The Child Protection system and The Family Court are broken and corrupt. They are causing children and their families unnecessary and irreparable harm.  

On March 31st 2020 80,080 children were classed at Looked After Children (LAC) in the UK. The numbers of children being taken into care have been dramatically increasing, year on year, since 2010. 

Since Haringey Social workers missed signs of serious child abuse, leading to the tragic death of Baby Peter Connolly, at the hands of his mother and stepfather in 2007, Local Authority Children's Services Departments have adopted a risk-averse culture and a practice based on a perceived need to rescue children. 

Parents are routinely accused of neglect and emotional harm by the UK's Child Protection system. Both Neglect and Emotional Harm are broad definitions, under which social workers can place any number of minor issues they discover during an investigation of a family. Social workers write their reports, detailing a families circumstances, with some embellishments, some exaggerations of severity and some lies along with some hearsay evidence. In a court where guilt is decided on the balance of probabilities, this evidence is enough to prove the threshold (see Children's Act 1989) has been crossed and a child is at harm. This provides Family Court judges with enough proof to order the removal of a child from their parents care. 

This must change.

Although The Independent Care Review is currently underway chaired by Josh MacAlister -  which is a Government-commissioned exercise - any hope that it will address the real issues plaguing the system have already been quashed. 

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