quote: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.
posted
Hmm...I have to say, that depends on what the evidence was for Munchausen's Syndrome by Proxy. If she made other children sick before, then they may have had a point.
Posts: 1753 | Registered: Aug 2002
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I don't even know where to start. Is there information we're missing here? This story just seems too absurd to be real.
Posts: 2437 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Holy crap. What isn't stated in the article is how this whole process get started. Why was children's services investigating her in the first place? Surely they don't check out every expectant mother with a history of mental illness.
Posts: 3275 | Registered: May 2007
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Dude There are children who are being abused right at this moment who need to be removed Where are these social service workers for them? They don't even have any clear evidence. It's just fodder for anti-adoption people at that too.
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
Chris, that's what I hope too. I'm really glad the press has grabbed hold of this, and hope they publicize it so widely it won't happen.
quote:Hmm...I have to say, that depends on what the evidence was for Munchausen's Syndrome by Proxy. If she made other children sick before, then they may have had a point.
There was nothing in the article indicating that she had ever harmed a child. While of course they may not be reporting the whole story, based on the other links on that page this may be something that has happened before (taking children at birth for flimsy reasons with no evidence of abuse.)
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posted
I have to say, I don't think it was a very well-done article. Everyone they quoted seemed to have a completely different version of the story. I'd like to know what really happened.
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posted
Well, so would I. Did you read some of the other things linked on that page, though? Apparently the secrecy of family courts is causing a lot of problems.
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posted
Ignoring the women's history or whether it's right to take the baby away from her. This whole case stinks to high heaven of at least one party over stepping their bounds.
But perhaps this extreme is where the pendulum is at, ever since that woman drowned five of her children because she had that same condition.
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quote:But perhaps this extreme is where the pendulum is at, ever since that woman drowned five of her children because she had that same condition.
Andrea Yates was not, to my knowledge, diagnosed with Munchasen by proxy but rather post-partum psychosis.
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She is asking that instead of taking the baby at birth and placing it for adoption, the state discharge her and the baby to a residential facility for observation to see how she will interact with the baby, which seems perfectly reasonable to me...
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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What is wrong with these people? The woman asked for help with her partner and somehow they turn it around and make her out to be potentially dangerous.
I bet even England doesn't remove an infant about to be born to a person who has already abused their first few children.
There's no way something like that should be legal. It's just a scam for the "protective" services to adopt out her baby, and it's simply wrong.
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote:I bet even England doesn't remove an infant about to be born to a person who has already abused their first few children.
Actually, there was a story in one of the linked pages from the first article that told of a family that fled to Ireland to have their fourth after the first three were removed-- and it turns out that the state now admits that they didn't even have sufficient evidence of abuse, and shouldn't have removed the three children. However (and this was the saddest part) although they returned to England when the state finally stopped proceedings to try to take their youngest (by then 13 months, I think) away, they "accept that they will not get their oldest three back because they were adopted three years ago." I think that is absolutely horrifying.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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This page was linked to inside the first...here's an excerpt:
quote:In 2000, Tony Blair set a target for councils to increase adoptions by 50 per cent. Town halls were promised cash rewards for reaching their goals. Critics claim that the target has given social workers a perverse incentive to break up more families. Mr Hemming said: "There are clearly masses of miscarriages of justice, but ministers want to prevent parents from campaigning against them by preventing these parents from talking about their children after a case.
Wow. Just wow.
Sorry, I don't have to know exactly how social services got wind of this woman in the first place to know this is just plain wrong. You can't just go around taking unborn babies from women because they might potentially abuse them one day. Even if someone has been abused before, you can't just say they will abuse someone. This woman has gone through some things in the past, gotten the help she needed to get through them, got herself educated, and now they want to land her another emotional blow that will be hard to heal -- taking her child away.
I don't know about anyone else, but I'd leave the country.
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posted
That a domestic incident triggered a CS investigation seems quite reasonable. That they made sure the abusive partner was no longer part of her life, ditto.
Anything beyond that is so far past "wrong" there are no words.
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I want to know why they went down that road to begin with. Did the angry, abusive partner say, "Oh, she's a psycho crazy lady, she's lying about me hurting her and she's going to hurt the baby too!" and then they decided to go after her, or what?
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I saw a news spot on this a week or two ago. It's very creepy and kind of makes me want to live on an island cut off from the outside world... Posts: 2762 | Registered: Sep 1999
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The accusation of the government turning the uK into a 'nanny state' is being proved over and over again. "Nanny knows best"...
This is an appalling abuse, with seemingly lttle recourse for the "accused" to overturn the decision.
The worst of it is that those behind the decision are under the belief that it is for the good of the child.
Sadly this is accompanied by a burocratic shortsitedness which hides behind the rules without the application of humanity or the realisation that not everything is black and white.
Posts: 892 | Registered: Oct 2006
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posted
There have been a few stories like this recently.
It seems like a piece of well meant policy may have gone horribly wrong. From what I’ve seen the adoption targets were put in place to try to get children out of care (where they typically have a much worse childhood) and adopted.
This would be great if the children that were adopted were those with problems who were being shifted from one foster home to another and not getting any stability. Unfortunately these children are not the popular ones to adopt.
If it is true that babies who shouldn’t have been adopted are taken away to meet these targets than that is disgusting. The secrecy surrounding the family courts makes it impossible to find out if this is the case.
I think the secrecy was put in place to protect the children involved – so personal details about abuse they had suffered would not appear in the papers. Whilst that is important, I can’t see why the cases can not be more openly discussed, but without any of the participants being identified. There could be openness about the case of child B and parents X and Y. These decisions must be open to scrutiny so that we can find out if the child is being put first.
Child protection must be one of the most difficult jobs. Protecting a child from harm must be at the centre, but harm should include being wrongly denied a loving home with their parents if this is possible.
Posts: 169 | Registered: Aug 2005
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I could see if it was a case of previous abuse and the person hadn't completed whatever they have to do in England to get their parental rights back. but to try to take their rights away when it's a first child... And she doesn't state anything about drugs or alcohol...
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I have to say, if it were me, I would be all over the world news telling people about this. To have your baby taken at birth...all I can do is echo everyone else who said "WOW". This makes me cry.
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