Advice Please

[DupedDad]

A brief recap of my case.

In May 2014 I was arrested and eventually charged with 4 counts of domestic abuse.
From December 2014, despite the overwhelmingly positive supervised contact we had had and CS own evidence of manipulation and emotional abuse by the maternal family, CS did nothing to stop the maternal family from alienating my son against me.
In September 2015 I was found guilty of 3 charges of domestic abuse.
I maintained my innocence throughout, even in the knowledge that this greatly increased the risk of a custodial sentence.
In November 2015 my son made allegations of neglect plus physical and emotional abuse against his mother.
He was placed in his maternal grandparents care.
It turned out my wife had resumed drinking which made a mockery of her allegations against me.
Documents filed and served by the LA as part of their application to the family court confirmed CS engaged in malpractice in our case (falsification of records, misrepresentation, suppression of records, coercion and while my stage 2 complaint was partially upheld, some of my complaints that were rejected were subsequently repeated by the LA in court as they supported the LA's changed position on my son's previous foster carer).
I started to collate evidence for an appeal of my convictions.
In February 2016 my son was removed from his grandparents care due to concerns about his well being and he was placed in a care home.
In March 2016 the family court agreed that he should remain in the care home.
My wife passed away in July 2016.
My son immediately re-established contact with me.

I asked HCPC how I should raise a complaint against a dozen team managers / social workers but they simply went ahead and raised the two examples I had given them with the LA and consequently my sons social worker no longer communicates with me.
I requested a change of team manager and social worker with the head of CS (the team manager was changed and the justification I was given for retaining the social worker is no longer valid so hopefully a new social worker will be appointed shortly).

Despite finally acknowledging that my son had been emotionally abused by his extended maternal family, CS placed my son in harms way and allowed his maternal grandfather to abuse him a further time.
This caused him to temporarily stop seeing me (he now sees me every week).

My son is fast approaching 18 and has Downs Syndrome.
CS accept the maternal family have repeatedly emotionally abused and manipulated my son but this seems to be of no consequence for CS when it comes to the maternal family's involvement in my sons life.

Despite the positive, loving contact we have re-established, CS never consulted me over their plans for my son over Christmas (CS arranged for him to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with his maternal family). I only found out when my son told me.

It seems that CS were happy to exploit my sons disability and his reduced capacity when it suited them at the family court but CS steadfastly refuse to contemplate this when promoting his views about his maternal family (my concerns are Stockholm Syndrome esque).

I am due to attend a CLA meeting at the end of January. I have just found out that the IRO has invited the maternal family to attend (as a result this will be a split meeting, one with the maternal family and then one with me).

I have stated all along that my son should have contact with his maternal family provided he is not subjected to any more abuse and our relationship is not compromised again. What I do not agree with, without even taking into account the abuse the maternal family have inflicted on my son and the harm they have caused our relationship, is a family that had no interest in my son for the first 15 years of his life should now have some influence over my son's choices or choices made for my son.

I retain PR, do I have any rights to object to the maternal family attending the CLA meeting??

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Dear Duped Dad,

Thanks for the recap.

I understand that children services have a full care order. Is that correct? If so, they will also have the legal parental responsibility to overrule any objection you might have to the maternal family attending the review meeting.

However, if you think that their attendance is not in the best interests of your son, you could set out why and ask that your reasons are considered.

Does your son have an advocate to make sure that his views are represented at the meeting?

For details about the looked after reviewing process including the role of the independent reviewing officer, have a look at our advice sheet here. .
Best wishes,

Suzie