Very cool, if true

I understand, because sometimes it is just silly for there to have been an investigation in the first place.

A girl I knew had this happen to her once. Her toddler threw a temper tantrum in a car park - you know what kids are like - and someone reported her for *throwing* her kid onto the ground! She spent a year in and out of courts, just because some random passerby decided to play hero instead of taking the time to look closer and see what was really going on. She was eventually found to be in the right, but seriously, thats a lot of stress for a young mum to be put through.

The other reason is that I don't like this country's social services (the SS, the Gestapo). They have the right to remove children from their parents care if they *suspect* anything - they don't have to prove it. Once a kid is gone, they're not allowed back to their parents even if the parents are later found to be innocent. They are extremely arrogant dictators who think they know everything, yet they do not employ anyone who has ever had a *history* - who has been abused in the past, so I don't think they actually have any idea what its like. They're only happy when you say what they want to hear. People just nod and say yes to them because to disagree would land you in seven levels of shit.

I do agree that there has to be protection for kids. I just don't think the current system is any good.

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a-pawson.livejournal.com

The problem is that the moment someone is investigated they instantly branded a paedophile in their local community, by friends, colleagues and people who don't even know them. Even if nothing comes of an investigation, the damage is done, and the reputation will stick.

Ideally such investigations would be done completely anonymously, but let's not pretend that people don't find out about such things, and that rumours don't start flying around. People have been lynched over less.

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wordofblake.livejournal.com

It doesnt even sound especially brusque to me.

It says The officer told me that he personally did not find [the photos] offensive and that he had camped himself as a kid and knows what goes on." But the officer also told Janet that "because Eckerd's had called them and that because there were pictures of children naked, genitalia and alcohol, they would have to investigate"

I mean do people not want these things investigated?

As soon as anything happens involving kids people are up in arms about the Police and their failure to investigate. You really cannot have it both ways.

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oldbaldchris.livejournal.com

I reckon she deserved it. Taking photos of babies naked in the bath is one thing , but one of her kids was eight. Plus the fact that she took a photo of everyone peeing on the fire to put it out??? Silly cow is at the very least guilty of poor judgement and taste.

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Kids are returned to their parents all the time. There are very strong controls over what social services people may or may not do, and the number of children removed from their parents has dropped massively since the problems in the late 80s in Rochdale/Orkneys, etc.

While I'm sure there are still problems, I think you're being unfair on the modern social services.

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How do you ask people about a suspect anonymously?

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a-pawson.livejournal.com

You can't. Hence why such an investigation would extremely damaging to the family involved. They should think very carefully before starting such an investigation. Legally you may be innocent until proven guilty, but in society it doesn't ork that way. Mud sticks.

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missedith01.livejournal.com

How was this a case of suspected child abuse? Wouldn't that involve evidence that some children had been subjected to abuse? The mere existence of a photograph of a child not wearing clothes (especially in a setting where a child might be expected to go without clothing) is surely not enough.

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I say it as I see it, and what I see ain't good. They weren't just messing up in the 80s, they're still doing it!

Seriously, it is the ONLY crime in the UK where you have to prove your innocence, rather than them trying to prove your guilt. Whats with that? Why is that okay just because 'its for the children!' ?

And how are people supposed to defend themselves when all proceedings are done behind closed doors and they are told that to seek outside help will breach confidentiality?

People are provided with a social services recommended solicitor. And they use their own 'approved' doctors. Like, zomg! Bias much? I'd like to know what procedures are in place there!

And how come people are being sent to jail on no more than a 'my word against his' basis, only later to be found innocent?

Why are children put up for adoption without their biological parents knowledge?

Want a meaningless statistic? Over 85% of child abuse cases are subsequently found to be not child abuse cases at all and over 450 000 kids are dragged through a humiliating, degrading, distressing and emotionally painful process unnecessarily because of it.

Clearly, I think we would be doing wrong NOT to beathe down the SS's necks a bit and get them to buck their ideas up.

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That second one I find really odd.

One of my mother's proudest pictures of me as a child shows a fair bit of nappy (much to my embarrassment as a teenager). Still, that was 25 years ago: I suspect things have changed quite a bit.

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Sadly the stories where the return / fail to remove the right childre or remove children wrongly are the ones that make the news.

In saying that, I have known families where children have been removed for spurious reasons and also families where children weren't removed despite a hellish home life.

It's often cited as a resourcing issue, but that doesn't diminish the effect on the families involved.

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Perhaps, but why should a naked picture of anyone be inherently sexual?

It may be a naive view, but I honestly don't see a problem with people having naked pictures of their own kids. In saying that, I probably wouldn't do it (I don't have kids), because I am aware of the problems it can cause.

Arguments about pornography and paedophilia have distorted the view of nudity, particularly among the young, which I think is a shame. I honestly believe that in some circumstances adults inpositions of responsibility are forced to spend more time thinking about how things look than how there are.

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I've responded to others already, but I feel compelled to write my own response, as this is something I discuss with my mother often (she teaches 5-7 year olds).

I can understand the family frustration here. Speaking to the children is one thing, but teachers, neighbours and employers is another. A reputation is easily besmirched and I can see how it could be tremendously difficult to face the community after such an investigation. Some - for want of a better word - conservative families might disapprove of the activities regardless.

That's not to say the authorities acted inappropriately in terms of their behaviour towards the family themselves - they were doing their job - but rather that the investigation needn't have gone to the depth it did.

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sibelian.livejournal.com

Yes, that's what I think.

I think that most of the main players in this are blameless, it's the person who alerted the police to the case in the first place that caused all the trouble.

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sibelian.livejournal.com

In FACT, *I* think that people alerting SS and police to obviously innocent pictures of kids naked should be penalised for wasting public time and money.

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Well, the police should clearly have more leeway to say "This isn't an important case."

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The problem, I think, is that the social services people are basically trained to not give a damn about anyone other than the kid. And therefore anything that gets between them and making absolutely sure the kid wasn't endangered gets ignored, even if it hurts the family.

Setting the priorities otherwise would be tricky, but understanding that taking kids away from their families is obviously necessary.

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I'm afraid a lot of this is very far wrong.

it is the ONLY crime in the UK where you have to prove your innocence, rather than them trying to prove your guilt. Whats with that? Why is that okay just because 'its for the children!' ?

Child abuse (proven) is a crime, yes, but that's not what social services are for; that's police business. Completel;y differnet bodies. Yes, they (social workers) can take children , temporarily, into care on suspicion - I think you'd agree that in some cases that's only to be desired. Within 7 days the child then has to go before a children's panel - composed of lay people like you and me, not social workers, and assisted by a lawyer. The criterion for waht happens IS the welfare of the child, not the wlefare of the parents, yes. That's what the law says, and has since about 1948, and what the UN Convention on the Rts of the Child demands. Proving someone (parents, strangers, whoever) has committed a crime is a wholly seperate issue; it has to be proven beyond reasonable doubt. The two processes are seperate. Social workers may be witnesses in criminal proceedings, but they are not prosecutors, nor are they criminal judges.

In fact, contrary to the picture you paint, if anything we probably under protect children now, at least in SCotland (I am less sure of the English position). Since the 80s there was such a backlash, that the number of children taken into care via emergency protection has dropped every year since. My mother used to do expert witnessing (as a child psychologist, not a social worker) in adoption and care cases, and used to complain constantly about children at risk being left with families, because that has been the dogma since the early 80s - remove from family only as last resort (and this is in the law - see s 22 CSA 1995).

I don't know where you get the "Why are children put up for adoption without their biological parents knowledge?". This is against the law. Basically a child can only be adopted if (a) the parent(s) consent (b) their consent is dispensed with because they cannot care for the child adequately, according to a court, not social workers, or (c) they are dead or cannot be found. You cannot adopt a child without a parent's knowledge if that parent is known to social services. (The exception here is the unmarried father: he still has to be notified but does not have a veto on the adoption. And that is mostly history as of May 2006 anyway, when rights were given to fathers who are registerd on the birth certificate even if not married to the mother. Note also that overwhelmingly children put up for adoption have in practice one parent, their mother.)

In fact most children adopted these days are not babies but older children who have spent long periods in care, and have a very very long history with social services; adoption takes so long in these cases, it is extremely unlikely a parent would reamin unknown if they cared a damn about the child.

Being a family social worker is basically the shit job of all time. You are damned for taking children out of families; damned if you don't and they end up hurt, abused or dead. Social workers are regularly threatened with legal action for trying to do their jobs. It is underpaid, long hours and poor prospects. because of this most social work authorities are deeply understaffed. Try talking to actual social workers; I don't think they feel much like the SS. Most of them are looking for other jobs.

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pisica.livejournal.com

Seriously, it is the ONLY crime in the UK where you have to prove your innocence

No, I think some of the issues related to prostitution (which is not in and of itself a crime) work that way, but it's been a while since I researched them, so that could have changed, but I doubt it.

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In prostitution the crime is soliciting, and it's the usual standard of proof beyond reasonable doubt.

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pisica.livejournal.com

Isn't it also living on the earnings of a prostitute, or something related?

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POlice don';t have that much leeway, I understand, once someone has complained. Some response to the complaint has to be logged , however small. Prosecutors however have lots and it would be daft in 99% of cases to go further oce a few basic questions had been asked. OTW it seems to me that's the right way to do things.

Imagine a case of this kind where the child later WAS found to have been abused and the police had done zero after a complaint. can you imagine the press?

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Well that's a different crime - but yes. What you might be thinking of is the often ridiculed prsumption of English law that anywhere two "known" prostitutes live is a brothel; and keeping a brothel (and living off its profits) is a crime.

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Yes, they (social workers) can take children , temporarily, into care on suspicion - I think you'd agree that in some cases that's only to be desired.

In some cases, yes. But not all. I'm concerned with the cases where kids are taken into care under the flimsiest of suspicions. The SS have a very heavy handed way about them at times. Thats what I'm talking about when I say 'innocent until proven guilty'. Kids being taken for a single bump on the head, for example, like that case in Essex.

As to the adoption thing - a parent may know that their child is up for adoption but they are not necessarily told when their child has *been* adopted.

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Random aside - if you took ictures of yourself, say age 11, naked and then later in life when you were, say 35, printed them, would that be child pornography? :p

It would be highly entertaining to see the photo lab clerk's face when you explain that one.

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I don't know the Essex case but I wouldn't reply on press reports. Almost all children taken into care have a very long history of social work involvement - tho a final "single incident" may be what sparks them actually being taken out of the home - which as I say is almost always the last resort.

Emergency care in both England and Scotland requires proof or suspicion of "significant harm".

As for adoption, I don't quite get you : do you mean that birth parents don't have a right to find a child once adopted and over 16? I agree things could be better in that respect, but I do think the person who still needs most protection is the child and it should be their choice.

If you mean that parents can't stop a child being adopted after a "freeing for adoption" order: well that's the whole point of it! (These are made so children don't get settled in potential sdoption placements then yanked out by parents changing their mind at the last minute.)

But if you mean exactly what you say: that just isn't how it is. Adoption takes a court order, and though proceedings are in private, the making of that order is public knowledge. Birth parents who can be found are notified of the process, have the right to oppose and the right to be involved even if not opposing (even fathers with no rights).

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Personally, I don't have a problem with naked pictures. I agree entirely, for instance, that there was no reason to investigate people just because they had pictures of their kids naked. There are photos of me, Mike and Hugh all sharing a bath, for instance, age 6, 4 and 2 :->

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We'll have to disagree on the specifics of what the SS need or do not need to take a kid into care. You have your personal experiences of it and I have mine. Mine lead me to believe what I believe.

I say it how it is. Here's the situation - your kid gets put up for adoption. You start proceedings to challenge that order, but before your challenge is answered, the kid is adopted and you have no further recourse. There's something wrong with that.

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