14/10/2012
On the trail of our severely dysfunctional "child protection" system, Booker picks up
three cases, arguing that the system is so dysfunctional that it should be looked on as a major national scandal.
On one hand, Booker writes, we see the number of applications by social workers to take children into care soaring to nearly 1,000 a month. This is more than double the number in the four years since the tragedy of Baby P.
Then, on the other hand, we hear of horrific episodes, like those recently reported from Rochdale and Rotherham, where social workers and police turned a blind eye to the systematic mass-rape of underage girls, many themselves in state care.
It is, actually, three years since Booker started investigating scores of cases of children seized from their parents for what appeared to be quite absurd reasons, outrages he believes have not yet come to the centre of national attention but only because our child protection system hides its workings behind a veil of secrecy.
But what is doubly amazing is how family courts routinely turn upside down all the cherished principles of British justice. The most bizarre allegations, based on hearsay, can be levelled against parents who are then denied the right to challenge them.
And thus does Booker offer summaries of three cases to indicate why this is the most disturbing story he has covered in all his years as a journalist. We can't summarise them further and do them justice. Read them above, or from the link.
