The curious ‘rhetoric case’ of Linda Arlig This is a post by Sarah Phillimore Over the past two years I have been repeatedly referred to a document authored by Linda Arlig of the Department of Social Science, the Psychology Section of the University of Orebro, Sweden. It is called ‘The Rhetoric Case: Persecution strategies in […]
This is a post by Sarah Phillimore On November 2nd, ironically as I attended a workshop on cross-border child protection issues, I received an email with the judgment in the case of Re N (Children) (Adoption: Jurisdiction) [2015] EWCA Civ 1112. This was a judgment from a hearing heard at the end of March 2015 […]
Discussion about what the statistics do or don’t tell us about the rise (or fall!) in adoption rates has grown considerably throughout 2015. Therefore we have removed this discussion from the Forced Adoption post to consider it separately here. Those who campaign against ‘forced adoption’ maintain that the initial ‘targets’ to get children out of […]
I am a passionate believer in the value of adoption in appropriate circumstances… But I fear that, in making all those orders, I never gave much attention to the emotional repercussions of them. In particular I fear that I failed fully to appreciate that an adoption order is not just a necessary arrangement for the […]
This is a post by Sarah Phillimore On the morning of Friday August 21st I posted a comment on the Marilyn Stowe blog after the former MP John Hemming had written a guest post about adoption statistics. The biography attached to his post described him simply as a highly educated and respectable former MP and […]
Is there anyway we can bridge this gulf between us? Or are we simply doomed to shout at each other from our opposite sides of the gulf, whilst the parents and children continue to slide into it? This post is sparked by comments on a recent post Helping Parents Leave the Jurisdiction where I set out […]
What happens if you don’t know the whole story… or you don’t care? The links between Hemming, Booker and Josephs. “Any person who embraces one party’s version of events and treats it as the whole truth is making a serious mistake. In most family cases the version given by one side is partial and tendentious; […]
Care proceedings may involve parents who are said to ‘lack capacity’. In this post we will discuss what that means and what are the implications for the care proceedings. The Law – the Mental Capacity Act 2005 The Mental Capacity Act came into force in 2007 and provides a statutory framework for people who lack […]
The two words ‘information’ and ‘communication’ are often used interchangeably, but they signify quite different things. Information is giving out; communication is getting through. Sydney J. Harris This is an article by Sarah Phillimore of St Johns Chambers in Bristol who has been a family law barrister since 1999 and worked in courts all over […]
I have been told if I declare myself a ‘Freeman’ that I don’t have to do what the court says and the court has no authority over me? You need to be very careful about this. Over a number of years the ‘Freeman on the land’ movement has gathered numbers in countries that rely on […]