East Renfrewshire Council document

What is happening in Scotland with children was reported on live at UK Column. Before the programme disappears here`s a rough and ready transcript.

Brian Gerrish: "Would you trust this government to look after the health and wellbeing of children - because this is the same government who cannot protect children from establishment abuse and it`s also the same Scottish government where people (worked) in the law system to change the law to make it easier for men to physically and sexually abuse young boys."

"So against that background it`s fascinating that social services now in East Renfrewshire have produced a document The multi-agency summary guidance for practitioners and managers to deal with fabricated or induced illness. And in this incredible document it is saying effectively that if you claim that your child is ill and it is subsequently proved that they were not as ill as you said, then the child can be taken away and parents can be accused of child abuse. This is not fiction - it`s laid down in the document."

"And with that we`ll go across to David Scott. "

David Scott: "It`s amazing what you find out when you start asking questions. This little document which is an appalling thing was following an inquiry up here, looking into the Robert Green and Hollie Greig case. And I put a question to the Down`s Syndrome Association about the prevalence of child abuse in children who suffer from Down`s syndrome. .. They didn`t actually address the question at all, but simply referred to a lot of government documents."

"As we started to explore those we came across this one from East Renfrewshire Council. .. It`s really dreadful. If we can maybe just go through it. "

"The introduction goes as follows: Fabricated and Induced Illness FII: A well child being presented with a more significant health problem than he or she has in reality and suffering harm as a result. This is a relatively rare form of child abuse. Where there are concerns about FII a multi-agency response is essential at an early stage to ensure the sharing and collation of information to ensure that the child is appropriately protected."

"So, if your child is ill but appears to be more ill than the medics think is justified by their understanding of the child,  this seems to be saying that you are automatically suspected of child abuse.  And that seems to be a pretty dreadful conclusion to reach."

"And this is, of course, a repackaging of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy allegations which were quite prevalent some years ago but seem to have fallen into disrepute."

Brian Gerrish points to a section in the document which suggests that the child protection work is so stressful in these cases that practitioners may themselves need counselling !

Back to David Scott: "The document talks about falsifying hospital records but then it has a very vague term about the nature of the harm that may be done and how the illness may be induced. And one of the ways it might be induced might be some psychological means which doesn`t leave any evidence trace which could be investigated. .. So what the practitioners should do is look for indicators of harm...There are eleven in the document."

"My family has some experience with neurological ME.  If a child has neurological ME then of those eleven indicators of harm they`re going to show positive on nine. The medical profession will not agree with the parents about how sick the child is. The parents will be more concerned than the medics think they should be. It`s not just ME - it`s many other illnesses... A conflict makes you as a parent an abuser by not agreeing with a medical adviser."

"Just to confirm that ME does result in problems with false allegations of child abuse I have here a peer reviewed paper from the Tyme`s Trust, an ME charity. It reports that the all party parliamentary report on ME expressed concern that some children and their families are caught up in unnecessary damaging child protection care proceedings because there`s a misunderstanding about ME amongst teachers, social workers, doctors and other professionals And it goes on to say that there is no cure for ME but the perception that there is continues to haunt families. For many, state intrusion has impacted negatively ... Families have experienced intimidation and coercion into treatment regimes that they believe can be harmful to their children."

"With documents like that from East Renfrewshire Council, the situation is likely to get worse. It is very noticeable that the first action to be taken on fabricated and induced illness is to inform the police to share information and determine the next steps." [I recognise this language. It`s part of the learner`s journey in Curriculum for Excellence ! ]

"So the first thing the doctor does is phone the police and it also goes on in this document to state that they will not tell the parent about this. This will be kept a secret. Police, social services will investigate and keep it a secret, sharing information about the child and family, until such time as they decide whether or not the child is at risk. "

"This is lunacy."

Brian Gerrish: "This is very sinister indeed because it`s giving the mechanism for the state to take away children."

"Any sign of a child abuse inquiry?"

David Scott:  "There`s been a change of cabinet so those who should have been dealing with it are no longer in post.  Kenny MacAskill was apparently a major blockage to any sort of inquiry and wasn`t doing anything apart from making excuses. He`s gone and he`s been replaced by a Mr Matheson. Now Mr Matheson is on record as saying in 2003 ... `Keeping in mind that cabinet papers are classified for thirty years, Dunblane papers for 100 years, I`m sure that we`ll all agree that to break open the case and Hollie`s case and many other cases in Scotland, to reveal the truth of Scotland`s cover-up, how they are interrelated to a huge paedophile ring that I`m sure stretches from Scotland all the way down to Westminster.` Now that was 2003. He was remarkably well informed in 2003. So he seems to be a different sort of chap to Mr MacAskill."

"The chap responsible for the child abuse inquiry, or lack of one, was Mike Russell.who has also been replaced."

Brian Gerrish: "So what we have is the Scottish government unable to get an investigation into real dark horrible child abuse, but what it can do is produce the legislation to now start to brand parents who simply say my child is ill into parents who are child abusers. That is a pretty incredible state of affairs."

David Scott: "We have the named person legislation in Scotland. Now this is the wonderful idea that every child in Scotland has a state guardian - universal state supervision of parenting. And the Scottish government has assured us that this is not East German or totalitarian at all. And there`s nothing to worry about if you`ve nothing to hide. But we need to have universal surveillance because otherwise children will fall down the cracks. This is how it`s explained. To prevent child abuse we need to watch everybody to risk assess every child because otherwise how do we know which child to protect? It`s being challenged in the courts - a judicial review which is equivalent to going to the House of Lords."

Brian Gerrish. "It does seem to us that the template is being fully implemented in Scotland. One police force, no separation of powers and now here they come not only to take your children but to have every child with a prescribed person along side them from birth. "

There follows a short report on the Linda Lewis case - a woman falsely accused of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy whose very ill daughter was removed from hospital in the USA at gunpoint and who has still not been returned to her mother 16 years later.

http://www.ukcolumn.org/

See also the case of a mother imprisoned for taking her child abroad for treatment: http://alicemooreuk.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/mother-imprisoned-after-obtaining.html

and article in UK Column
http://www.ukcolumn.org/article/hand-over-your-children-state-emerging-reality-child-protection