The UKIP contribution to the debate.

This is a post by Sarah Phillimore

On Monday 26th October the Guardian published an article by Douglas Carswell the UKIP MP.  This called for the family courts to ‘open up’ in order to avoid ‘outrageous injustices’.  UKIP had previously discussed the child protection system in their manifesto, calling for a ‘far reaching child care review’:

A misplaced sensitivity to issues of race and religion, combined with fear, has been
shown to have stopped many investigations into the abuse of children. There is also
concern among the public at rising levels of ‘forced’ adoptions. Some of those charged
with protecting children in care are letting serious cases of abuse and maltreatment slip
through the net. Our children’s wellbeing lags behind many of our European neighbours
and we are seeing alarming rates of self-harm and poor mental health. UKIP is committed to bringing forward a full, open review of all childcare and child protection services in Britain, with a view to initiating wholesale reform of a system that is clearly failing. Our children deserve better and UKIP will investigate failings without fear or favour to deliver a safer, brighter, fairer future for our children.

In the Guardian article, Douglas Carswell was publicising a policy paper on opening up the family courts, written with Duncan Simpson, the deputy director of UKIP’s ‘parliamentary research unit’. I haven’t yet had time to read this policy paper in full, but note the Guardian’s precis of its main conclusions:

• More use of special guardianship orders to allow grandparents to take over the care of a child.
• The opening up of placement and adoption order proceedings to the media on the same basis as other family law proceedings.
• A requirement that all judgments be published, except where the presiding judge seeks and obtains a contrary order from the president of the high court family division.
• The media to be allowed access to expert reports on an anonymised basis with restrictions enforced only in the most exceptional cases.

The first suggested reform indicates that UKIP have a pretty shaky grasp on what is actually happening on the ground; particularly the disquiet expressed from many about the significant increase in the use of SGOs and how these don’t necessarily represent what is in the best interests of an individual child.

I have no problem with the second third or fourth; I think they are sensible and should be implemented.

However, the devil as always is in the detail. Douglas Carswell is quoted:

Ukip’s only MP suggested that his reforms would have prevented the heartache suffered by Karissa Cox and Peter Butler, who lost custody of their child after being wrongly accused of abuse. The child was put up for adoption after the couple took their baby to hospital after the six-week-old started bleeding from its mouth. Staff at the hospital noticed bruising on the baby, prompting the authorities to take the child into care and to charge the parents with child cruelty.

The parents were cleared this month, by which time the child had been adopted. “If our reforms had been in place that case could not have happened,” Carswell said.

The obvious question is – how on earth could the reforms as set out above have had any impact whatsoever on a case where the medical evidence was incomplete or incorrect – which was the fundamental problem for Karissa Cox and Peter Butler:

Defence experts discovered the child was suffering from Von Willebrand disease, a blood disorder that causes a person to bruise easily, as well as a vitamin D deficiency, which causes infantile rickets. An independent radiologist, commissioned by the prosecution, concluded that he doubted there were any fractures at all.

But its the next bit that really leapt out at me:

The Ukip MP said he accepted that in many disputed cases children need to be taken into care or adopted against the wishes of the parents. “I am not saying it is wrong for the state to forcefully break up a family. There are times when it has to do that.

“But at least the evidence should be tested in an open court. At least there should be some opportunity for people to know what it is they are being accused of ... and at least the people who are preparing the evidence ought to have met the people they are giving evidence about.”

First problem: to say that parents in care proceedings don’t have an opportunity to know the case against them is utterly and bizarrely wrong. Not only do parents know the case against them but the state will pay for their lawyers to challenge the case against them. It is baffling why lawyers are continually air brushed out of the narrative about the Evil and Secret Family Courts; maybe its because we are just so utterly ineffective, ‘legal aid losers’ in the pockets of the local authorities, etc, etc, etc.

Its an extremely irresponsible untruth to keep bandying about. Because no doubt it terrifies vulnerable people who are facing these kinds of proceedings. Is UKIP simply ignorant of how the court process works? Of the rule of law? Of the opportunities to challenge evidence? To cross examine witnesses, professional or otherwise?

Second problem: what does he mean about ‘people preparing the evidence ought to have met the people they are giving evidence about”?  Is this an accusation that expert evidence about parents’ mental or physical health is routinely provided by experts who don’t meet the parents? If he is saying this that, in my view it simply isn’t true – I accept there have been some worrying examples of bad practice but these are rare –  in my own experience spanning 15 years I have never had to deal with a psychiatrist or psychologist who reported without meeting my parent client (although I did make a complaint about a psychologist who was prepared to make an updating report 2 years after she met the parents, without seeing them again) .

Is he saying that doctors examining X-rays or the bruises on a child’s body ought to meet the parents first? If so, why?

Either UKIP just don’t know how the court system works, or they don’t care and would rather a sexy soundbite for a national newspaper than a contribution to responsible debate. This article doesn’t fill me with optimism that their ‘parliamentary research unit’ is going to make an helpful contribution to the debate about how we make our child protection system better.

What a pity. Because as UKIP set out in their manifesto they recognise that many things are going very badly wrong for our children. The last thing we need is just more ill-informed noise to distract us from the realities.

I will now add the UKIP policy paper to my reading list. Maybe I will find some answers to my questions there. But I hope you will forgive me if I am less than optimistic.