Hemming: An Abuse of Privilege

Yesterday, John Hemming hid behind parliamentary privilege in order to name an individual who had recently (and allegedly) been hauled before the courts after disclosing information about a court case in which they were personally involved during a meeting conducted, in private, in the House of Commons.

Here’s the introduction to Hemming’s own take on his actions – I’m not going to link to his blog post, nor reproduce anything more than a heavily redacted version of his introductory remarks for reasons that will become patently obvious in a very short while.

Some confusion has reigned in the blogosphere about today’s points of order. My objective was to identify the parties in the [Name Redacted] / [Name Redacted] case where [Name Redacted] tried to Jail [Name Redacted] for talking in Parliament.

All the other details of the story are in the public domain, but an injunction prevented the parties being identified.

Now they can be identified.

This not a ‘superinjunction’ case nor are any of the parties involved in the case either a celebrity or a footballer, although one of the parties is allegedly ‘known to millions’ but only to the extent that her name will be known for her professional involvement in particular sporting activity by people who follow that sport closely. Following Hemming’s intervention, on a point of order that was raised in circumstances that were clearly contrary to the openly expressed wishes of the Speaker of the House, anyone one with a few minutes to spare can now readily identify all the parties involved in the case – and not just in the matter of the recent proceeding relating to the violation of an injunction but in the underlying case to which the now broken injunction related.

As far as Hemming is concerned, this is a case of ‘job done’ – so let’s look at what that actually means.

First things’ first – context.

There are two important things to note in relation to John Hemming before we get into the meat of this issue.

The first is that Hemming has a personal beef with social services and the child protection system which stems from an incident in 2005 in which Hemming’s then-pregnant mistress, Emily Cox, was briefly ‘investigated’ by Birmingham City Council’s Social Services Department after concerns were raised by her GP following an ante-natal consultation during which Cox admitted that she had failed to register the death of a stillborn baby when she was a teenager.

Hemming’s response to this investigation was to level a series of uncorroborated and overwrought  accusations against social workers, who he predictably described as ‘acting like the Gestapo’ topped off with a writ seeking damages of £300,000 in which he claimed that his mistress had been "defamed, tortured and assaulted by social services and they [Hemming and Cox] had spent time which could have been spent earning dealing with the issues raised. The media coverage of this case follows the all-too-familiar pattern in which social workers are publicly pilloried by an aggrieved party who gets to put across their side of the story and make specific and damaging allegations while the social workers who conducted the investigation are precluded from defending their actions in all but the blandest of terms for legal and ethical reasons:

A spokesman for Birmingham City Council last night said: "The local authority took careful and considered actions as required by the law to investigate concerns about the welfare of a child.

"Birmingham City Council is confident of all the actions taken alongside police and health colleagues and will be vigorously defending the matter and its staff who at all times acted within the area child protection committee procedures and the law."

Hemming’s threatened lawsuit against Birmingham City Council came to nothing and was, so as I’m aware, quietly withdrawn without ever proceeding to a hearing.

The second thing to note is that Hemming has form for inserting himself into legal proceedings relating to decisions handed down by the family court. In 2008, Hemming attended the Court of Appeal as a McKenzie in a rather sad case in which the central issue at stake was that of whether a women with serious learning disabilities possessed the mental capacity to care for her disabled. Hemming’s intervention in the case prompted the following highly critical response from Lord Justice Wall, who has since (2010) been appointed to position of President of the Family Division and Head of Family Justice for England and Wales:

My judgment is that his [Hemming’s] self-imposed role as a critic of the family justice system is gravely damaged…. Speaking for myself I will not be persuaded to take seriously any criticism made by him in the future unless it is corroborated by reliable, independent evidence.’

For brevity’s sake, I won’t run through the full ins and outs of this case, not least as it was more than adequately covered at the time by both PoliticalHack and myself. It is nevertheless worth noting that Hemming’s approach to this case was based entirely on levelling unfounded allegations of serious professional misconduct against both the Official Solicitor and the clinical psychologist who had assessed the mother’s mental capacity against the backdrop of a conspiracy theory in which social services departments were allegedly ‘stealing’ babies for profit without following due process in order to meet government adoption targets to which modest financial incentives had, at the time, been attached in an effort to speed up the system and get more out of care and into adoptive families.

Naturally enough, Hemming failed to produce any factual evidence to corroborate his allegations, which were in any case rejected by Wall LJ in the most unequivocal of terms:

125. Mr. Hemming’s allegation that HJ [the clinical psychologist] is part of an “evil” system only warrants comment because it comes from a Member of Parliament, and thus from a person in a responsible public position whom one ought to be able to trust only to make serious accusations when they are based on evidence. I am astonished that somebody in Mr. Hemming’s position should have seen fit to put such a disgraceful allegation into the public domain. I reject it unreservedly.

Through these proceedings, Hemming’s interventions fixated solely on the presumed rights of the mother with no regard whatsoever given to the welfare of the child, a point which did not go unnoticed by Wall LJ:

…the danger of the mother’s approach, reinforced as it has been in my judgment by Mr Hemming’s partial and tendentious advice, is that it has been entirely adult focused. Not once in his argument did he mention the welfare of KP [the child]. His emphasis, and that of RP [the mother], was entirely on her rights and the alleged wrongs which had been done to her.

Getting back to Hemming’s latest escapade, the case to which yesterday’s privileged disclosure relates in, once again, a matter that is currently before the family courts albeit one that, unlike the 2008, has yet to find its way to the High Court or Court of Appeal, which means that we cannot rely on a credible source such as Bailii for factual information about the case.

What can reliably ascertained is that this is a particularly complicated, unpleasant and acrimonious case which arose, initially, out of the breakdown of a relationship which gave rise, to begin with, to a dispute over a father’s access rights to a single child.

What elevates the case far outside the norm is that the mother who, to begin with had custody of the child, sought to deny the father access to the child by way of levelling a series of damaging allegations against the father, the most serious of which accused the father of sexually molesting the child.

Following a series of investigations and hearings in the family court over a period of five to six years or so, the current state of play in this case appears to be that the child is now in the custody of the father but still subject to a care order or care plan put together by the local Social Services department (this is not entirely clear due to certain issues with the source material I’m working from here that will become clear in a moment), while the mother has no access to the child at all, having been served with a non-molestation order by, seemingly, the Local Authority.

Precisely why this should be the case is, perhaps, best illustrated by the finding of fact handed down following a hearing early in 2010:

1. [The child] has not been sexually abused by the father, or at all.

2. The allegations of sexual abuse were made first by the mother, not by [the child], they were false and the mother knew them to be false.

3. As a result of inappropriate pressure and prompting, [the child] came to make and believe the allegations.

4. Once [the child] adopted the allegations, the mother may have deluded herself that they were true.

5. [The child] suffered actual and significant emotional harm.

My source for this information, from which a number of annotations have been removed, is a lengthy ‘account’ – which refers to itself as a ‘Truth Statement’ of the case produced by a supporter of the mother, Elizabeth J Watson of Discoveries International Limited, a Croydon-based company which lists its business areas on Companies House as ‘Other wholesale’, ‘Investigations and security’ and ‘Other business interests’. A personal biography of Watson can be found here of which perhaps the most interesting passage is that detailing her most recent interests and activities:

In May 2006, after watching "The Secret", I had a huge wake-up call and became fascinated with The Law of Attraction and taking ownership of "I create my own Reality". This has led to a very interesting ‘chapter’ in fact, the most interesting phase of my entire life, now that I have just ‘hit’ my 5th decade !! LOL

It means that I experiement with Quantum Physics on a regular and habitual basis now, and am having great fun with it and the learning that is taking place. Arising from this new ‘mind-set’, I have several wonderful projects I am now seeking, and beginning, to get underway. I will post more on these as they reach fruition, and manifest into Being. I am keen to meet like-minded people and business partners who are interested in being a part of a dynamic Team: the areas are: website production / design/IT Systems for an online Membership Club, also producing a Documentary, writing and publishing a book, helping with setting up and launching a specialised Managed FOREX Hedge Fund and "The Abacus Wealth Club" (due to launch shortly), amongst other things.

‘The Secret’ is a best-selling self-help book and film by Rhonda Byrne which, on its release in 2006, was heavily promoted by the reigning queen of American quackery, Oprah Winfrey. In essence its a rehash of the every popular positive-thinking and affirmations scam in which gullible idiots are sold the idea that they can have the perfect life and everything they want from it if only they make lots of the lists and wish really hard for it. For example, the book offers its readers the following sage-like advice on the subject of weight control:

"If you see people who are overweight, do not observe them, but immediately switch your mind to the picture of you in your perfect body and feel it."

Watson’s ‘account’ of the case, as you might expect, disputes the findings of the court – actually ‘disputes’ is hardly the right word to use as you’ll plainly see from this extract from the introduction to her ‘Truth Statement’:

The child of [Redacted], namely [Redacted], has been unlawfully abducted from her mother, who claims her full parental responsibility for the child whom she loves dearly. Mother and child have not seen each other even once since mid November 2010 save a brief 10 minute meeting in December 2010, because of State interference in their rights and liberties. The sacred parental responsibility of the mother, [Redacted], has been callously over-ridden and absurdly denied to her by the “Authorities”, with no grounds in Law to support this, and the action of depriving [Redacted] of the child has caused untold distress, humiliation and unquantifiable damage and unnecessary suffering, to both mother and child: but [Redacted] is innocent and has committed NO offence. Yet she has been treated like a criminal by [Redacted] Social Services, who have profited financially from the entire child-snatching exercise by acting in cold blood and deploying callous indifference to their fellow human beings.

The ‘bottom line’ is that [Redacted] has, effectively, been used as a financial instrument to fill the coffers and create revenue for the County Council in [Redacted]. The experience and worry caused to [Redacted] the mother, has been galling. The alarming status quo has been kept alive now for some 14 months since the two were formally parted from each other, seemingly in the iron grip of the damning effects of this unconscionable act on the part of the [Redacted] and their army of subservient cohorts.

It is entirely demonstrable however, that the father, [Redacted], on the other hand, has committed several offences, and incontrovertible evidence exists to show that he is guilty of [Redacted] and criminal acts of [Redacted] against his own child. There is also evidence to show that [Redacted] committed [Redcated] prior to the child’s birth, against the mother, [Redacted]: appallingly, all these crimes have been condoned and ignored by those masquerading as ‘Authorities’, with no explanation nor justification in Law. The Courts and judges involved have arguably played their part too, in perverting Justice on this case, partly through being misled by a woman parading as a “solicitor” when she had no such qualification or status for this, and partly because of the enormous problem with corruption inside CAFCASS who colluded with the [Redacted] for their mutual pecuniary advantage. Everything unjust on this Case traces back to vested interests of those ‘players’ involved.

The document is semi-anonymised, in the sense that initials are used to identify the various named parties in the document, which runs to a total of 26 pages, but I’ve nevertheless chosen to redact that information because the author has used the actual initials on named parties rather than stick to accepted court practice in which the letters given to anonymised parties are semi-randomised and chosen so as to avoid inadvertently provided any clues as to a particular individual’s real identity.

What we can see, therefore, is that Watson’s account of the case amounts to a lengthy conspiracy theory which repeats, and in the main text expands considerably upon the most serious allegations levelled against the child’s father, which were in any case rejected by the court for lack of corroborating evidence, in addition to a stream of unevidenced allegations of negligence and corruption against officers of the local authority, CAFCASS, the Police and the courts. It can hardly come as a surprise to anyone that the mother in this case was injuncted and forbidden to comment publicly on the case, not least as it appears that the court thought it necessary to obtain psychiatric reports on the mother.

Herein lies the major problem with Hemming’s ill-considered and reckless actions. ‘Truth’, when it comes to obtaining information about this case, mean ‘Truther’. the details of the story are not in the public domain, not so far as I can see when it comes to underlying case to which the injunction that Hemming breached yesterday is concerned. The court documents relating to the underlying access/custody case are not readily accessible and, so far as I can tell, may not even be available in the form of an anonymised ruling, which means that I may be risking a comtempt charge for providing even the limited information given in this post.

What is in the public domain and readily accessible via a Google search using the information disclosed by Hemming in parliament, are a number of blog posts on Truther websites and forums, some of which are to be found wallowing unashamedly in Zionist Reptilian Overlord country*, containing the text of emails which not only name several of the parties in this case, including the mother, father, child and officers of the Local Authority that dealt with the case, but which openly repeat many of the most serious and highly defamatory allegations of criminality and corruption contained in Watson’s full ‘account’ of the case – which, of course, I’m not linking to.

*My personal favourite is a site closely associated with one of the sources of the defamatory emails where the author, Ian R Crane, is confidently predicting that the Zionist New World Order™ will mount a false flag alien invasion of London during the 2012 Olympics as a precursor to establishing the city as the Zionist ‘New Jerusalem’ – apparently William Blake was in on this, as are (inevitably) the Freemasons, the Olympic organising committee and several past Olymipiads, including Munich, Los Angeles and Beijing. There are days when even the word ‘fucknut’ doesn’t come close.

It cannot be stressed enough that this is not case in which a wealthy sportsman or entertainer is attempting to keep his/her extracurricular activities off the front pages of the tabloids, it is an extremely serious and acrimonious custody case which Hemming has treated with callous and unthinking disregard for all parties involved in pursuit of a personal vendetta against the child protection system.

Hemming is, in my opinion, wholly unfit to hold public office and his actions yesterday stand as a flagrant and unacceptable abuse of parliamentary privilege.

38 thoughts on “Hemming: An Abuse of Privilege

  1. Wow. A few minutes of googling was all it took to entirely corroborate your findings in this post. This is an entirely dangerous use of Parliamentary privilege, and were I the father at the centre of this case, would be horrified to think that my anonymity – and potentially my safety (as well as the child’s) has been put in jeopardy by this fanatical MP. As soon as I realised that much of the discussion about this case is taking place on the fringes of places like David Icke’s forum I half expected to see a link to the Scottish Labour councillor paedophile ring!

    1. I so agree with you….John Hemmings/Elizabeth Watson etc.etc…have no regard for the safety of this child…John Hemmings should find out the ‘facts’ of this case before making comment, he is clearly still on a personal ‘mission’ due to the situation with one of his many mistress’s, vile man. I wonder if anyone has looked at the date of the original order preventing the mother from reporting on this case, as it should be, this should not be in the public arena for the child’s sake…looking at the judgement…what sort of mother is she ??? scary.

    2. I so agree with you….John Hemmings/Elizabeth Watson etc.etc…have no regard for the safety of this child…John Hemmings should find out the ‘facts’ of this case before making comment, he is clearly still on a personal ‘mission’ due to the situation with one of his many mistress’s, vile man. I wonder if anyone has looked at the date of the original order preventing the mother from reporting on this case, as it should be, this should not be in the public arena for the child’s sake…looking at the judgement…what sort of mother is she ??? scary.

  2. A really great post. Publicly revealing the identities of those involved was incredibly reckless and ill considered, and shows a total lack of consideration for all parties involved in the case (including, even, the mother – whose situation is unlikely to be helped by this act).

    Unfortunately, this is not the only public figure to have got involved in family court or Court of Protection cases to the detriment of those involved, see this case for the involvement of another (unnamed) local politician in a recent Court of Protection case. Again the politician refuses to acknowledge the overwhelming evidence before the court of safeguarding concerns (which include the daughter in this case performing amateur surgery on her elderly mother’s leg):

    http://www.mentalhealthlaw.co.uk/HBCC_v_LG_(2010)_EWHC_1527_(Fam)

  3. Hmm. I’m still not 100% convinced. While I’m aware of the law as it stands and certainly don’t intend to repeat anything about this case, either here or anything else, isn’t one of the bases of living in a free society that – if the courts are trying to do something to a person – it’s reportable? I believe – and I’d absolutely apply this to myself and to my family – that the responsibility of a government to be held publicly accountable for the things it’s doing to its citizens is *far* more important than cack about ‘privacy’, whatever that is.

  4. I do not totally agree with Parliamentary privilege. Recently, it was used to libel me and attempt to ignore the ruling in Hirst v UK (No2), and the ongoing case of Greens and MT v UK.

    Supremacy of Parliament is at odds with the sovereignty of the people. If they work for us then it stands to reason we should be able to question them.

    John Hemmings used the new media to publicise what he intended to do in the Commons. Similarly, some MPs used the MSM to state that the 1922 Committee was going to tell David Cameron to curb the power of IPSA and curb the power of the ECtHR.

    If we’re indeed heading for a constitutional crisis, I say bring it on.

  5. There is a problem with this article.

    1. Jack Straw tried to prevent Nicholas Wall’s appointment as President of the Family Division because of his appalling handling of a case in the Family Division, a case known as P, C and S. Wall was openly criticised by the European Court as a result of his conduct in this case, and arguably should not have been appointed to, or applied for, his current role.

    2. John Hemming has explained his criticism of the Official Solicitor and clinical psychologist on the Head of Law blog. It appears that Wall completely misunderstood what John Hemming was saying, and his comments were factually incorrect and inappropriate. John Hemming’s complaint on its face actually appears to be well founded and should have been pursued by the judge.

    3. In the current case, whether the allegations of child abuse are true or not, the local CID is now investigating why the heavily pregnant mother was arrested at 3.00am by her local police and then left for hours in a dirty cell. At one point she had to be taken to hospital and when she was released instead of being taken home was dumped in the cell again. It has been claimed she was arrested at the behest of her former partner’s brother, who is a police officer in another county. If true there is a great deal more to this case than meets the eye. In addition, one of the social workers involved has undoubtedly misled the courts, perjured herself and committed contempt and absolutely nothing has been done about it. In fact she was effectively allowed to run away and has not been so much as reprimanded, let alone arrested as she should have been. On top of all this, there is no excuse for trying to prevent someone speaking to an MP. This is simply unlawful and a contempt of Parliament.

    4. Whatever John Hemming’s motivation may be he is right to defend absolutely the right of a constituent to speak to their MP without fear of a penalty for doing so.

  6. @Gladiartrix

    1. Funny… the considered view of just about everyone in the legal profession was that Straw’s attempt to block Wall LJ’s appointment stemmed from the severe criticism levelled at the-then government during a 2009 keynote address to the Association of Lawyers for Children.

    http://wallofbrick.wordpress.com/2010/03/05/jack-straw-takes-his-revenge-hot-and-strong/

    2. On the contrary, Wall LJ understood what Hemming was saying perfectly well, even pausing to clarify his precise meaning and intentions on one occasion. He then, correctly, rejected Hemming’s arguments for what they were, a baseless stream of ad-hominem attacks on the personal and professional integrity of the Official Solicitor which lacked any foundation in fact.

    3. You’ll forgive me if I seem sceptical, but all you’ve put on the table are yet more unsubstantiated and defamatory allegations and ad-hominem attacks.

    4. Hemming isn’t defending the right of individuals to speak to their MP – neither RP nor any of the parties in this current case are Hemming’s constituents.

  7. Free Speech is Free Speech whatever the situation and wherever you find it !The laws of libel and slander exist to prevent defamation.Nothing however protects parents from neighbours gossip when children confiscated by the State mysteriously disappear. Any attempt to explain what happened and to justify themselves ,and parents are threatened with jail !
    I really do not understand how any intelligent person with an ounce of compassion can justify legal gagging of a mother whose child has been taken for risk of emotional abuse !.Many in this situation have even been told (wrongly)that they cannot discuss the situation with their immediate family !
    IMPORTANT !! Article 8 of the human rights act was clearly drafted to protect families from State interference,and it is utterly perverse of judges to interpret it instead as a license to gag parents who have been oppressed by the State !
    As long as there is no infringement of the official secrets act everyone should be free to say what they like when they like without judges and social workers rushing to protect their own deplorable conduct by legally gagging everyone in sight !Yes,I know racial abuse is disgusting but making it a criminal offence is an absurdity when applied to petty squabbles between persons of different racial origins.We all have mouths so it makes more sense to answer back than to call for the police !
    I now live and work in France,where happily, frantic attempts by the State to muzzle anyone it disagrees with (as in the UK) do not exist.The same goes for most of the rest of the EU and it is shameful that the UK ,the cradle of democracy is fast becoming a police State where the slightest word “out of place”(that could embarass the apparatus of the State ) can land you behind bars !
    Gagging is ok for the Mugabes and Gadaffis of this world but surely not for the UK .

  8. ‘Article 8 of the human rights act was clearly drafted to protect families from State interference,and it is utterly perverse of judges to interpret it instead as a license to gag parents who have been oppressed by the State !’

    I thought that this was primarily about judgements made on behalf of a parent who wanted the other parent, and apparenetly also Mr Hemming, to refrain from talking about the issue in the interests of their child and themselves. If that’s a proper interpretation, surely that’s not State oppression? It’s just the judiciary upholding the rights of the child and parents under the law of the State

  9. THE “HUMAN RIGHTS ACT”section 8:-

    Article 8: Right to Respect for Private and Family Life
    1. Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.

    2. There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.

    I maintain that the purpose of the legislators in drafting this article was very obviously to try and stop any public authority from interfering with the family without very good cause.I am sure that this crucial article was never mean’t to be a tool with which to gag parents and stop them protesting if their children were “confiscated ” by that very public authority for “risk of emotional abuse” and later given for adoption to strangers !
    The idea that publicity is not in any child’s best interests when that child may have been removed unjustly from its parents is pretty ludicrous as in many cases it might be in the child’s best interests to be returned to its parents and publicity could be the only way to achieve this.Even in cases where parents have, at a fact finding been found to have harmed their children (though not charged with any offence by a criminal court) the criteria is one of probabilities ie 51% so that quite possibly the wrong decision could have been made in many many cases and therefore parents should be able to protest publicly.
    Lastly the hypocrisy of demanding “privacy” for young children by gagging protesting parents is breathtaking.Time and again local authorities advertise groups of children in care for adoption in the Daily Mirror and other periodicals complete with photos ,dates of birth and character descriptions .This allows potential adopters to sift through them and make selections like choosing pedigree dogs !! Mothers and worse still neighbours see these photos of easily recognisable toddlers and even then the parents risk jail if they explain what has happened !
    FREE SPEECH FOR VICTIMS OF” THE SYSTEM ” SHOULD AS IN MOST OF THE REST OF WESTERN EUROPE BE AN AUTOMATIC RIGHT IN THE UK NOT A CRIME !!

  10. Vicky Haigh has now left for Ireland to stop another social services department removing her baby at birth.

    @unity_ministry

    I am a member of the legal profession and there is no such widely held view of Jack Straw’s reservation. I also worked for the MoJ while Jack Straw was the Secretary of State, whatever one thinks of Jack Straw’s politics he treated the judiciary with integrity and impartiality and he would only have expressed concerns about Wall’s appointment where he had genuine grounds for doing so. I have never before heard of a Lord Chancellor (as was the previous office) letting it be publicly known that he thought an appointment should not proceed. This alone gives some idea of how seriously Wall’s application was taken.

    You haven’t addressed Wall’s conduct in the P, C and S case, nor the pointed criticism of him made by the European Court, and neither have you understood John Hemming’s point that Wall did not properly deal with what looked like a clear case of fabrication of evidence.

    As John Hemming has now asked the Speaker to address the issue of injunctions which refer to MPs, clearly he IS defending the right of constituents generally to speak freely to their MPs.

  11. @Gladiatrix

    1. I’ve made a point of NOT naming any of the parties in this matter here – do not do so again.

    2. We have only your assertion as to the nature of Jack Straw’s objection to Wall LJ’s appointment against numerous published references to his criticism of government policy in 2009 as having been the reason that Straw asked the appointments committee to reconsider his appointment. As for neve having heard of a previous Lord Chancellor expressiong dissatisfaction with a senior judicial appointment, this is hardly surprising given that all previous Lord Chancellor’s were members of the House of Lords and, therefore, much less inclined to take or express a political view on such a appointment.

    3. Having read the judgement in P, C & S, it seems a reach to call the court’s remarks ‘pointed criticism’ let alone take the view that it reflects on Wall LJ’s handling of cases some years after the ruling. It certainly has no bearing on RP.

    4. I understand John’s argument perfectly well – he’s believes a typographical error to be evidence serious professional misconduct on the part of the Official Solicitor but produced no corroborating evidence, with the result that his argument was rejected with considerable prejudice.

    5. As for John raising the matter with The Speaker – good, let’s also have a public debate on this issue not least in regards to the misuse of parliamentary privilege to attempt to circumvent due process in the courts.

  12. EXAMPLES OF HOW RULES OF EVIDENCE HAVE BEEN DISCARDED IN THE FAMILY COURTs WHEN GRANTING INTERIM CARE ORDERS.

    1:- Statements from the local authority are shown to the judge but rarely to parents.Family and friends of parents are routinely excluded from the court but groups of social workers are allowed to stay in the court to listen to their colleague’s testimony whether they are witnesses or not. 2:- Parents representing themselves are denied the opportunity to cross examine witnesses appearing against them.Judgements,reports from experts,and position statements are either witheld or given to parents at the last minute (too late to read and analyse them properly). 3:- .Parents are routinely refused permission to call for a second opinion when “experts” and Doctors have testified against them.If parents record contacts with their children, or interviews with experts or social workers judges routinely refuse permission for these recordings to be heard yet they always allow recordings and video evidence to be heard if produced by police or social workers 4:-Parents whose children have been taken are routinely and wrongly told that they may not talk to ANYONE about their case. 5:-Parents are jailed if they protest publlcly when their children are taken.They are also jailed for “breach of the peace” or “harassment” if they dare to trace and then contact their own children after adoption.Parents are therefore” twice gagged” contrary to the Human Rights Act ,Article 10 entitling all persons “freedom of expression”,ie freedom of speech. 6:-Local authority barristers in court often read out statements from absent persons as though they are themselves witnesses but they cannot be questioned. 7:- Most solicitors refuse to let their clients speak and then agree to all care orders demanded by social services. 8:-Judges routinely castigate parents who wish to speak or who represent themselves even though they have the right to do so;Their evidence and their arguments are usually ignored in the judgements. 9;-Parents representing themselves are often given an hour or two’s notice to appear in court but solicitors are given weeks ! 10:-Parents are punished for “risk” ie not what they have done but for what they might do in the future! “Risk of emotional abuse” is favourite because there is no legal definition of this and it is usually impossible for parents to defend themselves against “predictions” by so called “experts”. 11:-Judges give social workers the power to withold parent’s contact with their children” in care” as a punishment for saying they love them and miss them or that they are fighting to get them back .They use this power to gag parents and force them into complete submission ! 12:-Parents are in effect condemned for offences against their children on “probabilities” 51% instead of beyond reasonable doubt. 13:-Parents who were themselves in care or who were abused in childhood are often judged unfit to be parents as a result. 14:-Parents often forfeit their children for “failing to engage with professionals” 15:-Parents faced with forced adoption lose their children for life, without being allowed a hearing by jury. 16:-Under the UN Convention on children’s rights children have a RIGHT to be heard in court but are usually denied that right. 17:-Solicitors routinely tell client parents to agree to interim care orders or they risk never seeing their children again.A lie ! 18:-Social workers are legally obliged to place children with relatives if possible but either ignore this or find pretexts to fail them on assessments 19:-Human rights to free speech and freedom of movement are breached by gagging orders and confiscating passports. 20:-Parents are routinely forbidden to call witnesses on their behalf contrary to human rights.Family and friends are wrongly prevented from entering the court.

  13. Pingback: Superinjunctions
  14.  169. Notwithstanding the mother’s reassurances, the father raised the same issue during his police interviews. The police officers latched on to this, treating it almost as if it were a confession. The interviewing officers did not have the benefit of the medical evidence that is before the court. Had they been aware of the medical evidence they would no doubt have realised that this ‘explanation’ from the father does not stand up to close scrutiny.
    The above extract from the Bellamy judgement shows that the results of the x-rays were kept secret from the police !Certainly neither Christopher Booker nor the parents were told before the departure to Ireland where no treatment at all was required for any injuries……
    Be that as it may,Bellamy knew quite well that Christopher could not report fractures that were kept secret from him and from the police,but nevertheless castigated him for not writing about them !Hypocrisy or Deliberate deception? Take your choice

  15. I don’t have many ‘rules’ at the Ministry, but one I do apply to commenter is ‘don’t try and cherrypick the evidence’ cos it doesn’t work here.

    The full ruling in Re L (A Child: Media Reporting) can be accessed here – http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2011/B8.html

    I’d recommend paras 142-181inclusive for an understanding of what actually happened.

    As for Ian Josephs’s role here, read paras 209-212 inclusive, taking particular note of paragraph 212:

    “212. If I may be permitted to use an expression now in
    common currency, when one compares the apparent reproduction of Mr
    Booker’s article as set out on Mr Josephs’ website and the actual
    article it is clear that the version on Mr Josephs’ website is in fact a
    ‘sexed up’ version of Mr Booker’s article. Not only does it wrongly
    present the facts of this case it also distorts other parts of the text
    of Mr Booker’s article.”The ruling also cites paragraph 30 of the main ruling in the case to which this ruling on media reporting relates as follows:30. I mention all of this at some length because, as will become clear
    when I review the evidence given by the mother and [the grandmother],
    not only do they accept that they have been in contact with Mr [Ian] Josephs
    since March, it is also clear from the way they behaved in March and the
    way the mother, in particular, has conducted this litigation, that they
    have not just heard and read but have acted upon some of the advice
    provided by Mr Josephs – and, as they may well now have come to realise,
    acted to the detriment of themselves and, more importantly, L.’To use another expression currently in common currency, Ian Josephs, who has posted several comments to this thread, is even more of an irresponsible fucknut than John Hemming.

  16.  Unity_ministry describes me above as “even more of an irresponsible fuckwit than John Hemming”,and that just about sums up his/her capability of any sort of rational argument or debate !

  17. Perhaps I should answer the judge’s unbelievably stupid assertion that I “sexed up” Christopher’s article !
    In fact I put a rough draft(later corrected) on my website two days before the newpaper was published ! Bellamy who is obviously an avid fan of my site (www.forced-adoption.com (even if he spelt it wrong!) relied for his evidence not on what Christopher Booker published but what he found on my website ,which of course was never printed in the Sunday Telegraph at all !! I am flattered that Bellamy gives me so much publicity but he really should not rely on a website (even mine !) for hard evidence on which to base his judgement.He got the dates all screwed up because the passage he quoted from my site far from” sexing up” Christopher’s article,appeared long before the Sunday Telegraph came out to publish what Christopher finally wrote !You would think that a man of Bellamy’s experience could undertand what happened when the date he allotted the passage he criticised Christopher for was in fact the day before the Sunday Telegraph came out ! But no he still got it “arse about face” like the rest of his judgement !
    As for my intervention I am certain the child would have been forcibly adopted by now if I had not helped the parents who eventually lost their child to UK social services at the Irish  Supreme court on a question of habitual residence.Since then the Irish Supreme court has substitutd the welfare of the child as the new test under the Hague Convention and if the same case came up again today the parents would probably win,given theIrish nationality of mother,grandmother,plus their extended and supportive Irish family !

  18. Pingback: Helen Gray
  19. Pingback: Stew Wilson
  20. Pingback: The Small Places
  21. Pingback: Lisah
  22. Pingback: Bristol Red
  23. Pingback: Unity
  24. Pingback: Unity
  25. Pingback: Ben Hunt
  26. Pingback: Magnus McMagnusson
  27. Pingback: chris

Leave a Reply to John Hirst Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.