Keep secret courts says Sue Berelowitz

Deputy Children's Commissioner Sue Berelowitz has said that children will be pushed into committing suicide if the secretive family courts are opened to public scrutiny...

During her address, Miss Berelowitz broke a widely observed media rule and described a common means of suicide. She added: 'I genuinely fear that it is only a matter of time before this deeply misguided motion, which has at its heart, I believe, an utter disregard for the welfare and best interests of children, and is, in my view, therefore unlawful, will result in the death of a child.'

Miss Berelowitz's suicide warning was greeted with amazement among campaigners for open justice and media figures.

Lib Dem MP John Hemming said: 'I don't know what planet this woman is on. If the media had not looked at the abuse of children in care, the events in Rotherham would never have been known.'

Bob Satchwell of the Society of Editors said: 'No-one in the media wants to expose details about children unless there are exceptional reasons to do so. It is strange that Miss Berelowitz uses emotional language when media organisations would be extremely careful in discussing matters like that to prevent copycat actions.

Campaigners for greater openness are not calling for children to be identified in family proceedings. In cases in which proceedings can be reported, identifying children would be contempt of court, for which reporters or editors could go to jail.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2870904/Opening-family-courts-cause-child-suicides-Fury-claim-children-s-tsar-secret-justice-battle.html

Perhaps it is the failings of the court system which Miss Berelowitz wishes to remain hidden. A study carried out by the Family Justice Council explored in detail expert witness reports submitted by psychologists to family courts.

Having examined the files on no fewer than 127 cases from the family courts in which psychological ‘experts’ were involved, the results were concerning — indicating an absence of qualifications and competence across a number of areas...

Experts’ were found to be conducting assessments covering crucial family issues without having the experience to do so, and certainly without use of the most up-to-date and accepted methods of assessing risk.

Equally concerning is evidence from the report that the majority of experts are not in practice, so they are not routinely treating clients or working as part of a wider service. Instead, there appear to be a growing number who are ‘professional’ expert witnesses, whose only practice is in providing assessments to a court.

Moreover, in conducting assessments of families, at least 20 per cent of them strayed far beyond their own field of experience, something that has the potential to be highly risky in child cases...For example, we found evidence of witnesses commenting on sex offenders even though they had not practised in this area, or commenting on mental illness without ever working in that field. ..

The research team found a bewildering array of difficulties in how the reports had been conducted. Some ‘experts’ did not seem to value the importance of conducting interviews with those family members they had been asked to assess.

There was also an overuse of psychological tests, many of which had no clinical value or were ‘made up’ by the psychologist involved. ..

On average. experts charge £120 an hour for assessing families and compiling reports. So this is a well-paid profession with tariffs set far higher than for many psychologists working in a full psychological practice...

Family courts clearly operate within the confines of confidentiality in an attempt to protect the interests of children. This inadvertently may have allowed for experts to avoid the close scrutiny — from both their peers and the public — which they might be exposed to in other courts.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2114616/Family-courts-incompetent-highly-paid-called-experts-failing-children.html#ixzz3LiuKmOYz 

Update 14.12.2014

Christopher Booker highlights three puzzles of the child protection system:

(1) The huge number of children removed from their parents on the grounds of potential emotional abuse.

(2) The number of parents condemned because they fail to co-operate with professionals who are attempting to remove their children.

(3) The role of psychologists hired by social workers who label parents with vague conditions such as `borderline personality disorder,` or `narcissism` for which there is no quick remedy; so children are removed.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/11291388/Baby-with-no-name-judge-defends-the-biased-system.html