On July 10th the Family Rights Group launched their report ‘Co-operation or Coercion? Children coming into the care system under voluntary arrangements’ . I wrote a brief summary of the speakers’ contributions and the report’s recommendations for The Transparency Project. I commented that this was a very important report, with very sobering findings and it […]
On 5th January I made a formal complaint to John Hemming about the activities of the Justice For Families group, [JFF] of which (I assume) he remains the Chair. I raised a significant number of very serious concerns, including that the activities of JFF put vulnerable parents and children at risk of harm by facilitating […]
This post is my formal complaint about the activities of the organisation Justice for Families, which I made to its Chairman John Hemming on 8th January 2017. My name is Sarah Phillimore and I am a barrister specialising in child protection law. My concerns about Mr Hemming and his organisation are long standing. You can […]
This exchange began after I read a press release for the documentary The Stolen Children of England (Les Enfants Voles D’Angleterre), that was shown on French TV Canal 5 on 15 November 2016. I commented about how uneasy that made me here. I was then sent a English language version of the documentary which I […]
2016 has been a terrible year but perhaps a necessary year. Just as the boil has to burst or be lanced before it can heal, we do need to confront why so many people are so angry and so unhappy and so willing not only to embrace distortions and misrepresentations of what is true, but […]
But not enough. John Hemming’s gone very quiet, Tim is debating my mum’s vulnerability and the fact that I don’t have enough reported cases to my name to comment on the fact that Hemming and JFF appear to be encouraging vulnerable families to leave the UK and go to a house which is profoundly unsafe. […]
For some time now I have been talking about and worried about the network of people who help parents leave the country if they are facing care proceedings. I am not convinced they are motivated by wanting to help people. I think they are more interested in showing they can get one over the ‘system’. […]
This is a post by Sarah Phillimore. ‘Conspiracy theories/theorists’ is a phrase often used on this site by me. Sometimes I slip into rather coarser language and refer to ‘conspiraloons’, which reflects the degree of exasperation I often feel for those who promote narratives about the child protection system that I think bear very little […]
In February 2016 the Lord Chief Justice issued a consultation paper about the court’s approach to McKenzie Friends. Responses are required by May 29th. This post sets out the response from the CPR site and is written by Sarah Phillimore. The Consultation sets out an explanation of what is a McKenzie Friend (MKF) and what […]
On November 24th I attended the 9th Annual Family Justice Council debate at the Strand Palace Hotel in London. You can read more about the debate and the work of the FJC at this post on the Transparency Project. To my surprise, I found Ian Josephs himself in attendance; he took the floor to deliver […]