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Disguised compliance

Posted on March 22, 2016 by suesspiciousminds

 

This is a case where a Judge was critical of the Local Authority’s use of the phrase “disguised compliance”.  I know that it is a phrase that sometimes puts hackles up

Pink Tape sums up very well just how annoying some people find the phrase  – though her particular issue is that it should be “disguised non-compliance”

http://www.pinktape.co.uk/rants/mini-vent/

(I’m going to suggest in this piece that the problem is not the phrase or the concept, it is throwing the label around when there’s no evidence that it is happening. It is when people just assert that it has happened without going to the bother of proving it with evidence.   It is a similar sort of effect when people describe a child’s description of abuse as a “disclosure” rather than an “allegation” – because the former implies that the child must be telling you something true, and the latter is a more accurate description of the account of abuse until such time as a Court makes decisions about whether it happened)

 

 

Disguised compliance is a recognised phenomenon in child protection, and one that frequently comes up in Serious Case Reviews , it is generally defined thus:-

 

Disguised compliance involves parents giving the appearance of co-operating with child welfare agencies to avoid raising suspicions and allay concerns. Published case reviews highlight that professionals sometimes delay or avoid interventions due to parental disguised compliance.

Click to access factsheet-disguised-compliance1.pdf

 

So it can be a real thing, and it can be a real problem that professionals need to be aware of.  Professionals failing to spot the difference between a parent who has genuinely changed and is trying their best and one who is trying it on, have ended up with children who were seriously harmed or worse.  It was, for example, a major feature in the Victoria Climbie Serious Case Review, also in the Peter Connolly one.

A sceptical enquiring mind is appropriate – the mind should be open to both possibilities and assess the evidence.

The difficulty, of course, is the differential diagnosis – a situation could be disguised compliance, or it could be a parent genuinely doing everything that they are being asked to do.

If for example, a Local Authority say to a mother, we want you to separate from father and not have contact with him, and allow us to make unannounced visits and improve the home conditions, there are instances where this is exactly what the mother does and that’s positive evidence of change and a good indicator for the future. However, there are cases where the parents pretend to have separated and see each other secretly and everything on the surface looks the same as the mother who has really made those changes. The latter would be disguised compliance. Someone pretending to have changed, but not having really done it.

The issue, of course, is that simply looking at a parent and labelling what they are doing as “disguised compliance” is an allegation – that the parent is not really changed and is not trustworthy. And if you are as the State making an allegation, then the burden is on you to prove it, and you have to provide evidence to that effect. Simply labelling someone’s behaviour as “disguised compliance” is not sufficient.

If a parent is doing everything that you have asked them to do, then you can’t simply undermine that by saying “Ah, but it is just disguised compliance”    – that’s like having your cake and eating it. The LA seem to be in a position of being able to criticise someone for not doing what they were asked to, but also being able to criticise them for doing it.  Obviously, if there’s evidence that someone’s attitude and insight has not changed, or that they are not actually doing what they claim to be, that’s a different matter – depending on the evidence.

It may well be very sensible to have in mind that a given set of facts could be genuine change or it could be disguised compliance, and to assess the situation and check how you are monitoring, but if you can’t provide the evidence that what the mother is doing is disguised compliance, you cannot just write all of the observed changes off by saying that’s what it is. The law, and the Courts, work on evidence, not mere suspicion or speculation.

DV (Adoption or Rehabilitation) 2016

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWFC/OJ/2016/B12.html

 

The Local Authority repeatedly use a phrase critical of the mother when they say that she has engaged in ‘disguised compliance’. It may be that their terminology is loose, but I find that it is not supported by any recent evidence. Indeed, the social worker is happy to praise the mother’s engagement and was positively enthusiastic about the counselling which was underway. Certainly, the children’s guardian was rejecting of the criticism implicit in the phrase ‘disguised compliance’. The guardian told me that the mother now recognised the need for change, she wanted to change, she had fully engaged with everything that had been offered, and she was in the process of change. 

 

 

The Judge, having heard all of the evidence in the case was satisfied that the mother genuinely had separated from the father, and had learned from her mistakes and was working genuinely to make and sustain changes, and therefore refused the plan for adoption – the child was returned to the mother’s care.

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The Latvian case – the judgment is up

Posted on December 4, 2015 by suesspiciousminds

 

 

This is a follow-up from Monday’s piece, about the latest Christopher Booker outrage.

https://suesspiciousminds.com/2015/11/30/police-ignore-judges-order-to-help-latvian-family-escape-social-workers/

 

 

You may remember that from Mr Booker’s account, the child had a small mark on his neck and another small mark, which led to social workers trying to snatch all of the children, and the parents instead fled with the help of Forced Adoption to another country.

 

You may also remember how incandescent Mr Booker was that the Local Authority couldn’t be named because of a gagging order.

Eleven days ago, the second oldest child of Russian-Latvian parents working in a town I cannot name for legal reasons was seen by a teacher to have a small mark on his neck. When the school reported this to social services, an examination revealed another slight mark on his leg. The family found itself plunged into an inexplicable nightmare

In this latest case of the family that got away (but which Judge Duggan does not allow us to name), the conduct of the Irish and Latvian police seems yet further evidence of just how little confidence foreign authorities now have in the fairness and legality of Britain’s increasingly notorious system of “child protection”.

 

The judgment is now up.  Is it an “inexplicable nightmare”?   Does child protection in Booker’s sub-headline need his air-quotes around it to show that it was no such thing?

 

 

 

Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council and Flight to Latvia 2015

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWFC/OJ/2015/B189.html

 

The eagle-eyed reader may spot that the name of the Local Authority is in the name of the case, rather than being prevented from being known because of a gagging order. There is no gagging order. The usual restrictions on naming the children apply.  [“Ah,” Booker defenders are saying already, “that’s only because Booker called them out on it, so they had to back down.”]

 

  1. The written evidence available to me indicates that on 12th November 2015 D was seen at school with a burn mark on his neck and another mark on his thigh. The appearance suggested injury with a rope. He said his father was responsible for the neck, an injury inflicted, he said, with a belt. He said his mother was responsible for the injury to the thigh. N was examined and was found to have bruising to the cheek for which he does not appear to have provided an explanation.
  2. The parents have been seen. The father says that the injury to the neck was caused by him in unclear accidental circumstances which I am afraid need more explanation. The mother said that the injury to N’s cheek arose from an incident in school but on investigation the only relevant incident at school concerned the oldest child. The parents agreed with Police and local authority that while investigations took place, the children’s safety would be ensured by their temporary residence with the grandparents. This was implemented but on 19th November 2015 the children did not turn up for school and enquiries revealed that the parents had removed the children from the grandparents the previous evening and left the district. It is a concern that the grandparents, who have been entrusted with responsibility for the safety of the children, did not see fit to draw this development to the attention of the local authority.

 

 

Now, let me be clear. We have here marks to a child’s neck. The child says that the father hit him with a belt. The father says there was some sort of accident, the mother says it happened at school. Three competing accounts. The parents did not attend Court to give their accounts, or ask their lawyers (who would have not have cost them a penny) to cross-examine witnesses and to refute the claims. It might well be that if all of the evidence had been tested, that the Court would have decided that there was no deliberate injury to the child.  So this judgment is not PROOF that the father hit the child with a belt – but it does meet the test to be considered by the law – were there reasonable grounds to believe that the father had hit the child?   Given that father and mother chose not to come to Court to tell the Court the truth, the Court would be left with little choice but to consider there were reasonable grounds to believe that the child had been harmed.

 

The social workers had not believed the parents accounts and had believed the child. They had made arrangements to keep the children safe within the family whilst investigations took place. Those arrangements were breached. The social workers went to the Court, to say “We think the children aren’t safe and we would like an order to protect them”.

The parents were able to come to Court with free lawyers to give their account and to say that the children would be safe, and an independent Judge would hear both sides of the case and make a decision – that decision being on the principles that :-

 

(a) It is for the Local Authority to prove harm, not for the parents to prove their innocence

(b) Even if the child had been harmed, the Court would still look at what measures short of removal could keep the child safe

(c) An order for removal would only be made if it was necessary to keep the child safe, and would only be whilst assessments were carried out over a period of time to see if the parents could make changes.

 

I would like to ask Mr Booker what actions he thinks social workers ought to take instead of this if they are told by a child that his father hit him round the neck with a belt?  Because it seems to me that the alternative is to do what Mr Booker did, and assume that the parents did not do it.  And I’m fairly sure that if they got that wrong and the child suffered further injuries, the Daily Telegraph would not be leaping to their defence.  I’m fairly sure that the Daily Telegraph wouldn’t be putting air quotes around child protection then – they’d be saying, and rightly so, “This child told you that his dad hit him round the neck with a belt and you did NOTHING to keep him safe. Your job was to protect that child, and you didn’t do it”

 

If a social worker thinks that a child has been deliberately injured and can’t keep the child safe whilst investigations take place, putting the matter before the Court is the safe and fair thing to do. It is not an ‘inexplicable nightmare’

The alternative is that people just take a guess as to what happened to the child. Maybe the child made it up, in which case the family are safe and happy in Latvia. Maybe the child really was hit by his father, in which case it isn’t great that the parents were helped to leave the country with the children.

 

Which is it?

I don’t know. And you don’t know. And Ian from Forced Adoption doesn’t know. And Christopher Booker doesn’t know.

I’d suggest that perhaps given that none of us know, and that the risk of guessing and getting it wrong is big either way, that the best way to make that decision is for an independent Judge to do it, having heard evidence from both sides, not just one.

 

Do Judges get it right all the time? No, sadly.  I write about these cases all the time. And social workers don’t get it right all the time either. And nor do doctors, or teachers, or anyone.  It might well be that this child made it up and is quite safe with mum and dad. We just don’t KNOW.

 

But you see the difference between a Judge deciding, and Christopher Booker deciding what happened, is that (a) The Judge hears BOTH sides (b) The Judge hasn’t made their mind up who to believe before you even start and (c) If the Judge gets it wrong, the decision can be appealed and put right.  What’s the appeal process for Christopher Booker deciding that this child is safe with mum and dad?   And if we have Christopher Booker deciding what’s going to happen in these cases, what stops Katie Hopkins doing it?

 

 

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Police ignore Judge’s order , to help Latvian family escape social workers

Posted on November 30, 2015 by suesspiciousminds

 

This is Christopher Booker’s latest column

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/12022882/Police-ignore-judges-order-to-help-Latvian-family-escape-British-social-workers.html

 

There is not a judgment up yet, that would allow me to give you an account of what has happened from someone who has heard both sides of the case, rather than just one side. I will keep an eye out.

 

The column does have the usual Booker hallmarks – the account provided by a single source, the cosying up to the President of the Family Division as being the only person who is trying to put things right, his habit as a ‘journalist’ of confusing making an argument with simply putting words in quotation marks to show his contempt for them,  his misunderstanding of many basic legal principles, and his unappealing habit of throwing the Judge’s first name around like confetti  – I imagine this is done to belittle them and diminish respect for them. It is a cheap shot.

 

It still surprises me, though it really shouldn’t after all this time, that when there is a Court case where the Judge actually uncovers the sort of dark dealings by social workers or a cock-up or mistake by professionals that led to children being wrongly separated from families, Booker is always silent.  Where are his columns on Al Alas Wray, on the foster carer who used racially abusive language to the mother, on the mother who wasn’t told for six months that whilst she’d been in a hospital having mental health treatment that social workers had taken the child away from the neighbours she’d left them with, on the Hampshire case from last week?

There are genuine scandals that happen in family Courts – appeal Courts showing why less senior Judges had made mistakes or had not been fair, Circuit Judges uncovering wrong-doing or errors or even conspiracies involving lying to the Court. They do happen – you’d be a fool to say that they didn’t.  And maybe those uncovered cases are the tip of the iceberg, and it is right for journalists applying the usual codes of practice that govern journalism to dig and investigate and bring them into the light. I’ve no problem at all with a journalist attacking the system and wanting to reform it. But if you were a columnist crusading for reform of the family justice system, why wouldn’t you be interested in writing about these cases where the facts absolutely demonstrate that there had been something rotten in the State of Denmark? They aren’t conspiracy theories, they are facts.

I’d welcome a column from Booker on the Hampshire case – it deserves attention, he’s a ‘journalist’, he’s angry about social work corruption and bad practice – he’s a good person to write the story.

 

Note to Ian from Forced Adoption – I am sure that you can give me and other readers chapter and verse on the background to this column. Please don’t.  I’ll read it from the Judge who heard both sides of the story rather than just one. Perhaps the Judge still got it wrong, people are only human, but I do think that hearing both sides doesn’t half give you an advantage before reaching a conclusion.

 

As ever, if I read the reported judgment and it shows that Mr Booker is factually correct in the substance of his claims, I will let you all know.  (I haven’t had to do that in four years of running the blog and checking Mr Booker’s reports of dire misdeeds against the actual judgments, but there’s always a first time).  Equally, if I think that the reported judgment shows that mistakes were made or that those involved were treated badly, I’ll say so.  I ran stories on Al Alas Wray, on the foster carer who used racially abusive language to the mother, on the section 20 abuses, on the Hampshire case where social workers lied, and sadly I think that I’ll have to run similar cases in the future. But I show the readers where my source comes from, and they are free to read that source for themselves and reach their own conclusions.

 

 

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