Care Proceedings & Fact Finding Hearing - Please Help

[HH_Dad]

I am a newbie and would love to hear from anyone re advice/experiences etc. I shall not mention names or location as I need to be careful as I am in Care Proceedings currently and do not want to jeopardise anything. It's a long story, but here goes...

My wife and I have two children; an almost-four-year-old girl and 15-month old boy. Our boy (I'll refer to as 'D') is not walking yet. A couple of months ago my wife and I noticed he'd lost interest in trying to stand. However, we put this down to the fact he'd only just had his last lot of vaccinations (MMR) and he was crawling around perfectly happily thus we were not concerned. But a few weeks ago D began holding his left-foot a bit, although he was not in pain or discomfort. We made a doctor's appointment but they could not get him in for several days. Therefore we phoned the Health Visitor, the 111 non-emergency number and then, finally, we decided to take him to our nearest hospital's A&E department to get him looked at.

They x-rayed his foot and said he had a very small "toddler fracture" which - we were told - are quite common, usually go unnoticed and heal by themselves. They are common for babies learning to walk. The hospital asked if they could do more x-rays as they suspected he may have an irritable hip. They came back telling us he had something similar on his right leg and what they *think* could be cracks to two of his ribs. My wife and I were shocked as D had been happy, crawling as usual and displayed no signs of pain or discomfort and we had seen no sign of bruises or swelling either.

Hospital asked if D had had any falls. He had - he fell down our stairs in October. They asked me what happened and then my wife before coming to the conclusion that our accounts had "inconsistencies". They then asked us to bring our daughter in to be examined too which we agreed - she was found to be fine.

Next thing we know is the hospital had contacted Social Services and the Police. We were both arrested for Child Neglect. Neither of us have ever been arrested or in trouble with the law before, we both have good, respectable jobs and we were the ones who had brought him in to be looked at. We were interviewed separately and released - not on bail - but pending further enquiries. The Police searched our home and took our mobile phones and laptops.

We explained about D's fall down the stairs and informed them that he goes to two different childminders for a total of three days every week. He is the smallest baby at both of these and the only non-walker.

As things stand now, we are in Care Proceedings and Social Services waded in heavy-handed suggesting foster care for our children. This caused us a terrific amount of distress and upset. In the end it was decided our children could stay with family in the same town whilst the Care Proceedings are carried out. We have a Fact Finding Hearing due for a couple of months time.

There are four of us in the 'pool or perpetrators'; my wife and I and the two childminders. The Police have only just interviewed the childminders - seven weeks after this saga began.

No one has seen any signs of injuries in D - he has been perfectly happy, not crying like he was hurt and there's been no external signs of injuries. We take him to loads of play groups, soft play, role play events etc and several leaders of them have written us character references to back up what we have said - i.e. we had no way of knowing about injuries.

We are only allowed to see our children currently under supervision. All of the supervisors have commented on how happy our children are and that they clearly love us. Our little girl is asking every time if she can come home and our boy cries every time we hand him back to the Social Worker.

We feel that we are being treated disgracefully by SS and the hospital. We asked the hospital for names of two paediatricians who stated that they felt D's injuries were not suspicious but the main consultant refused point blank to give us their names. We have asked our solicitors to obtain these details but so far they have failed too. And SS have displayed an astonishing amount of incompetence throughout by getting details wrong constantly and one serious breach of data protection.

The hospital have provided us with various reports and documents and have got his date of birth wrong on most of them and put the wrong date down for the x-rays. We are seriously wondering what else they have got wrong and how serious the injuries can have been, especially as we have seen no sign of any problems. They did not put him in casts and treated him with just Calpol.

Has anyone ever heard of anything like this before? We are utterly at our wit's end. I would love to hear of anyone who has been through anything like this. Thank you.

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Dear HH_Dad

Thank you for your post and welcome to our Board.

I am sorry to read about your son’s injury and that both of your children are currently subject to care proceedings and living away from the family home. Our advice sheet about Care (and related) proceedings can tell you more about the process and there is further information across our website including frequently asked questions (FAQs) .

With regard to information about how the fact finding hearing might be conducted and about proving/evidencing non accidental injuries Child Protection Resource contains information in this area. Information about fractures and bruising may also be found at Parents Accused.

I hope this information is useful.

Best wishes

Suzie