Where the foxes caper unmolested, the government packs your school lunch and the state eats your baby;
Social services’ recommendation that the baby should be taken from Fran Lyon, a 22-year-old charity worker who has five A-levels and a degree in neuroscience, was based in part on a letter from a paediatrician she has never met.
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, a condition unproven by science in which a mother will make up an illness in her child, or harm it, to draw attention to herself.
Under the plan, a doctor will hand the newborn to a social worker, provided there are no medical complications. Social services’ request for an emergency protection order – these are usually granted – will be heard in secret in the family court at Hexham magistrates on the same day.
From then on, anyone discussing the case, including Miss Lyon, will be deemed to be in contempt of the court.
[…]
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.
Critics say councils are taking more babies from parents to help them meet adoption “targets”.
Update – Fran Lyon responds in our comments, here.
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?