It was only thanks to a major team effort that this could happen today:
- a comment on Victims Unite
- our meeting at the House of Commons on 15th January 2013
And then:
- travelling to the mother whose two daughters were taken by… I shall refrain from naming and shaming the Council for now; they know who they are…
- submitting an Application for Contact (form C100 – obtainable from your local court or online here!!!)
- digging into her life story and building trust – despite all her bad experiences
- attending a ‘Directions’ hearing in the Royal Courts of Justice
- reminding Social Services to comply to the order made
- learning to use Google docs to co-author a ‘skeleton argument and amended grounds for appeal’ and submit it in time
- getting ready for a hearing about the Permission to Appeal
- visiting Social Services who had not complied to the Order
- producing a ‘Position Statement’ – just in case – for ‘the other side’ were going to produce something…
- submitting the McKenzie CV and asking for ‘right of audience’ which was granted. [Since it's up to the discretion of the judge, one never knows...]
The mother came out crying with, I presume a mix of joy and relief, for “she got it”: the permission to appeal. The Appeal will be heard in nearly 3 months: in May 2013.
The key is the precedent case made by Judge Munby, the current President of the Family Division who had said [para 44, iv]
to take a baby at birth is a dreadful thing: dreadful for the father, the mother and the baby…
It refers to this case in the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg which emphasised at paras [116], [131], [133],
that the removal of a child from his mother at or shortly after birth is a “draconian” and “extremely harsh” measure, requiring “exceptional justification” and “extraordinarily compelling reasons” under Article 8.
PS. Our meeting with Austin Mitchell MP in the afternoon is on this blog post.
Related articles
- Hillsborough families to sue Kelvin MacKenzie over ‘reckless’ coverage (guardian.co.uk)
- Towards 200,000 Views and the Non-Adoption of a War against Shills (victims-unite.net)
- Learning by Doing and Helping by Being – in and out of Courts, on- and off-line (victims-unite.net)
- EVENT: Child Snatching is one of Seven Deadly Syndromes and Seven Media Cover-Ups: House of Commons, Jan. 15th (punishmentwithoutcrime.wordpress.com)
- Mind the Gaps – between Online and Mainstream Media, Government and Public @ the House of Commons (victims-unite.net)
- On Becoming more Effective in the New Year (victims-unite.net)
