donderdag 12 december 2013

‘Social workers stole my baby’: Forced caesarean mother tells of horrific ordeal (2)


Robert Bleeker 0 seconds ago
"BA - I don't know if it was released by her solicitors. It was released by the court in England." etc.etc...

Part I

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1. Thanks again (and again heartily) for your rapid, lengthy and extensive reply to my comment d.d. 05-12-2013 / 21:45 UK time.

2. Although I can not guarantee the validity of the statement in the Telegraph (BTW : I never ever would have imagined myself, to have been quoting the tabloid-press) about the head of the High Court section (Sir James Munby), I still want confront you with the following (Telegraph) quotation :

- "Sir James Munby has been pressing for greater transparency around the activities of the Court of Protection.

- But he has also raised concerns that the drive to speed up the adoption process – a cause championed by the Education Secretary Michael Gove – could be causing social services to cut corners and push for children to be adopted when less “drastic” options are available including care by other family members.

- He used a case in September to raise the alarm about what he said was a growing tendency to apply for adoption orders on “sloppy” or non-existent assessment of the alternatives to adoption."

3. If indeed this is the essence of what he said at the time about (among else) this case, this sounds slightly more alarming than the way you might have summarized his criticism.

4. More precisely : His criticism seems to have been intended to have had explicitly included the possibility, that the pre-court preparation-effort of the Child Protection Agency (CPA) might have been fundamentally compromised by the way, that the Agency might have approached / confronted this case.

5. Since the High Court - in the case of the granting of the CPA Request to have the unborn child forcibly removed from the womb of the mother (Mrs. Pacchieri)- has been heavily depending on the presentation from the Social Workers, the High Court Order might have been fundamentally and structurally flawed from the beginning.

6. Apart from the subsequent adoption decision that is, which decision also might have been taken on (practically the same) dubious grounds, to say the least, and might soon have to be revised as well.

7. But instead of continuing on the much-trodden on tracks that has been constituted by the several official participants in this case, I rather would like to go back to the root-situation, that triggered the entire sequences of subsequent medical, social and judicial proceedings in the first place :

The mother, being on a two week course with Ryan Air, staying in an airport hotel and (apparently) having been the victim of a fear-lead panic-attack, that presumably had been caused by an (unexplained (but maybe relative excusable)) arrest of the mother taking in her medicine.


d.d. 08-12-2013 / 22:44 UK time

see part II
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Robert Bleeker 0 seconds ago
@ Brendan Archer

"BA - I don't know if it was released by her solicitors. It was released by the court in England." etc.etc.

Part II

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8. Since she had (apparently) been functioning well in the months ahead of her two week (Ryan Air) study-visit to the UK, while regularly taking her medicine - prescribed by Italian medical authorities, to compensate for / to treat a bipolar condition, she most probably would not have had to be hospitalized in the first place.

9. In my perception, that initial decision by the mental institution - where the police-authorities transported her to (also) without her knowledge - seems to have been the root of all evil, which in my view might have kick-started a process of self-fulfilling prophecy and self-propelling sequence of events and proceedings.

10. If only (so is my assumption) the psychiatrists - that took her in, observed her and developed a (plan of) treatment for her - would have limited themselves, to have her convinced to take her medicine again, the case most probably would not have been escalating as it apparently did after their intervention.

11. One might add, that the forced hospitalization of the woman and the apparent suggestion to her, that the CPA would seek a HQ Order to have her unborn baby removed against her will, in itself might have been more than enough, to have the woman thrown into a deep depressive and/or fear-related paranoid mood.

12. After all, this horror-scenario would have been more than enough even to have totally mentally sound and well-balanced people to instantly develop serious symptoms of a complicated mental disorder.

13. So I am in fact pleading for an thorough and independent evaluation of the entire case from its very origin, and to have formulated in short term, a sound judgement on the base of the outcome of that objective examination.

14. An examination that (and I am anticipating on the outcome) very well might lead to the conclusion that serious mistakes had been made in this case and one even might be open to accept a totally new set of points of reference in this case.


15 So, in my opinion, the illogical and forceful way, that the Italian woman has been treated by the entire line-up of UK authorities from day one, has created the severity of the case and has been mainly responsible for the steep escalation of the case, that so dramatically ended in the forcible removal of the fetus from the womb, separating the baby from the mother and destining the baby for adoption.

d.d. 08-12-2013 / 22:44 UK time


Robert Bleeker 0 seconds ago

Dear Brendan Archer

1. I have to apologize to you, because for reason's completely unknown to me, the Indy moderation TWICE - first the sixth of December and now the eighth of December - entirely removed my extensive reply to your last answer.

2. Reason's completely unknown to me, however we seem to become slowly but certainly aware of the opportunistic rational behind the transition from the DisQus format towards the comment-format of today :

3. The Indy apparently wants to seriously dis-encourage intelligent discussion between civilized commentators.

4. So we - both supposed to be intelligent people - are no longer allowed to freely exchange intellectually interesting opinions with each other on the subjects, that has been served to us by the Indy article's....

5. Different of course from a comment which only will contain two or three sentences that is.

6. The next stage undoubtedly will be a restriction to answering by smartphone only and next to that, the reader's will only be allowed to react by way of Twitter.

7. How utterly degressive a development within a newspaper that once had a golden image of progressiveness and moral high ground I would say regrettably.

d.d. 09-12-2013 / 00:14 UK time


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Brendan_Archer 3 days ago
I don't know the technolgical background to the problems with posting but it also fails to show my link to The Indepedenents onw much more balanced and coherent follow up to this item.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/the-mother-the-csection-baby-and-secret-british-court-a-secrecy-scandal--or-the--birth-of-a-scare-story-8986804.html

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‘Social workers stole my baby’: Forced caesarean mother tells of horrific ordeal (1)


Brendan_Archer
Brendan_Archer 7 days ago
If you read the other reports and information now released from the court papers here are a few facts:

- At the time she was one day away from her due delivery date (not at 34 weeks as she claims).

- She did not have the mental capacity to make a decision about her own or the foetus’s welfare.

- She had voluntary stopped taking medication for a diagnosed medical condition.

- She had been in hospital sectioned under the Mental Health Act for ten weeks.

- She was not likely to recover mental capacity without medication which might harm the child.

- The decision for the delivery by caesarean section was to prevent physical injury to her sought by the health trust that employed the obstetricians caring for her.

- Both her previous children had been delivered by caesarean section (we assume in Italy and with her consent).

- She does not appear to have care or custody of either of her other children, born in the USA and in Italy.

- The application for a care order for the child was made by social services.

- She returned to Italy in October last year and was still a psychiatric in-patient there until December.

- The order for freeing for adoption was made in February this year, on the grounds this was a better option for the child than returning her to the care of her mother (see above).

_The other options offered were “relatives in America” or the mother of the child’s father who lives in Senegal.

- Which of these decisions was not in the child’s best interests?
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Robert Bleeker
Robert Bleeker 7 days ago
@ Brendan_Archer

"If you read the other reports and information now released from the court papers here are a few facts:
At the time she was one day away from her due delivery date (not at 34 weeks as she claims)" etc etc...

-----------------------------------

1. Please, hand us the link to (the source of) "the other reports and information now released from the court papers", and we will judge for ourselves about the validity of your (at this stage, rather) suggestive statements and assumptions so far.

2. Come to think of it : Maybe it would be appropriate for you as well - since you seem to have (exclusively and favorably) taken the case for "the Social Services" - to declare unequivocally that you have no interest (professionally or otherwise) whatsoever in this case.!

Thank you.!

d.d. 05-12-2013 / 17:10 UK time
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Brendan_Archer
Brendan_Archer 7 days ago
Sources – try what I did - Google the words “Alessandra Pacchieri”, omit the entries that simply repeat this report. It will take a couple of minutes.

Most of what I posted came from the Daily Mail interview with her which is sensationalist in style but has the facts contained within it if read carefully.

I have no interest in this case. I am a lawyer. In the past I have been a specialist both representing parents in care proceedings and patients detained under the Mental Health Act, including patients with bipolar disorder, many of whom I now count as friends.
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Robert Bleeker
Robert Bleeker 7 days ago
@ Brendan Archer

"ources – try what I did - Google the words “Alessandra Pacchieri”, omit the entries that simply repeat this report" etc etc...

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1. I would like to thank you for informing us, that the name of the Italian mother (apparently very recently) has been released (by her solicitors).

2. Since I indeed inserted her name in our most celebrated searching program, I almost literally was innudated by "une mère à boire" (read : tsunami) of newly available info on the subject.

3. Because the data, that appeared to be the most factual (and the most recently updated and the least sensational) happened to be situated in "The Telegraph" (6:04PM GMT 05 Dec 2013) I have to advise you to Google on “Caesarean case mother: Italian government to step into Alessandra Pacchieri adoption battle
Italian government stepping into British legal battle over Alessandra Pacchieri and her baby delivered by forced caesarean “


4. Please do take a special note to the remarks of Sir James Munby, the president of the High Court Family Division, who seems to be criticizing fundamentally the way this section of the UK Court is functioning in general and in this specific case in particular.

5. Only his apparent intervention seems to contradict your apparent main conclusion, that the (mental condition of) mother has to be held mainly accountable for the developments around her legitimate child.

6. By the way (and I am aware of the populist undertone of this mini thought experiment) : Did you ever pose the question, what would have happened when this bizarre fate had been occurred on an English citizen, on a study course in Italy.

d.d. 05-12-2013 / 21{45 UK time
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Brendan_Archer
Brendan_Archer 7 days ago
1. I would like to thank you for informing us, that the name of the Italian mother (apparently very recently) has been released (by her solicitors).

BA - I don't know if it was released by her solicitors. It was released by the court in England.

Since I indeed inserted her name in our most celebrated searching program, I almost literally was innudated by "une mère à boire" (read : tsunami) of newly available info on the subject.

BA - Most it seems to reproduce uncritically the interview and statements (some at least of which are now shown to be inaccurate) made by her lawyer in Italy. Not BTW a criticism of him – he will say what his client told him. When searching the – [minus] sign is a valuable tool to filter out the repetitive and find the alternative.

3. Because the data, that appeared to be the most factual (and the most recently updated and the least sensational) happened to be situated in "The Telegraph" (6:04PM GMT 05 Dec 2013) I have to advise you to Google on “Caesarean case mother: Italian government to step into Alessandra Pacchieri adoption battle
Italian government stepping into British legal battle over Alessandra Pacchieri and her baby delivered by forced caesarean “

BA – It's taken them a long time given the mother appeared in the court proceedings in February. As parties to such proceedings were entitled to legal representation with no means test I assume that she was also represented by lawyers. It also appears that they didn't bother to tell her or her lawyers which would have been polite.

4. Please do take a special note to the remarks of Sir James Munby, the president of the High Court Family Division, who seems to be criticizing fundamentally the way this section of the UK Court is functioning in general and in this specific case in particular.

BA – First given the publicity given to this case by the mother (belatedly) it is entirely appropriate that he should direct the case should be moved to him as it shortens the periods for appeal, which must be in the child's interest rather than an extended period of appeal and rehearing (which seems to characteristic of the Italian system).

He is head of the Family Division, which deals with private and public family law cases, including care proceedings. The Court of Protection is a different court which deals with cases involving people lacking mental capacity to make their own decisions. There is a debate ongoing in England about the openness of both courts.

It has been pointed out by a commentator on mental health law that the health trust could possibly have made the decision about the caesarian section without an application to the court (or allowed the “trial of labour” to start, at risk for the mother and child).

By making the application to the Court of Protection it put to the test of an independent court at which the mother's interests were represented both whether she had mental capacity and whether the C section was in her (not the child's interests).

5. Only his apparent intervention seems to contradict your apparent main conclusion, that the (mental condition of) mother has to be held mainly accountable for the developments around her legitimate child.

BA – No, see above 4. The child's legitimacy is irrelevant. What is relevant is that the father did not offer to care for it, nor did any of the mother's immediate family in Italy.

The “developments” are that she want to Italy, and she didn't return to care for the child, which was an option available to her. The decision was based on the best interests of the child, which is the test in English law, which values continuity and confidence in stable care, as the evidence shows the value of that.

The basis for that was the mother's medical history, and the lack of any evidence of her ability to care for (as opposed to care about) any of her children.

By the way (and I am aware of the populist undertone of this mini thought experiment) : Did you ever pose the question, what would have happened when this bizarre fate had been occurred on an English citizen, on a study course in Italy.

BA – By way of riposte you are presumably not aware of the Welsh woman presently under threat of arrest under order of an Italian Court for returning to the UK with her child to escape an abuse violent relationship in Italy with an Italian man who was banned by the court from having contact with the child. At least that's how it's reported.

Social Services condemned for forcibly removing unborn child from woman

1. Sorry, but I am still awaiting the approval of my - according to all standards in the field - decent, balanced and well thought-through contribution on this rather precarious subject.
2. Is this delay due to some logistics, that I am not aware of, or am I dis-encouraged to offer any more comments.
3. When it might be (due to an objection) with regard to the content, I again would feel obliged to refer to my DQ archive, where one can find enough examples, of my person, as recently as Sunday the first of December, unconditionally rejecting the way the Child Protection Agency (and the High Court Judge) handled this case.
4. In the latest contribution however - the one that is still awaiting moderation at this very moment - I tried to examine - by way of a simple thought-exercise - a number of scenario's whereby it might have been understandable, when such an extreme procedure would have been followed.
d.d. 02-12-2013 / 23:10 UK time

Woman has forced caesarean section to take child (4)

1. As understand the information correctly, the Request to the High Court to have the fetus forcibly removed from the woman's body, has been granted (ordered) in AUGUST 2012 - and executed right away subsequently by the UK Child Protection Agency.
2.The unfortunate Italian woman (also the mother of two other children) shortly after the C-section operation, has been deported (!) back to Italy by the UK authorities.
3. She came back in FEBRUARY 2013, with the clear intention of being reunited with her child.
4. So the time span appears to be rather different from the suggestive (even insinuating at times) time-table that many skeptics here want us to believe :
When she came back to the UK, her (prematurely born) child was only SIX months old and she has been fighting (in the UK that is) for the return of her legitimate child, for NINE months now....
5. I have to speculate, that she at first has been told by her legal advisers, NOT to seek media-attention for the case, because that might "harm" her case and (a damaging) discretion has been exercised by her until very recently.
6. This might explain why - most probably in advice by the MP (Hemming) et al. - she only now has been entering the media with her horror-story...
7. Fact however in these cases is, that the longer one waits, the more the time factor is weighing in, which increase is becoming more autonomous by the day, as all patterns in the self-fulfilling department seem to prove all of the time ...
d.d. 01-12-2013 / 23:53 UK time

Woman has forced caesarean section to take child (3)

Elsewhere in the world-press, I found some more factual data about this seemingly extreme case of a miscarriage (two times) of justice.....
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Beginning of Quotation :
"It was Julius Caesar who was “ripp’d untimely from his mother’s womb” thus originating the term, Cesarean section. Now, in modern-day Britain, a child has been forcibly removed from a mother, who was sedated and thus unaware of the procedure. Quickly deemed “the stuff of nightmares” by human-rights group, this extraordinary story has left Essex social services with a lot of explaining to do. And a mother who has yet to be united with the baby girl who was taken from her body.
In a case which has been described by those representing the mother as “unprecedented,” a court order was obtained, in August 2012, for the Italian mother-to-be, in England on a work placement at the time, to be enforced to give birth “by way of cesarean section.”
The pregnant lady was visiting the UK. She worked in the airline industry and was attending a fortnight’s training course for Ryanair at Stansted Airport, in Essex. It is reported that she suffered from bipolar disorder, and had missed a regular dose of her medication. She then experienced a panic attack.
The panic attack was brought on by a momentary confusion about her other children’s passports. She was worried she could not find them. She called the police.
In the scenario that ensued, she was then removed by the police from the airport hotel room she was staying in to a nearby psychiatric hospital and then restrained and sectioned under the terms and conditions of the Mental Health Act. Her mother in Italy was called, and she explained that her daughter was bipolar. Despite this, after five weeks in the hospital, the woman’s baby daughter was removed from her womb, by cesarean section, without her having given her consent.
All that she was told was that she could not have any breakfast. She was then forcibly sedated and taken to another hospital. When she came around, she had no idea what had happened to her. She had been unconscious. The baby was taken away by social services and she never saw her.
Unfortunately, the story just gets worse. The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was then returned to Italy, without her child. She has two other children and is divorced. The other children had been with her mother at the time of the trip to England.
The baby girl is now 15 months old and has spent her life in state care. Her mother came back to the UK in February to plead to be reunited with her. She was told by the Crown Court in Chelmsford, Essex that her daughter would be put up for adoption. The reason given was that there was a chance she would suffer from a relapse. The mother, who is said to have made a full recovery, has still never seen her baby girl. The judge on this hearing agreed her condition had improved but the ruling still went ahead for adoption.
The Italian High Court has expressed its outrage at this treatment of an Italian citizen but it appears that the British courts have the jurisdiction. Director of the Human Rights Group, Liberty, Shami Chakrabarti, has expressed the sense of shock and dismay felt by many on hearing of this woman’s plight, “At first blush” she said “ this is dystopian science-fiction unworthy of a democracy like ours.” She went on to say, “Forced surgery and separation of mother and child” is “the stuff of nightmares.”
An MP who is trying to bring about more openness and accountability in the family court, will discuss the case in Parliament. John Hemming said he hoped that the report would “shock people out of their complacency” adding that he feels that the family court is full of corrupt practices. He called it the “worst case of human rights abuse I’ve ever seen” and said the lady in question was not “treated as a human being.”
There has been no comment from anyone at Essex County Council who carried out the forced cesarean section. The judge who gave permission for the procedure has been named as Mr. Justice Mostyn, although no explanation has been forthcoming as to why it could not have been a natural birth. In a blunt statement, they have merely noted that, “The council does not comment on the circumstances of ongoing individual cases.”
Lawyer for the unnamed mother, Brendan Fleming said he has never heard of anything like this “in 40 years in the job.” He pledged he would fight “tooth and nail” for the mother to be reunited with her baby.
As Christmas-time draws near, the potent imagery of a mother and a newborn child calls across the world as a symbol of love and hope. In this tragic story where a child was taken forcibly from her mother’s womb in a cesarean section she was oblivious to, love and hope are all she has left to fight with."
By Kate Henderson
end of quotation
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Let us hope this case is a one off and not common practice in the UK, but merely applying to UK women.!
d.d. 01-12-2013 / 23:06 UK time

Woman has forced caesarean section to take child (2)

1. This apparent case of serious human rights abuse by UK authorities does awake reminiscences of that barbaric treatment of the children of the Aboriginals, that had been robbed from their biological mothers (and fathers) by the Australian Government some decades ago.
2. That monstrosity had only recently been officially acknowledged, as having been one of the worst atrocities by a government in peacetime.
3. Robbing a mother - not even an English citizen but an Italian lady, temporarily visiting the UK on a simple training course - from HER unborn child on the grounds that had been formulated, is not only a crime against the mother and against the individual child, but a crime against humanity.
4. Do not make a mistake : If this High Court Order once has been encapsulated by the system into the judicial practices as a legal precedent, ANYONE can have been submitted to this barbaric treatment
5. I say go - and even go today, for any delay is dangerous - to the EU Court of Justice and have the UK forcibly hand back the child to her parent immediately, because the UK authorities seem to play the time-scale card, to justify in retrospect, that series of criminal acts that they have committed..
6. I still am too astonished, to comprehend the full scale of the situation, because it seems to resist all images that I have formed so far in my life, on the position of government in a democracy.
7. May we please know who exactly were the High Court Judges (the names. CV and judicial motivation please), who were (or who was) so far beyond normality and decency, that he or she or they granted such an absurd request in the first place...
d.d. 01-12-1013 / 21:07 UK time

Woman has forced caesarean section to take child

1. This apparent case of serious human rights abuse by UK authorities does awake reminiscences of that barbaric treatment of Maori children (edit : Children of the aboriginals), that had been robbed from their biological mothers (and fathers) by the Australian Government some decades ago.
2. That monstrosity had only recently been officially acknowledged, as having been one of the worst atrocities by a government in peacetime.
3. Robbing a mother - not even an English citizen but an Italian lady, temporarily visiting the UK on a simple training course - from HER unborn child on the grounds that had been formulated, is not only a crime against the mother and against the individual child, but a crime against humanity.
4. Do not make a mistake : If this High Court Order once has been encapsulated by the system into the judicial practices as a legal precedent, ANYONE can have been submitted to this barbaric treatment
5. I say go - and even go today, for any delay is dangerous - to the EU Court of Justice and have the UK forcibly hand back the child to her parent immediately, because the UK authorities seem to play the time-scale card, to justify in retrospect, that series of criminal acts that they have committed..
6. I still am too astonished, to comprehend the full scale of the situation, because it seems to resist all images that I have formed so far in my life, on the position of government in a democracy.
7. May we please know who exactly were the High Court Judges (the names. CV and judicial motivation please), who were (or who was) so far beyond normality and decency, that he or she or they granted such an absurd request in the first place...
d.d. 01-12-1013 / 21:07 UK time

Israël : Scandale après le refus d'accepter un don de sang d'une députée noire



Le Monde.fr avec AFP |  • Mis à jour le 





Logo de l'organisation Magen David Adom.

L'organisation caritative israélienne Magen David Adom, société nationale du Mouvement de la Croix-Rouge et du Croissant-Rouge, a refusé mercredi 11 décembre le don de sang de la députée noire d'origine éthiopienne Pnina Tamano-Shata. 


Une responsable de l'organisme, filmée et enregistrée par une caméra vidéo, a expliqué que « selon les directives du ministère de la santé, il n'est pas possible d'accepter le sang spécial d'origine juive éthiopienne »


Des propos qui ont provoqué une vive polémique dans tout le pays.


Selon les médias israéliens, le ministère de la santé estime en effet que le sang des juifs d'origine éthiopienne qui ne sont pas nés en Israël est susceptible depropager des maladies, notamment le sida. Pnina Tamano-Shata a réagi lors d'une interview sur la chaîne de télévision privée 10, dénonçant « cet affront fait à toute une communauté en raison de la couleur de sa peau ». 


« J'ai 32 ans, je suis arrivée à l'âge de trois ans en Israël, j'ai effectué mon service militaire et j'ai deux enfants, il n'y aucune raison de me traiter de la sorte », s'est-elle indignée.
« RIEN N'A CHANGÉ »
La députée a rappelé qu'il y a seize ans une grande manifestation de la communauté des juifs éthiopiens avait eu lieu à Jérusalem lorsque les médias avaient révélé que les autorités sanitaires se débarrassaient sans l'utiliser du sang donné par les membres de cette communauté. 
« Depuis cette époque où j'ai moi-même manifesté, rien n'a changé », a-t-elle déploré.
Après des consultations, les responsables du Magen David Adom ont indiqué qu'ils étaient prêts à accepter le sang de la députée, mais que celui-ci serait congelé et ne serait pas utilisé, a précisé le site internet Ynet. 
Alerté, le premier ministre, Benyamin Nétanyahou, a appelé la parlementaire membre de Yesh Atid, un parti centriste membre de la coalition, pour lui exprimer son « admiration » et indiqué qu'il allait faire examiner les directives à l'origine de cette affaire.
Plus de 100 000 juifs d'Ethiopie ont immigré en Israël au cours des trente dernières années, notamment lors des opérations « Moïse » et « Salomon », en 1984 et en 1991. Actuellement, plus de 120 000 juifs éthiopiens, dont 80 000 nés en Afrique, vivent en Israël, où ils sont victimes de discriminations.