by Maria Ahmed, deputy news editor
The story of how baby "G" was taken unlawfully from his 18-year-old mother by Nottingham social workers created a predictable media frenzy. It was all too easy for the Daily Mail and the rest to take their usual line about baby snatchers. But acting up as news editor when the story broke, I was faced with a quagmire of difficulty in how to cover this case. As the professional social work magazine, we could not just piggyback on the tabloid spin.
Paucity of facts
Firstly, what were the facts? We could, as with the rest of the press, go only on what emerged in the public domain in the high court. Justice Munby ruled that social services had "on the face of it" acted unlawfully by removing the child without a court order to do so. That much we knew.
But after that, the story fell pretty much into a black hole. What happened next, of course, was an unreported private hearing where the council successfully made its application for an interim care order over the baby.
Nottingham City Council has refused to comment on whether it acted illegally or not in the first place, making it difficult to judge their actions.
Public proceedings
It is only because the case went to the high court, where proceedings can be reported publicly, that we actually know about this case at all. But the lack of detail is frustrating, illustrated by the council's statement after it won the interim care of the baby: "The council does not intend to say anything about the background to the case which is not already public."
Unanswered questions
The result is a story that is only half-there, with plenty of unanswered questions.
It was not, and still is not, clear just how and why social workers were in the wrong. The judge said they acted unlawfully; the council has refused to confirm this.
And how exactly did the council win back the baby and gain an interim care order the next day?
How did the young mother draw so quickly on the services of a solicitor, to gain a high court order the very day her baby was taken away?
The answers to these vital questions are absent. The story, for now, exists in suspended animation.
What next?
There are several ways it can continue. The mother could tell her story to the press, as Fran Lyon did. More details could emerge in a public court hearing if the mother's legal challenge goes through. Or the story could disappear altogether into the closeted world of the family courts.
Whatever the outcome, the story made me realise the strange predicament we are in as Community Care journalists. Even as the professional social work magazine, we are not privy to the detail of how decisions are made in cases like this. It is a peculiar situation to be in: not to have access to what should be the bread-and-butter of our news.
Opening up the courts?
However, while there has been very strong opposition from most quarters in children's social work to the idea of opening up the family courts to press and public, there are now moves towards a compromise.
A pilot scheme is being launched in which anonymised family court rulings will be released for the first time.
You can only hope this move, albeit limited, will eventually result in better reporting when it comes to stories like baby "G."
Comments (1)
Any experienced social worker will have worked out that it would have been nigh on impossible for a case such as this to be transferred from a magistrates to a county court and then to a high court within hours of this baby being born. Ask yourself why the high court is not dealing with the application by the LA and subsequent appeal by the mother.
The judge was no doubt sitting on another matter; heard unchecked info about the babies birth and made a knee jerk reaction without checking out facts or giving any other person an opportunity to respond.
Given the subsequent granting of an order that led to the removal of this baby I suspect there has been some private criticsm within the court arena of the actions of this high court judge and probably apologies from him/her that no doubt will never be made public.
My opinion is clearly speculative because the facts are known only to those directly involved. I'm assuming 'Lauren Evans Social Work Blog 31st January' is not one of these people so for her to conclude that this was "undoubtedly an example of poor practice" is a tad presumptious.
It is many years since I practiced in a childrens services team - sadly I can only deduce that appauling behaviour by solicitors continues, judges are still easy to manipulate
and there are a lot of workers in the social care setting that are self obsessed empire builders that condemn and criticise without any real assessment and reasoned judgement.
Posted by Jane Moran | February 15, 2008 11:11 PM
Posted on February 15, 2008 23:11