By Robin Phillips

Alessandra Pacchieri is being represented by Stefano Oliva, who has described the actions of the British government as "sheer brutality."
Alessandra Pacchieri is being represented by Stefano Oliva, who has described the actions of the British authorities as “sheer brutality.”

An Italian mother is working to get her baby back following a forced Caesarean section during a visit to Britain last year.

The mother of two was sedated and forcibly operated upon after Essex Social Services deemed she was unfit to be a mother.

The Italian Government has expressed outrage.

The nightmarish series of events began last June when Alessandra Pacchieri travelled from her native Italy to Essex for a two-week training course with Ryanair at Stansted Airport in Essex.

Having had a history of ‘manic episodes’, Alessandra was on medication. Concerned that her drugs might harm her unborn baby, Alessandra stopped taking them and had a panic attack as a result. During her panic attack Alessandra phoned the police.

TRICKED BY THE POLICE

Upon arrival at her hotel room, the police made telephone contact with Alessandra’s mother, who informed them about her daughter’s condition and explained that Alessandra needed to take her medication.

“They said they wanted to take me to hospital to check my baby was OK” Alessandra explained. “I agreed to go with them.”

It wasn’t until they arrived at the ‘hospital’ that Alessandra realized that she’d been tricked. To her horror, she found herself locked in a psychiatric unit where she was held against her will. Alessandra was prevented from returning either to the hotel or to her native Italy.

Months went by, during which time Alessandra was still banned from returning to her family in Italy.

“I begged the doctors to let me go back to my country” Alessandra recalls. “I said I wanted to go to court to get it sorted out.”

FORCED CAESAREAN

By now Alessandra was nearing the end of her pregnancy. On Friday, 24th August 2012, four days before her due date, Alessandra went to prepare her breakfast as she had done every other morning. But this time she found the hospital kitchen locked. Officials informed her that she couldn’t have breakfast because she would be having a C-section.

“I was crying. I could feel my baby kicking inside me. I begged them not to do the caesarean. The due date was four days later and there was no reason for me to have such an invasive operation with anaesthetic. I wanted a natural birth.”

Alessandra’s protests were ignored. To her horror, she found herself strapped down by a team of five nurses and forcibly sedated.

A few hours later Alessandra woke up to find that she was no longer pregnant. While asleep her child—a baby girl—had been forcibly extracted from the womb and handed over to Essex social services. Alessandra was allowed to hold her baby intermittently for the first few days although she was commanded not to breast feed. On the third day, she was informed that the baby was being completely removed.

Little did Alessandra realize that this forced Caesarean had been carefully planned and authorized by the secret courts. A transcript from the hearing in which Mr Justice Mostyn approved the procedure, reveals the judge telling the court: “She should not know about this order before she is taken and goes to hospital.” The judge authorised the use of “reasonable and proportionate force” if needed.

FORCED ADOPTION

The forced Caesarean was just the beginning of Alessandra’s British nightmare.

Throughout the following autumn Alessandra was allowed access to her daughter for half an hour once a week. In two family court hearings in Chelmsford, Alessandra pleaded to have her child returned to her and to be allowed to go home with her baby to Italy, but to no avail. The child had already been earmarked for adoption.

In October 2012, social services obtained formal permission to put Alessandra’s daughter up for adoption. Only then was Alessandra able to return to Italy.

Back in Italy Alessandra received treatment for her condition. Having completely recovered, she now maintains a home and holds down a job. Yet the authorities in England will not allow her to see her child.

Alessandra returned to Britain earlier this year for a hearing at Chelmsford County Court. While Judge Roderick Newton criticized the local authority for going against the advice of the doctors who had urged the baby to be left with her mother at the hospital, he did not reverse the decision.

In a desperate attempt to keep her daughter within the family, Alessandra has requested that her baby be allowed to go and live with her husband’s sister, who has been recognized as a very capable mother. However, Essex Social Services have refused to even consider this option on the grounds that the baby’s aunt has no “blood” tie to the baby even though she is technically kin. In the minds of Essex social services, placing a baby with a complete stranger is preferable to letting her live with kin.

INTERNATIONAL CONTROVERSY

These events have created international controversy this week, and threaten to strain relations between Italy and the UK. An eminent judge in Milan has declared that a forced caesarean under sedation is an act of extreme violence.
“Your family courts and your social workers invaded my body and stole my baby”, Alessandra told the UK press. “I believe that the British authorities planned to adopt my daughter from the very beginning.”

“Something very unfair has been done to me. I am fighting to get my daughter back and I never want another innocent mother in your country to suffer as I have.”

‘PURE BRUTALITY’

Melita’s lawyer, Stefano Oliva, commented that these events were “unprecedented” and added that he was amazed to see this happening in a European country. “I’ve been a lawyer for 20 years,” he said. “I’ve never seen something like this.”

“Judges can have a different opinion than you, or not look at the papers correctly, but in the particular case I’ve seen pure brutality.”

“Such an invasive treatment of my client, forcing birth from her – I can’t think that any Italian judge would have done it under any circumstance.”

“She has proved to the Italian social services that she is trustworthy”

Mr Oliva went on to compare the case to events that occurred under Hitler or in North Korea. “To snatch children from their own family has happened in history, under other regimes in which there was no democracy – think of the Hitler Youth or the gathering of children in North Korea.

“You can’t think of this happening in a Western European country, a European Union country.”

“She’s a mother. And like all mothers, she wants to be with her daughter. She realises that she has problems.”

“She’s now getting treatment, she’s doing better, she has a job. She has proved to the Italian social services that she is trustworthy.”

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23 COMMENTS

  2. Our baby son was also stolen at birth by social services. The story can be read at http://www.assumedauthority.net though the Irish side of it cannot be completed as it is still going through court. Please believe me, similar scenarios are occurring to hundreds of families. The system is dangerously out of control. Victims are not necessarily guilty of anything. Privatised fostering and adoption agencies make multi-millions. Same for law firms too. These parasites are feeding off human misery and worse of all, innocent children.

  6. The internet is scattered with blog posts and self-appointed commentators claiming to give “the other side” of this story, purporting to be offering ‘balance’ to what they claim was a ‘complex’ moral dilemma that has been whipped up into hysteria by the media. Last night I was reviewing this material to try to see if there really is more to the story. In reality, however, there is not another side. It is simply not possible to be objective with the facts and reach any other conclusion than that this is a case of extreme injustice.

    Some people will claim that we do not have access to all the facts and that we cannot therefore draw any conclusion. But this isn’t true. The Daily Mail was able to obtain transcripts of the court session in which the court order was issued; we have the judge’s statements; we also have a context of similar cases in which the social services acted without due diligence; we have an interview with the victim, and we have the fact that those writing to try to give the ‘other side’ have not been able to come up with anything that materially alters the fundamental ethical concerns, despite herculean efforts to try to paint the Essex authorities in a positive light. The facts remain and are as follows:

    1. The police should not have tricked this lady into coming into custody by lying to her.

    2. Because family court laws in England prevent a care order being issued until after delivery, the authorities had no jurisdiction over the child prior to delivery. What occurred was therefore a breach of appropriate protocol.

    3. This lady should have been allowed and enabled to choose her own legal counsel right at the beginning rather than being forced to be “represented” by someone she didn’t choose. When we consider that even dangerous criminals and murderers are given this right, it’s surprising that people are even having a debate about the ethics of what occurred.

    4. If there was concern for this girl’s mental health, and the safety of her child, that she should have been allowed to return to Italy and let the jurisdictions and families over there sort it out. Keeping her in England by force until delivery, away from her support-networks, seems to have only aggravated her mental condition and was an undue burden on the English tax-payer. Moreover, it was completely unnecessary since Italy already has systems in place for helping people like this. The same applies now that the baby has been born. The baby is 15 months old now and an Italian citizen, so there’s no call for Britain to keep her in the UK against the wishes of both her family and Italy.

    5. If there is concern that this woman could become troubled again or wouldn’t make a good mother (and quite possibly, she wouldn’t be a good mother as her two other children are being raised by their grandmother), then allowing her child to be raised by kin (her husband’s sister) would be the most straight-forward action.

  7. I am just so angry about this. Any one of us can become ill – is that a crime? This girl asked for help but she was betrayed. Now she is well having followed the right course of treatment. The baby belongs to Italy and to the family.

  8. […] Alessandra Pacchieri is being represented by Stefano Oliva, who has described the actions of the British authorities as “sheer brutality.” An Italian mother is working to get her baby back following a forced Caesarean section during a visit to Britain last year. The mother of two was sedated and forcibly operated upon after Essex Social Services deemed she was unfit to be a mother. The nightmarish series of events began last June when Alessandra Pacchieri travelled from her native Italy to Essex for a two-week training course with Ryanair at Stansted Airport in Essex.  Baby Forcibly Extracted from Womb During Nightmare Visit to the UK […]

  10. This is harrowing but should be expected in good old police state Britain, the press have spent the last year bleating on about freedom of speech to report the news and where this story should have been front page headlines it received a small column on the left of a page in my daily paper

  11. Please, will anybody who might have had an illegal treatment from Social Workers in Great Britain denounce it. I would be glad to help anyone in this. It is a matter of civilization, not only a problem of rules and procedures. Also, women and their child (even born and not yet born) freedom to circulate in the UE is under discussion. Contact me if you have a story to tell and need any help or assistance.

    • Brother Stefano
      Praise the LORD that HE gave you a heart of flesh and the mental skills to fight the wicked oppressors of this ungodly world
      May i direct you to the S.C.O.T.UK.com website where you will find many famillies who have had thier children stolen by the state
      May our LORD use you mightily to bring justice for these victims Amen

    • Hi Stefano

      I have a story as well. I have been treated unfairly, but am not sure about the legal status of it.
      It would be good to know what are our rights towards NHS as tax payer patients.

      Regards.