Myth Busting

This is a post by Sarah Phillimore

I have been asked to provide a synopsis of information about those organisations and people that I think should be treated with caution when it comes to information about the Family Justice System. What follows is my personal opinion – but, as ever, my opinion is based upon evidence from a variety of sources, including criminal convictions and criticism from the civil courts.

The people I list range from serious criminals to those who genuinely and passionately believe what they say and may have some grounds to support it. I do not suggest that people on this list – save for the obviously criminal – have nothing of value or interest to say about the state of our family justice system.

I do however think that, given the nature of their sources and associates, whatever they say needs to be treated with caution and checked against independent sources, wherever possible.

I believe we all have a moral duty to make decisions with the best possible information and take conscious efforts to be aware when bias and prejudice might lead us astray.

CARVATH Richard

Self identifying ‘investigative journalist’, arrested at court in support of Samantha Baldwin. Also believes in organised satanic ritual abuse and accusing those who report accurately about family law cases of ‘defamation’.

The Freeman on the Land

Be very wary of anyone who identifies as a Freeman. In essence, they believe that they can escape being subject to the law by refusing to recognise it. This causes immediate and obvious problems in care proceedings and is almost inevitably an entirely doomed strategy. For further detail see this post.

GERRISH Brian and UK Column

Part of UK Column, which describes itself as ‘an independent multi media news website’ long standing associate of Hemming et al. Was one of the first people McNeil approached with videos of the children in the Hampstead Hoax case – but looks like he had the sense to turn her down.

HAIGH Victoria

Supported by Hemming; unusual for being named in family court judgments after she was found to have caused serious emotional harm to her child by pushing a false narrative that the child’s father had sexually abused her. Was given a custodial sentence for her breach of a non molestation order and worked with Elizabeth Watson, who was also given a custodial sentence for contempt of court in revealing details about Haigh’s case. Believes that the family court sanctions the deliberate ‘breeding ‘of babies to be handed over to paedophiles.

For further information see this post.

And ‘The danger of crusades’ from The Transparency Project.

HAINES Tim and Julie

Close associates with Hemming and his organisation Justice for Families, which no longer appears to have a web presence. Following Tim Haines arrest in 2014 for leaving his daughter alone in a car, the couple developed a keen interest in the child protection system and appear to operate from a starting point that any social work intervention with a family can rarely be justified. They offer their services as paid McKenzie friends and appear to encourage people to make appeals to the Court of Appeal that they know to be hopeless, simply to send a message about how strongly people feel. I advise that you do not give either money or documents to either of the Haines, without having a clear idea about what they are proposing to do to help your case.

HEMMING John

Hemming has been a dedicated campaigner against the FJS since 2007 after some social work involvement with his then pregnant partner. He has over the years made some reasonable and sensible points. However what good he has done is significantly eclipsed by the bad. He was patron of Sabine Mc Neil and Belinda McKenzies’ Association of McKenzie friends along with MP Austin Mitchell until early 2015. Has repeatedly urged parents to leave the jurisdiction as they won’t get a fair hearing in the UK. Has worked closely with Ian Josephs and Christopher Booker. He was seriously criticised by Lord Justice Wall. I have no doubt he caused a lot of damage while a serving MP as his position gave him credibility. However his influence appears to have diminished since he lost his seat in 2015.

I made a formal complaint about the activities of JFF in January 2017. I am still waiting for a response.

Further information is here.

JOSEPHS Ian

A long standing critic of the FJS and author of the infamous ‘Golden Rules’ which includes advice to mothers to think very carefully before even reporting fears about sexual abuse of their children. He is a wealthy man and has given large sums of money over the years to parents who wish to leave the jursidction to escape care proceedings. He carries out no risk assessments of the parents to whom he gives money; his finest hour so far was providing money to Marie Black to travel to France – she was later convicted of over 20 serious sexual offences against children.

MCNEIL Sabine and the Hampstead Hoax

McNeil is currently serving a 9 year sentence for her harassment of families involved in the ‘Hampstead Hoax’ case. This case has proved a useful short cut to identifying the most dangerous of the FJS Conspiracy Theorists. Hoaxstead Research has done sterling work in unmasking the hoaxers and is a good point of reference. It recently reported that McNeil’s appeal against her sentence was refused.

Sabine McNeil has been associated with almost every person or organisation that causes me serious concern with regard to misinformation about the family justice system. See also Belinda McKenzie and the damage done by her and McNeil in the Melissa Laird Case, as just one example out of many.

The Ministry of Justice

It is a tribute to just how odd 2019 has been that I include a Government Department in this list. But the MoJ easily make the cut following their bizarre decision to launch an Inquiry over 3 months into how issues of violence are dealt with in the family courts; that Inquiry apparently proceeding on the basis that men are perpetrators of violence and that law and policy are best discussed in the context of a raft of subjective and unchecked submissions from the public. It maybe that the outcome of the Inquiry is sensible and I can remove them from the list. But I am not holding my breath and will treat information disseminated by this Department with caution from now on. Further further details see this post.

PEACHER Andy

Runs Freedom Talk Radio which he asserts ‘has become the very platform for people with an alternative view point to come onto the show and to announce their findings, ideas and suggestions and allows them to open up to the citizens by revealing their true beliefs on just exactly what is taking place in our World from their view point, which does on so many occasions, conflict and call into question with what is being broadcasted by the mainstream media, which they dare not report the truth’. Associated with and friendly to a great many of the most pernicious influencers on the FJS Conspiracy circuit.

PHILIPS Natasha

Runs the Researching Reform Website. Has connections with Hemming and at one point made Sabine McNeil her ‘star commentator’. As the comments on her web posts shows, she continues to interact largely with those who are identified ‘players’ on the conspiracy scene.

A real example – the Latvian case.

I was prompted to write this post by some email correspondence with a journalist who was concerned that a mother could not obtain a transcript of their care proceedings in 2012. There was a new baby on the way and clearly the local authority were investigating because the mother’s two elder children were removed from her care. I was immediately concerned that the focus of this mother appeared to be wishing to challenge the veracity or integrity of the 2012 proceedings. This would mean her energies would be directed to an almost certainly futile aim of attempting to challenge a court decision now four years old. What she needed to do was engage with a lawyer or a social worker, not a journalist.

A further worrying and practical example of the dangers of such diverted energies, which was ultimately destructive of the mother’s wish to be reunited with her child is in the CB Latvian case, which I discuss in more detail here. It is worth reminding ourselves of the situation in which this child was found:

I then heard a whimpering sound from a door directly in front of me. Once I had opened the door, I saw a room. In the left-hand corner of the room was a wardrobe and there were toys all over the floor. In the right-hand corner of the room against the window was a double bed that looked very soiled. On the wall beside the bed was a large area of damp and the wallpaper was coming away. There was a very strong and overpowering smell of urine and faeces in the room. I saw the child curled in an almost foetal position on the bed lying on a pillow. She sat up when we came into the room and she was holding an empty pink bottle. I went towards the child and she stood up and came towards me. I saw that her clothes were wet and that she was wearing a nappy that was falling off between her legs. Once in a different room, I could see that the child’s clothes were wet and she was shivering. The strong smell was coming from her and it was clear that she had not been changed or cleaned all day. I removed the child’s nappy to find dried and fresh faeces. The nappy was so swollen with urine that the child was unable to walk properly. There were also dried faeces on the child’s body and her skin was soaked in urine that had leaked from her nappy and gone through her clothes.

However, this case was taken up by John Hemming as an example of the ‘conspiracy theory’ that local authorities are driven to remove children to meet ‘targets’ for adoption and that there had never actually been anything wrong with this mother’s parenting. From his discussions on Twitter it was clear that he wished to minimise the harm caused to this child and refer to it as a case about ‘not changing a nappy’ or simply the mother leaving home before her babysitter.

https://t.co/O1WPdNiXCK "because the mother left home before her babysitter arrived her daughter has been put up for adoption" Re CB

— John Hemming (@johnhemming4mp) October 22, 2015

It is unsurprising that mother found this version of events both coherent and satisfying. Rather than address the consequences of the choices she made, which lead to her child suffering significant harm, she could instead be a ‘victim’ of a corrupt state that wanted to steal her child.

But not being able to accept what had in reality happened to her child meant that she could never show that she understood what had gone wrong and what support she needed to make things better. Her fight was always doomed because it wasn’t based on what the majority of people in her case saw as the reality.

Even more worryingly, Hemming asserts that politicians are also seduced by this ‘coherent and satisfying’ narrative.

@SVPhillimore @tuppennyblue @HoaxteadR Us and oddly enough the Latvian Ministry of Justice with which department we have been working.

— John Hemming (@johnhemming4mp) December 6, 2015

EDIT – Following Discussions with Readers

I am grateful to everyone who commented. It made me think, which is the whole point. I agree that it must be very frustrating for a parent who has actually been the victim of professionals who lied or did a very sloppy job to hear me say that their dissatisfaction with the system is down to their own false internal narrative.

Of course I accept that professionals (as fellow humans) can and do behave badly. I have commented about that on this site; a particularly horrible example is the social workers who were found to have lied to the court but who then went on to get promoted! The Rotherham scandal is a clear example of what happens when assumption and prejudice harden into ‘facts’ and families and children are dismissed.

However, this post was born out of frustration with what is my now frequent experiences in court and on-line – parents for whom their are demonstrable, tangible concerns: police reports, drug and alcohol tests, scene of crime photographs of their houses, children with injuries, worried schools, doctors and members of the public who make referrals. And very often, I will find these parents will not or cannot engage with me to represent them. I hear from these parents phrases which are worryingly familiar – ‘lambs to the slaughter’ ‘no punishment without crime’. It is quite obvious who they are talking to. I have had several clients tell me that the social worker will be paid a cash bonus if she ‘gets’ their child.

And by refusing to engage, the system just rolls on over them. They lose their children and are reduced to on line petitions or Facebook raging, in a desperate and miserable fury. But an on line petition is meaningless against a court ruling. If parents don’t engage with their case WHEN IT IS HAPPENING then they will lose.

A clear example from my own practice: I had a client who had been an alcoholic for many years and when care proceedings started had been evicted for rent arrears. The child was removed. An adoption order was sought. The client resisted because – amazingly – they had managed to stop drinking and get a new tenancy. The court was interested. This was real and serious change. Then the client said they wanted to read from a pre-prepared statement in court. It was part of Ian Joseph’s manifesto and referred to the child being stolen by the State and of social workers who got bonuses. I saw the interest draining from the Judge’s eyes. The court could not now believe the client had any real insight into the previous problems and thus the sustainability of the changes made was in real doubt. The adoption order was made.

So I am not going to apologise for pointing out to parents the very real dangers of not being brutally honest about the ‘story’ you are telling – to yourself and to others. And of course, the stories we tell ourselves are the most difficult to challenge.

But I accept it must be hard for parents who know they have been the victims of really poor professional practice to feel that their concerns are dismissed. I hope they accept that I don’t – but it might be the subject for another post.

Information about the Family Justice System: Who can you trust?