Child services handling of my son and myself skewed because of complaints and legal action by my ex and his mother

[gazehunter]

My son was the subject of a child protection order for 7 months, he was recently downgraded to CIN and less than two months later, just after he started secondary school his case was closed in what I think is uncharacteristic rush which I find suspect.

Closing my son's case was first mentioned on the same day that it was closed, when the social worker called me for a short call just half an hour before a phone Core Group meeting with the head of year of his new school. This as I understand was the first contact with staff at the new school. The Core Group meeting was a half hour meeting, I got 15 minutes and then had to come off the call so my ex could have his half of the meeting. There was no time to discuss anything at all.

I finally received the case closure report, and it shows that the case was closed on the same day as the meeting.

Starting a new school is not the only significant event affecting my son at this time, the one year restraining order on my ex preventing him from contacting me directly has come to an end last week. It provided some degree of calm and safety for a year and was ordered when ex was sentenced for breaching a court order.

From the beginning of our involvement with child services, my ex and his mother (an ex-social worker, familiar with the system, insistent powerful woman who stops at nothing to get her way) were determined to use the process against me. His mother went as far as asking for her and her husband to be assessed as potential foster parents for my son.

She stopped at nothing to get children's services to believe I am dangerous and unsafe as a parent. She made extreme false statements about my personal history claiming I suffered serious mental health issues (psychotic episodes and mental health hospitalisations). These claims could not been proven or disproved because she cleverly said this happened when I was living abroad. She claimed I was physically abusive to my eldest son. None of that actually happened but my eldest, who is in his late twenties remembers that I had issues when he was young and wasn't completely sure that some of what she alleged wasn't true (the reasons for that go to post-natal depression and emotional abuse from my ex).

These allegations, and my eldest partial confirmation of what she alleged, deflected attention from her son and muddied the waters. In addition, for the first three months that my son was under child protection, there was an unproven allegation that I physically attacked her and a court hearing scheduled. As a result, until the hearing took place and I was found not guilty, there was some doubt over my potential 'violent tendencies'.

My ex and his mother, were doing their best to use children's services to remove my son from my care. Initially through their lies about me, and when this didn't work, turning to using complaints. I believe that my ex's mother went as far as instigating legal action against child services. I have no actual information about what formal and informal complaints were made, how many, how they were handled and if there was a legal challenge, but I have reasonable cause to believe these took place.

Throughout the process, and in particular in the reports produced, I was repeatedly disappointed by how the reports mis-represented the situation in the home. My ex's continuous breaches of the order, the many instances he put our son in the middle, the evidence of my ex's coercive and controlling behaviour towards our son I provided, were played down or ignored, and on the other hand any of my actions, most of which were either not true or misrepresented as harmful were used to present a seemingly balanced picture of the harm both me and my ex were causing our son.

In the first stages, I did not challenge the reports. My ex is a charming and well spoken man and I recognised it would take some time to see through that. I also felt that as long as the allegation regarding my supposed physical attack on my ex's mother was not disproved, before I am vindicated, a perception of me as capable of aggressive action may persist.

When I received the last report, before the last child protection conference, I was exasperated, with the same misrepresentation colouring the report and I asked for a meeting with my social worker. In the meeting she explained the the reports are created with a 'therapeutic' aim. Explaining that the reports are written in such a way so as not to alienate my ex. She explained that if the reports were more true to the reality of the situation, my ex would refuse to co-operate. She said that their process is designed to improve my son's situation, which affects how reports are written and how true they are to reality.

I asked for this to be clearly explained in an additional document, which she agreed to. I was initially happy with the letter I received, but upon further reading, just lately, I now see that it is in fact just as ambiguous.

At that meeting I discussed with my social worker my ex's mother's involvement and asked if the reports were possibly written in such a way because of complaints she might have launched. I did not ask directly if such complaints have been received, but in discussion this was taken as given. There was also an indirect acknowledgement of legal action, or at least the involvement of a lawyer, on my ex's mother's behalf. The social worker assured me any complaints or legal action would never affect the way the reports were written or their approach to handling case.

After the way that my son's case was closed in such a hurry, I started thinking that in fact it is more than probable that it is due to the pressure my ex and my ex's mother put on children's services. I am re-thinking the probability that this pressure has, in fact, affected everything in the way children's services acted in my son's case.

If it's true that her actions have skewed the process, this means that the abusive actions of her son were played down and not addressed and that children's services failed to recognise the abuse and harm my ex was causing and the level of threat from him to our son's emotional health.

My question at this point is, since I believe that the handling of my son's case was affected throughout by this pressure, how do I go about getting transparency about what actions were taken against children's services, and our social worker (and probably also her line manager)?
How can I have an honest assessment of how these actions influenced the process.

In other words, I want to know what actions she has taken against children's services and the social worker in particular and for the link between these actions and the way that the case was handled to be recognised.

Incidentally, I called to speak to the line manager just yesterday and she is no longer in her role, I wonder if she left because of my ex's mother's actions (I am not exaggerating, she has gotten people to lose their job in other contexts, it wouldn't be the first time).

Ideally, I would love to take this further in some way. She is a dangerous and powerful person, and had little concern for the children's safety. Her determination to break up our family, take my child away from me, a perfectly safe, nurturing and capable mother. She has also made allegations about me to social services in the past (not for quite a few years, but when my older sons were small between 2001 and 2008).

If anyone knows of a similar situation, where one side is very adept at 'playing the system' causing children's services to operate very carefully to not antagonise, and in doing this failing to recognise the source of harm and protect the child. Also, in all this, as we all do, I am obviously keeping the lid on the extreme emotional pain I suffered personally and the desperation at children's services continuous failure to recognise the actual perpetrator and offer me and my son the support we needed.

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Dear Gazehunter,
Welcome to the Parent’s Board. I am Suzie, FRG’s online adviser.

I am sorry to hear about children services involvement due to your exes domestically abusive behaviour. I can see that your son was made subject to a child protection plan for 7 month and then a child in need plan for 2 months.
You say a decision was made to close your son’s case very quickly even though there was a potential for the risk to your son increasing as a restraining order had just expired.
You speculated that this could be due to pressure from the paternal grandmother who has been a social worker in the past so knows the system.
Your question is how can you find out whether this is the case?

I suggest you firstly, telephone or email the social worker and ask for the reasons why the case was closed. Here are tips for dealing with children services
Secondly, email the department in the local authority who deal with requests to see files and ask for a copy of your sons file. Here is
advice about accessing your sons file .

If you are worried about your son’s father’s behaviour at any point, please seek advice from the police, children services or a domestic violence organization. Here are FAQ’s about domestic violence.

I hope my advice helps. If you have any questions, please post again.

Best wishes,
Suzie