Care Proceedings imminent, case has been handled bizarrley

[desperate_dad]

Hello all,

I'll try and keep this brief. My wife and I have a happy and healthy 5 year old. March 2023 brought our second son along via emergency c-section, after which it was discovered that my wife contracted Covid while in hospital and suffered from shaking and a fever during delivery, bless her. Doctors noted this as an "uncomplicated" birth.

Our baby always appeared to have a bit of a large head but he seemed to be fine. At his eight-week checkup the inexperienced doctor forgot to measure his head circumference (this will become important later). He was administered his vaccines.

A few days later I took him to A&E with poor feeding and vomiting. Doctors put this down to a vaccine reaction.

The next week he fell off my lap while I was feeding him in the middle of the night (he had a tendency to suddenly arch his back if he was uncomfortable with wind. He was quite a strong baby right from the start). Chalk it up to exhaustion I suppose. I managed to grab him by the arm to stop him hitting the floor. I can only assume this caused a whiplash effect. It was dark and I don't really remember.

A few days after I took him back to A&E with the same symptoms as last time. However this time, doctors noticed swelling in his fontanelle. A CT scan followed and I think you know where this is going... accusation of NAI via a shaking mechanism causing a brain bleed. My wife and I were arrested on suspicion of GBH with intent and we are STILL on bail 8 months later.

Thankfully he had a shunt surgery and he appears to have fully recovered. He's doing all the normal baby things and hitting his milestones.

X social care were involved immediately. Luckily we were able to pull together a large pool of friends and family to satisfy a "safety plan" and basically have someone with us 24/7 around the children. This arrangement remains in place.

Following the strategy meeting of all the agencies, the bizarre decision to NOT issue Care Proceedings was made. Our solicitors both said that this is unheard of in a NAI case such as this. Instead, we went down the route of a Public Law Outline which included a Parenting Assessment. Meanwhile, police continued to investigate and the safety plan allowed our children to stay with us at home. We completed a Family Group Conference.

Of course, none of the agencies involved believe that his fall could have caused his injury. The fact that his head wasn't measured at the eight week check means we had no baseline to work from.

When December rolled around things took a drastic turn. Our social worker informed us that due to "changes in guidance", Care Proceedings would now be issued and they are recommending an Interim Order. We await the first hearing. Our social worker is suddenly far more antagonistic and two-faced.

Our baby is now almost crawling and got a tiny bruise (3mm by 3mm) on his forehead, we think from bumping his head on the cot. Social services demanded he be examined at A&E immediately (two days before Christmas) and they launched the safeguarding protocol like when the incident started (full doctor's examination, consenting to photos being taken etc.)). We had to drag out other son out of the house while he was happy playing at home and our baby was halfway through his lunch. The baby's examination was all clear, so the intervention of social services on this occasion is just a completely disproportionate overreaction.

It gets better... while in the hospital our social worker issued us an "updated safety plan" which requires us to have two supervisors at a time instead of one, and for the children to be "protected from the mother's emotional outbursts" because she cried and was angry when informed care proceedings would happen (despite absolutely nothing changing in 8 months and following the safety plan).
This is absolutely vile and disgusting language to level at anyone, let alone a mother going through hell. They clearly wrote this trash before coming to the hospital and expecting our baby to have more bruises and signs of abuse.

Overall this course of action has been completely contradictory and strange. The children have been allowed to stay at home for 8 months since the incident (albeit with supervision), now X LA want to try and argue that they are in such danger that they must be removed via Care Proceedings. The children are in such danger that we find out the LA will issue proceedings... over a month later we have heard nothing. At one point we went over a month without a social services visit.

Our solicitors think they’ll have a hard time convincing a judge to remove the children when the safety plan has been working, so they’ve shot themselves in the foot. We went through a PLO and did a Parenting Assessment that took weeks, which we never got the final evaluation for because care proceedings were issued. So that was a waste of time.

It feels like we have wasted 8 months where we could have been going through the courts (which I suspect X LA wanted all along but they f*cked up). As much as I’m overjoyed to still have the boys at home, we have wasted so much time and the burden of having someone living with us 24/7 is putting a massive strain on the whole family.

We are still waiting for minutes from meetings as far back as July, our social worker never has answers to any questions. They are incapable of holding up their end of the deal, we don't feel supported at all.

I guess I’m not really asking for advice, I just wonder if anyone else has had a case handled in such a poor fashion.

Thanks

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Dear desperate_dad

Welcome to the parents’ discussion board. Thank you for your post. My name is Suzie. I am Family Rights Group’s online adviser.

I am sorry to hear of your family’s situation and the injury your baby son suffered which led to concerns about non accidental injury. However, I am glad to hear that the baby has made a good recovery and is reaching his milestones. And that he and his older brother have remained in the family home with both parents. I do understand the impact of having to be supervised at home with your children and that this is a strain. However, it is good that you have a strong support network and family to provide this supervision which has meant that you can bond with and care for your baby and older son.

You have had legal advice throughout the Public Law Outline process and now that care proceedings have been begun, eight months down the line. Your solicitors are best placed to advise on the specific facts of your case as they have access to all the medical and professional reports to date. Therefore, I will not comment on these issues. They have also given you their professional opinion about what children’s services will need to do to put forward a plan for removal. It is important that you keep liaising closely with your solicitors who have been involved for some time and so are likely to have a thorough understanding of the case.

You and your wife are both subject to bail conditions as part of the police investigation. Your criminal solicitors will be able to advise you in this this respect.

I just wanted to provide some information and clarification about some children’s services procedures and processes.

In terms of how children’s services decide whether or not to begin care proceedings, these are made at legal planning meetings between children’s services and their legal team. You are right that in cases of suspected NAI there are a range of multi-agency strategy meetings too to plan and decide how to investigate and safeguard children also.

I don’t think that the parenting assessment you cooperated with was wasted as it will be relevant to the care proceedings. Your solicitors can clarify when you will receive the report or whether it is likely that the court will direct further or a different type of assessment too.

It is not unusual that the bruise your son sustained just before Christmas resulted in him being medically examined and safeguarding protocols followed. It sounds as if this was disruptive and distressing but necessary for your protection as well as your son’s. You describe the outcome of the examination as ‘all clear’ which is good to hear.

As you have described, the whole process is taking its toll on your family and is an enormous strain. I am sorry to hear of the distress your wife has experienced and that the wording used by children’s services has added to this. Social workers should try to be sensitive in such situations but do have to prioritise identifying risks to keep children safe. It may be worth your wife discussing this with the social worker and their manager so that they can better understand the context for your wife’s upset.

I am attaching links to some further information which I hope will be useful to you:

Care proceedings
Children in care under a court order
Working with a solicitor
Working with a social worker.

You may also find the following helpful:

Child Protection Resource: what happens when a child is hurt and we don’t know who did it
the social worker tells me my child has been hurt
Parents Accused.

I hope this helps. Parents on this forum who have been through similar situations may post to offer support or advice from their experience.

Please post again if we can help or contact the advice service by calling our freephone 0808 8010366, Mon to Fri (9.30 am to 3.00 pm, except bank holidays). Or you can email an advice enquiry or use our webchat.

Best wishes

Suzie

[MummyofL2001]

Hi,

This doesn’t surprise me one bit!
We have been in care proceedings since July/ August of 2023. I have birth to our beautiful baby boy in June.

I’ll keep our nightmare brief but basically took our son to hospital due to reduced feeding at one month old, he was markless, happy and thriving.

At this hospital they bruised him all over during a 90 minute cannulisation and a botched lumbar puncture. We have now been told that he had fractures as well. The timeline of these fractures have changed each time.

Accusing doctor said new
Police said old

We gave a huge narrative statement to court to prove everything we have done with our son and that we couldn’t have caused these. Then an expert gave his report and agreed with our timeline that the injuries happened in a window that included this hospital! I have been told it would be ‘impossible’ for the cannula incident and lumbar puncture to cause these injuries as ‘experienced nurses’ don’t make such mistakes…. We have just been told yesterday (6 months in cause the judge has finally had enough of the LAs **** and wants to witness summons these awful doctors who made such poor choices to prove they were ‘good’ at their job and continued to try to cannulate my son when they couldn’t!) that this nurse who bruised our baby and also would have likely manipulated his body during the lumbar puncture was an agency nurse who didn’t even sign or write the correct papers up! These are now ‘missing’ apparently.

As social have no evidence other than their awful guesses that it’s is they have tried to lie and twist everything! We thankfully have an ISW doing something called Resolutions With us jsut in case we do get findings but they have said that this is ‘worse case’ and she’s so lovely she’s actually called the LA our many times and the LA legal has also apologised for the social workers conduct!

Here’s the twist tho….. we have PHOTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE that our son was bruised in the hospital along with videos….. we had been there three days by that point so impossible it was us!

We have been accused of all sorts and honestly I’m done with their ****! We still fight on for our little one’s cause that’s what we do but the system is broken. I’m free to message if you ever want to talk! I find getting it all out in the open truly does help cause it is CRAZY what they do to innocent parents

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Dear MummyofL2001

Welcome back to the parents’ discussion board. Thank you for your post.

Thanks for updating the board about the ongoing care proceedings for your baby son. I can see how difficult and distressing this is, especially when your baby is so young.

I am sure that you are working closely with your legal team in relation to the court proceedings. This is extremely important especially in cases of alleged Non Accidental Injuries which focus heavily on medical experts’ reports as well as other evidence. The burden of proof lies with the local authority.

I am glad to hear that you are working with an Independent Social Worker who is completing a ‘Resolutions Model’ of risk assessment which can be used where parents/carers do not accept findings that they caused an injury to their child. This approach can allow children to return home to their parents’ care in a planned and progressive way using family support networks to make sure the child is not at risk.

If you have concerns about the social worker’s conduct please raise them them with your solicitor if they relate to the court case, the social worker’s manager and/or Independent Reviewing Officer . You can make a complaint if need be but not about decisions made in the court. It is also best, when you are in care proceedings, to get specific advice about this from your solicitor before making a complaint.

If you need any advice or information or to update other parents please post again on this forum. If you would like to speak to an adviser please call the freephone advice line on 0808 8010366, Mon to Fri, 9.30 am to 3.00 pm (except bank holidays) or you can use our advice enquiry or webchat facility to ask a question.

Best wishes

Suzie