Booker's Lonely Furrow

Christopher Booker has been writing about the appalling family courts and its accompanying social workers for some time now.

His latest article is another extraordinary and heartbreaking tale of a child being taken away from her parent or parents for no good reason, by an entity (the family court) that is answerable to no-one. Subrosa has an eloquent post, under which there is an interesting debate about the idea of "the risk being too great" for social workers not to act, and for social workers to be damned if they do and damned if they don't.

There is some small merit to this attitude, although it grates heavily with me, in the sense that when they don't act and are wrong, they get slammed, and when they do act and are wrong, they get slammed.

However...

All this falls over for two reasons. The first is, if when they were wrong they reacted swiftly to rectify the situation, then their errors would perhaps be understood if not forgiven. However, this is not the case, see the despicable piece of victimhood pulled by that utter bitch Shoesmith following the Baby P fiasco for more details.

Secondly (and related to the first point), the family courts are shrouded in absolute secrecy. Booker's latest article is as always short on details, as he says:

"As usual, I am legally barred from identifying the mother at the centre of this case or giving many other details..."

As such, clearly this is a system with zero accountability, and as such inevitably overrun with cruel, illogical decisions that are virtually immutable without very deep pockets and boundless patience. For a really good illustration of the system, I am forced once again to link to Booker, as virtually no-one else writes about it. The idea of council "adoption targets" are hair-raising.

Read this.

If it bothers you, write about it. Maybe we can drive this issue screaming out of the shadows. Because the way the family court works now helps no-one except those in its pay, not those that it should protect and support.