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Government: You're Cleared of Child Abuse, But It's Too Late to Have Your Children Back

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Mark and Nicky Webster's children were taken away by UK's social services after doctors found small fractures in their son's leg, mistakenly thought as caused by physical abuse but later found to have a rare medical cause.

When they went to clear their names and get their children back, the courts said that it was too late ...


The couple's nightmare started in October 2003 when Mrs Webster took their second son to hospital with a swollen leg.

He was found to have a number of small fractures which doctors said could be caused only by physical abuse.

The following year they were permanently removed and put up for adoption after a one-day court hearing.

Medical experts later concluded that the injuries were not caused by violent twisting and shaking, but were symptoms of rare case of scurvy. [...]

The Appeal Court ruled on Wednesday that even though the Websters 'may well' have been victims of a miscarriage of justice the adoption order on their eldest three children could not be revoked because the youngsters are now settled with their adoptive parents.

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From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by philosophile.


"If the child had scurvy it was abuse fo a differnet kind. Look at them, they do not appear to eat well."

I agree they don't look as if they eat well. However, I don't think the conclusion can be made that their appearance alone constitutes abuse. After all, it was said that the scurvy was a rare case.

Anyway, I always feel frustrated when I hear of cases like this. There is a point when bureaucracy goes too far.
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Tempscire: A quick look at Wikipedia and you can find this:

Vitamin C is destroyed by the process of pasteurization, so babies fed with ordinary bottled milk sometimes suffer from scurvy if they are not provided with adequate vitamin supplements. Virtually all commercially available baby formulas contain added vitamin C for this reason, but heat and storage destroy vitamin C.
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Governments, courts and judges take a huge risk when they commit these kinds of abuses against families. Eventually, they'll do it to the wrong person(s); and some lessons will be learned.

Unfortunately, they'll almost certainly be the wrong lessons.
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"Governments, courts and judges take a huge risk when they commit these kinds of abuses against families. Eventually, they’ll do it to the wrong person(s); and some lessons will be learned."

That's why you can't own a gun in the U.K. Big Brother doesn't want you to fight back.
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this is not the kind of thing you'd need a gun to fight back against. what lesson would that teach?

if this story gets enough publicity then maybe some lessons will be learned.
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Sad, I remember a documentary about a similar case where a child with brittle bone disease was misdiagnosed...and the couple had their 3 children taken away. I just remember the father describing their eldest child crying and asking if she was being taken away because she had been bad. They were also told that it was too late to have their children back.
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It's easy to have a knee-jerk reaction (this was written in the Daily Mail, the most knee-jerk, reactionary, proudly ignorant and spiteful paper in the UK, after all) but I have to say the cliche, "Think of the children". Social Services do make mistakes (sometimes with tragic results), but they act in the best interests of the children involved. Then again, the full facts are probably not available in this article.
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"Social Services do make mistakes (sometimes with tragic results), but they act in the best interests of the children involved. "

FALSE. Social Services act in the best interest of the State. NOT the children. NOT the families involved.
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Imagining this happening to me made me speachless with anger for a couple of minutes.
Adoption should obviously be reversed in cases where the adoption was not voluntary and both the original parents and the children want it reversed.
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Q. What's the difference between a rottweiler and a social worker?

A. You can get your child back from a rottweiler.

My 11-year old son brought that joke home from school one day. Sadly, the UK social work industry has a history of snatching children for no good reason. Even the kids know it.
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All too true MrMag. My husband had his children taken from him and they were given to his horrible ex. She has had 10 kids from 7 different dads - and she looks (and acts) alot like Nadya Suleman, just add another 150lbs. She had abandoned the kids with my husband when the kids were 1&3, and when she decided she wanted some extra spending money, she lied to CPS stating that he was abusive and a molestor - of course they believe the mother 98% of the time without even investigating and they took the kids away. She doesn't even have the kids with her now, and she's still collecting child support (which we're working on reversing and hopefully get her for fraud). CPS is a joke in the US, it sounds just as bad in the UK. They don't help families, they rip them apart and leave the good parents to repair the damage done to these poor kids.
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Let's not forget that there are two other parties involved here. If the kids have settled in, they don't deserve the upheaval of being separated again, and if the adoptive parents have bonded with the kids, having to give them up would be as rough on them as it was for the kids original parents.

Obviously, the kids should never have been taken, but that isn't the issue any more. The issue is what's best for the children.

Also? The idea that Social Services are looking out for the best interests of The State (scary capitalisation!) is patently laughable. What possible benefit is there to playing Find The Lady with other peoples kids? Do you think The State have some kind of top secret oppression device powered by the tears of children, or something? No. It's just good ol' fashioned incompetence, that's all.
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If the welfare of the child is the ONLY criteria of what is right, why then don't we confiscate all children at birth until the parents can prove their worthiness?
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These state organizations behave rashly sometimes in an effort to show why they exist. If there weren't any child abuse, then they wouldn't get paid, so they go around seeking dragons to slay.
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Thing is, V, here in the UK, not so long ago, these same people were called out for basically allowing a child to die despite their being aware of the serious abuse in the home. They already have a huge amount of egg on their face, and slaying dragons that aren't there isn't making them look any better right now. Behaving rashly at this point in time is just making them an even bigger joke than they already are. A tragic joke. I agree with your assesment, mind you, but there's plenty of child abuse and then some that they are blatantly ignoring.
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"That’s why you can’t own a gun in the U.K. Big Brother doesn’t want you to fight back."

Because someone having a gun would make this situation better? How would anyone being shot do anything positive?
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Having the benefit of being a parent on my side, if I ever adopted and a few years later was told the child was wrongly taken from his/her parents, you can bet your sweet tookus I'd be letting the child go back. "Think of the other parents." Bull.
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An update on the situation:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1145645/We-8217-t--8217-children-say-Websters-reveal-appalling-anguish-welfare-state-visited-them.html
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