John Hemming's Web Log

The link is to the story about the conviction of a Southampton Foster Carer from Thursday. What is important about this is the inaction of the authorities over a long period of time. The problem is that the authorities are conflicted on dealing with these things and there is no independent protection of children that are in care from abuse. I have a similar sort of case in Birmingham. Not as extreme, but the system still covers things up.

I was pleased that the prosecution withdrew the attempt to prosecute the three students who put a banner on the bridge between the Hyatt and the ICC during the Lib Dem Conference. I presume that the people who put the following banner on a bridge also won't be prosecuted. I was on the way back to Birmingham to give evidence for the defence, but was told on the way that the case had collapsed so I stopped part way and went back to London. It really should not have got as far as it did.

This is an issue I have not managed to track down any proper details about. He was campaigning for a proper investigation of the case of Hollie Grieg. I explained to him that the clearly wrong aspects of the case was the persecution of those who were concerned about it. Hence I am particularly worried that he himself has now been imprisoned. (cf Vicky Haigh). These are not secret prisoners unlike Prisoner X. However, it raises wider concerns about the way the system is operating.

It is a bit odd that the House of Lords have voted down a proposal that encourages unemployed people who are under occupying a council house or housing association property to downsize. There are lots of people living in overcrowded accommodation. At the same time there are people who have spare space. It is as if those Lords voting for the amendment are not concerned about overcrowding. These rules already apply to those people renting a private sector property.

I have reasons to believe that someone was recently imprisoned with reporting restrictions relating to their name. This is clearly against the Civil Procedure Rules. However, the fact that a court order is unlawful does not make it unenforceable. It is, however, relatively difficult to find out if there are reporting restrictions.

This week's experience in terms of the media and Emily's pregnancy is a good example to look at from the perspective of privacy legislation. On Monday I went to the Birmingham's Womens Hospital (previously known as the Maternity Hospital) with Emily to look at the 12 week scans of her pregnancy. The day afterwards I had a tweet sent to me offering congratulations. On Saturday a journalist from the Sunday Mercury came to ask questions about the pregnancy. Today it was the front page story of the Mercury and will be in the nationals tomorrow (some of them). Now the privacy question is whether the law should be such that the journalists should be imprisoned for reporting this. I accept that it is inconvenient for the story to be reported. We had only told our daughter (Isobel) on Friday. Hence to have it published in a newpaper on Sunday is a bit earlier than we would have wished. However, there is a real danger in controlling what truth is told by the media. I accept t...

I link to the opinion section in the Sunday Express. This was a vitamin D deficiency case (of which I am aware of two more cases which are similar) where the court of appeal refused to hear the case because the child's life had "moved on". This is the story. So, let us fast forward say 16 years. The child finds that the court would not hear any suggestion that she was the victim of a miscarriage of justice and the court decided to prevent her mother from putting forward arguments that she suffered a vitamin D deficiency. Is that really in the "best interests of the child" or is it moreso in the "best interests of the system." There are many victims of this system. The birth parents, the child and the adoptive parents. The adoptive parents are told that the child has been the victim of abuse. I would hazard a guess that they are not told that the mother has been prevented from adducing evidence that it was a medical problem.

There has been quite a bit of press reporting about David Lammy's comments about the operation of the care system acting to undermine discipline. Clearly this is not the only reason that the looting occurred, but I know of a number of cases where the care system has undermined parental discipline to the clear and obvious detriment to the children. Hence I agree with him about the principle.

The link is to a copy of a report produced by the Australian Government in 2009 which was then as far as I can tell sat on and removed from the list of reports. The summary includes the following: The trends in discovery of oil can be used to project similar trends in the subsequent production of oil. Using a method developed here, forecasts of future oil/liquids production for 40 countries/regions around the world have been produced. The oil production prospects of different countries and regions vary immensely. However, on balance, when an aggregation is done across the globe, it is predicted that world production of conventional oil is currently just past its highest point (conventional oil is oil pumped from wells on land or in water less than 500 metres deep). A predicted shallow decline in the short run should give way to a steeper decline after 2016. However, deep water and non-conventional oil production are growing strongly, turning a slight decline into a plateau for total cr...

The link is to a story where a local council attempted to stop an elderly lady with dementia from going on a cruise. In this instance the CoP found for the human beings. My experience is that it normally finds for the state however bad the arguments for the state happen to be.

The Court of Appeal Judgement in Cheshire West and Chester v P appears to redefine the concept of deprivation of liberty to exclude disabled people, in effect depriving anyone locked up by social services on the basis of an *alleged* disability of safeguards and appeal rights. This judgment has been criticised in this excellent article by Sam Smith - along with many others including Community Care magazine , 39 Essex Street Chambers and the Mental Health Alliance . I have argued for the reform of the Court of Protection for some time - and this judgement only underscores the serious problems with the system. The Mental Health Alliance will be proposing options for reform in a forthcoming report and it is to be hoped the Department of Health listens. This is one of the most pressing issues facing this country today. Extract from the report here .

The link is to a story from Northampton where a mother was given a 28 days suspended sentence for putting information about her case on Facebook. RSC Schedule 1 Order 52 states: (2)If the court hearing an application in private by virtue of paragraph (1) decides to make an order of committal against the person sought to be committed, it shall in public state – (a)the name of that person; (b)in general terms the nature of the contempt of court in respect of which the order of committal is being made; and (c)the length of the period for which he is being committed. I don't have any information about the case apart from what is in the Northampton Chronicle. Clearly the existence of the hearing is not secret, but the identity of the mother is. My own reading of Order 52 is that suspended committal orders are not distinguished from other committal orders. It remains that contempt of court applications are of a criminal nature and for the protection of the rule of law they should invol...

The link is to a story (29/12/2011) in the New York Times about failed adoptions leading to homelessness. The USA started the obsession with adoption as a "solution" to care. They have about 50,000 "adoptions" from care each year. They don't actually track the total adoptions figure as the most recent total figure is from 2001 and is around 127,000. There is a very important distinction between adoption from care in the USA and England. In the USA there is often an adoption fee paid by the state which results in more children being "adopted". The question, of course, is what happens when the money stops. That is also why there are more older adoptions in the USA. In the UK the starting problem is that the care system often makes really silly decisions. We had the story in The Times about adoptees voting with their feet in their teens. It is important to note that this applies to children adopted in the 1990s. Our big push for adoption was from 2...

The link is to today's story in The Times about adoptions reversing as children get older. There has already been some of this, but with the more aggressive approach to adoption there are many more wrongful adoptions. The story is behind a paywall. I will extract a few quotes The two leading adoption charities are deeply concerned about the big increase in online unplanned contact, which flouts guidelines on contacting adopted children and risks seriously disrupting the lives of already troubled young people. The problem affects children who were taken into care for safeguarding in the 1990s. In the worst cases, children traced by their birth parents suffer a complete breakdown in the relationship with their adoptive family, the charities warn. Research by the British Association for Adoption and Fostering found that 53 per cent of adopted children have used unofficial means, including Facebook, to trace birth parents. A quarter said that the outcome had been unsettling. Where I...

The link is to the judgment of the Irish Supreme Court on matters relating to the Hague Convention and adoption. A number of parents have won legal cases in Ireland which prevented their children being returned to England and placed in care on the basis that this would lead to adoption. This case was an interesting one because the children were not actually in care or even subject to a care order, but that care proceedings were "pending". (Viz an application had been made to court.) The first test in international public family law is one as to which country has jurisdiction. This is based on "habitual residence". It is now clearly the case that if court proceedings have started in England then the habitual residence is accepted as being in England even if the family have moved to Ireland. The case has also looked at the question as to whether non-Irish citizens have Irish Constitutional Rights, but without resolving the issue in any way. The judgment is a long ...

See the link for the website dealing with Florence Bellone's winning of the reporting prize for reporting on the English Family Courts scandal. Quoting from the website: Title of the article Great Britain: The Stolen Children Name of media RTBF The Grand Jury distinguished the report for its investigative merit in highlighting a human rights issue occurring in a highly-developed European Member State. The piece was characterised as ‘a technically impressive, investigative report into shocking and relatively unknown human rights violations’.

I attended St Edburgha'a carol service last Sunday. Robert Jones has produced some good photographs of the event. The music was good, but I don't think it is available on the net.

The link is to a story behind the paywall of the Sunday Times relating to Friday's jailing at around 4pm of Vicky Haigh for 3 years. On the way to the meeting in London (at which she asked a question of Anthony Douglas which was one of the reasons for which Doncaster MDC tried to have her imprisoned) she saw her daughter and went to say hello. At a time at which the press would not ordinarily be there on Friday she was given 3 years. Doesn't seem right to me. It remains that she has not yet managed to appeal the original family court decisions mainly because the solicitors are holding onto the file. It is also the case that the promised publication of various documents by the authories promised earlier this year has not happened. I suppose keeping her in jail will make it even harder for her to challenge the original decision.

There is a youtube channel Idowish12 which includes a lot of films of Birmingham's past. For example: and

The CTB v Imogen Thomas case raises a number of constitutional concerns about the accountability and reliability of secret justice. On 20th May 2011 the Neuberger Committee reported on secret justice clarifying what should happen. These procedures were not followed (in this case) on a number of occasions. On 2nd November 2011 there was a hearing which was not even listed. On 11th November 2011 the press were excluded without explanation. On 25th November 2011 there was a hearing with a decision for which no judgment was given until yesterday. The court should have clearly discharged the original injunction some months ago. The key issue, however, is that Secret Justice leads to miscarriages of justice. Secret Justice often means No Justice. In this case it is still unclear whether Imogen Thomas would have been able to prove her case had CTB not been named in parliament. What is clear is that the original injunction would have prevented Imogen Thomas’s lawyers from doing nec...