by Ruth Green
“You are monsters to be doing this!” one woman shouts into a megaphone against the din of Friday lunchtime traffic in Manchester’s financial district.
Beside her, two others hold up placards that read: “Kidnapped by UK corrupt social workers” and “Evil corrupt UK government kidnapped baby and jailed family unlawfully”.
We’re outside the Manchester Family Court, which is tucked away in the ultra-modern, jagged, high-rise Manchester Civil Justice Centre on the edge of Spinningfields.
The small, mainly peaceful gathering of mothers, fathers and grandparents take turns to recount horror stories of losing children to any passersby who might listen. They lay the blame squarely on the family courts, which they accuse of being in cahoots with local authorities and social workers in an elaborate “child stealing” scheme.
As the woman with the megaphone pauses for breath, I introduce myself. She says she’s come in from a neighbouring area and that she’s been placed under a gagging order for naming and shaming the social worker who had taken her two grandchildren away and put them in the care of her daughter’s abusive partner. She doesn’t hold back her vitriol for the courts. “They take away our children and don’t have to answer to anyone,” she says. “They hide everything behind closed doors so nobody can see.”
I ask if they’ve heard of the transparency pilot. Like other family courts around the country, historically, this court’s inner workings were kept hidden to protect the privacy of parents, children and professionals. However, since January, Manchester has been one of 19 centres that have participated in the expanded transparency pilot scheme to help improve public confidence and understanding of the family justice system.
One woman, sounding quietly defeated, tells me she doesn’t wish to be quoted on record because of ongoing proceedings but says she’s aware of the pilot and welcomes it. She says she hasn’t seen her two kids for two years.
Another protester from outside the city says she hasn’t seen her son, now 18, in almost three years. “They [social services] blamed me for my son’s attempted suicide, but I was the only one trying to help him,” she says tearfully. She claims the courts, together with social workers and local authorities, are operating a “multimillion pound industry”. I ask her if she really believes that. “Yes, it’s all for monetary gain at our expense.”
The strength of feeling is abundantly clear and, given the purported claims, pretty understandable. But is it merited?
“There are pages and pages of the internet that show a lot of people think social workers get a bonus when children are adopted,” one barrister representing a local authority tells me outside a hearing room. An agency social worker within earshot chimes in: “It just doesn’t happen like that,” she says.
Opening up the courts could help debunk some of these myths, says one former local authority solicitor. “The courts do need to be more open and transparent because the reality is that this narrative exists out there and is given more voice by social media,” she says. “People may have lost family members and have extremely difficult circumstances in their life, but they’re able to say with immunity almost anything they want about social workers, the courts or the local authorities without them having that right of reply.”
While critics of the family court system might not have all the right information, some of their complaints – and their fear and anguish – are more than justified. Failures by social services and local authorities are well documented. A new government report published in late November found that safeguarding institutions like family courts are regularly failing to protect children from abuse.
Few in the UK will forget the horrific case of Baby P, who died in August 2007 in London after multiple failings by social workers, doctors, lawyers, and police failed to act.
“Everyone is waiting for the next Baby P to happen,” one barrister tells me grimly. “Local authorities have had to cut back so much, and they just don’t have the money, but then a baby dies, and they have no choice [but to act]. It used to be that the Sure Start programme prevented things from getting that bad, but that’s all gone now.”
A former local authority solicitor points to the recent case of 10-year-old Sara Sharif, who was killed in 2023 after being tortured by her father and stepmother. “By no means every care case is as horrific as that,” she says, “but it’s clear that she should have been taken into care a long time ago, and that’s what’s being dealt with in care proceedings: the stakes are extremely high and the threshold for removing a child is extremely high.”
In Manchester, the pressures are mounting. The latest quarterly data available shows that the court spanning Greater Manchester’s 10 local authorities handled the largest caseload of any family court in the country between April and June 2024 – and this was 3% higher than the same quarter in 2023.
Nationally, there are indications that the Labour government is planning an overhaul of child social care. Commenting on the ongoing challenges facing the courts, a Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “The new Government inherited a justice system in crisis with an outstanding caseload in the Family Court. We want families to get the best possible outcomes as quickly as possible – which is why we’re providing access to mediation and support to resolve issues outside of the courtroom where appropriate while also reducing strain on the family justice system.”
There are, undeniably, instances where family court decisions have had detrimental, life-changing consequences. A recent study revealed three devastating cases where children were removed from their mothers against their will and forced to live with their fathers despite allegations and sometimes court findings of abuse.
Will greater transparency help restore public trust in how the courts operate? I spent a week in Manchester’s family court to find out how serious the crisis really was.
Blog post published 21st December 2024
This is part one of a three-part series. For the other posts visit our main family court blog page
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