Desperate Advice on Rehabilitation

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InnocentMammy
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Desperate Advice on Rehabilitation

Post by InnocentMammy » Sat Aug 05, 2017 1:43 pm

I can't believe, even after proving my son had a genetic condition, I have had findings made against me for NAI. I'm inconsolable.

The Dad will probably have custody, and I just wanted to know, what are my prospects of rehabilitation to care for my son? I've read that it can happen, even if findings are disputed.

Please can I have some advice on how to do this? I have worked very well with all professionals, and my contact notes are glowing.

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Suzie, FRG Adviser
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Re: Desperate Advice on Rehabilitation

Post by Suzie, FRG Adviser » Tue Aug 08, 2017 5:58 pm

Dear InnocentMammy

Thanks for posting again.

I am sorry that you feel inconsolable and frustrated by the outcome of the fact finding hearing regarding injuries to your son. You say that it was found that your son has a genetic condition but the court still made findings against you in respect of non-accidental injuries (NAI). The judge has seen and heard evidence and made those findings perhaps because there was an injury despite the genetic condition which was unexplained.

On the positive side if your son is able to live with his father at least he will not be with strangers but in his birth family. I understand that what you want is for your child to be with you. Your son can be in his father’s care under a care order if the court decides that is the best order or, alternatively, a child arrangement order possibly, with a supervision order. If a child arrangement order is made in favour of your son’s father then children’s services will not share parental responsibility for your son. You and the father will share parental responsibility. Please read care and related proceedings which explains care proceedings and the types of orders the court can make.

Turning to your specific question about rehabilitation. If a child is in care sometimes it is possible to apply to discharge a care order after making significant changes to address whatever concerns led to the child being removed in the first place. An application to discharge a care order cannot be made within six (6) months of the order being made. If findings are made against a person there would be an expectation that the findings will be accepted by that person. A copy of our advice sheet about rehabilitation is included for your information.

Should you wish to speak to an adviser, please telephone our free advice line on 0808 801 0366. The advice line is open from 9.30am to 3pm Monday to Friday (except Bank Holidays).

I hope you find this helpful

Best wishes

Suzie

InnocentMammy
Posts: 12
Joined: Wed Mar 08, 2017 11:39 pm

Re: Desperate Advice on Rehabilitation

Post by InnocentMammy » Fri Aug 11, 2017 8:49 pm

Hi Suzie,

Thank you for this information.

The sad fact is, they never allowed my son to be seen by the relevant expert. The expert paediatrician was the last person to be cross examined, and he finally said that my child needed to be seen by this expert. By then, I had been crucified by four barristers over three days, and my character had been assassinated.

This specific condition could predispose my son to all injuries sustained, but the Judge has decided that it is not the case, despite him not hearing from the relevant expert. My close friend is a doctor, and he is the one who alerted me to this condition, which was diagnosed in my sister. I plan to appeal, but I understand this is difficult.

SS plan to carry out a supervision order for one year. Once their involvement has finished, what are my rights? I think I will get once a month supervised visitation, which is devastating, but it is something.

I cannot admit something I have not done, but I will attend counselling, parenting courses, anything to satisfy them. Would that mean admitting the findings against me?

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Suzie, FRG Adviser
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Re: Desperate Advice on Rehabilitation

Post by Suzie, FRG Adviser » Tue Aug 15, 2017 10:45 am

Dear InnocentMammy

Thank you for your further post.

It is unfortunate, from what you say, that all evidence was not heard by the court. I am not able to comment on why the judge made a decision not to hear from an expert reach a din the case. My understanding is that a judge will want to have all the information necessary to assist him or her in the case. As I have previously advised, your legal representative will advise you in respect of an appeal. You have explained that you intend to appeal the judge’s decision.

You say, your child has a similar condition to your sister why did it take so long for this to be mentioned in the care proceedings or to the hospital when your son was there? If the judge decided that your son’s injuries was not because of this condition then I assume there was evidence that might have led him/her to take this view.

Regarding a supervision order, please see our A-Z of terms for an explanation. Once the year of the supervision order has expired, unless children’s services have concerns that will be the end of it. If they do have any concerns they could apply to the court to extend the supervision order.

A supervision order does not affect your parental responsibility and whilst the order is in place children’s services’ role is to provide advice and support to ensure that everything is going will with the placement. You and your child’s father will be able to exercise parental responsibility but as he lives with his father he will be able to make day to day decisions about him.

If contact is going well you can always ask for it to be increased and your child’s father will be able to make decisions about contact but children’s services is likely to suggest that it could be a safeguarding issue if he allows extended or unsupervised contact.

Whilst I fully appreciate that you do not feel able to admit to something you did not do, I think there would be an expectation that you accept the findings. The likelihood is that it might be considered that you cannot make the appropriate changes necessary to keep your child safe, if you do not accept the findings but this is something you will need to think about with your legal representatives if your appeal goes ahead.

As you have explained you intend to do counselling and parenting classes and this is a positive step on your part.

I hope this is helpful but please telephone our advice should you wish to speak to an adviser. The advice line is open from 9.30am to 3pm Monday to Friday (except Bank Holidays).

Best wishes

Suzie

InnocentMammy
Posts: 12
Joined: Wed Mar 08, 2017 11:39 pm

Re: Desperate Advice on Rehabilitation

Post by InnocentMammy » Tue Aug 15, 2017 4:45 pm

Hi Suzie,

Thank you once again for an informative reply.

The condition is EDS, and 90% of adults go most of their lives undiagnosed. I only came about the condition through extensive medical research, and the experts dismissed the symptoms.

As they dismissed the symptoms, I decided to get a private diagnosis for my sister. This was scheduled for two weeks before the IRH, but the app was cancelled. I could only obtain the diagnosis privately two weeks before the fact find. My solicitors declined my request for the expert, even though they had made the request for the expert two weeks prior, in light of a GP referral for my sister.

It was all a fact of timing and bad legal advice. I was advised to turn on my ex partner although the LA never sought findings against him. I didn't know until now that the Judge cannot make findings against someone in this manner.

The expert who was cross examined last, confirmed that the expert was necessary. All the mud slinging had been done by then, and my barrister declined an offer from the Judge to appoint the expert. It was so unfair.

If I accept these findings, my son will grow up believing a lie. I'll do whatever they want me to, but admitting to a lie is not something I can do. I am incapable of hurting anyone, I have no history of violence, no criminal history, I'm educated, and I have been in many positions of trust in jobs as a teacher, a support worker, and a TEFL teacher.

This was an injustice, and either there was a medical condition, or the perpetrator is wrong.

Many Thanks,

InnocentMammy[*]

[*]edited by Suzie to remove poster's name

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Suzie, FRG Adviser
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Re: Desperate Advice on Rehabilitation

Post by Suzie, FRG Adviser » Wed Aug 16, 2017 4:07 pm

Dear InnocentMammy

Thank you for your post and the explanation of the condition you believe may have affected your son.

It is unfortunate that the timing for your sister’s appoint delayed things for you in getting an expert report for your son. From your post it is clear that you feel you have been treated unfairly to have findings made against you.

From what you say in your post, it appears that the judge made his or he decision based on the evidence before the court. You will need to get a full explanation from your solicitor as to why they did not consider it appropriate to pursue an application for the expert as you wished. I cannot try to guess or assume since I do not know your case.

Regarding the comment in your post that your barrister declined an offer from the judge to have an expert. Again, I do not know why this course of action would have been taken by your barrister. It might help if you ask to go through the transcript of the judgement given by judge to see exactly what was said. Your solicitor could do this with you or you could ask for a conference with the barrister so he or she can explain why, in light of what the judge said, an expert was not pursued on your behalf.

It might also be possible, in the alternative, to ask that a different barrister represent you at the final hearing and for that barrister to give a written opinion based on the transcript and the previous barrister’s note of the hearing whether there is anything that can be done at this stage to re-open the issue of having an expert as you wanted. The language used by the judge is important and I think it will help you to have this explained and clarified for you.

Your solicitor is, of course, best placed to advise you as he or she knows your case and has all the information about it.

As I said in my earlier post I can only give advice about the findings made and only you can make a decision about how you deal with those findings.

I hope you find this helpful but, as I have suggested before, should you wish to speak to an adviser do call our advice line which is open from 9.30am to 3pm on 0808 801 0366.

Best wishes

Suzie

InnocentMammy
Posts: 12
Joined: Wed Mar 08, 2017 11:39 pm

Re: Desperate Advice on Rehabilitation

Post by InnocentMammy » Sun Nov 26, 2017 10:19 pm

Hi everyone.

I just wanted to give a huge update on my case. My son was diagnosed with the genetic condition that I said all along!

Ive now found out, and have evidence of, how my ex partner was manipulated by the local authority to turn on me and not challenge the medical evidence.

I have enough new medical evidence to reopen the fact finding and I've had positive advice from a top barrister to reopen on the condition my son is diagnosed. Just waiting on legal aid.

My questions are:

Seeing as the findings are now unsafe, shouldn't the social worker be able to increase my contact from once monthly? My son is under a supervision order and the child arrangements order says once monthly as a minimum. Surely this wouldn't be too much to ask?

(She has declined without giving me reason, no other concerns aside from NAI)

How difficult is it to obtain a new social worker? I have complained about current sw to hcpc with myriad of evidence of dishonesty, collusion and failure to safeguard. Will this complaint being investigated make the local authority change social workers due to bias?

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Suzie, FRG Adviser
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Re: Desperate Advice on Rehabilitation

Post by Suzie, FRG Adviser » Wed Nov 29, 2017 1:13 pm

Dear InnocentMammy

Thank you for your updating post.

It is good to see that you have now had a diagnosis for your son, you must feel very relieved.

You say that a barrister has advised you that you would be able to reopen the case based on the new evidence relating to your son’s condition. I hope you will be successful in your legal aid application.

Turning to your specific question regarding contact, I assume that there is a court order specifying the level of contact you have with your son. It would be possible if his father agreed for contact to increase depending on what the social worker advises him. I suggest you write to the social worker to ask for an increase in contact and if she disagrees to put her reasons in writing. This is what having a supervision order means. However, the best way would be to apply to the court to vary the order to increase your contact. The court would, of course, want to have a recommendation from children’s services about increased contact.

At the moment the allocated social worker to your son is the person overseeing the supervision order and since your son does not actually live with you, it is very unlikely the social will be changed. In any event, you can ask for a change of social worker but children’s service do not have change the social worker.

The outcome of your complaint to the social worker’s professional body, depending on the outcome might affect the social worker personally but does not necessarily mean that the social worker will change. At the moment, it is a complaint and no findings have yet been made against the social worker which substantiate what has been told to the professional body.

I wish you the best of luck with the application you intend to make to the court.

Best wishes

Suzie

InnocentMammy
Posts: 12
Joined: Wed Mar 08, 2017 11:39 pm

Re: Desperate Advice on Rehabilitation

Post by InnocentMammy » Wed Nov 29, 2017 11:45 pm

Hi Suzie,

Thank you so much for your advice, I really appreciate it. I will write to her asking to increase it, put to her the reasons why it is in my baby's best interests, and apply to the Court to vary the order.

I'm so excited to get to the truth!

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