‘John Sweeney investigates the secretive world of the family courts and asks whether some parents may have unfairly lost their children forever. BBC One 13th January 2014’
BBC One, 13th January 2014
Source: www.bbc.co.uk
‘The death of a two-year-old boy who drank some of his mother’s methadone could have been prevented, a report has found.’
BBC News, 13th December 2013
Source: www.bbc.co.uk
‘A report has concluded the death of a 22-month-old boy may have been prevented if organisations had worked more effectively together.’
BBC News, 12th December 2013
Source: www.bbc.co.uk
‘Sally Gore, barrister of 14 Gray’s Inn Square, in the first of a series of updates for children lawyers and professionals, considers recent developments affecting the decision-making and procedures of local authority children’s services.’
Family Law Week, 11th December 2013
Source: www.familylawweek.co.uk
‘Grandparents of child taken into care by Essex County Council tell of their anguish at not having legal rights to be her guardian.’
Daily Telegraph, 11th December 2013
Source: www.telegraph.co.uk
‘Where a local authority had assessed a child present in their area to be a child in need the power to provide services to that child under section 17(1)(b) of the Children Act 1989 was capable of being exercised outside the area of the local authority and at a time when the child himself was outside their area but still within England and Wales.’
WLR Daily, 6th December 2013
Source: www.iclr.co.uk
‘A High Court judge has ruled that a council has the power to provide support for a disabled child even when his Roma Gypsy family are working in different parts of the country and outside the council’s borders.’
Local Government Lawyer, 6th December 2013
Source: www.localgovernmentlawyer.co.uk
‘The first grim details published about Alessandra Pacchieri’s brief stay in Britain were, as one commentator put it, “the stuff of nightmares”.
Over the past few days, however, a different story has emerged. Transcripts of judgments relating to the case have now been made public and they reveal the nuances behind the apparently callous decisions of judges.’
The Independent, 6th December 2013
Source: www.independent.co.uk
‘Reports of a C-section being forcibly carried out on a woman that came to light in the mainstream press this past weekend have quickly made international news.’
Halsbury’s Law Exchange, 3rd December 2013
Source: www.halsburyslawexchange.co.uk
‘Journalist Christopher Booker reported in Saturday’s Telegraph that an Italian woman was forced by Essex County Council social services to have a cesarean section, and then had her baby taken away from her – all sanctioned by the Court of Protection.’
UK Human Rights Blog, 3rd December 2013
Source: www.ukhumanrightsblog.com
‘Essex social services have obtained a court order against a woman that allowed her to be forcibly sedated and for her child to be taken from her womb by caesarean section.’
Daily Telegraph, 30th November 2013
Source: www.telegraph.co.uk
“The Court of Appeal gave guidance as to how to assess whether a local authority had (i) complied with its statutory duty to provide accommodation and social care services to adults in its area who, by reason of age, illness, disability or any other circumstances, were in need of care and attention which was not otherwise available to them, and (ii) followed guidance contained in a local authority circular, by having ‘due regard’ to the actual costs of providing care and other local factors.”
WLR Daily, 27th November 2013
Source: www.iclr.co.uk
‘A local authority has agreed to pay out £5,000 and review its practices so that its assessment of disabled children fulfils its statutory duties, following an investigation by the Local Government Ombudsman.’
Local Government Lawyer, 27th November 2013
Source: www.localgovernmentlawyer.co.uk
‘Child sex abuse cases like Lostprophets singer Ian Watkins will slip through the net due to a lack of resources, a child protection expert has warned. Jim Gamble, ex-head of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection centre (Ceop), wants more money invested in regional child protection teams to catch online abusers.’
BBC News, 27th November 2013
Source: www.bbc.co.uk
‘ “Shocking” sexual violence is being carried out by children against other children as young as 11, according to an official report. The Office of the Children’s Commissioner for England said the perpetrators could be 12 or 13, and rape is seen as “normal and inevitable” in some areas, especially among gangs.’
BBC News, 26th November 2013
Source: www.bbc.co.uk
“At a time when Theresa May has declared that a future Conservative Government would repeal the Human Rights Act 1998 (‘the Act’) and the Justice Secretary, Chris Grayling, is leading a review of the UK’s relationship with the European Court on Human Rights, it is heartening that the judiciary is prepared to apply the Act in a manner which, surely, will attract widespread public support.”
Hardwicke Chambers, 8th November 2013
Source: www.hardwicke.co.uk
“Community care services are generally provided to those with relevant assessed needs by the authority of ‘ordinary residence’. So, ordinary residence has tended to be a question for local authorities considering the entitlement to community care services. This includes accommodation and domiciliary services under the National Assistance Act 1948 (NAA 1948) and accommodation under the Children Act 1989. Ordinary residence is also relevant for identifying which local authority is the supervisory body for the purposes of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (and, conveniently some of the deeming provisions from the NAA apply to the MCA 2005, para 183 Sched A1).”
Hardwicke Chambers, 7th November 2013
Source: www.hardwicke.co.uk
“A serious case review (SCR) into the starvation of four-year-old Hamzah Khan has concluded that while his death was ‘not predictable’, Bradford social services missed signs that, had they been put together, could have warned that Hamzah and his seven siblings were at risk.”
The Guardian, 13th November 2013
Source: www.guardian.co.uk
“Former Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer QC, has called for an overhaul of the law concerning safeguarding children. In a previous post I considered the current legislation and whether it goes far enough. I concluded that there is a need for a more general duty to have due regard to the need to eliminate abuse of minors over and above the existing welfare duty in s11 of the Children Act 2004.”
Halsbury’s Law Exchange, 8th November 2013
Source: www.halsburyslawexchange.co.uk
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