alt.lawyers

Threat to take new-born over emotional abuse

By David Harrison, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 1:42am BST 26/08/2007

A pregnant woman has been told that her baby will be taken from her at
birth because she is deemed capable of "emotional abuse", even though
psychiatrists treating her say there is no evidence to suggest that
she will harm her child in any way.
# Leader: Unnatural justice of secret courts
# More use of a vague reason to remove children

Social services' recommendation that the baby should be taken from
Fran Lyon, a 22-year-old charity worker who has five A-levels and a
degree in neuroscience, was based in part on a letter from a
paediatrician she has never met.
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Hexham children's services, part of Northumberland County Council,
said the decision had been made because Miss Lyon was likely to suffer
from Munchausen's Syndrome by proxy, a condition unproven by science
in which a mother will make up an illness in her child, or harm it, to
draw attention to herself.

Under the plan, a doctor will hand the newborn to a social worker,
provided there are no medical complications. Social services' request
for an emergency protection order - these are usually granted - will
be heard in secret in the family court at Hexham magistrates on the
same day.

>From then on, anyone discussing the case, including Miss Lyon, will be
deemed to be in contempt of the court.

Miss Lyon, from Hexham, who is five months pregnant, is seeking a
judicial review of the decision about Molly, as she calls her baby.
She described it as "barbaric and draconian", and said it was
"scandalous" that social services had not accepted submissions
supporting her case.

"The paediatrician has never met me," she said. "He is not a
psychiatrist and cannot possibly make assertions about my current or
future mental health. Yet his letter was the only one considered in
the case conference on August 16 which lasted just 10 minutes."

Northumberland County Council insists that two highly experienced
doctors - another consultant paediatrician and a medical consultant -
attended the case conference.

The case adds to growing concern, highlighted in a series of articles
in The Sunday Telegraph, over a huge rise in the number of babies
under a year old being taken from parents. The figure was 2,000 last
year, three times the number 10 years ago.

Critics say councils are taking more babies from parents to help them
meet adoption "targets".

John Hemming, the Liberal Democrat MP and chairman of the Justice for
Families campaign group, said the case showed "exactly what is wrong
with public family law".

He added: "There is absolutely no evidence that Fran would harm her
child. However, a vague letter from a paediatrician who has never met
her has been used in a decision to remove her baby at birth, while
evidence from professionals treating her, that she would have no
problems has been ignored."

Mr Hemming was concerned that "vague assertions" of Munchausen's
Syndrome by proxy - now known as "fabricated and invented illness" -
had been used to remove a number of children from parents in the North-
East.

Miss Lyon came under scrutiny because she had a mental health problem
when she was 16 after being physically and emotionally abused by her
father and raped by a stranger.

She suffered eating disorders and self-harm but, after therapy,
graduated from Edinburgh University and now works for two mental
health charities, Borderline and Personality Plus.

Dr Stella Newrith, a consultant psychiatrist, who treated Miss Lyon
for her childhood trauma for a year, wrote to Northumberland social
services stating: "There has never been any clinical evidence to
suggest that Fran would put herself or others at risk, and there is
certainly no evidence to suggest that she would put a child at risk of
emotional, physical or sexual harm."

Despite this support, endorsed by other psychiatrists and Miss Lyon's
GP, social services based their recommendation partly on a letter from
Dr Martin Ward Platt, a consultant paediatrician, who was unable to
attend the meeting.

He wrote: "Even in the absence of a psychological assessment, if the
professionals were concerned on the evidence available that Miss
Holton (as Miss Lyon was briefly known), probably does fabricate or
induce illness, there would be no option but the precautionary
principle of taking the baby into foster care at birth, pending a post-
natal forensic psychological assessment."

Miss Lyon said she was determined to fight the decision. "I know I can
be a good mother to Molly. I just want the chance to prove it," she
said.

The council said the recommendation would be subject to further
assessment and review. "When making such difficult decisions,
safeguarding children is our foremost priority," a spokesman said.

=B7 A recording of social workers threatening to take a newborn into
care has been removed from the YouTube website after Calderdale
Council in West Yorkshire started legal action, claiming the Data
Protection Act was breached.

Vanessa Brookes, 34, taped social workers telling her and her husband
that they would seek to place the baby, due next month, in care, while
admitting there was "no immediate risk to the child."

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The oriignal YouTube recoding is archived on foreign servers out of
range of English law, including here:
/35qlo7
(*.flv file - can be downloaded with Firefox and probably other
browsers, and played on various flash video players.)