And this is why, even as an Anglophile, I refuse to move there. Too much nuttery. I thought Germany was bad for arresting parents who home-taught their children, but this... it makes me sick.

"Adoption targets"... wow. And to think Orwell headlined yesterday in British papers.

"Adoption targets"... wow. And to think Orwell headlined yesterday in British papers.

Posted by: mark peters at September 5, 2007 6:45 AM
Exactley. What the hell are the targets? They think this makes them look good by taking babies/kids from parents to give to others? My God...Stalin would be proud!!Off to the state gulag for little Johnny/Sarah because Mommy is smart and works!
Surely you are making this up Kate! I thought Britain was civilized.

Into what state must a government fall to justify revolt?

Tax my tea? Or steal my child?

No mention of the baby's father.

Taking people's kids is the Labour thing. Wanna see the Tory's thing?

How to tell when a Tory is not a Conservative:

"Failing to follow a healthy lifestyle could lead to free NHS treatment being denied under the Tory plans.

Patients would be handed "NHS Health Miles Cards" allowing them to earn reward points for losing weight, giving up smoking, receiving immunisations or attending regular health screenings...

But heavy smokers, the obese and binge drinkers who were a drain on the NHS could be denied some routine treatments such as hip replacements until they cleaned up their act."

//www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23410977-details/'NHS+should+not+treat+those+with+unhealthy+lifestyles'+say+Tories/article.do

Phantom:

I assume of course, that the Tory plan will allow those denied services to retain the NHS portion of their taxes. Right?

Of the two nightmares, the Left's is as usual the most hellish. Denying "free" healthcare to the poor is rude, but taking a woman's baby AT BIRTH?

If the woman isn't a Grade A, proven baby murderer there's no moral defense for an action like that.

I guess now we know what all the gun control and cameras are for, eh? Harder to organize a revolt against the baby kidnapping government.

I can't wait until one of the trolls tries to defend this. Come on boys, tell me what a paranoid delusional psycho racist/bigot/homophobe I am for objecting! I'm a waitin'!

The Blair / Orwell parallel is quite ironic given that Orwell's actual name was Eric Blair.

Somewhere Auldus Huxley is saying: "I told you so".

Somewhere Aldous Huxley is saying: "I told you so".

Alan, surely you jest. This is meant to be a -serious- proposal. ~:)

The Brits still don't see that their only option is an armed revolt. It's gone too far, I've seen that before - it's called socialism.

>> "Come on boys, tell me what a paranoid delusional psycho racist/bigot/homophobe"

OK. Phantom, you are Come a paranoid delusional psycho racist/bigot/homophobe.

However, on this point, you are right (at least based on the info in the article). Without any additional information, I agree with the mother-to-be that it is "barbaric and draconian", and "scandalous".

Interestingly, if the woman had tried to obtain an abortion just prior to the baby's birth and the state prevented it, many who would have applaud the fascist custodial order would be outraged by the state's outrageous violation of her right to an abortion.

Here's a good quote from the article:

"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."

Welcome, Britons! We have room for you over here, away from the brownshirts and bombers.

Thanks Ted. I can rest easy now. :)

But you know, "barbaric and draconian" doesn't quite cover this. Secret court hearings? Contempt of court if you even tell anybody they took your newborn?

This rises to the level of "needs to be shot immediately" IMHO. I'm hoping the article is wrong.

Speaking of bombers Alan, I wonder how many Muslims had their babies snatched? Fingers of one hand, perhaps?

I doubt most Muslims would stand for that sort of thing.

The British used to be like that too.

So there you have it, clinical psychiatry versus the state's social service minions, that empowered state payrolled cadre of nanny state pc enforcers, driven by ignorance and a contempt for individual rights. Pretty scary, isn't it. That a committee of non-clinical persons, totally refuting the medical model of psychiatry could have that much power is horrifying. Be mindful, also, contrary to all good medical practice, that this committee has put this woman's mental health, her pregnancy and fetus at risk by creating horrific stress for her.

For starters, Munchausen by Proxy is very very rare, it can only be diagnosed after the fact. This young woman could only be diagnosed as such if she met the criteria which could only be determined if she had endangered an older child with that specific behavior. Either you have behaved as such or you didn't. There is no likely.

It certainly opens the door for the state to comb through medical histories, see who had a Bipolar or alcoholic parent, maybe a grandparent with an arrest record, determine unfitness based on some social services rating system and preemptively remove children at birth as in this case.

Tony Blair created this monster.

This is an egregious human right's abuse. If this case doesn't shock British sheeple out of their complacency, I can't imagine what will.

It seems that in spite of many of the British being masters in their field of endeavor, there is this rotting underbelly that sets up committees for all kinds, of control freaks, to tell everyone else how to live and if they don’t the justice industry sends them off to the institutions of forced rest. The action in the story is so preemptive that if you take it as a precedent, they can do anything to anybody, just because they think that in future a person is going to behave this way or that. This must be some kind of improvement a one up if you like, on 1984.
It is truly frightening that this happens in a free and democratic society, although democracy is prone to leave even the biggest idiots alone to go about their bussines.
Of course this is all done by and for people who went to school for a long time and need some, not job, but money source. There is a large difference between the people who went to school for a long time and those that actually derived real life benefits from going to school.
Here is the real reason for GW hysteria ‘Treasury 'pockets extra £10bn' from green taxes”,
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=479514&in_page_id=1770

Britain would be a wonderful place, if only its citizens would get together and hang everyone who has ever been employed by the government there.

This is my fear of Canada if the NDP and Liberals have their way with us. The creeping nanny state and the death of society one little bit at a time.

What a shame to see what has happened to the British Empire.
enough

Any doubt at all that Britain is circling the toilet bowl for the final few rotations before the BIG flush is over???

Why doesn't she just get the heck out of there and go to a free country, like Iraq or Afghanistan. They'd let her keep her baby.

She could seek refugee status in Canada, by the way.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiDtghxoJdU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXV5IGieaP8&mode=related&search=

Hear it from a snatched baby.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riuksKe5BbU&mode=related&search=

Apparently it never happens to Muslim babies because all their mothers are sane, modest, married, responsible and on the dole. There is no familial violence and care is lavished equally on all the 11 or 12 children.
There is also the question of whether Muslim babies are adoptable, since no amount of nurture can change their nature!

"All UK 'must be on DNA database'

Lord Justice Sedley is a senior appeal court judge

Judge's comments
The whole population and every UK visitor should be added to the national DNA database, a senior judge has said."

From National Newswatch. If it's bad now, it's about to get worse.

Geez, Ted, your tacit agreement that the state is bad in this case is a little narrowed, don't you think? You're kind of missing the point, that this egregious act had to have a whole pathological state infrastructure built up for it to have gotten this far. You seemed to have selectively missed the broader concerns in the article with all of its links:

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.

Or if you had followed the links in the article:

To most people, it will seem grotesquely unjust that any child could be removed on such a basis. Northumberland County Council is, however, far from unusual in acting in this way. The courts have endorsed the removal of hundreds of children from their natural parents on the basis that there is a possibility that they might "abuse their child emotionally".

Or the other link:

Some 5,100 children were registered for physical abuse and 2,600 for sexual abuse. But while the numbers of children in these categories are falling, the number of those in the "emotional abuse" group, which covers children who have not been injured and have not complained, is growing steadily.

You are such a classic water carrier for socialism's pathology. You missed your spot in history as a mindless apologist for the state. When Stalin was orchestrating famines in the Ukraine as political retribution, I'm sure you would have selected for our consideration one of the few carrot patches that escaped the wrath, nurtured with state fertilizer of course.

If you don't think that all that big govt isn't here or on its way, you are not paying attention. Thousands and thousands of Canadians have unfortunate contact with their govt everyday. It ain't going to get better. Canadian sheeple are no brighter than British sheeple. And I have a Pierre, a Brian, a Jean, a Svend, a Carolyn etc... to prove it.

I agree with Penny. Munchausen's by Proxy does occur. It's exceedingly rare. And it absolutely cannot be diagnosed prospectively. It's not hard to see why Blair tightened the gun control first. If the facts are as outlined in the article (always a big "if" with the MSM) then I would certainly advocate armed revolt to protect the child. If she were my neighbour, hell, I'd man the barricade. How'd that document go -- "When in the course of human events . . ."?

Interesting to ponder that Tony Blair has been lauded by President Bush as a great leader and compared to Churchill (ha ha) because he supported the war in Iraq. Anyone who has studied Churchill in any depth will know how laughable such a comparison is. The sort of big-state government over which Blair presided, with its cavalier disregard for individual liberties, (as discussed above) is ominously similar to that which defined the Soviet Union and its eastern European satellites during the Cold War. A year or so back a woman was arrested, charged and found guilty of something or other for peacefully standing at the Cenotaph War Memorial in London and reading out the names of Iraqi War casualties. Freedom of speech and protest anyone? It hasn't got any better. Prime Minister Gordon Brown has always seemed to me to resemble a Soviet apparachik like Brezhnev or Andropov. He wouldn't have looked out of place lined up with the rest of them in Red Square during a May Day Parade! You need only listen to his rote monotone machine-speak to understand what I mean. He is of course an exponent of the all powerful Big State. He has refused to allow a referendum on the new 'European Treaty' which his government promised prior to the last general election. This is because he knows he would lose that vote as opinion polls have consistantly indicated. Ever bigger, more remote and unaccountable government. In true Orwellian tradition there is now such a thing in Britain as a 'Hate Crime!' Its wonderful subjectivity has made it a very popular piece of legislation amongst the self-appointed guardians of the social conscience which increasingly includes (unelected) politically correct police chiefs. With violent crime on the increase and with fewer police on the streets I guess they need something to make them appear effective to protect their self-esteem. To be sure, real life will eventually trump fiction.

The article references a recording posted on YouTube that was removed. Anyone found that somewhere else online?

Guilty until proven innocent? With no chance of ever being proven innocent because the deed is done behind closed doors? Democracy, you gotta love it!

Found it. Just do a Google search for "social workers threatening to take a newborn"

To Jan; So great a leader was Churchill that at the first possible opportunity after 1945 the grateful British threw him out of office.
So take an historical perspective for what its worth. There have always been GREAT WAR LEADERS, whose track record in their HOME POLITICS has been miserable! And vice versa!
Rare indeed is the person who can be both, and that may be because, concentrated on war, such leaders leave the Home Front to inferior men!
You cannot blame Blair for the madness that has been building up in the British social polity for the last 30 years, and especially you cannot tie this case, and what it represents, to the war in Iraq, unless you too, like the majority of your cowardly compatriots, are suffering from BDS (Blair Derangement Syndrome!)

Jan, good comments, sadly the Tories aren't much better. They ought to be organizing a well deserved comeback on conservative values, instead they are as bad as the liberals:

Millions of people could be offered NHS "health miles cards" under Tory plans to address Britain's obesity crisis and other public health concerns.

They would gain points by losing weight, giving up smoking, receiving immunisations or attending health screening programmes. They could then use such rewards to pay for gym memberships, buy fresh vegetables or get priority access to other public services.

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23410949-details/Tories'%20health%20miles%20plan%20for%20weight%20loss/article.do

Geez, penny, so full of spit and venom that you can't resist the temptation to lash out. And when I come in here to agree with the comments, what to do but invent unstated positions so you can spew some more. Well done. A very impressive display of blind stupid partisanship.

In my comment agreeing with Phantom, I also didn't condemn Hitler and the KKK so, by your illogic, I suppose I must also be a Nazi racist, is that it?

Time to go back to the doctor, penny. Your prescription has clearly run out.

In the U.S., several states, including Illinois, have a governor who is trying to force pharmacists to sell Plan B possibly abortifacient pills. Critics have noted the unprecedented refusal to have a conscience clause. One governor even threatened to fire the state board if they didn't give in. Bloomberg is trying to force hospitals to provide abortion training and services, despite student and doctor resistance. Yet there is the proposal in England to refuse medical services for real diseases. Senator Edwards has made similar proposals. It's the Hypocritical Loath.

Good night, UK. You had a great run, and bequeathed great liberal traditions to us in America. Thank you.

eliX-you unintentionally shortened Churchill's history, I'm sure. The British soon threw out the Labour Party and re-elected Churchill. From 1951 to 1955, his record is honourable, so he was not just a Great War Leader. No Prime Minister after the war was the Supreme Commander.
One of the things that would make him unpopular with a large group today (endearing him to others) is that he told his cabinet, "Keep England white."
Problem is, it's the English themselves who are orchestrating their own demise, which he might have foreseen, recognizing the evils of socialism as he did.
Reading the wartime newspapers you will see that there was a great love affair with Stalin, Russia, and all things Communist during those years. So much so that in hindsight it seems it is possible to fool some of the people most of the time. With Churchill gone, and the nanny society lulling them to sleep, the British have proven that it is possible to fool most of the people most of the time.

This can all be traced back to the outsourcing of personal responsibility for health care (and security) to the state. Once the citizenry has opted for socialized medicine they are ultimately and logically no longer sentient adult beings but chattel to budget-conscious bureaucrats and social workers - no different than Indians on the reserve. Britain is no different than the other rotting welfare states, just ahead of the rest as it was with liberty a few centuries back.

Ted, I'm confused now. You like the Tory plan? All Penny did was repeat what I said.

Hey, Ted, you've established yourself over time here as a consistent useful idiot for the left. What more can I say.

Amazing how you guys jump all over a headline in the absence of any real information about the case. Muchausen's Syndrome by Proxy is rare, but is a real threat to children's lives where it does exist.

There are many instances when children need to be in the care of someone other than their biological parents. Just look at all the drug addicts, prostitutes, unwed teenage mothers, and yes, mentally unstable people having kids these days! The price society and indeed, those children, pay for leaving them with their rotten parents is extremely high.

More is required of dog owners than of child-breeders in this day and age. In my years as a social worker/probation officer, I saw more cases that left me scratching my head, "Why were these people allowed to have/keep their kids?"

Even though I am generally against state intervention unless absolutely necessary, you'll have a hard time convincing me or anyone else with first-hand knowledge of the issue that, at least here in Canada, too many babies are being taken into care. Ludicrous!!

epw

Surprise, surprise. Scroll down to Mark Steyn's post this morning at 8:31 at NRO and follow his link on this story......

http://corner.nationalreview.com/

Kate, kudos to you for obviously being on his blog list. A standing ovation is in order.

Hey, Ted, you've established yourself over time here as a consistent useful idiot for the left. What more can I say.

Jesus, what a harridan.

Loath as I am to defend the current government, I do believe this was a decision and policy made locally. Certainly it's a result of the target driven culture that Labour's created over the years, but it's not a nationally mandated way of dealing with children. Look at it as you would a decision at state or city level in the USA.

And kindly stop talking nonsense about us needing an armed uprising.

"And kindly stop talking nonsense about us needing an armed uprising"

Harumpf!Ian, sorry old bean, no hard feelings, wot wot.

Of course your right. It's only the pipsqueek local city council stealing babies based on a guess by a pedatrician who has never met the mother.
It's not like it's one of the other 6 or 7 really powerful layers of government doing anything remiss.

Guns are evil.

EPW,

I suggest you read the article. Your comments indicate you have not. Briefly for you:

Woman as 16 year old was traumatized and had some mental health issues. Was treated and now is fine. Obtained a good education. Volunteers at some mental health organizations

Woman is now pregnant. Her Psychiatrist says she is fine. Her GP says she is fine. Pediatrician who has never seen her says she might possibly have very rare MBP syndrome and so the baby should be taken away from mother upon birth. Court proceedings are to be private and any talking about them could end you up in jail.

The fact this is even an issue is scary as heck.

Does England now review each and every parent before birth? Else why was this woman singled out?

Let us hope these facts would get the lady sanctuary in the U.S.

"...And kindly stop talking nonsense about us needing an armed uprising...."

If you guys think you don't need it - you deserve everything commies have in store for you (nationwide DNA database, surveillance, gun ban, skyrocketing crime ignored by police and courts, chimera cloning)

>> "Else why was this woman singled out?"

Prior history? Prior children not mentioned in the article? The various medical investigations (note: the article says "based in part", meaning there was other evidence that the writer of the article obviously didn't think helped the argument put forward in the article)? Regardless of whether the action was draconian or not, something raised a red flag for them to even know she was pregnant. I don't have any more facts than that article, but usually they are paying attention when the mother-to-be was previously a mother-that-was.

None of which is to say that this wasn't, as I said above, barbaric, draconian and scandalous. But there seems to be some information missing from the story (which, frankly, I would hope to be the case: i.e. if they have information about her that the public doesn't, they should not be releasing that confidential info to the public until all hearings have been held or there is a public danger).

I leave it to Kate's good readers (who find the MSM to always be incompetent or blinded by partisan bias when writing something with which they disagree) to figure out how much of this particular MSM story is "bias" and how much is fully accurate.

Ted,

I agree with you that there only seems to be one side given. The decision was "based in part" on a report from a pediatrician she had never met. I think the public would/should be interested in what the other parts were.

However, I would think professional ethics would stop a physician from rendering an opinion outside their area of expertise (pyschology from a pediatrician) of such magnitude without consultation with the patient. Especially when two physicians familiar with her contradict the diagnosis.

But the article (opinion piece) also high lights the increasing tendency of the British state to shanghai babies from parents.

Gullible. Insty linked this twice over the holiday, I was hoping no one was foolish enough to pick it up with such a shallow treatment.

If the UK social services is over-reaching, and over-zealous in this case, or others or is trending so, or there is a suspicious upswing in statistics that bears investigation, that's one thing. But hysteria here should be tempered with reason. Insty was already boiling the pitch and plucking the feathers in the present case linked above. But there is so much more to the story than the alarmist distortion that has been circulated.

Lyon's difficulties have been glossed over and the consultant pediatrician's letter cast in a false light.

That pediatrician was consulted about reports by medical personell more currently invovled in her care reported that they believed she was hurting herself, now.

His remarks about the appropriate level of observance and intervention is based on that in context of her longstanding psychiatric problems treated earlier. She had a history of severe eating disorder and self harm rituals. She may have been previously diagnosed with borderline personality disorder.

The breach of the peace, the domestic dispute that resulted in the initial contact with and assessment bysocial services, has not been fully described in the press; by her own account she believed herself in serious danger, that continues to this day, from her boyfriend, the father of the child.

It's clear that her stability became at issue when the situation was looked into. The current self-harm issues, while not proven, are suspected, and the consultant pediatrician recommended assessment and court hearing related to her fitness to care for her child because of the suspicion by at least one and possibly more treating professionals that she was self-harming for attention and/or psychological relief.

The psychiatrist who treated her for eating disorder and self-harming when she was a teenager ( which by reports were the result ofabuse by her step-father and a non-related rape incident ) and felt she presented no present identifiable risk to a baby should she become a mother, reports he was "pressured" into changing his story. However, it turns out the "pressure" was "do you know about x facts" and "Does it change your opinion now that you know about x facts" and "have you considered that your former patient has not been completely truthful". Reasonable questions for a social services agent who believes the supportive letter was possibly written in absense of crucial information, or whether the reliance of the source has been reasonably weighed in the matter.

In the general, eating disorders and self-harm are behaviours that are intractible over time and tend to recur in times of stress. In the specific, she is suspected of hurting herself recently, and pretending something else caused her injury. She may have acted strangely or paranoid with regard to her boyfriend or not, but access to the incident report might be revealing.

To shout loudly "she hasn't even harmed her baby yet" - I would remind you that when there is serious mental instability and risk of potential harm to an infant, preventive measures are not only not outlandish but sometimes clearly necessary. In this case reviewing the situation may not be the outrage it seems on first blush.

SarahW:

Thanks for the info. Source?

But Ted but Ted, what about the Tory thing? I'm still confused!

Sure maybe there's some info missing from this story (like that the letter bombers middle name was Mohamed last week). Although from what I remember about Münchhausen's its a description, not a diagnosis. Most certainly not something that can be predicted. So unless she's already done it to a kid (which is possible, I suppose) this is definitely hinkey. Either the story is complete crap from word go, or somebody needs killin'.

But there's nothing missing from the Tory proposal story. That's the facts jack. Anything not to like there?

You know, denying sick people benefits if they don't jump through the hoops just right, obscene levels of coercion in the name of thrift, stupid and unworkable policy doomed to fail from the start, anything at all?

SarahW, we know you never get the whole story in one of these deals. Yeah sure, maybe the mother is completely bonkers here. Or, y'know, maybe not.

The thing that got me was the nature of the court proceedings (secret hearings? Come ON!), and the mere fact that the state can and will seize a child at birth, and indeed does so regularly.

Given my experience of health care bureaucracy in two countries, the "potential" for abuse isn't hanging fire and waiting to happen, its happening. Some people are for sure having their kids stolen over nothing, given that volume of cases and the increase in volume.

For some reason this irritates me. Can't think why really, must be my racist/bigot/homophobe conservatism or something...

My goodness, Phantom. I suppose I should be flattered that you put so much stock in my thoughts on a somewhat related topic to Kate's posting (but not really) and value my views so much, but I do try to abide by Kate's rule of sticking to the subject of her post.

Nevertheless, since you are clearly suffering so much from not knowing what I think, I think: if you are going to have a universal health care system, then you have to have a universal health care system. The government should not be picking and choosing citizens who are worthy of full coverage and those who are not (any more than the government should be picking which religions are deserving of government funding and which are not, but that is an even more off topic subject for another day). Not only is some government bureaucrat not going to be sufficiently competent to make such judgements, but the science itself is going to be far too insufficiently clear and the standards too changing about who is "obese", to what diseases are directly attributable to smoking or obesity. And when we have a supposedly universal health care system already strapped for cash, is the huge cost of inspections, reporting, expert testimony, appeals, litigation (both by patients and also against patients for costs), follow-up health checks, related bureaucracy, etc. really the best use of health care dollars?

Worse, what future "health crimes" would be curtailed in this manner? Why restrict it to these? 50 years ago, under such a scheme, no doubt homosexuality would have or interracial marriage or other "hazardous" life practices. At some point, when do we start adding spouses of smokers, drug addicts (including pain killers like good ol' Rush), heavy drinkers (how heavy?)?

Happy now, Phantom?

SarahW,
Thank you for injecting a little balance and common sense into this thread.

The'sky is falling'comments of many posters on this topic is reminiscent of GW proponents.First they take our guns,then they take our babies!

I still say that the blogosphere is a dangerous place for cloning groupthink individuals who will accept anything they're told as gospel...especially if everyone else says so.

I enjoy this site as it gives me a safe haven from the leftist propaganda of the MSM.But sometimes,I wonder if people who spend A LOT OF TIME on blogs are sacrificing some of their ability to critically anylize.It seemed obvious to me that much of the puzzle was missing.

The sad truth is,there are already far too many cases where children NEED to be removed from their parents.The sad fact is,nobody here has enough understanding of this particular case to be using it as an indictment of Britain's socialization.
God knows there's enough evidence for that already established.

If you want to be outraged by over-zealous social services workers,I suggest you need look no further than our own borders.

it's long past time to start neutralizing these people. evil grows rapidly when there is lots of fertizler.

an addendum. k**l them all.

In this case reviewing the situation may not be the outrage it seems on first blush.

SarahW - may, maybe not.

Self-harm as with Borderline behavior and harm to others are two different animals. Most Borderline personality d/o's don't harm their children. It's not what that unique behavior is about.

The first rule of maternal/child care is to foster and protect that relationship. It's the most important relationship a child has. Why a decision by children's services would be made to remove the infant at birth rather than establish a support and monitoring system for this young woman is indeed outrageous.

If this statement..."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"...is correct, who arrived at that conclusion? It's bizarre in light of the reported facts, certainly not a statement a psychiatrist would make unless this woman abused an older child in that manner which is hardly likely to be missing from this controversy.

I'm met many wonderful social workers, but, I've met my share of social workers that were clinically ignorant of the mental health clients they serve and have rushed to judgement.

When you look at what is going on in Britain, you can be sure it is a picture of our future here in Canada to come. Political correctness has gone seriously array and has at a quickened pace been eroding our freedom of speech to the point where if you want to speak up and out, you better have some money in your pocketbook to hire a lawyer to protect yourself for simply stating the truth.

"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." from article

Is this just a ploy to stop women from speaking out against being abused and being raped. So if a young woman is abused by her father and raped by another man, she is likely to harm her own child? It seems that the social workers possibly feel this lady wasn't telling the truth about the abuse and rape and just did it to draw attention to herself. This is all just too bizarre - there must be a twist to it somewhere.

Why would social workers care about meeting adoption targets unless the babies are going to friends or relatives or there is some monetary incentive to meeting these targets. It all seems rather wacky to say the least. Social workers have always held too much power - why is that anyway? It must be some sort of power thing.

speaking of wonky times back in the isles:

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/health_biotech_britain

I saw this in a malcolm mcdowell movie. 'o lucky man'. he's cavorting all over england encountering all manner of strange secret government research and winds up in a research hospital. some bloke is laying in bed under the covers shivering, so he throws the blankets off, and from the neck down the guy is a pig. as in porcine, a hog, bacon on the hoof.

only in england you say !!!

those people are utterly nutso taking kids away on speculation. guilty before anything is proven. a 10 minute investigation based on a speculative letter written by someone who never met her.

oyph!!!

Tony Blairs britian is not winston chuirchills britian

Why Ted, I'm positively ecstatic. This is a red letter day!

"Not only is some government bureaucrat not going to be sufficiently competent to make such judgements, but the science itself is going to be far too insufficiently clear and the standards too changing about who is "obese", to what diseases are directly attributable to smoking or obesity."

YES!!! AWESOME!!!

You are now -almost- to the point of being a conservative. All you have to do is let go the Dark Side and step into the light.

Run out and try to buy a gun today at your local gun store. The experience of the pointless, asinine bureaucratic hoop jumping (plus the fees!) may well get you over the hump into full conservatism.

Use this mantra, it will help you on your path: Tax Cut Now, Tax Cut Now...

>> "Use this mantra, it will help you on your path: Tax Cut Now, Tax Cut Now..."

You mean the kind of broad-based income tax cuts that the Liberals brought in and Harper cancelled? Or the kind of sales tax cut that Harper brought in, was quickly eclipsed by the resulting inflation and is ridiculed as useless by economists and former Ontario Finance Ministers like Jim Flaherty (at least, until Harper told him it was Conservative policy; of course, you never heard that from the Conservative supporting MSM in the last election, did you?).

After compliments like that Phantom, this post feels like a nice hot shower! ;-)

Ted, the sad fact is that the Conservative Party of Canada is the least bad choice of the three choices available. We have three flavors of flaming socialism, with the Conservatives being willing to at least talk about taxes maybe being a little high. Maybe. If it looks expedient today.

The CPC is no more conservative than the Brit Tories, or George Bush for that matter. Where the rubber meets the road they do what they think will keep them in office, which is give away my money. Don't think my MP hasn't heard from me.

However, we -know- the Liberals just steal the money, and we also know that the NDP would very much like to copy Brit Labour in every detail, right down to this baby-stealing arrangement. Their founding premise is "people are stupid and must be controlled", all else follows logically from that.

All I can do is deal with people one at a time, volunteer for candidates I don't think are TOTAL scum, and hunt for MSM lies on the web.

So that's what I do.

And now I'm going to go make an engine stand. Did you know the 1947 Ford flathead V8 can't be mounted on a standard engine stand? Dang!

Ted & Sarah W: bravo!

dkjones: indeed I did read the article. Couldn't put my resposne any more eloquently than has Sarah, so I suggest you read and take into consideration her points.

Use your brains, people! If the press can be so one-sided, say in the case of Iraq War coverage, why then can it not be sensationalist on this story?

Which isn't to say that there are not some alarming things going on in Britain, such as the proposed registration of all citizens' DNA with a central databank. This story sounds like injustice on the face of it.

And I don't recall who said it, but it is most misguided for people to think Borderline or other clinical personality types are not a risk (physical or mental) to their progeny. Check out 'People of the Lie' by M. Scott Peck for more on this.

Hello all,

I am the woman referred to in the orginal article. I just wanted to say thank you for all the support - and for all the questions too. It's far too easy to just believe what's written in articles like these and not stop to look for the things unsaid. Unfortunately, stories such as mine are inevitably complex and as such can't easily be reduced accurately in one or two pieces for a paper.

I don't remember who but someone asked about Molly's Father. We have split up, unfortunately, due to my discovery of some serious, disturbing and grossly illegal behaviour that would seriously endanger both myself and Molly. I can't go into any further detail sadly.

Various questions have been raised about my mental health. Obviously, providing assurances that I am sane doesn't mean much. However, I would point out that a personality disorder cannot (should not) be made under the age of 18; and where diagnoses are made in those circumstances their validity is highly questionable. I would also point out that not only was the diagnosis made before I was 18, it was also removed before I was 18. This diagnosis has never been replaced with anything else, and I have not required psychiatric input of any sort for the last 5 years.

I think people also suggested that it was reasonable for the workers involved to have contacted the authors of the psychiatric reports and questioned their support of me. This behaviour would have been entirely reasonable if a) a significant period of time had elapsed between the authors knowing me and the authors writing the report or b) the facts the social workers were basing their questions upon had any veracity whatsoever. Sadly in this case neither was true - both authors of the reports know me very well professionally and work alongside me on an almost daily basis. It's also important to state that no verification of the social workers claims that I had misled them has been made available, to anyone, at any time despite it having been requested.

Clearly, you all only have my word for any of the above and I respect your right entirely to dismiss it. However please remember that I am not suggesting that social services have nothing further to do with me, or that child protection work is inherently evil, or that Munchausen's does not exist, or any such extreme claim. I am just asking that I be given a chance, supervised in a residential centre if necessary, to prove that I am in fact a safe, loving mother and so assuage everyone's anxieties.

I've probably missed a couple of the questions that people have asked - let me know if I have and I'll answer them as fully as I'm allowed.

Thank you

Fran

Hello all,

I am the woman referred to in the original article. I just wanted to say thank you for all the support - and for all the questions too. It's far too easy to just believe what's written in articles like these and not stop to look for the things unsaid. Unfortunately, stories such as mine are inevitably complex and as such can't easily be reduced accurately in one or two pieces for a paper.

I don't remember who but someone asked about Molly's Father. We have split up, unfortunately, due to my discovery of some serious, disturbing and grossly illegal behaviour that would seriously endanger both myself and Molly. I can't go into any further detail sadly.

Various questions have been raised about my mental health. Obviously, providing assurances that I am sane doesn't mean much. However, I would point out that a personality disorder cannot (should not) be made under the age of 18; and where diagnoses are made in those circumstances their validity is highly questionable. I would also point out that not only was the diagnosis made before I was 18, it was also removed before I was 18. This diagnosis has never been replaced with anything else, and I have not required psychiatric input of any sort for the last 5 years.

I think people also suggested that it was reasonable for the workers involved to have contacted the authors of the psychiatric reports and questioned their support of me. This behaviour would have been entirely reasonable if a) a significant period of time had elapsed between the authors knowing me and the authors writing the report or b) the facts the social workers were basing their questions upon had any veracity whatsoever. Sadly in this case neither was true - both authors of the reports know me very well professionally and work alongside me on an almost daily basis. It's also important to state that no verification of the social workers claims that I had misled them has been made available, to anyone, at any time despite it having been requested.

Clearly, you all only have my word for any of the above and I respect your right entirely to dismiss it. However please remember that I am not suggesting that social services have nothing further to do with me, or that child protection work is inherently evil, or that Munchausen's does not exist, or any such extreme claim. I am just asking that I be given a chance, supervised in a residential centre if necessary, to prove that I am in fact a safe, loving mother and so assuage everyone's anxieties.

I've probably missed a couple of the questions that people have asked - let me know if I have and I'll answer them as fully as I'm allowed.

Thank you

Fran

"The breach of the peace, the domestic dispute that resulted in the initial contact with and assessment bysocial services, has not been fully described in the press; by her own account she believed herself in serious danger, that continues to this day, from her boyfriend, the father of the child."

Sarah W said the above - how does she know these facts that have never been placed in the public domain? I do hope we haven't got a social worker from Northumbria breaching confidentiality, surely that could never happen ... could it?