A Family Support Worker has provided a Section 7 to the Family Court it contains references to allegations against myself that have never been made and changes the date of certain key events.
Is this perjury and how do I prpoerly bring it to the court's attention.
Cheers
R
Perjury within a Section 7 Report?
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Suzie, FRG Adviser
- Posts: 4230
- Joined: Mon Jul 04, 2011 2:57 pm
Re: Perjury within a Section 7 Report?
Hello Rolfi
In order for the support worker to have committed perjury, it would have to be proven that s/he had deliberately lied or mislead the court in the statement, rather than having made a genuine mistake.
Regardless of whether perjury has been committed, however, it is clearly vital that any factual errors are brought to the court’s attention.
If you have a solicitor, this is clearly something that you should be discussing with him/ her. If you are representing yourself then you will be expected to produce a statement responding to the section 7 report, in which you should highlight these inaccuracies.
The Children’s Legal Centre may be able to offer you more support with this if you are representing yourself, as they advise on private family law matters.
I hope this helps.
Best Wishes
Suzie
FRG Adviser
In order for the support worker to have committed perjury, it would have to be proven that s/he had deliberately lied or mislead the court in the statement, rather than having made a genuine mistake.
Regardless of whether perjury has been committed, however, it is clearly vital that any factual errors are brought to the court’s attention.
If you have a solicitor, this is clearly something that you should be discussing with him/ her. If you are representing yourself then you will be expected to produce a statement responding to the section 7 report, in which you should highlight these inaccuracies.
The Children’s Legal Centre may be able to offer you more support with this if you are representing yourself, as they advise on private family law matters.
I hope this helps.
Best Wishes
Suzie
FRG Adviser
Re: Perjury within a Section 7 Report?
Thank you Suzie.
The act was deliberate, she's done it consistently in CP and CIN meetings; even when challenged and the relevant Police logs* that contradict her allegations have been given to her, she persists.
*some of which she rewrote or edited for CP conference reports.
The act was deliberate, she's done it consistently in CP and CIN meetings; even when challenged and the relevant Police logs* that contradict her allegations have been given to her, she persists.
*some of which she rewrote or edited for CP conference reports.
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ange301126
- Posts: 537
- Joined: Thu Nov 10, 2011 1:27 pm
Re: Perjury within a Section 7 Report?
Dear rolfi,You refer to perjury. Parents are often at a loss as to what comprises it and how social workers get away with it. The courts and other professionals don’t recognise it when, to us, it is quite blatant. There is no short answer.
FRG advice sheets show the correct procedures and guidelines applicable to child-protection cases. Perjury is a no-no.
For social workers to be fair and honest, the guidelines should be followed. The General Public have confidence in the Department. The Courts have. When advising us to cooperate with Children’s Services, the FRG also assumes that proceedings are going to be fair ones and that, in the interests of children, guidelines will be obeyed. We do too! Too many times, they aren’t! Ask Suzie. She probably tires of reading complaints from parents.
Here is an example. Recently, a parent wrote on the boards that her child was put onto the child-protection register. It happened at a meeting between social workers, other professionals and her. It had not even been explained to her what a protected child was. She was called to the meeting the day before without a fair opportunity to study the evidence fully and without any opportunity to circulate written disagreements or call for witnesses.
Many times reports are not even sent to parents at all and if they are this will not be at the prescribed times according to the guidelines as published by the FRG. Often they are altered or added to at will just before a meeting at a social worker’s convenience. Especially if it is known that a parent has counter-evidence.
No wonder parents often say decisions are made before meetings even start. They can only sit in and watch whilst pre-meditated decisions are rubber-stamped. The other professionals read the social worker’s position in writing before the meeting but not the parent’s. Very often the social workers have private words with them prior to the meeting commencing. The outcome is influenced dishonestly by unfair process.
Do you agree with this description of proceedings at similar meetings? Really, a ritual is being performed; a game is being played by professionals-in-suits. Professionals have a casual attitude demonstrated by their words and body-language. They have a cavalier approach to what are crucial issues to families. Proceedings are brief and if someone is in a hurry to get somewhere else even more so. No real ‘in-depth’ enquiries are made. No searching questions are asked of social workers. They nod, shake their heads and tick boxes in official forms without much comment or discussion of the facts given. If parents agree, they are given careful attention. It is considered the right time to say so to the meeting. Parents can make as many pleasant sounds as they wish and the professionals will smile and sympathise but are given very short shrift should they attempt to raise a point of disagreement. Most inconvenient! It should have been raised and circulated beforehand. “Now is not the right time”. If parents insist, they will be constantly interrupted by the social workers who almost always outnumber them and sometimes will even be silenced by various threats. Disagreements are viewed unfairly as non-cooperation and the others will ‘tut, tut’ and look on impatiently. If the social worker is acting so, they figure, then you must be mistaken or overly defensive and as such should be ignored. Much shuffling of paper occurs and the meeting will be brought to an end quite soon if parents persist in making themselves heard or attempt to ensure that correct procedures are followed. Very often no official minutes are taken and only brief and biased notes are scribbled down by the key social worker.
This is how social workers obtain the decisions they want. They present faulty, incomplete evidence and contrive in other ways to make proceedings unfair. Children and families suffer for it. This sort of thing goes on regularly throughout the country. It is only too clear that correct procedure is flouted too often for comfort.
The social workers know the correct procedures but ignore them at will. In the above case, once the meeting was over, they can then go on to state in future proceedings that a child is on the child-protection register because of risk and the confidence trick is accepted unreservedly by all. It is assumed the decision was taken honestly for a good reason and that the child involved has already been found by competent professionals to be at significant risk. This is just one instance of deceptive practice from the outset of a case. We all know that there is often much more blatant deception and downright fraud occurs. Each case is different and private. You alone know to what extent your social workers are being dishonest. You are not imagining it, these practices are commonplace.
Whatsmore, it is useless to ask them to accept contradictory written or verbal evidence. Why? Because they have a convenient rule between themselves that once set down in the files, falsehoods cannot be amended. They fester and can be used against you for evermore.However,I believe PERJURY is a word which only applies to Court proceedings rather than within a section 7 enquiry itself.Suzie is more qualified to advise you of it.Is your case at court yet?
COURT PROCEEDINGS.
At Court, this type of behaviour should not be allowed to continue. So-called facts are put forward by social workers but legal guidelines and procedures are not followed during their compilation. Such illicit behaviour should be stamped on by the Court.
We are usually advised to get a Children’s Legal Panel solicitor and our natural penchant is to trust the ones we choose implicitly. We rely on their advice. When social workers set out to deceive everybody from the outset, surely it is inadvisable to allow them to continue in the name of co-operation. When solicitors collaborate with deceptions like that, they are working against us.
In civil proceedings concerning a newspaper libel case recently, the Court found that written assertions by professional journalists were libelous if they did not tally with the freely-available facts. If a newspaper published false opinion or so-called facts without investigating the actual facts properly and fairly they were not fair comment.
We might think the same should apply in a Family Court. Professional written and verbal comment presented as material evidence intended to influence court decisions must be considered fraudulent if it does not tally with the facts freely available to the perpetrators at the time it is made.
The dictionary says "perjury is the willful and corrupt taking of a false oath in regard to a material matter in a judicial proceeding” .It cannot be argued reasonably that sworn material evidence comprising false statements in court applications, core assessments, care-plans and other documents are not perjurious because they are or were honest belief and professional opinion at the time when they were submitted and registered at Court. Such belief and opinion is impossible without honest, professional ‘in depth’ enquiry in accordance with legal guidance. A willful omission to follow guidelines and correct legal procedures as to establishing freely available facts effectively constitutes a willful intent to establish fraudulent evidence.
Our lawyers could often assert that Local Authority oaths of truth are incorrectly attested when illegal applications and/or false statements and documents have been accepted as authentic and registered at the Magistrates (Family Proceedings) or at a County Court. They could easily present the freely available facts themselves. Question your solicitor if he or she will not do so. If done early on, this would, of course, seriously affect the way a Court assesses a case. It would substantially undermine both the Local Authority evidence and the evidence of sycophantic Guardians. It would also affect the way in which the Court deals with a case at the point they come to contrast the credibility of the Local Authority and the respondent parents. It is absolutely basic that if correct procedures are not adhered to scrupulously during a case enquiry, then it is not a fair one. For example if a social worker does not question you fully as to your disagreements and will not even talk to you or anyone else before making his statements and assessments then he has to be concocting them unfairly. He has to make up what he is saying and thus nine times out of ten much of it will be false.
We are entitled to a hearing before a fair and impartial court or tribunal as prescribed by the judiciary. I fear that, in a lot of cases, Children’s legal panel solicitors will not argue cases strongly. I have had three sets and have yet to find a good one. They always give preferential treatment to social workers and have an intrinsic, safety-first attitude which works against parents. Read all the boards and I am not the only one who says this. In any other court setting but a family proceedings one, many cases would be thrown out peremptorily!
Best of luck to you in your case and tell us all what happens. My advice to all victims is to keep in touch with the FRG who can help you decisively. Write down fully on the boards everything that happens and other parents can also help. Use this thread as a notebook of sorts. Afterwards your thread will have become a permanent record which you can use to your benefit. You will be able to check everything, especially social work statements as and when they are issued. You can also show it to other interested parties, in fact ANYONE WHO IS OLD ENOUGH to understand issues and use a computer. Give them the FRG website address and they can access threads and the truth too. The more people who visit the site and the more messages the better, in my view.
FRG advice sheets show the correct procedures and guidelines applicable to child-protection cases. Perjury is a no-no.
For social workers to be fair and honest, the guidelines should be followed. The General Public have confidence in the Department. The Courts have. When advising us to cooperate with Children’s Services, the FRG also assumes that proceedings are going to be fair ones and that, in the interests of children, guidelines will be obeyed. We do too! Too many times, they aren’t! Ask Suzie. She probably tires of reading complaints from parents.
Here is an example. Recently, a parent wrote on the boards that her child was put onto the child-protection register. It happened at a meeting between social workers, other professionals and her. It had not even been explained to her what a protected child was. She was called to the meeting the day before without a fair opportunity to study the evidence fully and without any opportunity to circulate written disagreements or call for witnesses.
Many times reports are not even sent to parents at all and if they are this will not be at the prescribed times according to the guidelines as published by the FRG. Often they are altered or added to at will just before a meeting at a social worker’s convenience. Especially if it is known that a parent has counter-evidence.
No wonder parents often say decisions are made before meetings even start. They can only sit in and watch whilst pre-meditated decisions are rubber-stamped. The other professionals read the social worker’s position in writing before the meeting but not the parent’s. Very often the social workers have private words with them prior to the meeting commencing. The outcome is influenced dishonestly by unfair process.
Do you agree with this description of proceedings at similar meetings? Really, a ritual is being performed; a game is being played by professionals-in-suits. Professionals have a casual attitude demonstrated by their words and body-language. They have a cavalier approach to what are crucial issues to families. Proceedings are brief and if someone is in a hurry to get somewhere else even more so. No real ‘in-depth’ enquiries are made. No searching questions are asked of social workers. They nod, shake their heads and tick boxes in official forms without much comment or discussion of the facts given. If parents agree, they are given careful attention. It is considered the right time to say so to the meeting. Parents can make as many pleasant sounds as they wish and the professionals will smile and sympathise but are given very short shrift should they attempt to raise a point of disagreement. Most inconvenient! It should have been raised and circulated beforehand. “Now is not the right time”. If parents insist, they will be constantly interrupted by the social workers who almost always outnumber them and sometimes will even be silenced by various threats. Disagreements are viewed unfairly as non-cooperation and the others will ‘tut, tut’ and look on impatiently. If the social worker is acting so, they figure, then you must be mistaken or overly defensive and as such should be ignored. Much shuffling of paper occurs and the meeting will be brought to an end quite soon if parents persist in making themselves heard or attempt to ensure that correct procedures are followed. Very often no official minutes are taken and only brief and biased notes are scribbled down by the key social worker.
This is how social workers obtain the decisions they want. They present faulty, incomplete evidence and contrive in other ways to make proceedings unfair. Children and families suffer for it. This sort of thing goes on regularly throughout the country. It is only too clear that correct procedure is flouted too often for comfort.
The social workers know the correct procedures but ignore them at will. In the above case, once the meeting was over, they can then go on to state in future proceedings that a child is on the child-protection register because of risk and the confidence trick is accepted unreservedly by all. It is assumed the decision was taken honestly for a good reason and that the child involved has already been found by competent professionals to be at significant risk. This is just one instance of deceptive practice from the outset of a case. We all know that there is often much more blatant deception and downright fraud occurs. Each case is different and private. You alone know to what extent your social workers are being dishonest. You are not imagining it, these practices are commonplace.
Whatsmore, it is useless to ask them to accept contradictory written or verbal evidence. Why? Because they have a convenient rule between themselves that once set down in the files, falsehoods cannot be amended. They fester and can be used against you for evermore.However,I believe PERJURY is a word which only applies to Court proceedings rather than within a section 7 enquiry itself.Suzie is more qualified to advise you of it.Is your case at court yet?
COURT PROCEEDINGS.
At Court, this type of behaviour should not be allowed to continue. So-called facts are put forward by social workers but legal guidelines and procedures are not followed during their compilation. Such illicit behaviour should be stamped on by the Court.
We are usually advised to get a Children’s Legal Panel solicitor and our natural penchant is to trust the ones we choose implicitly. We rely on their advice. When social workers set out to deceive everybody from the outset, surely it is inadvisable to allow them to continue in the name of co-operation. When solicitors collaborate with deceptions like that, they are working against us.
In civil proceedings concerning a newspaper libel case recently, the Court found that written assertions by professional journalists were libelous if they did not tally with the freely-available facts. If a newspaper published false opinion or so-called facts without investigating the actual facts properly and fairly they were not fair comment.
We might think the same should apply in a Family Court. Professional written and verbal comment presented as material evidence intended to influence court decisions must be considered fraudulent if it does not tally with the facts freely available to the perpetrators at the time it is made.
The dictionary says "perjury is the willful and corrupt taking of a false oath in regard to a material matter in a judicial proceeding” .It cannot be argued reasonably that sworn material evidence comprising false statements in court applications, core assessments, care-plans and other documents are not perjurious because they are or were honest belief and professional opinion at the time when they were submitted and registered at Court. Such belief and opinion is impossible without honest, professional ‘in depth’ enquiry in accordance with legal guidance. A willful omission to follow guidelines and correct legal procedures as to establishing freely available facts effectively constitutes a willful intent to establish fraudulent evidence.
Our lawyers could often assert that Local Authority oaths of truth are incorrectly attested when illegal applications and/or false statements and documents have been accepted as authentic and registered at the Magistrates (Family Proceedings) or at a County Court. They could easily present the freely available facts themselves. Question your solicitor if he or she will not do so. If done early on, this would, of course, seriously affect the way a Court assesses a case. It would substantially undermine both the Local Authority evidence and the evidence of sycophantic Guardians. It would also affect the way in which the Court deals with a case at the point they come to contrast the credibility of the Local Authority and the respondent parents. It is absolutely basic that if correct procedures are not adhered to scrupulously during a case enquiry, then it is not a fair one. For example if a social worker does not question you fully as to your disagreements and will not even talk to you or anyone else before making his statements and assessments then he has to be concocting them unfairly. He has to make up what he is saying and thus nine times out of ten much of it will be false.
We are entitled to a hearing before a fair and impartial court or tribunal as prescribed by the judiciary. I fear that, in a lot of cases, Children’s legal panel solicitors will not argue cases strongly. I have had three sets and have yet to find a good one. They always give preferential treatment to social workers and have an intrinsic, safety-first attitude which works against parents. Read all the boards and I am not the only one who says this. In any other court setting but a family proceedings one, many cases would be thrown out peremptorily!
Best of luck to you in your case and tell us all what happens. My advice to all victims is to keep in touch with the FRG who can help you decisively. Write down fully on the boards everything that happens and other parents can also help. Use this thread as a notebook of sorts. Afterwards your thread will have become a permanent record which you can use to your benefit. You will be able to check everything, especially social work statements as and when they are issued. You can also show it to other interested parties, in fact ANYONE WHO IS OLD ENOUGH to understand issues and use a computer. Give them the FRG website address and they can access threads and the truth too. The more people who visit the site and the more messages the better, in my view.
Re: Perjury within a Section 7 Report?
Hello Ange
Thanks for the that opus it all that seems awfully familiar:
seven of seven assessments withheld, one for two and a half years.
three of four conference reports delivered immediately before the conference, the other delivered the night before a morning conference,
no minutes kept for core group meetings,
no reports made to conference by several professionals,
implicit threats of legal intervention,
police logs re written by a Family Support Worker,
threats to close meetings when objections are raised,
citing discussions with me that never took place
I could go on.
Cheers R
Thanks for the that opus it all that seems awfully familiar:
seven of seven assessments withheld, one for two and a half years.
three of four conference reports delivered immediately before the conference, the other delivered the night before a morning conference,
no minutes kept for core group meetings,
no reports made to conference by several professionals,
implicit threats of legal intervention,
police logs re written by a Family Support Worker,
threats to close meetings when objections are raised,
citing discussions with me that never took place
I could go on.
Cheers R
-
ange301126
- Posts: 537
- Joined: Thu Nov 10, 2011 1:27 pm
Re: Perjury within a Section 7 Report?
dear rolfi,sorry for the length of my previous message.Please will you try something for me. In my case, as soon as I realised they weren't doing their job properly, I asked the social worker for a copy of the CODES OF PRACTICE .I wanted to know what to complain about.She told me the department didn't have any. Next time you got to the office,ask for the codes of practice and see what they say.
-
Suzie, FRG Adviser
- Posts: 4230
- Joined: Mon Jul 04, 2011 2:57 pm
Re: Perjury within a Section 7 Report?
Dear Rolfi
If I understand Ange correctly, he may be referring to the Health and Care Professions Council are the new regulatory body for social workers, and a copy of the codes of conduct can be read here.
http://www.hpc-uk.org/apply/socialworkers/standards/
Best Wishes
Suzie
If I understand Ange correctly, he may be referring to the Health and Care Professions Council are the new regulatory body for social workers, and a copy of the codes of conduct can be read here.
http://www.hpc-uk.org/apply/socialworkers/standards/
Best Wishes
Suzie
Re: Perjury within a Section 7 Report?
Thank you Ange, thank you Suzie,
I hadn't thought of looking at the Code of Practice. At first glance it looks like it may be a useful approach.
Cheers
R
I hadn't thought of looking at the Code of Practice. At first glance it looks like it may be a useful approach.
Cheers
R
-
ange301126
- Posts: 537
- Joined: Thu Nov 10, 2011 1:27 pm
Re: Perjury within a Section 7 Report?
rolfi and suzie, It was seven years ago when I asked. Things might have altered now.I wanted to see the Children's Department Codes of Practice. I assumed they must have a printed booklet rather like those issued by banks, utility companies,tax authorities,hospitals and the like.At that time ,I was told they didn't have any.
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