NSCFC challenges Gordon Brown, Harriet Harman and Lord Falconer to come clean over Family Courts

The National Society for Children and Family Contact (NSCFC) challenges the new deputy Prime Minister Harriet Harman to prove them wrong and reinvent herself as a champion for family life as apposed to the out and outright feminist she has revealed herself to be since 1990 in the social policy paper “The Family Way”. Last year Ms Harman said that because of public disquiet, family courts should be open to reporting, Lord Falconer however last week disagreed and ruled this out on so many pretences we who work tirelessly to secure the continuation of traditional family life were appalled but not surprised.

This is what Jack Frost author of the “The Gulag of the Family Courts” had to say. The picture of a smiling Lord Falconer, introducing his reasons for not giving the media the automatic right to attend Family Courts. He states that he arrived at his decision not to allow the media access as of right, “after receiving formal responses from individuals and organisations including the views of over 200 children, half of whom had experience of care proceedings.” to ‘Confidence & Confidentiality: Openness in Family Court – new approach’….June 2007. Presented by Lord Chancellor (Lord Falconer) Secretary of State for Justice. http://www.justice.gov.uk/docs/consult-family-courts.pdf

Confidence & Confidentiality: Openness in Family Court. FASSIT’S response

Is this another ‘dodgy dossier Jack asks?

So we waited from October 2005 and have had two supposed ‘public consultations’, which each deferred a decision to bring in openness & transparency into a court of law, which has been forcibly taking children away from parents, in secret and casting them into the sink industry of care and adoption.

This after Harriet Harman MP. QC, the Minister of State for the Department of Constitutional Affairs (the minister with overall responsibility for the Family Courts) announced in a number of articles she personally had published in national newspapers that, “It is impossible to defend the system from accusations of bias and discrimination, if it operates behind closed doors ……something has to be seen, to be believed and justice has to be seen to be done….the Family Courts are more secret than prisons.” (Mail on Sunday 4 June 2006)

And Justice Munby, High Court Judge, Family Division, in a debate with members of Parliament, chaired by the Hon. Sir Mark Potter (President. Family Division of High Court Judges), on 3 May 2006, in which he stated “ I have to say that it seems quite indefensible that there should be no access by the media and no access by the public to what is going on in courts where judges are day-by- day taking peoples children away.”

Lord Falconer, The Lord Chancellor (overall charge of all the judicial systems in the UK) announced on 20 June 2007, that as a result of the ‘public consultation’, there was to be no openness & transparency in the Family Courts. Indeed, they are to stay hermetically sealed and get even more secretive.

Let us look at the reasons given by Lord Falconer, for his decision to ban the media and the public from access to Family Court cases. Bearing in mind, reporting of cases with an exact equivalence, with perhaps even more personal detail and including serious sexual and physical violence and debauchery, has been routine in all other courts in the UK, with the caveat that the identities of the victimised children and the perpetrators, if also under the age of 16, have always been protected from disclosure and only certain specific segments of the case, have been held in camera (in the absence of the press and the public).

The picture of a smiling Lord Falconer, introduced his reasons for not giving the media the automatic right to attend Family Courts. He states that he arrived at his decision not to allow the media access as of right, “after receiving formal responses from individuals and organisations including the views of over 200 children, half of whom had experience of care proceedings.”

On a closer examination it appears that Lord Falconer might have been economical with the truth. We know that the ‘organisations’ are the social workers, lawyers, judges, adoption and fostering agencies and charities. All these are nose down and elbows flaying at the trough of limitless public funding, without an iota of independent scrutiny. The presence of the media would put a stop to this financial jamboree and many believe is also likely to result in prosecutions for fraud. One can therefore accept without any fear of disagreement, that those within the secret industry; those I refer to as ‘the Guligans’ in my book, “ The Gulag Of The Family Courts”, would find the presence of the media, intolerable and would have informed Lord Falconer in those terms.

There are suspicions that ‘the organisations’ referred to, is the secret industry and it has made it known that if the media were allowed access, they would down tools and withdraw their participation. One wonders if this has any merit!

What is very concerning is his statement “after receiving formal responses from individuals and organisations including the views of over 200 children, half of whom had experience of care proceedings.”

How did Lord Falconer learn about the views of the “over 200 children, half of whom had experience of care proceedings?”

1……..During the ‘public consultation process’, the Department of Constitutional Affairs, when questioned about the facilities that were to be utilised to get the opinion of children, stated that the views of the children would be ascertained by the children telephoning/e-mailing the DCA to register their opinions and views, concerning admitting the press, media and the public.

(a)……..The DCA then stated that to carry out this proposal in 1 above, the DCA was going to install a dedicated telephone line and a dedicated e-mail address, for the sole purpose of receiving views and opinions from the children.

( b) ……The DCA was reminded, that those at the receiving end of the children’s opinions, in the DCA, would need to be cleared by the Family Courts to receive information about their cases, before they could invite disclosure of information about their cases.

( c)…….The DCA was reminded, that there would have to be a system and protocols to ensure that those using the dedicated lines of communication to the DCA were in fact genuine identifiable children, and not adults posing as children. They would have also to be checked out that they had the experience of Family Court proceedings that has been claimed for them.

(d)……How did Lord Falconer know that ‘half of them had experience of care proceedings’? How could this be ascertained in a ‘phone call and/or an e-mail? What proof can Lord Falconer refer to, to justify the statement?

(e)……Two days before the ‘public consultation process’ expired, I contacted the DCA and requested information that would confirm that ( a ) ( b) & ( c) had been addressed. I was informed that there had been no protocols put in place to ensure the integrity of the responses of the children. There was doubt about ( a) and it was confirmed to me , that ( b) and ( c) had not been addressed.

So how did Lord Falconer come to make the statement concerning the children’s responses? If I am correct, this is a very serious issue and this needs to be raised in Parliament. Unless Lord Falconer can answer (a), (b) and (c) and support the answers with proof, this would indicate he has either been deliberately misled or he is involved in misleading the public and Parliament. Is this another ‘doggy dossier’?

If the DCA left the survey of the children’s opinions to the social workers, their lawyers, the adoption and fostering agencies, the agencies with their labyrinthine connections to local government and the industry dependant on the present system of unscrutinised and unaccountable public funding; the result could have been predicted, without the charade of a ‘public consultation’.

So where is the supporting documentation that would give credence to the claim that over 200 children were consulted?

"And why were the parents voices so obviously ignored? Was the ‘public consultation’ intended solely for the ‘organisations’ involved with the Family Courts and the ‘mysterious’ children, only?"

And if the opinions of children and babies counted for so much, why has Lord Falconer now embarked on another ‘public consultation’? Wouldn’t it save a lot of time and just go and ask the babies and children. Why all this ‘spin’ and subterfuge?, He could avoid the charade and admit that those dependant on this secret industry are petrified of the media beholding just what has been taking place in the Gulag of the Family Courts.

And what you might ask has been taking place in the Family Courts?

1…….False evidence has been routinely provided by social workers and other ‘public officials ’, in order to take children into care and have them adopted, thus meeting government targets, and providing rewards, including financial rewards, for the local authority and its employees.

In a number of these cases, the ‘public officials’ have been paid staggeringly huge fees from the public pot, for documents that could easily be shown to be incorrect and/or fraudulent, but there has been no way for those involved to be identified, for this to be publicised and for prosecutions to follow.

2…….The secrecy has allowed the identity of some of the ’public officials’ giving false evidence in the Family Courts, their criminal past or their professional misdemeanours, to remain hidden and contribute to serious miscarriages of justice.

3……..The secrecy has allowed the rampant ‘conflicts of interest’ involving local government officials (social workers come within the group of local government officials) to run riot. Unlike members of Parliament and elected councillors, local government officials are not required by law to complete a ‘register of interests’. This has allowed social workers and senior officials in the child care departments of local authorities, to have documented interests in the foster care agencies and adoption agencies with whom they deal. These same senior local authority officials are then able to set policy, decide on procedures and agree the purchase of goods and services from the very agencies/charities they are officially linked with. This also feeds into meeting government targets and even surpassing the targets, whilst not revealing this serious ‘conflict of interests’. If a commercial company were to be guilty of such conduct, they would be prosecuted for fraud and probably jailed.

This serious ‘conflict of interests’ is then utilised away from the court in ensuring that legitimate questions from members of the public are not answered and could even result in the questioner being falsely accused of harassing the local authority, for persisting with the questions. For example, Essex County Council has refused to answer the following questions:

(a) ……In how many of the cases of children adopted from out of the council’s own care- pool since 1997, have the adopters been local government officials or ex- local government officials?

( b)……Since 2000, what are the names and addresses of those local government officials and/or their close relatives who whilst still employed by the council, or since leaving, have been awarded contracts by the council in relation to providing foster care and/or adoption agency services to the council?

( c)…….What is the analysis of payments made to those referred to in (b) above ?

(d)……..On how many occasions since 1997 have injunctions been used by the council against members of the public and elected councillors, to silence and intimidate them, in relation to child care issues.? How many of these cases resulted in imprisonment? How many were mothers and how many were juveniles aged under 17?

Further questions yet to be asked but which judging on past performance would not be answered is the following:

(e) ……In how many of the cases of adoption from the council’s own care- pool, have the children been adopted into another faith, to meet adoption targets? In other words; how many Catholics have been adopted by couples of other faiths or no faith, and how many Muslims have been adopted by Hindus, for example?

(f) …..In how many of the cases of those imprisoned for breaching the secrecy of the Family Court proceedings, did the mothers who were imprisoned, attempt or commit suicide, whilst in prison or within a few years after being released from prison?

4…….Contrary to what some judges have been informing Parliament and the press, there is ample evidence of a number of ‘secret trials’ at which members of the public have been losing their freedom, Yes! They have been tried in secret and jailed. In these cases, the judges avoid the word ‘prosecution’ and substitute the word ‘application’. So the respondent (not the defendant) faces a ‘committal hearing’, as a result of ‘an application’ made to the court’….Very Clever!

( This after Harriet Harman MP QC admitted in a Parliamentary reply to Sally Keeble MP ( Northampton North) on 13 June 2006, that 200 persons were sent to prison after ‘secret trials’, in the previous year. Though in a democracy, we are not supposed to lose our freedoms without a trial in an open court, in which the press have access. This is indeed a strange democracy. Perhaps the learned Lord Chancellor will explain how this is achieved by this Labour Government)

And how you might wonder do they get away with ‘a secret court’. The judges when questioned in court. Reply: “This is not a ‘secret court’, it’s in chambers!” Mmmh!

5……..If the media were present, they would learn that in a number of cases, the solicitor representing the parent/s and who was paid out of the Legal Aid Fund, was simultaneously also acting for the local authority in their case…..But the parent/s had not been informed. Quite obviously, they didn’t want to distress the parent/s! It is another of those ‘secrets’!

6……..The media might also see what I witnessed in a Family Court. The parent’s female solicitor, funded from Legal Aid, went over to the local authorities’ barrister and gave him her whole clients file, in court. Included in the parents file, was a letter from the police to the parents, asking the parents not to make the social workers aware of the police involvement.

7…….They might even witness that which I and 7 other persons witnessed a few weeks ago, during a ‘committal proceedings in secret’, but which we were ‘ORDERED’ not to reveal. The ‘committal proceedings’ injunction, was brought ostensibly by a mother against another person (the respondent) , for disclosing information about the case. The respondent, who faced immediate imprisonment in this ‘secret court’, had no representation but a McKenzie Friend (a lay member of the public without any legal training). The mother had a barrister (paid by Legal Aid), a solicitor (paid by Legal Aid), and a trainee solicitor taking notes (paid by Legal Aid). In truth, the case had been brought by the local authority, who were using the public’s Legal Aid funding to intimidate a member of the public in secret, rather than use their own funding. This way they are able to claim the mother brought the action, when all along, it was the local authority pushing and organising the prosecution. Oops! The ‘application’!

Do you still wonder why the ‘secrecy’ is so prized by the Guligans!

Now, why you might wonder, is this so important, besides the obvious implications?

You might recall that The British Government sent 4 Scotland Yard Police officers to Moscow, about 3 months ago, to seek the extradition of the alleged murderer of the Russian, Oliver Litvenyenko. Litvenyenko was killed in mysterious circumstances, in London and the Russian secret service has been suspected of involvement. Whilst simultaneously, Mr. Putin, the Russian President, had requested the extradition of the ex-KGB spy, Boris Bereshovsky, who was granted asylum in the UK, some years ago. In early June 2007, the BBC interviewed Lord Falconer, about the Russian request and wondered if the British Government would send back Bereshovsky, to Russia, as Mr Putin has been repeatedly requesting. “We can’t do that”, replied Lord Falconer, sternly, “they don’t have an open system of justice……Justice must be seen to be done” really Lord Falconer. Now is that so!

Such is the concern about the documented victimisation of children and their parents in the secretive Family Courts, the complete and utter disregard for the principles of rule of law and justice in a democracy, that John Hemming MP ( Birmingham Yardley) has submitted papers to the United Nations, in which he has drawn the attention of the UN to this scandal and asked the UN to investigate and publicise the conduct of UK ‘public officials’ and a judicial system that is afraid of independent scrutiny and accountability and its victimising of its own innocent and vulnerable citizens. All credit to Jack Frost for having the courage and moral conviction to let the truth be known so that no longer do we the general public have to remain in the dark as to just what is going on behind closed Family Court doors to dismantle family life. Please read “The Gulag of the Family Courts”, by Jack Frost… ISBN 9 781430 316350 Website: www.gulagofthefamilycourts.com and thereafter demand a Public Enquiry.

Finally the NSCFC must make mention about the following revelation in London Evening Standard “Lord Falconer also took into account the views of those who “protect, support and represent children” such as the NSPCC, sure sounds good on the surface but lets look at the hard facts. That the NSPCC was consulted is a scandal in itself and must be exposed as such, hence let their supporters and the public be aware, the NSPCC apposes not only your rights as parents but that of your children as well and here is the proof for rather than working to keep the traditional family unit in existence the NSPCC have consistently apposed the United Convention for the Rights of the Child by admitting their breach of Article 18 which clearly states “Parents have joint primary responsibility for raising their child and the State should support them in this”.

Again Article 12 clearly states “The right of the child to express an opinion and to have that opinion taken into account, in any matter or procedure affecting the child. States Parties shall assure to the child who is capable of forming his or her own views the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting the child, the views of the child being given due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child.

2. For this purpose, the child shall in particular be provided the opportunity to be heard in any judicial and administrative proceedings affecting the child, either directly or through a representative or an appropriate body, in a manner consistent with the procedural rules of national law”. This yet again the NSPCC vehemently and actively appose and begs the question does the NSPCC really work in the best interest of children or are they part and parcel of an establishment hell bent on destroying the nuclear family albeit in the guise of common good?

National Society for Children and Family Contact (NSCFC) is a registered charity which believes that continuing contact with a child’s parents or extended family after separation or divorce is vital for the child’s balanced development and it works tirelessly to foster those all-important family contacts. As such we offer free support and advice to all those in need. Helpline at National rate also available 24/7 this to include support and domestic violence helpline for men on 0870 794 0075 or www.nscfc.com not because we are partial but because there is little in the way of backup for male victims in the UK.