing and give the children easy access to help.

May 2022