Monday 29 October 2018

Judge Keith Wilding ~ 'thank you'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6326847/Judge-slams-social-workers-broke-family-anonymous-tip-off.html

Judge slams social workers who broke up family over anonymous tip-off that boy, 12, claimed his mother threatened him with a knife

Social workers asked for approval to take away all four of the couple’s children

But at Family Court hearing in Watford they were not able to produce the text

Judge Keith Wilding blocked a plan for the children to be fostered or adopted


By STEVE DOUGHTY SOCIAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT FOR THE DAILY MAIL

PUBLISHED: 22:18, 28 October 2018 | UPDATED: 22:38, 28 October 2018

Social workers broke up a family on the basis of a text message sent by a boy of 12.

The child was said to have told a friend his mother threatened him with a knife and as a result two of his siblings were taken into care.

Social workers asked for a judge’s approval to take away all four of the married couple’s children.

But in a Family Court hearing they were unable to produce a copy of the text message, which came from an anonymous tip-off.

The officials had also waited until they were ‘at the door of the court’ before backing down over claims that the parents had harmed their children.

Judge Keith Wilding dismissed a series of further allegations and blocked a plan for the children to be fostered or adopted.

In a scathing verdict, he said aspects of the evidence submitted by Hertfordshire county council social services were ‘incorrect’, ‘inaccurate’, ‘far from the truth’ and ‘entirely misleading’.

The judge was equally critical of police, saying: ‘When they took the protective measures for the children they noted that the family had a long history of injuries, which I have found to be untrue and said there was domestic violence within the family, of which there is not a shred of supporting evidence.’

Judge Wilding’s ruling in Watford freed the family from the threat of being split up.

He said the mother, who was brought up in the state care system and suffered serious abuse herself as a child, needed to ‘address her anger issues’.

He added that the family, whose identity is protected by law, needed support and the father might have to give up work to help look after the children.

But he said the youngsters had not suffered harm.

The parents had been together for 14 years and married for seven when their run-in with social workers began in February.

Judge Wilding said the claim that the children must be taken away ‘relied upon an incident at the family home during which time the boy sent a text message to a friend alleging that his mother had tried to stab him with a knife’.

He added: ‘The mother accepts that she made a threat to stab him but says that it was not said with any intent or seriously.’

The mother said the person who reported the text to police was motivated by malice.

The judge said: ‘I note that we are entirely reliant, it seems, on what the caller to the police said when this was reported a few hours after the incident took place.

‘I can find no direct evidence that anyone in this case who may have seen the actual text sent by the boy has set it down accurately.’

He said the boy felt guilty that his message had led to his younger sister and brother being taken away by police and social workers.