A Grandmother's Story

Thanks to The Exile (strong language and images) for this:

My name is Mary, and I suppose that the nightmare really began when my grandson was born. Unlike his two sisters he was a sickly child and had to go into hospital. After making enquiries, the hospital told me that he had been admitted for "non-organic failure to thrive".

And so it was that on the 1st March 2005 I took my grandson home to live with me. I did this with my daughter's full consent, and my sister then moved in with me so that two experienced, older women could find out what was wrong with this lovely child.

We found out the answer to that question on his first day when we saw him sucking on his bottle, but without getting any milk out of it. I drove to the hospital and was told that this was caused by the special milk he was having, and that normal shop teats weren't sufficient. Why was my daughter not told this in the first place, and why did I have to drag the information out of the hospital?

All this allowed the social workers to gain a foothold in our lives, and on the 30th April they grabbed my two granddaughters from their mother and carried them away screaming to be placed in foster care. My blood boiled over and I insisted, as did the rest of my family that they be placed along with their brother in my care.

This was agreed to in May 2005, and I obtained a flat from Dartford Council and moved in there with the children. For some reason Sevenoaks social services still managed our case. Don't ask me why, as you quickly learn when you are dealing with the SS not to ask questions and just to do as you are told.

By January of the following year the children were removed from the at risk register as I had successfully completed a parenting assessment. The fact that I knew nothing about the assessment until it was all over is neither here nor there, but I include it as an example of how social services make up the rules as they go along.

Everything was going well until the day that the legal guardian visited and even before she set a foot over the threshold she commented "THIS REALLY ISN'T SUITABLE" and then she introduced herself!

The court appearances to settle the final custody of the babies had already started by this time, and my council had said to go along with the SS as they were on my side. For the remainder of 2006, I complied with everything that the SS wanted, to the letter, with one exception. That exception was the home start course that they "suggested" I attend. I felt that the mums, all much younger than me with my 47 years, were using me an an unpaid crèche worker whilst they sat around drinking tea, so I told the social worker that I had stopped attending.

That was when I found out that my attendance had not been a suggestion, but an order, and my lack of attendance was then used against me in the court hearings. Had I known that attendance was compulsory I would have gone to all the meetings. You have to understand that I would have done whatever they wanted just so long as they had allowed me to keep the babies, but they didn't, in the end.

That was when the lies began. On the 27th October 2006 an SS officer came to my flat and told me that she had seen me the day before in Sevenoaks. I had cancelled a meeting with them to go and visit my sick mother, so was nowhere near the area where she claimed to have seen me, but nobody in the SS ever believes anything that an ordinary woman says, do they?
Things then continued more or less normally until the 28 November, when I was summoned to attend the SS offices and told that the SS were now going to withdraw their support and that they were going to apply for Interim Care Orders for all the babies. These were granted on the 18th December 2006 and then the evil ones came and took my beautiful babies the very next day. They had police with them. I tried to fight, but I was only a woman on my own, I would not have let the babies go otherwise, but you can't fight them, can you? Not when they send big policemen like that - a woman on her own can't do anything. They do as they please when it comes to people like us.

Finally, on the 8th June 2007 they were placed for adoption with leave to change their surnames granted and any further contact (including a good bye visit denied), I haven't seen my darling innocents since the 10th May 2007.

Now listen to me, you social workers: you have taken everything from me that made my life worthwhile, and all you get now is my hatred and defiance. I am totally ashamed of my British nationality, and that I have to carry the same passport as you. I have no sense of patriotism any more and, in fact, I couldn't care less what happens to this country as I no longer wish to be a part of what it stands for. I believe in something better, something that we will see when you no longer infest our lives.

Social workers are of course required to meet government targets for adopting children out of Old Labour homes and into New Labour ones, financially rewarded for success, and financially penalised for failure.

As for secret courts, this country is a world leader. Among many other examples that could be cited, everyone who appears before a jury at all has already been convicted in secret by the Crown Prosecution Service, and numerous other people who have been charged are acquitted in secret by that same body, which is just as obscene, since it deprives them of the right to confront and be confronted by their accusers in open court.

And on top of that, there is the retrospective legislative ratification of numerous orders, illegal when they were issued, allowing for conviction on anonymous evidence. I'll say that again: conviction on anonymous evidence. Has it sunk in yet? It will when it happens to you or yours.