Charlie’s parents have ended their fight after a US doctor said it was now too late to treat their baby. What would have happened had Great Ormond Street Hospital simply allowed them to take him to the US in March, we shall never know.
(And do read Canon Giles Fraser on this matter in the Guardian.)
Original article:
Many of us are now asking one question above all in the case of Charlie Gard. Why does the judge not simply allow his parents to do what they think is best for their baby?
What is wrong with Charlie Gard?
Charlie Gard has a very rare mitochondrial disease, says an explanation in the Guardian. His mitochondria are failing to supply energy to the cells in his body. This mitochondrial failure is leading to damage to his body’s organs.
Charlie is in intensive care at Great Ormond Street hospital in London. Life support machines are keeping him alive because he cannot breathe by himself. The doctors say he has severe brain damage, and his heart, liver and kidneys are also affected.
However, Charlie’s mother, Connie Yates, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Monday that her son is responsive, enjoying tickles and watching videos with his parents. She also said that she had yet to see proof that her son had irreversible brain damage.
But the doctors say Charlie Gard ‘should be allowed to die with dignity’. That just means die, in plain language. Mr Justice Francis, sitting in the High Court, agreed death would be in Charlie’s ‘best interests’. How is that?
American hospital would treat Charlie
Charlie Gard with his parents, Connie Yates and Chris Gard
Moreover, Charlie Gard’s parents, Chris Gard and Miss Yates, have raised over a million pounds to take Charlie to a hospital in the United States. Doctors there are offering nucleoside therapy, an experimental drug treatment. It might not even work. It probably could not reverse what has already been damaged.
Nevertheless, according to the BBC, the family’s lawyers say ‘cutting edge genetic science’ gives a ‘small chance’ of brain recovery. It is a chance ‘worth taking’. The Bible agrees with that positive view:
Ecclesiastes 9:4 For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope: for a living dog is better than a dead lion.
The parents have taken the case to the Court of Appeal. They even went to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. But all agreed that to prolong Charlie’s life would risk causing him further suffering. The European Court gave permission for the hospital to switch off Charlie Gard’s life support systems. They said further treatment would not help him.
Pope and President Trump intervene
But then Pope Francis offered the services of the Bambino Gesù paediatric hospital’s neurosciences department in the Vatican. President Trump also expressed his support for the parents.
In addition, commentators in the United States are amazed at our legal process and decisions. News Channel 3 reports a CNN wire on the story with astonishment: ‘Courts will not allow the hospital to release the baby, Charlie Gard, into the parents’ custody so they can travel to try an experimental treatment.’
Support for Charlie Gard has gone global.
The difference is that in the US, law begins with parental rights. Here parents’ rights come second to the enforcement of parental responsibility to raise their children as the state sees best. This is coupled with the nebulous ‘best interests of the child’.
Consequently, Great Ormond Street and Justice Francis have taken to themselves the parental rights of Mr Gard and Miss Yates. Such a statist, secularist position simply cannot be right.
The Bible says: Psalm 127:3 Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. It does not say those children are a heritage of the State. Parental responsibility is grounded in parental rights.
People worldwide have given Charlie Gard’s parents huge financial and moral support. Plainly the Biblical position strikes a chord in the public mind. The parents have the money. They are not asking the NHS to pay for anything. Why can’t they go?
The case goes back to the High Court on Thursday. Let us pray for a righteous outcome. If not, the law must change.
Topshop being more progressive than thou at London Gay Pride this weekend.
Topshop being more progressive than thou at London Gay Pride this weekend.
Businesses and politicians fell over each other to support the London Gay Pride parade at the weekend.
The BBC reported: ‘With almost 50 official partners, ranging from airlines to mobile networks, and a list of over 60 supporters, companies are signing up to try to stamp out prejudice.’
Well, no, they are not trying to ‘stamp out prejudice’, BBC, they are simply trying to sell product. To do that, a bit of good old ‘virtue signalling’ will do the trick.
The inverted commas indicate that we have come to a strange place when supporting a group defined by vice is ‘virtue signalling’ in the first place. But clothing retailers such as Topshop are definitely adopting a ‘more progressive than thou’ stance.
London Gay Pride sponsored by Barclays and the Mayor
London Underground getting in on the act at Oxford Circus.
Costa coffee also went rainbow coloured. In addition to the opportunists on the street, the ‘Pride in London’ website indeed lists around fifty corporate sponsors of one kind and another.
London Underground is a sponsor, putting the six-coloured rainbow up at Oxford Circus with a slogan: ‘#LoveisLove’. Or five minutes in the bushes on Hampstead Heath.
Barclays Bank was joint ‘headline’ sponsor with the Mayor of London.
That’s devout Muslim Mr Khan. There is obviously a time and a place for Islam in a politician’s life.
Politicians other than the mayor of London jumped on the bandwagon. The London Evening Standard gleefully reported that the Houses of Parliament were lit up in rainbow colours. Well, after a fashion.
“The rainbow illumination of Parliament is our signal of support for sodomy,” said John Bercow, the Commons Speaker. Sorry to misquote him. Actually, he said: ‘.. of support for equality’.
Moreover, the Prime Minister flew the rainbow flag over 10 Downing Street. Thersa May put every true Christian, Othodox Jew, Muslim and for that matter every decent person in the realm, firmly in their place.
From protest to fashionable
Gay Pride has moved from protest to fashionable in forty years. However, not everyone in the gay sub-culture is happy. Peter Tatchell complained in the Guardian: ‘What began in 1972 as a protest for gay rights has now morphed into a commercialised, bureaucratic and rule-bound event, which too often reflects the wishes of the city authorities, not the LGBT community.’
The veteran campaigner went on to observe ‘a mere 26,500 people will be permitted to march. This is a fraction of the number who would march if it were a free and open event’.
Many might think 26,500 is more than enough dysfunctional people parading through our capital city. But when Gay Pride becomes as much a part of the calendar as Christmas, we need to take notice and start praying very hard for our nation to repent. And keep our passports up to date just in case the mind of God is for judgment on the UK, rather than for mercy.
Conversion therapy ‘abusive’, says Jayne
Jayne Ozanne, enmeshed in defending the indefensible
Meanwhile, one Jayne Ozanne, speaking at a weekend event in York, condemned so-called conversion therapy. This is where people who wish to be free of same-sex attraction seek psychiatric help. She said:
“Conversion therapy is condemned by professionals as being harmful to LGBT people as it is based on a misguided belief that being lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender is wrong. This leads to increased mental health problems for LGBT community due to stigmatization.”
No, that’s not a ‘misguided belief’, Jayne, that is the plain teaching of scripture:
Gen 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. Gen 2:24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
Lev 18:22 Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.
Mar 10:6 (Jesus said) But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female. 7 For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife; 8 And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh.
And being ‘one flesh’, in that full wonderful God-given spiritual, emotional and physical sense, is something a pair of gays, or two lesbians, can never do. Moreover, the ‘increased mental health problems’ are from gays and lesbians knowing what they are doing is plain wrong. If it were from ‘stigmatization’, mental health problems for LGBT’s would be diminishing with greater media-driven acceptance. They aren’t. It isn’t.
Postscript
Just why is transgenderism an even greater assault on the Gospel than homosexuality? Click here to read about the Canadian baby whose mother (sorry, ‘parent’) insists she (sorry, ‘they’) has no gender.
The Lord used Christian Voice as four children wrongly taken into care by the London Borough of Bexley finally went home.
Four children wrongly taken into care by the London Borough of Bexley have finally gone home.
Four children from a family rent apart by false allegations two years ago have finally gone home.
In early March 2017 Judge Diane Redgrave approved an agreement worked out between counsel for the parents, Hilary Pollock, and the London Borough of Bexley. Bexley returned the children to their parents on 29th March.
The Lord’s hand at work
The Lord’s hand was all over the case. He arranged for Christian solicitor Michael Phillips to instruct Miss Pollock. That proved inspired (of course) as the experienced family court barrister gained the agreement of Bexley to everything beneficial to the parents.
But after the March hearing, Miss Pollock shared with this author that Bexley never expected the parents to get through the process. Nor did they expect overnight stays in the family home organised for the children at Christmas 2016 and New Year 2017 to go as well as they did.
Accordingly, from the threat of a contested hearing, where Bexley would have continued to oppose the children going home, the council changed their mind a week before the date. Behind the scenes, the setting up of a new ‘Back Together Team’ in the Borough in late 2016 possibly had something to do with that.
Bexley took children into care after false allegation
The family’s nightmare started in June 2015. Their eldest boy, in his mid-teens, ran off after being caught out in a lie about his whereabouts.
Upon being picked up by the police, he reported his parents for child cruelty. All four children were instantly taken into care. The parents were charged and sent to the Crown Court. The only corroborating evidence was that of a doctor who saw a photo of a mark on the eldest boy’s body.
Her Honour Judge Diane Redgrave
He thought it could have been made by a metal implement. However, he never examined the boy himself, and none of the other children made any similar accusation. Moreover, the police found nothing resembling such an alleged item in the family’s home.
Bexley social worker Judy Simon even contacted the mother’s place of work, a care home. The call resulted in her being laid off. Secondly, Miss Simon accused the father to his employers, British Transport Police. He was dismissed last year in another miscarriage of justice. He is currently appealing that dismissal.
Judge Redgrave gave the astonishing advice to the parents to plead guilty in the Crown Court. She said this would help them have their children returned. That may have been correct. If so, it raises yet more questions about the system. Nevertheless, father and mother stuck to their guns and maintained their innocence. On the eve of the Crown Court case their eldest son confirmed he had made it all up.
Despite that, the video is still there and has had over 96,000 views to date.
It must be said, in March this year Judge Redgrave could not have been more constructive. Discharging the Care Order, she congratulated the parents, saying they had ‘worked very hard’. She also suggested activities to keep the eldest son occupied. He was ‘Not the only teenager in the world’ to get into trouble, she said.
Prayer answered
Christian Voice members prayed hard for this family and against the injustice they suffered. The father says: ‘Every day I see the smile and joy on my children’s faces I pray for those that helped me be a complete family man again. My children too pray for them when we all have our family prayers together. Help me to say a big thank you to them all.’
If you prayed into this case, consider yourself thanked!
Canterbury Civil Court heard the case of contempt of court against Uegene Lukjanenko
Canterbury Civil Court heard the case of contempt of court against Eugene Lukjanenko
A father in dispute with Medway Council narrowly escaped jail for contempt of court in Canterbury County Court last week for the second time in six months.
Eugene Lukjanenko was charged with five breaches of an order made on 30th September 2015. The Order prohibited him from naming employees or ex-employees of the Council online.
To his credit, said Judge Richard Scarratt, he freely admitted the breaches. But His Honour rejected Mr Lukjanenko’s argument that his conduct was reasonable. Judge Scarratt sentenced him to 56 days in prison, suspended for a year.
The judge said: ‘The local authority may feel that is soft’. Nevertheless, His Honour had taken into account that if he imposed an immediate custodial term, Mr Lukjanenko ‘will be a martyr to his cause, a cause which in my judgment has no substance whatever’.
Previous contempt of court sentence ‘stemmed the flow’
In January, the same judge imposed the same sentence on the same defendant for naming his son online in breach of a High Court Reporting Restrictions Order. But yesterday, he said that had ‘stemmed the flow’ of the prohibited information. He said he hoped the same would happen this time.
His Honour Judge Richard Scarratt
The Order, made in the family court, forbad Eugene Lukjanenko from displaying the Names, Contact Details or photographs of any Medway Council employee any where.
How such an obvious infringement of his Article 10 right to Freedom of Expression came to be made was never explained at the hearing. The judge was solely concerned with Medway’s heavy-handed application to commit Mr Lukjanenko to prison.
Moreover, we are going to commend Judge Scarratt for his patience. He was dealing with an understandably upset father. The father’s first language is Russian. He continually wanted to raise what he sees as previous unjust treatment in the family courts and by Medway. He may have a point. There is little evidence the Council tried to keep this family together. And that is what we all think social workers should be doing, except in the most extreme cases of abuse or neglect.
Did he breach the Order?
The Crown Prosecution Service looked at the case under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 and decided there was no case. That should raise a question about double jeopardy. In a convoluted bit of reasoning, barrister Edward Elliott, appearing for the Council, submitted that the CPS only considered one aspect of the case. Moreover, since they took no action, there was no double jeopardy in any case. This court could try the case, a point which Judge Scarratt was happy to accept.
Mr Elliott said: ‘This is not the criminal court’. So it was not about whether the conduct actually amounted to harassment. All the mattered was ‘did he breach the order?’
And of that there was little doubt. Mr Lukjanenko put the names of three social workers with their contact details (where those were in the pubic domain) on his Facebook timeline quite a while ago.
No compromise
The defendant before a similar case in January. Face obscured
The court heard that over the lunch break Mr Lukjanenko discussed the possibility of a compromise with Medway. This fell down when the Council refused to increase contact with his son. Nor would they bring forward a meeting scheduled for September to reconsider the frequency of contact. That seems mean-minded.
But the judge said the two issues, contact and the breaches of the order, could not be linked. Judge Scarratt actually heard the case in the family court. But this was not now the family court, he said. This was a civil court hearing for contempt of court in public.
However, in an extraordinary development, the court heard that Mr Lukjanenko produced a letter in the interval.
In the letter, signed by his son, the son said he wanted to come home. Mr Lukjanenko drafted it and gave it to his son to read and sign in his last meeting at the local authority contact centre. Although these were not family court proceedings, the judge was aghast. ‘Was not the contact supervised? How did that happen?’ he demanded.
Contact centres are intended to be heavily policed by social workers. Parents are not even supposed to tell their children they love them or that they are fighting to get them home. They may certainly not pass pieces of paper to them.
Reporting Restrictions
At the end of the hearing, this author drew Judge Scarratt’s attention to a Reporting Restrictions Order in the family court which forbids the media from naming the father or the son in any report on the case. However, ours is not a jurisdiction that quietly locks people up. If someone faces prison, the hearing must be advertised and the person named. Court Practice Direction, CCR (County Court Rules) 29 on Committal Applications applies. Rule 29.9 says:
9. A committal application should normally be heard in public (see CPR rule 39.2), but if it is heard in private and the court finds the respondent guilty of contempt of court, the judge shall, when next sitting in public, state –
(1) the name of the respondent;
(2) in general terms the nature of the contempt or contempts found proved; and
(3) the penalty (if any) imposed.
Edward Elliott is involved in another contempt of court case brought by Medway Council
Judge Scarratt had to comply with the end of rule 29.9 as he was already sitting in open court. His Honour accordingly ruled we could identify the father by his full name. We are actually reluctant to do so, but the interests of justice require it. The onus is on a local authority pursuing a parent to prison to be aware they are enabling the identification of parents. They normally strive very hard to avoid that. We can only hope this does not lead to identification of the child in the case.
Medway Council pursuing another parent
Eugene Lukjanenko is not the only parent Medway Council are pursuing. We understand they are after a mother, who at the moment we shall refer to as SR. SR has published details about her case on social media. She sees a miscarriage of justice towards her and her children who are now, as we understand it, of majority age anyway.
Curiously, Edward Elliott, Medway’s barrister, boasts on his chambers page about his involvement in committal proceedings against SR for contempt of court. The mother’s case will be heard in July and we shall be there, God willing, to report on the case.
This protest at Edward Timpson's home in May, led to a manifesto commitment on reform of the family courts
This protest at Edward Timpson’s home in May led to a manifesto commitment on reform of the family courts
The Conservative Party promised reform of the family courts in their manifesto following a rooftop protest.
It is of course open to argument whether the manifesto commitment was a response to the protest at the home of Edward Timpson. Mr Timpson was Minister of State for Vulnerable Children and Familiesin the previous government. It follows he had responsibility for social services, child protection and to some extent the operation of the family courts.
Protest
The protest, on 8th May, was carried out by an aggrieved father who has fought a long campaign to be reunited with his son.
Medway Council asked a court to jail ‘EL’ for contempt after he posted a picture of his in-care son online. Instead circuit Judge Richard Scarratt imposed a suspended sentence.
HIs Honour instructed this author that we may only refer to the father as ‘EL’ and the son as ‘J’.
That is because of secrecy rules the family court employs to protect the reputation of the courts and local authorities.
Theresa May published her manifesto ten days after the protest, on 18th May. In it, she said:
‘Protecting vulnerable children and families’.
‘Placing a child under the oversight of social services and taking a child into care are amongst the most serious duties the state may discharge.’
‘We will demand all local authorities be commissioners of the highest-quality family support and child protection services, removing these responsibilities from the weakest councils and placing them in trust.
‘Finally, we shall explore ways to improve the family justice system. The family courts need to do more to support families, valuing the roles of mothers and fathers, while ensuring parents face up to their responsibilities.’
Moreover, the Tories were the only party to commit to any such reform. That in itself lends support to the view that the commitment was a direct result of EL’s rooftop protest.
Laura Smith is the new Labour MP for Crewe and Nantwich, winning by just 48 votes
Mrs Smith overturned a 3,620 majority. She won the seat by 48 votes.
Court appearances
The police placed the father involved on police bail pending a court charge in September. However, Medway Council are taking him to court again this Thursday 15th.
A judge will hear the case at Canterbury County Court. The Council seek to commit the father to prison for contempt of court this time after he named a social worker online. As it happens, he is perfectly entitled to do so under the law.
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The LGBT group designated Prince William as ‘straight ally of the year’. It appears the Prince was duped into supporting the homosexual activists’ Trojan horse of ‘anti-bullying’.
He has even appeared on the front cover of a homosexual magazine promoting the cause. Neither Prince William nor his advisors seem to have realised the anti-gay-bullying campaign is just another gay propaganda tool. The Bible says:
Proverbs 25:5 Take away the wicked from before the king, and his throne shall be established in righteousness.
Activists use anti-bullying in schools, to recruit vulnerable teenagers. Firstly they sucker schoolchildren into supporting the gay cause.
Secondly, if a child experiences any kind of homosexual attraction phase in adolescence, teachers and other authority figures encourage them to see themselves as possessing a ‘homosexual orientation’.
Sarah Garrett, promoter of the post-truth world
Sarah Garrett and twins with Linda Riley
Lesbian activist Sarah Garrett founded the British LGBT Awards through the Square Peg Media (SPM) group. She built up SPM from 2005 with her lesbian partner Linda Riley. Ms Riley remains as managing director.
Nevertheless, she nauseatingly refers to Ms Garrett as ‘my ex-wifey’. Sarah Garrett gave birth to twin daughters by a sperm donor in 2007, when she was ‘with’ Ms Riley. Two women can now be named on a birth certificate. Welcome to the post-truth world.
Mark 10:6 But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female.
As well as the LGBT awards, SPM also started something called ‘Alternative Parenting Week’. Naturally, the Queen made Ms Garrett a Member of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2017 New Years Honours List. We cannot be bothered to look it up, but the excuse was probably ‘Services to Diversity’. Sarah Garrett was no.36 on the Pride Power List at this time of writing. Linda Riley does not appear. Yes, Sir Ian McKellen is no.1 on the list and the ghastly God-hating Stephen Fry is no.2.
‘Progess on Equality’ means LGBT awards not needed
In a sign of the times, the National Westminster Bank is the major sponsor of the LGBT awards. The awards become the ‘NatWest British LGBT awards’. But if that makes you want to switch banks, Barclays and HSBC are also sponsors and Lloyds was slated for an award. The Independent newspaper is ‘media sponsor’.
Ruth Hunt of Stonewall
Psalm 14:3 They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
Sarah Garrett started up the LGBT Awards in 2015, when the Stonewall Awards closed down. Stonewall is the UK’s major sodomy-promoting pressure group. Their awards were notorious for including a ‘Bigot of the Year’ category. This author was nominated for that category but disappointingly lost out to Melanie Phillips in 2011.
Why did Stonewall end the awards? Stonewall Chief Executive Ruth Hunt cited society’s ‘progress on equality’ since the awards were first launched in 2005. So did Stonewall drop the awards and Sarah Garrett just pick up the loose ball? Did Stonewall possibly agree for Ms Garrett to take over? Or did she just muscle in? We shall probably never know.
SPM will have agreed the award with the Prince’s office before he was nominated. It was a bad decision to link up with those trying to destroy the Christian faith and promote sodomy to schoolchildren:
2Samuel 23:3 The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spake to me, He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God.
Given that, it was a good call to stay away from the actual event. The ex-athlete and Kardashian associate Bruce Jenner won an award called ‘Loud and Proud’. Of course he won this posing as ‘transgender women’ ‘Caitlin Jenner’.
The gay anti-bullying propaganda campaign now has royal sanction. Consequently, Pastors and parents will need to be on even greater alert. What are the schools teaching your children? You need to find out.
Meanwhile, we can only pray the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will keep Prince George well away from the gay scene itself. But all their mixing with the ‘luvvies’ of the entertainment world at a time when the whole Establishment is promoting an anti-life lifestyle of disease, death and degradation will make that hard to do. Moreover, if his parents have totally lost their moral compass, the infant prince will be in real spiritual danger.
Deuteronomy 30:19 I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:
Psalm 11:3 If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?
The triple-lock matters to pensioners - and there are almost twelve million of them.
Theresa May has stated Britain will leave the EU’s Single Market. But she could easily lose the General Election.
As the political parties write their general election manifestos, one of them faces a particular challenge.
The Conservatives might think they have an unassailable lead, but they could easily snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. And that would put Brexit in peril.
NHI for the Self-Employed
Firstly., they would dearly like their manifesto to give them fiscal carte blanche. Their previous manifesto promised no rise in VAT, income tax or national health insurance (NHI) contributions. That may have been foolish, but it’s why Chancellor Philip Hammond came unstuck in March.
His March 2017 budget proposed to increase NHI for the self-employed. The Guardian found at least 18 Tory MPs prepared to vote that down. Hammond and Mrs May retreated.
But this time, if they take out the pledge, every Tory candidate will be signed up to the change. It follows they will be unable to object. But they may not have the opportunity. According to National Statistics, there are now over four and a half million self-employed in the UK. The trend shows not sign of slowing down. ONS say: ‘The level of self-employment in the UK increased from 3.8 million in 2008 to 4.6 million in 2015.’
The pensioners’ ‘triple-lock’
The triple-lock matters to pensioners – and there are almost twelve million of them.
Secondly, the Conservatives would love to abolish the so-called ‘triple-lock’ with this general election. The coalition government began this scheme in 2010. It increases the state pension each year by inflation, the increase in average earnings or 2.5%, whichever is the highest. Maintaining the triple lock until at least 2020 was another David Cameron 2015 manifesto commitment.
Labour have already pledged to maintain the triple-lock. If the Tories take it away, they could alienate every one of the UK’s 11.8 million pensioners in one go. Nearly one million over-75s live in poverty, according to the BBC. At April 2014, the basic state pension was around £440 a year more than it would have been if it had been increased only in line with the increase in average earnings. So it matters to people. Almost 2 million pensioners may live in a household with a millionaire, but if self-interest or altruism kick in, Mrs May could be in trouble.
So that is twelve million pensioners and four-and-a-half million self-employed. Fifteen million is a huge voting block to alienate. There are just 44.7 million electors in the UK, according to ONS. You do the maths. The Tories stand to lose the votes of over a third of the electorate. And these are people who actually vote. Lose them and they lose the general election.
LibDem leader Tim Farron is chief of the ‘Remoaners’
The Brexit dimension
The LibDems want to remain in the EU, or at least in the Single Market and Customs Union, which amounts to the same thing. Their leader, Tim Farron, is also promising a second referendum.
Labour’s shadow Brexit secretary Keir Starmer said today that his party would scrap Theresa May’s Brexit plans. Labour would unilaterally guarantee the rights of EU residents to stay before talks even start. Furthermore, he said the EU single market should be kept ‘on the table’.
Frankly, a general election yielding a Conservative majority is the only way of guaranteeing a full, proper, clean exit from the revived Roman Empire. Without putting trust in princes, Mrs May looks like she could achieve that. More EU jobs are dependent on the UK market than vice versa, but even World Trade Organisation tariffs are not actually that high across most sectors. Trade deals are good for trade, but companies manage to trade with foreign partners without them. There is no EU trade agreement with China, for example.
Pray for the General Election
Ben Gummer MP is writing the Conservative’s General election manifesto. If ever a man needed wisdom…
They may not realise that there is a massive spiritual battle going on over Brexit right now. Behind every material reality is a spiritual reality and we are aware of that.
Pray the Tories do not alienate voters by abandoning the NHI pledge and the triple-lock. The Chancellor will have to wait. The most vital matter today is Brexit. If the Conservatives mess up the election and put Brexit in jeopardy there will be massive public anger.
Easter Message
We also need to pray that Theresa May takes this opportunity to make good her Easter message. She clearly said people in public service should be able to share their faith without risk of losing their job. But they are losing their jobs. So dispel accusations of hypocrisy by making that a manifesto pledge.
She also said the UK should be standing up for Christians overseas. So stand up for the Christians of Syria, and support the Syrian Government which is their only protector. Stand up also for persecuted Christians in Pakistan, Malaysia and Saudi Arabia, for example.
We should obviously like to see measures promised opposing the abortion industry and euthanasia. Reform of the family courts and the scandal of overbearing child protection is overdue. Crucially for the nation’s children, the Tory manifesto should stand against the fashionable transgender scam, especially in schools. That would cause outcry, but not fifteen million voters’ worth of outcry.
Finally, on foreign affairs, let us pray for a manifesto commitment of peace. Pray to have a Secretary of State for Defence, rather than – as we currently have – one for Provocation. Pray for a reset with Russia. Mrs May could pledge in this general election never again to destablise other nations. She could promise the UK will approach diplomacy with maturity. At the moment, Boris Johnson and Sir Michael Fallon seem like a couple of adolescent stags trying to prove their virility. The anti-Russia rhetoric is ludicrous and embarrassing.
Be sure every lobby group will be doing the same. Not the praying bit, obviously.
And do also pray for the other parties. On some matters, their general election manifestos could at the very least change the parameters of debate. Labour and UKIP could be better disposed towards peace, for example. There are plainly other issues attracting attention in Scotland and Northern Ireland, and Wales to some extent. But if you live outside England, or even overseas, please spare some prayer time for the overall UK picture.
Deuteronomy 3:24 O Lord GOD, thou hast begun to shew thy servant thy greatness, and thy mighty hand: for what God is there in heaven or in earth, that can do according to thy works, and according to thy might?
1Samuel 12:23 Moreover as for me, God forbid that I should sin against the LORD in ceasing to pray for you: but I will teach you the good and the right way: 24 Only fear the LORD, and serve him in truth with all your heart: for consider how great things he hath done for you.
1Thess 5:17 Pray without ceasing.
1Tim 2:1 I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; 2 For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.
Theresa May has left herself wide open to criticisms of hypocrisy after this year’s (2017) Easter message. The Prime Minister said ‘Easter is a moment to reflect’. TEXT HERE
In that case let us just reflect how her actions and those of Her Majesty’s Government measure up to what she said. We can go further and measure the actions of Her Majesty’s Government against the principles of the Christian faith itself.
Firstly, let’s just applaud a Prime Minister who talks openly about faith, and her own faith. The days when Alastair Campbell said of Tony Blair’s administration ‘We don’t do God’ seem to be over.
Of course, I’ll sit up and notice when the first British politician says ‘our thoughts and prayers’ are with the victims of a disaster, rather than just ‘our thoughts.’ Nevertheless, the mere issuing of an Easter message declares the UK to be a Christian nation. Which indeed constitutionally we are.
Opportunities and challenges of Brexit
I recognise there are areas in which Theresa May’s Christian faith as expressed in the Easter message appears to be lived out in action. The enthusiasm with which she is leading the United Kingdom out of the European Union’s Revived Roman Empire is commendable. We must pray she sees it through. And she is being positive about it. That is fine. Mrs May also wants to keep the United Kingdom together. There is nothing wrong in that.
In case I am thought to be nationalist and ‘right-wing’, let’s just emphasise workers’ rights. The Bible is clear that workers need fair dealing from employers. Parliament will need to untangle Britiah law from EU regulatons. In so doing ministers must ensure employment rights in an independent Britain are not eroded.
The vulnerable in the heart of God
The Christian faith is clear about the place the most vulnerable have in the heart of God. Christ singled out the poor, the homeless, the destitute, the sick and the hungry. He emphasised the duty of Christian people to nourish and protect them. Should that be individuals, or the state stepping in?
At a practical level, the targets culture of the 1980s built on the expansion of the role of local authorities in the 1960s to the point where people now are paid to care, so anyone calling for more money from the state in response to any deficiencies in provision for Christ’s identified groups can make out a good argument.
The family
This baby at six weeks already has a beating heart.
The insttution of the family used to be a bulwark against too much power ending up in the hands of the state, but gay ‘rights’ and gay ‘marriage’, coupled with no-fault divorce on demand and a bit of laissez-faire condom-promoting sex education have put paid to that.
There are none more vulnerable today than the unborn. The womb is the most dangerous place to be in Great Britain today. Mrs May only voted for the age limit on abortion to come down to twenty weeks last time around. The House of Commons diagreed. It stayed at 24 weeks. But we now know from modern imaging that a baby’s heart is beating three weeks after conception. Neuroscience shows babies can feel pain certainly at 16 weeks and react to a stimulus as 8 weeks. So elective abortion is living on borrowed time.
But to be fair, Mrs May did not raise the matter of the vulnerable, or the importance of the family in her Easter message. She stuck to Easter-time, Brexit, shared values, the importance of Christian witness, sacrifice, the role of Christianity, religious tolerance, freedom of speech and the persecuted church.
So what of my three identified areas of hypocrisy.
Easter message: Freedom of Speech
Firstly, to Mrs May’s confidence ‘about the role that Christianity has to play in the lives of people in our country’. That was coupled in her Easter message with a stated determination to ‘treasure the strong tradition that we have in this country of religious tolerance and freedom of speech’. Furthermore, Mrs May pledged to ‘continue to ensure that people feel able to speak about their faith, and that absolutely includes their faith in Christ’.
Sarah Kuteh
Only last week, Sarah Kuteh was in front of an Employment Tribunal in Ashford, Kent. Sarah has been a nurse for 15 years. Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust sacked her last August (2016) for ‘gross misconduct’. What was her terrible offence? She discussed her faith with patients.
Now those in the National Secular Society would contend that sick people should be insulated from faith. That is precisely how NHS Trusts are acting. That is their clear policy.
‘Comfort and guidance’
But in her Easter message Mrs May implied this was not happening. She gave the clear impression she disagreed with such a policy. She spoke of Christians ‘providing comfort and guidance to many in our country at some of the most difficult moments in their lives’.
So why has she not already told her Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, to issue a directive to NHS Trusts to encourage Christian doctors and nurses to actively share their faith with patients and provide that ‘comfort and guidance’? Why, on her watch, are NHS managers sacking Christian staff?
For that matter, Christian open-air preachers are being hauled before the courts. Why has Amber Rudd, her Home Secretary, not sent a directive to police forces and public prosecutors to tell them to lay off Christian preachers and allow them to ‘speak about their faith’?
Someone who says one thing and does another is a hypocrite.
Embrace the World!
Secondly, the Prime Minister spoke in her Easter message of Christian values ‘of compassion, community, citizenship’. We are going to ‘embrace the world’. She might remember the Bible saying something about guiding our feet into the way of peace (Luke 1:79). Or perhaps castigating those whose ways are ‘destruction and misery’, those with no fear of God who do not know ‘the way of peace’ (Rom 3:16-18 cf Isa 59:7-8).
The Russian corvette ‘Boiky’
Yet our famously Christian PM re-appointed as Secretary of State for Defence a man lacking both the fear of God and the way of peace. In particular, Sir Michael Fallon insults, rather than embraces, that part of the world known as the Russian Federation.
His latest display of petulance was to send out a destroyer to shadow a couple of corvettes, named Soobrazitelny and Boiky, as they steamed through the English Channel from their Baltic port en route to the Mediterranean.
Fallon said: ‘HMS Sutherland is carefully marking these Russian ships as they pass close to UK waters. The Royal Navy maintains a vigilant watch and is always ready to keep Britain safe.’
No doubt it does and it is. But what was he suggesting? That Soobrazitelny was preparing to shell Dover, or Boiky to land an invasion force of marines on Bognor beach? Does he think we are all stupid?
Department for Provocation
A Christian administration would not pretend there are threats where none exist. Its ministers would not think the Ministry of Defence is really the Department for Provocation. They would not be talking up threats from another Christian nation to sell armaments. They would not make bellicose noises every time the ships of that nation pass through the busiest shipping lane in the world (which happens to be near our shores). There was no indication the French or Belgians burned diesel oil putting to sea. The Channel is international water.
In February, Her Majesty’s Secretary of State for Defence described the Russian aircraft-carrying cruiser Admiral Kuznetsov as a ‘ship of shame skulking through the Channel’. It was simply on its way home after helping the Syrian army liberate Aleppo. The defeat of the UK’s favoured and financed jihadists had irritated UK politicians. But why not be magnaminous? Why expose a petulant display of aggression and military impotence which diminished Her Majesty? It drew unwelcome attention to the fact that the UK does not even have an operational aircraft carrier.
To invoke the message of Easter while beating the drum of war is rank hypocrisy.
Persecuted Christians
Churches in Syria have been looted and damaged by jihadists
Thirdly, mention of Aleppo draws our attention to yet another hypocritcal section of Mrs May’s Easter message.
The Prime Minister said: ‘And we must do more to stand up for the freedom of people of all religions to practice their beliefs openly and in peace and safety.’
But the UK continues to support, politically and financially, Syrian Sunni Muslim jihadists whose reason for being is to murder or expel ‘people of all religions’ – except their own.
Speaking of alleged Christian freedom in the UK, Mrs May went on: ‘We must be mindful of Christians and religious minorities around the world who do not enjoy these same freedoms, but who practise their religion in secret and often in fear’.
So why not support Assad?
We should expect ‘being mindful’ to include some measure of support. So why in Syria does the UK not do everything it can to bolster the administraton of President Assad? After all, he has a track record of protecting ‘Christians and religious minorities’?
Instead, she is carrying on the policy of her predecessor of destabilising Syria. That nation had done nothing to us, yet we cheered with the Devil, who loves to destroy, as it was reduced to rubble. If Theresa May really believes ‘we must do more’ to stand up for Christians worldwide, she should order a complete turn-around on Syria, on the Foreign Office’s attitude to Russia, and on aggression against Christians worldwide.
Because right now, when Her Majesty’s Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, tells the Russians they are on the ‘wrong side of history’ by their alliance with Shia Iran and Syria, he himself is precisely wrong. It is the British Government’s support of Sunni Muslim jihadism and our alliance with Saudi Wahhabism which is on the wrong side.
Practising Christianity in fear
Theresa May with Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz al Saud (left)
Going further, Mrs May should be speaking to the Government of Malaysia, to that of Egypt and to the rulers of Saudi Arabia demanding freedom for Christians. In fact, she has only just come back from Saudi Arabia. Did she demand freedom for those ‘who practise their religion in secret and often in fear’? There are many secret Christians in Saudi Arabia, some in high places. Where is any evidence of Mrs May ‘doing more’ for them?
Come to that, when was Pakistan’s High Commissioner last summoned to a talking-to from the Foreign Secretary over his country’s failure to protect Christians from spurious blasphemy charges?
Mrs May is playing mere lip-service to persecuted Christians. She is doing nothing to help them. Homosexuals are more welcome in the UK than refugee Christians. Tragically, for her, trade deals and selling arms are more important. That is yet more hypocrisy.
Three major areas raised by Mrs May in her Easter message from her Christian faith. Three glaring examples of hypocrisy. How Her Majesty’s Government needs our prayer.
Pressure to legalise abortion is growing world-wide, thanks to international funding led by financier George Soros, Christian Voice has discovered.
The billionaire is behind moves to repeal a pro-life constitutional amendment in the Republic of Ireland. He is almost certainly also involved with a Dutch abortion boat run by the ‘Women on Waves’ group.
A Guatemalan guard faces members of Women on Waves (Reuters)
Today, news broke that police in Guatemala have blocked a yacht offering abortion pills. Accordingly, Women on Waves, run by Dutch national Rebecca Gomperts, may not disembark the vessel. Police are also preventing anyone boarding. President Jimmy Morales deployed the army. A spokesman said it would defend “human life and the laws of our country” by preventing the group from carrying out abortions.
Reuters reports that the abortifacient dispensed ‘combines two medicines, mifepristone and misoprostol’. The news agency said: ‘It is more than 90 percent effective for women up to 10 weeks pregnant’.
The boat takes women out to international waters to administer the drug. It only docks in countries where abortion is illegal. But it is as much a publicity stunt as a ‘pro-choice’ facility.
Where does the money come from?
Women on Waves is coy about where the money comes from. Nevertheless, this document from a court dispute gives some details. It says Women on Waves ‘has received grants from organizations including the Global Fund for Women (United States), the Mondrian Foundation (Netherlands), and the Mama Cash Foundation (Netherlands)’.
The cabin of the Women on Waves yacht (Reuters)
To add to the mix, the Dutch humanist HIVOS group gave money towards a film about Women on Waves. Mama Cash, a source of money for anti-Christian projects worldwide, was also listed. The Soros Open Society says it provides joint funding with HIVOS. Where you find HIVOS you will usually find Soros. The world of antichrist funding groups is highly incestuous.
Meanwhile, abortionists are agitating in Ireland. The Republic passed the pro-life ‘Eighth Amendment’ of the Constitution of Ireland in 1983 by a two to one majority. The Amendment gives explicit recognition to the right to life of an unborn child. Accordingly, it effectively introduced a constitutional ban on abortion.
Strike4Repeal activists have similarities to previous Soros initiatives
But there is pressure to repeal the Amendment. Activists feel emboldened by the Republic’s vote to allow ‘gay marriage’ in 2015. They believe the times they are a-changing enough to secure a majority to scrap ‘the Eighth’. Nevertheless, there is hostility to them. Strangely enough, an LGBT group is among their opponents.
As part of the campaign, a group of girls who do not appear to have done much work are calling for a ‘strike of women.’No doubt the mainstream media will give ‘Strike4Repeal‘ huge publicity on 8th March 2017.
But who is funding Strike4Repeal? LifeSiteNews reports: Soros’ New York City-based Open Foundations document focuses on repealing the pro-life Eighth Amendment’. Consequently, he will give ‘heavy funding for the Abortion Rights Campaign, Amnesty International Ireland, and the Irish Family Planning Association. Above all, Soros intends they will “work collectively on a campaign to repeal Ireland’s (Eighth) constitutional amendment.”
Soros fingerprints
Billionaire financier George Soros
But does Strike4Repeal receive Soros money? Firstly, any group like that needs money to carry out its campaign. Secondly, there are parallels between the modus operandi of Strike4Repeal and previous Soros agitations. He funded Pussy Riot and Femen who adopt similar poses (albeit bare-breasted in the case of Femen) and shock tactics. He was behind protests against Donald Trump’s inauguration. Thirdly, a Soros’ foundations document says ‘legalization of same-sex “marriage” presents “valuable and timely opportunities to advance the (pro-abortion) campaign.”’ Fourthly, it just has Soros fingerprints all over it.
One thing we can be certain of. Pro-abortion movements, like pro-sodomy ngos, do not spring up in countries out of the blue. They are rarely indigenous. There is always money from external affluent western ‘philanthropists’ behind them. If it is not Soros it is Hivos, or Mama Cash. If not them, Ford Foundation or Gates Foundation step in. Or Carnegie. Or the Rockefeller or Tides Foundaton. Similarly, the Atlantic Philanthropies may contribute. Or the Gulbenkian Foundation.
Prayer points
Please pray at this time particularly for Guatemala and the Republic of Ireland to stand firm against the abortionist assault. The Bible says: Proverbs 16:12 It is an abomination to kings to commit wickedness: for the throne is established by righteousness.
We read that only Christ will bring in perfect government, but that does not mean earthly governments should not try to rule by God’s standards: Hebrews 1:8 But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom.
As to the antichrist NGOs, the Bible says: Proverbs 25:5 Take away the wicked from before the king, and his throne shall be established in righteousness.
The Bible says of king Ahaz: 2Chr 28:3 Moreover he burnt incense in the valley of the son of Hinnom, and burnt his children in the fire, after the abominations of the heathen whom the LORD had cast out before the children of Israel.
The passage is speaking about child sacrifice. Abortion is our modern version of it. Many nations including Great Britain are now polluted because of this shedding of innocent blood. Israel did the same, as the Psalmist declares: Psalm 106:38 And shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and of their daughters, whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan: and the land was polluted with blood. So pray also for repentance in those nations who have legalised this abomination, for the slaughter to stop.
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Firstly, the ‘No to Racism’ placards are from ‘Stand up to Racism’. That is a Socialist Workers’ Party offshoot.
It was formed when the SWP brand went toxic in 2013 after two women accused a senior member of rape.
As the Guardian reports, ‘Weyman Bennett, one of two co-conveners of Stand Up to Racism, … is a longstanding member of the SWP’. For the record, the other, Sabby Dhalu, apparently comes from the National Assembly Against Racism, an organisation associated with the Trotskyist Social Action.
Well, you might expect those two to be opposed to the policies of Donald Trump. And anyone vaguely to the right of Leon Trotsky, to be frank.
Why have Stop the War joined?
Stop the War cannot see that Trump is a man of peace. It’s Hillary they should have worried about.
Stop the War’s articles are highly critical of President Obama’s pro-war policies, US and UK destabilisation of Iraq, Libya and Syria and NATO sabre-rattling in Europe. Look at this article on the Christian Voice website in which we deplored the NATO build-up and celebrated the 2013 vote in the UK Parliament which stopped airstrikes against President Assad’s forces. Now look at this one on the same subject on Stop the War. You will not find a hair’s breadth of difference between them.
So why are we in this ministry praising God for President Trump’s election and his ‘America-first’ inauguration speech? Because he says he is going to seek peace with Russia and stop interfering (let alone starting wars) in other sovereign states.
If Hillary Clinton had been elected, she would have given the green light to every war-mongering hawk, neo-con and interventionist in both the Pentagon and the US State Department. She was the WW3 candidiate, Trump is the man of peace. Why do Stop the War not get that? Stay with us! All will be revealed.
Militant ‘wimmin’ on the women’s march
Feminists on the ‘women’s march”
OK, others on the ‘women’s march’ are just die-hard feminists, and they do have a point. You would expect Donald Trump not to subscribe to the feminist dogma that men and women are from competing tribes, continually squabbling over the division of a cake of a given size.
But Stop the War marching against someone patently anti-war? Why? Because they are ‘for Palestine’ and ‘against Islamophobia’, that’s why. Stop the War is hopelessly pro-Muslim. They have a disgraceful article on their website claiming the inhabitants of Mosul actually welcomed the Islamic State takeover in 2014. They do not even agree with fighting Islamic State or Muslim terrorists.
So that is why they hate an American President whose only pledge on military action is to destroy Islamic State. And on that note, Stop the War, we’ll have to differ.
Micah 4:3 And he shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong nations afar off; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
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‘EL’ outside the court. Face obscured because Family Court rules forbid the identification of children or parents.
A father fighting a local authority in the family court narrowly escaped jail for contempt of court yesterday.
We may only identify him as ‘EL’ and his fourteen-year-old son as ‘J’ on instruction from Judge Richard Scarratt, pursuant to rules designed to protect the secrecy of the family courts.
[At the time of writiing, we were not aware we could name the father under rules covering ‘committal proceedings’ (sending people to prison) in the civil courts. But we shall not correct it. The article stands.]
Father posted notes and pictures
The judge said EL posted notes, an image and the name of his son, identifying him as a child in care.
He also had a picture of himself and his son on Twitter and has posted tweets identifying ‘ J’ and his school. Another post identified a contact centre and its manager.
These activities contravened a reporting restrictions order in the case made by Mrs Justice Theis in September 2015.
MarkChaloner – represented Medway Council but acted decently throughout.
It was never stated in evidence or in the submissions of Mark Chaloner, barrister for Medway Council, precisely how any member of the public could actually identify the son from this information. Nevertheless, Judge Scarratt decided the case was proven.
Local authorities fear the light
But His Honour criticised Medway Council for seeking (in vain) to have the case heard in private. ‘Only in rare cases should committal proceedings be heard behind closed doors and this is not one of them’, said Judge Scarratt.
EL’s supporters were consequently in court. Many of them were also parents of children unjustly, they told this reporter, in the care of local authorities.
Attempts such as that by Medway Council to hold the case in private only strengthen the public’s view that local authorities are ashamed of what they do in the family court.
Suspended sentence in family court
His Honour Judge Richard Scarratt
When it came to sentencing, His Honour was clearly conscious that if he sent EL to prison it would hand the father a publicity coup. A fine would also run of the risk of non-payment and consequent committal. So he handed down a suspended sentence of 56 days and told EL to behave himself for a year.
EL and J are only allowed to meet for a couple of hours four times a year, in the ‘contact centre’. The father says Medway Council have not always kept to that ‘care plan’. Mr Chaloner, who acted decently throughout, undertook to make sure Medway would arrange a meeting this month. Judge Scarratt demanded a report next month on that matter.
Father’s campaign will continue
EL is clearly not going to let things rest. He set up a new protest on the steps of Canterbury Combined Court immediately after the hearing. His campaign will continue, he told this reporter, until his son is returned.
Jer 22:3 Thus saith the LORD; Execute ye judgment and righteousness, and deliver the spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor: and do no wrong, do no violence to the stranger, the fatherless, nor the widow, neither shed innocent blood in this place.
1John 3:10 In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother.
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Protestors support ‘EL’ outside Canterbury Family Court. He is fighting Medway Council for return of his son ‘J’.
Medway Council is asking a court to jail a father for contempt of court after he posted a picture of his in-care son online.
Medway Council took son into care
Canterbury Family Court heard the father, a concert pianist, had breached an order made by Mrs Justice Theis in 2015 banning him, or anyone, from doing anything which might identify his son.
The son, who also plays the piano, is being fostered after being taken into care – for the second time – by Medway Council.
Circuit Judge Richard Scarratt instructed this author that we may only refer to the father as ‘EL’ and the son as ‘J’.
That is because of secrecy rules the family court employs to protect the reputation of the courts and local authorities.
Barrister Mark Chaloner, a Southampton local Councillor who is representing Medway, refused to tell me why the boy was in care. That may be because he was busy. But a woman who appeared to be briefing him refused to give her name, perhaps because the grounds for keeping ‘J’ in care appear very thin.
Medway Council allowed boy to play Breivik’s violent video game
Medway Council allowed ‘J’ to play a video game which inspired Norwegian neo-Nazi killer Anders Breivik
‘J’ was taken into care for the first time in 2010. His father, who is a single parent, left his son, 8 or 9 at the time, home alone. ‘J’ got into some trouble with a neighbour’s son. Rather than warn ‘EL’ not to leave his son alone again, Medway Council took the boy away.
The father told this ministry that when his son came out of care, the effects of the emotional harm inflicted on him by the council became apparent in increasingly violent behaviour.
Mistakes made in asking for help and complaining
Canterbury Combined Courts
In 2014 there was a bout of extreme behaviour from ‘J’. ‘EL’ made the mistake of dialing 999 to ask for for help from paramedics. Ambulance staff attended with police and naturally, social services again became involved. There were lurid stories in the press of the boy ‘cowering under a piano’.
These stories, put about by the local authority, made it appear as if the son was hiding from his father. In reality, says the father, he was trying to hide from the police and social services.
‘EL’ then made a second mistake. He complained about Medway Council. Many parents report the system ‘biting back’ when they complain. The Council promptly commissioned one Melanie Gill to provide a psychologist’s report on the father. In this ministry’s experience, a case in the family court is never complete without a psychiatric report on the parents.
New Jewish mental condition
Melanie Gill, inventor of ‘Inherited Holocaust Trauma’
Miss Gill’s website claims she specialises ‘in developmental trauma, attachment science, schema theory, family dynamics, mental health and child and adult forensic assessment’.
EL’s 84-year-old father happens to have survived the Jewish ghetto in Vinnytsa in Ukraine during WW2.
Although conditions were appalling in the ghetto, the Nazis did not separate families as in the concentration camps and EL’s father remained with his father and mother.
Out of this, Melanie Gill dreamed up a previously unheard-of condition. She decided EL was suffering from ‘inherited holocaust trauma’.
Because of this imaginary genetic condition, which must affect a huge number of Jewish people, EL was found unfit to care for his son until he had therapy, which no reputable psychiatrist would provide.
The anti-Semitic stance of Medway Council was further in evidence when their social workers refused to allow ‘J’ to attend a Passover (Pesach) celebration with his father.
Care Plan ‘not honoured’ by Medway Council
Some of the Christmas Cards which Medway Council refused to deliver to ‘J’
A care plan allows ‘EL’ to see ‘J’ in a ‘contact centre’ four times a year, although he says Medway do not honour this committment. Father and son are forbidden to speak in their native language and when ‘EL’ tried to pass a copy of the Human Rights Act to ‘J’ the social workers objected, saying it was not in ‘J’s’ ‘best interests’ to know his human rights.
‘EL’ also says:
* Medway refused to deliver Christmas presents to his son,
* They refused to pass on Christmas cards from family and friends,
* They even refused to allow ‘J’ to take a phone call from his grandfather,
* Medway refuse to accept that keeping ‘J’ in care is doing him any harm.
The court heard from Ann Domeney, Deputy Director of Social Care at Medway. She told the court she had seen a Facebook page and some Twitter feed of photographs and other details of ‘J’ and ‘EL’ together and the name of a contact centre and its manager.
Social Care Deputy Ann Domeney runs a sideline offering management consultancy to her previous local authority employers.
Is it likely?
Judge Scarratt can only find ‘EL’ in contempt of court if what he has published ‘is likely directly or indirectly to lead to the identification of the child’. Under cross examination from ‘EL’, who represented himself, neither Ann Domeney not Mr Chaloner’s second witness, contact centre boss Sarah Cahill, could think of anyone in the general public who had identified ‘J’ from the information he posted. The likelihood appears slim.
Judge Scarratt will pass judgment today. If he finds ‘EL’ guilty of contempt of court he will then pass sentence on him. That could range from a conditional discharge to imprisonment. The maximum sentence is two years.
Post-Script
As a post-script, it appears Ann Domeney previously worked for the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead. She has now set up a very lucrative little business, ‘A D Children’s Services Ltd‘ supplying that council with ‘management consultancy’.
His Honour Judge Scarratt has been criticised and his judgments set aside on at least two occasions in the Court of Appeal for siding with local authorities rather than giving due weight to the evidence of parents. His Honour, ‘Dickie’ to his friends, has also been up an African mountain fundraising for a charity, of which his wife is a trustee, which provides children’s home places to local authorities. But more about all that after the verdict, expected today.
Have you been affected by Family Court injustice?
If you have been affected by injustice in the family courts, we should like to hear from you. In particular, if you are a young adult who was wrongfully taken into care and your right to a family life was thereby disrupted, you may have a cause for legal action against the local authority. Contact us at info@christianvoice.org.uk
Psalm 72:4 He shall judge the poor of the people, he shall save the children of the needy, and shall break in pieces the oppressor.
Malachi 4:6 And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.
Luke 17:1 Then said he unto the disciples, It is impossible but that offences will come: but woe unto him, through whom they come! 2 It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones.
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Dr Kenneth Zucker was fired for rejecting the fasionable ‘gender affirmation’ approach.
Fifteen years ago it was middle-aged men, very often fathers, deciding they should have been women all along, who formed the backbone of the miniscule transgender movement. They were so few, and so off-the-wall, they were a mere add-on to the homosexual network. Even bisexuals took precedence among ‘LGBT’ activists.
But now the focus has shifted to the school. Four year-olds are coming out with the ‘trapped in the wrong body’ mantra. Last night (12th January 2017), a BBC2 documentary explored the culture war between the ‘gender affirmative’ mainstream and the traditionalist dissidents. The iplayer version of ‘Transgender kids who knows best‘ is available for 29 days.
Gender Affirmative
‘Gender affirmative’ blindly accepts what the child is saying. It objects to any idea of a psychological or emotional root to the child’s gender dysphoria. It objects to there being any parallel dysfunction in the child’s mind. It allows the child to progess to hormone treatment which blocks the onset of puberty and from thence to full hormone treatment and ‘sex reassignment’ surgery, which is irreversible.
Ontario MPP Cheri di Novo
Crucially, ‘gender affirmative’ holds the levers of power in the UK and in Canada, the focus of the documentary.
But the film also gave a welcome platform to Dr Kenneth Zucker. He ran Toronto’s Child Gender Clinic for thirty years and helped many children accept their God-given biological gender. In the documentary he said a “whole range of psychological issues can manifest themselves in a child’s desire to change their gender”. Dr Zucker said a majority of the children he had treated also had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or were on the autism spectrum, or had other psychological problems. One girl he treated had seen her mother murdered and began to think if she had been a boy she could have prevented it. So she then hated being a girl.
Female-to-male transsexual and psychoanalyst Hershel Russell. The whiskers are the result of all the male hormones she had to take.
There was a heartbreaking moment when a girl described how she had undergone a double mastectomy as part of gender reassignment surgery before realising she wanted to remain as a woman.
A creepy activist, female-to-male transsexual and psychotherapist called Hershel Russel made light of the case. ‘There are very few,’ she said.
Furious transgender activists
Activists were furious, according to the Guardian. Susie Green own son wanted to be a girl. She is now chief executive officer of the ‘trans’ agitators Mermaids Foundation. She told the paper: “We’ve had real concern that this is going to cause them to be targeted, because it supports this idea of trans children being mentally disturbed or that they can be cured. Parents are very afraid.”
But parents outside activist groups are relieved someone is sticking up for them. There was an uplifting story in the documentary of a family who resisted their daughter’s claims that she was a boy. They attended Dr Zucker’s clinic. Showing her she could play ball games and take part in rough sports transformed her life. She is now a happy adolescent girl.
In 2015 Dr Zucker was sacked and his clinic closed when his approach fell foul of the spirit of the age. His work was “not in step with the latest thinking”. the BBC defended his inclusion in the programme. They said: ‘He believes he was fired for challenging the gender affirmative approach.’ Five hundred of his colleagues signed a letter supporting him.
‘Trans’ activists on the march
At the very end of the programme, ‘Warner’, a small boy dressing up as girl with the full approval of his misguided parents, said he thought there were ‘a couple of pieces missing’ in his brain.
But surely our whole society is now a few sandwiches short of a picnic. We sack doctors trying to help young people. We browbeat parents into ‘gender affirmation’. We allow adult activists to impose damaging hormone treatments designed to block puberty on children who know no better. We allow surgeons to mutilate bodies and physicians to interfere with young people’s biochemistry. And we do all this because it is politically correct.
Have you been on the receiving end?
Be watchful. Gender affirmation is coming to a school, a church or a family near you.
If you have a story to tell about how ‘gender affirmation’ messed up your life, or how you overcame it, please get in touch.
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Three children taken into care by Walsall Metropolitan Borough Council on the strength of a false allegation of sexual abuse were returned home yesterday.
A High Court hearing later this month will rubber-stamp the decision.
This wonderful result is a massive answer to the prayers of our members.
We have been following and reporting on the case all through this year, and the Lord has used our intervention finally to bring justice.
When this author turned up to cover the case in the family court in February of this year, the judge and the advocates ran around like scalded cats. The judge granted the local authority an astonishing six-week adjournment to consider their position in the light of a journalist turning up. It was that initial six-week delay for Walsall to consider its position that led inexorably to the criminal case finally catching up with the civil case and justice being done. Delay followed delay as the hand of the Lord was heavily on the whole matter.
It is humbling to realise that if I had not turned up that day an adoption order for the children would have been made earlier this year. But my intervention was merely one of the things the Lord used.
So all praise and glory goes to him. Join us in thanksgiving to our mighty God!
Isaiah 56:1 Thus saith the LORD, Keep ye judgment, and do justice: for my salvation is near to come, and my righteousness to be revealed.
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Richard Hadley, Counsel for Walsall, will look at the whole case again.
Richard Hadley, Counsel for Walsall, will look at the whole case again.
P.S. (26th October 2016): Walsall’s barrister, Mr Richard Hadley, today undertook to complete his examination of all the evidence by next week. He gave Mr Justice Keehan, sitting in the High Court in Nottingham, the clearest possible indication that he expects there to be no case of abuse to answer.
In that event, he said Walsall would withdraw its application for adoption and long-term fostering orders for the children and return them to their parents, even before the further, and it may the final, hearing listed for 18th November.
So we apologise for suggesting below that Mr Hadley was dithering. He just did not have all the information. It does remain however that every day a child remains without justification in the ‘care’ of a local authority is a day of state-inflicted emotional harm too long.
Original article continues below:
A local authority is dithering over whether three children in its care can return home. Walsall Council’s barrister, one Mr Richard Hadley, has not found time to re-examine the case a full five weeks after undertaking to do so.
Meanwhile, the children continue to suffer the emotional harm of remaining in foster care.
The family were torn apart last year by allegations of sexual assault made by a small girl who had been staying with them. The family’s younger children were taken into care, where they remain to this day.
Meanwhile, their two eldest sons were charged with a number of sexual offences. But in their trial, held in August, it emerged the girl concerned had been watching pornography with a twelve-year-old girl next door to her father’s house. Her story was self-contradictory, medical evidence did not support her allegations of rape and forensic evidence did not assist.
Some charges were dropped and the two were acquitted of the rest.
At the next family court hearing on 14th September, Walsall’s barrister, Mr Richard Hadley of Birmingham’s No5 Chambers, admitted the council did not know that the girl had been corrupted in that way. The Council’s social worker had also misrepresented whatever evidence the council did have to the family court and denounced the children as abusers.
Michael Phillips represents the father and was defence solicitor for his sons.
After a meeting with the defence solicitor from the criminal case, Mr Michael Phillips, now representing the father in the family court, the local authority’s barrister, Richard Hadley, undertook to re-examine the whole case.
But at a hearing yesterday in front of a high court judge, The Hon Mr Justice Michael Keehan QC sitting in Nottingham, Mr Hadley had to admit he had not looked at the evidence. He said he was still waiting for some to come from the police that very day.
We had expected better from someone whose profile at Birmingham’s No5 Chambers says he is ‘particularly skilled at unravelling complicated medical evidence’ and that he is also ‘regularly instructed in high profile cases involving the most serious of injuries, sexual abuse and fabricated or induced illness’.
The Judge told all parties to come back in a week’s time, when he will also hear this writer’s application to name the social worker in the case.
Please pray for some alacrity to enter into this case. Pray for Mr Hadley to look at the case this weekend and pray for justice to be done.
Note 1: In not a single case I have covered in the family court has a local authority ever admitted that keeping children in its care itself causes serious emotional harm.
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In legal cases what is said between advocates in a conference room is often as important as what happens in court.
And so it proved on Wednesday last week (14th September 2016) at Walsall Family Court, where a local authority was forced to go back to the drawing board in a child care case.
ACQUITTAL IN CROWN COURT
The family were torn apart by allegations of sexual assault made last year by a small girl who had been staying with them. The family’s youngest children were taken into care, where they remain to this day. Meanwhile, a criminal prosecution was launched against the family’s two eldest sons.
Wolverhampton Crown Court
Early last month, the two were acquitted of sexual abuse in Wolverhampton Crown Court. It emerged during the trial that the girl, seven at the time, had admitted in a police interview to watching pornography with an older girl next door to her father’s house. Her account of sexual abuse was confused and contradictory, the forensic evidence not only did not assist but introduced the DNA of a ‘mystery male’, and the medical report showed no evidence of the various forms of sexual penetration she alleged.
The young men’s parents gave strong testimony for the defence about the layout of their home and the ground rules in place. Not only did the alleged abuse not happen, it could not have happened, they told the court.
COUNCIL MISREPRESENTED EVIDENCE
Her Honour Judge Rosalind Bush
The parallel proceedings in the family court had been subject to a string of delays, one of which was occasioned by my turning up at court as an accredited journalist earlier this year. That delayed matters by eight weeks. Another delay happened because the judge, Judge Rosalind Bush, was indisposed when the case was due to recommence at the end of July.
The local authority, Walsall Council, applied last year to have the younger children adopted without waiting for the outcome of the parallel criminal case. They told the court wrongly the allegations of abuse were backed up by medical evidence. They never did the maths on the likelihood of so many members of one family being paedophiles. (Paedophilia – sexual attraction to pre-pubescent children – isn’t genetic and the incidence in the population at large is less than one in a hundred. The probability of two individuals both being paedophiles is one in ten thousand. And so on.)
Dr Helen Rodwell runs Jigsaw Psychology with her husband Lee from an address in Derby and is doing very nicely out of it. The parents say she bullied them into admitting the alleged sexual abuse had happened.
Walsall never sat down calmly with the parents and never discussed whether what was alleged was even plausible. They never carried out properly their statutory duty to investigate. Instead, they tried retrospectively to justify their knee-jerk decision to whisk the younger children into care.
PARENTS DENOUNCED TO EMPLOYERS
Crucially, no-one in the social work department appeared to have any knowledge of how children re-enact what they have seen on screen in subsequent play. Or as in this case, how a child can fantasise such images into a play scenario. But then again, they were unaware of what the girl had been viewing next-door. They had never seen the police evidence in its entirety, despite giving the family court the impression they had.
So the local authority presented the abuse as proven and the children at risk. They denounced the parents to their respective employers and colleges. They, the parents’ own solicitors, and psychologist Dr Helen Rodwell of Jigsaw Psychology, bullied the parents into accepting that abuse might have happened. ‘If you accept it happened, we can help you,’ they told them.
SOMETHING HAD TO GIVE
I was present through the criminal trial. I heard and saw all the evidence, from both the prosecution, gamely presented by Mr Paul Spratt, and the defence. When the family court reconvened on Friday 9th September, I, a humble journalist, knew more about the evidence than anyone else in the court room. (The parents, as witnesses for the defence, did not hear the earlier witnesses for the prosecution – the girl herself and her parents – who did not actually help the prosecution’s case).
Michael Phillips now represents the father.
The boy’s parents clearly could no longer sustain a position of admitting to the family court that abuse had happened while showing the criminal court how it could not have happened. Something had to give.
Emboldened by their sons’ acquittal, and despite Judge Bush saying the verdict changed nothing, both parents reversed their positions and maintained no abuse had occurred. Dramatically, their advocates immediately resigned, and Her Honour ordered a new fact-finding exercise in which she would look at all the police evidence and transcripts from the criminal trial.
A NEW SOLICITOR
That brought us to Wednesday 16th September when Judge Bush set a date for a directions hearing in November.
But the father in the case had managed to find a new solicitor to represent him. By the grace of God, this was the very man who had prepared his sons’ case in the criminal court, Michael Phillips. Mr Phillips was in a position to bring his extensive knowledge of the case to the attention of the other advocates, in particular to barrister Richard Hadley, representing Walsall. As a result, Mr Hadley told me after the hearing the local authority is now going to re-examine the whole case.
Richard Hadley, Counsel for Walsall, will look at the whole case again.
Mr Hadley’s profile at Birmingham’s No5 Chambers says he is ‘particularly skilled at unravelling complicated medical evidence’. He is also ‘regularly instructed in high profile cases involving the most serious of injuries, sexual abuse and fabricated or induced illness’. Mr Hadley sounds like the ideal man to assess all the evidence and bring this terrible miscarriage of justice to an early close.
KEEP PRAYING
There might be no need for Her Honour’s ‘fact-find’ at all and the children could be home for Christmas. Keep praying for the case, for the parents, for Mr Hadley and Mr Phillips, for Judge Bush and everyone involved. Thank God for the supernatural delays in the family court case which have facilitated this development. And please pray for the little girl and her estranged parents. There is so much healing needed all round, but particularly for her.
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A senior family court judge told a court last Friday (9th September 2016) that a ‘Not Guilty’ verdict in the criminal court did not mean the defendants were innocent.
Judge Rosalind Bush said a ‘Not Guilty’ verdict merely meant the jury had not been sure ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ the defendants actually did it.
The BBC were ‘at fault’ for perpetuating the misunderstanding that people found not guilty were innocent, she continued.
Her Honour cited the case of O J Simpson in support. He was, she said, found not guilty in the criminal court but culpable in the civil court.
THE O J SIMPSON CASE
O. J. Simpson
In 1994 O.J. Simpson was apprehended after a famous ‘low-speed’ car chase and charged with the deaths of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown-Simpson, and her friend Ron Goldman. He was found not guilty in 1995 after his expensive high-profile defence team suggested DNA samples had been mishandled. But he was subsequently found ‘responsible’ for the deaths when the Brown and Goldman families sued in the civil court. They were awarded $35million in damages.
Simpson already had a criminal record. Prior to the murders, he had pleaded no contest to spousal abuse in 1989. Subsequently, in 2007, he was convicted of using a deadly weapon to commit kidnapping, burglary and armed robbery, and sentenced to 33 years in prison, where he remains.
This ministry has not been able to contact the defendants in the case to which Her Honour was referring, young men of good character who have never been in trouble with the police, to ask their reaction to being compared to O.J. Simpson.
CHILDREN TAKEN INTO CARE
Judge Bush has presided in the past over criminal cases. She made her comments however in the family court, in a case in which a family’s youngest children were taken into care last year on a social worker’s description of the evidence of a seven-year-old girl that no fewer than four of the family’s siblings had separately and systematically sexually abused her over a period of two years. The local authority, Walsall Council, have applied to have the children adopted.
The girl’s evidence also led to criminal charges against the family’s two oldest sons. Their trial ended in acquittals a month ago when a jury returned not guilty verdicts on no fewer than seven charges, one charge was struck out by the trial judge, His Honour Judge John Wait, and three other charges were abandoned by the prosecution. The young men walked free from court. But, said Judge Bush, that proved nothing in the family court.
Nobody from Walsall Council found time to attend the trial. The Council’s legal department is only now trying to gain access to the police evidence.
EVIDENCE SELF-CONTRADICTORY
Even before the jury heard any evidence, charges of rape, which had been hanging over the defendants for months, were withdrawn from the charge sheet on the opening day. Judge Wait told Paul Spratt, prosecuting, that the evidence simply did not support those charges.
A reasonable man might have thought the Crown Prosecution Service would have spotted that already, but they had not and Mr Spratt was left with no option but to withdraw the charges.
Even then, evidence from prosecution witnesses revealed confusion in the case. Her mother told the court her daughter said she had been raped. Later she told the police she hadn’t. Her daughter, who admitted to watching pornography with an older girl, ‘L’, even changed her story during police interviews.
On one occasion, she described a depraved act which she said was carried out on her. Later, being asked to confirm it, she denied it and said she saw it on a video at L’s house.
CRIMINAL TRIAL ACQUITTAL WILL NOT AFFECT FAMILY PROCEEDINGS
The parents of the accused boys say they were bullied in the family court, even by their own advocates, into admitting that sexual abuse ‘could have happened’ in their home. They say a psychologist, one Dr Helen Rodwell of Jigsaw Psychology, commissioned by Walsall to report on them, told them she could only help them if they admitted at the very least that the allegations could be true.
But called to the stand as defence witnesses in their sons’ criminal trial, both described to the court how the alleged abuse not only did not happen but could not have happened.
On Friday, the mother and father dramatically repeated this robust stance, this time in the family court, contradicting the earlier statements they say they were pressurised into. No abuse happened, they said. Although Judge Bush said she could have held them to their previous position, she allowed the retraction. That meant the case now goes back to square one, with a new ‘fact-finding’ exercise set in motion.
But Judge Bush repeated that allegations made in relation to behaviour were not disposed of in the family court by an acquittal in the crown court. The outcome of the criminal trial would not affect the current family proceedings – even though both involve the same parties and the same evidence.
DOUBLE JEOPARDY
The comments of Judge Bush seem to indicate a system of ‘double jeopardy’ is in place in our law. A person acquitted in the Crown Court, walking free in the immortal words ‘without a stain on your character’, can be hauled before the family court and told on ‘the balance of probabilities’ that they only got away with it in the criminal court and they really did it after all.
Judge Rosalind Bush is highly experienced and respected. Nevertheless, if another family court judge, sitting alone without colleagues, let alone a jury, decides that abuse has occurred on the lower ‘civil court’ standard of evidence, children could be unjustly torn from their family and could be adopted against theirs and their parents’ will. Parents, older brothers, even children, will be tarred with the label of ‘child sex abuser’ on evidence which would never stand up in a criminal trial. Children could be unjustly subjected to the emotional harm of the care system, with all its negative outcomes.
Whether such a system, starkly revealed by Her Honour’s comments, accords with basic principles of justice is something the British public and those who legislate on their behalf might address.
They may take the view that the ‘balance of probabilities’ is a very good standard for deciding whether a fence has been built this side or that side of a property boundary. The standard has indeed been upheld in the family court after a number of cases in the Supreme Court (and previously the House of Lords). But the debate will no doubt continue over whether it Is still appropriate where criminal conduct is alleged and the most draconian penalties of family separation may be imposed on parents and children.
BIBLICAL POSTSCRIPT
Christian theology strongly reminds us we are all guilty before the throne of grace:
Romans 3:23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
Equally, in a court of law, and in respect of a particular matter, a person can actually be innocent!
Exodus 23:7 Keep thee far from a false matter; and the innocent and righteous slay thou not: for I will not justify the wicked.
Society at large and judges in particular have an immense responsibility to dispense justice according to the precepts of God so that the guilty are punished and the innocent acquitted. In addition, people in power must not oppress those below them:
Jeremiah 22:3 Thus saith the LORD; Execute ye judgment and righteousness, and deliver the spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor: and do no wrong, do no violence to the stranger, the fatherless, nor the widow, neither shed innocent blood in this place.
So please pray for all judges and remember in particular to lift up Judge Rosalind Bush. Pray also for the advocates in the case to remember they are to serve the cause of justice. Pray for the social workers to be people of truth. Pray for the family to stay strong in their Christian faith, believing that justice will be done.
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Researchers from the Society and the University of York found that between 2009-10 and 2013-14 on average 11% of both boys and girls said they were unhappy.
But the latest available figures, for 2013-14, showed while the proportion of unhappy boys stayed the same, girls saying they were unhappy had risen to 14%.
LOOKS AND SOCIAL MEDIA
The proportion of girls reporting being worried about their looks rose from 30% for the period as a whole, to 34% in the year 2013-14 – while the proportion of boys unhappy with their appearance remained unchanged at 20%.
Most of the comments from girls stress the difficulty of competing with the looks of models or celebrities, but what has changed appears to be the increased intrusion of social media. Girls are spending on up to three hours a night on Facebook and Instagram. They can now post pictures or videos instantly from mobile devices.
School sex education is also increasing the pressure on girls to be sexually attractive and even active. And the report completely fails to mention family breakdown, which has resulted in so many children growing up without their father. It doesn’t mention the specific importance of a father in a child’s life either.
EMOTIONAL BULLYING HIGHER AMONG GIRLS
The report found emotional bullying, such as name-calling, to be twice as common among girls as physical bullying is among boys.
There are clearly things parents can do here. The Bible lays great weight on the parent-child relationship:
Deuteronomy 6:6 And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: 7 And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.
Proverbs 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
Ephesians 6:4 And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
INVEST TIME IN YOUR CHILDREN
It is too easy in a busy life for parents to allow a child to disappear to his or her room and get online or even, with the way technology is moving, to sit in the family room tapping away on a tablet.
Christian parents in particular need to watch that tendency in themselves and invest time in their children. Find out what your children are doing, be supportive and gentle, encourage them. You need to be praying over your children, and your husband or wife for that matter, blessing them with good word and compliments, never cursing them, but building them up as the word of God commands:
1Thess 5:11 Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also ye do. 14 … warn them that are unruly, comfort the feebleminded, support the weak, be patient toward all.
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Two brothers accused of sexual abuse against a small girl were acquitted at Wolverhampton Crown Court after not-guilty verdicts were entered this afternoon.
One count of sexual abuse was scrubbed on the orders of the judge, and the jury delivered not guilty verdicts on a further seven. Three others were withdrawn by the prosecution.
The acquittals mark over a year of anguish for the family. The girl, now eight, had been staying with them while her father, estranged from her mother, was working night-shifts.
She made her accusations in June 2015 after her father found an obscene video she made of herself.
The court heard she had been watching pornography next door with a twelve-year-old girl, who had touched her sexually. But it was the boys she was staying with she accused.
The family’s younger children were taken into care as a result of the accusations, so the action now shifts back to the family court.
Next month the local authority will continue its quest to have the younger children adopted. It is true their case has been damaged by the acquittal of the older brothers.
But the family court operates to lower standards of evidence than the crown court. Instead of ‘beyond reasonable doubt’, itself a long way short of justice as God demands it, the civil court standard of ‘balance of probabilities’ applies, despite the fact that the sanctions available to the family court – stripping parents of their children, depriving children of a family – are draconian.
Previous reports of the trial (contains challenging material):
Psalm 89:14 Justice and judgment are the habitation of thy throne: mercy and truth shall go before thy face. 15 Blessed is the people that know the joyful sound: they shall walk, O LORD, in the light of thy countenance. 16 In thy name shall they rejoice all the day: and in thy righteousness shall they be exalted. 17 For thou art the glory of their strength: and in thy favour our horn shall be exalted. 18 For the LORD is our defence; and the Holy One of Israel is our king.
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Permanent Under-Secretary Simon McDonald welcomed Boris Johnson to the Foreign Office last night.
Last night, new Prime Minister Theresa May made six senior appointments, covering the three great offices of state (Chancellor, Home Office, Foreign Office), and created two new post-Brexit positions. Continue to pray for her appointments today.
BORIS JOHNSON
The most astonishing appointment last night was that of Boris Johnson as Foreign Secretary. Mr Johnson is said to have had wide experience dealing with foreign governments promoting the capital city as Mayor of London. He is much better disposed to Russia than his predecessor and apparently speaks five languages fluently, including German and Russian.
The latter will be especially useful as he pursues what we pray will be a more positive engagement with Russia than that taken by his predecessor. (Although never under-estimate the power of the PUS – see the picture. Sir Simon Fraser, Mr McDonald’s predecessor, has already said “highly professional people” will surround Mr Johnson as he takes on the role. Sir Humphrey?
Mr Johnson, like Theresa May, is pro-Israel. The BBC reports: ‘In 2015, Mr Johnson had to cancel planned public events in the West Bank because of security fears after he criticised backers of a boycott on Israeli goods, and he has previously described Hilary Clinton – US presidential hopeful – as having “a steely blue stare, like a sadistic nurse in a mental hospital.”‘
British sanctions against trade with Russia must be ended and Russian efforts to bring stability to Syria supported. We can pray that Boris, with a great-grand-father from Moscow, will have nothing to do with the posturing of the world elite which needs to see Russia as the big enemy and President Vladimir Putin as an aggressor and a threat.
A more positive engagement will help as Mr Johnson tries, as we hope he will, to find the reasons behind Russia’s new anti-evangelism law and argue against it from an informed and friendly position.
Write to your MP. Ask him/her to congratulate the new Foreign Secretary on your behalf and to ask him to pursue a positive engagement with Russia, lift sanctions and let you know what discussions he has with Russian officials about Russia’s new anti-evangelism law, which, of course, concerns you.
PHILIP HAMMOND
I prayed yesterday and I am still praying that Philip Hammond would leave the government completely, because of his stance on Syria and Russia (see below). Mr Johnson taking his place at the Foreign Office was a spectacular and unexpected part-answer to that prayer.
Mr Hammond, with his ‘Assad must go’ rhetoric, showed himself both ignorant of reality in Syria, and in thrall to the US-driven elites of this world. I made a video on this topic last October with an emphasis on Syrian Christians: Syria – Sense and Compassion. Do take a look – it’s less than 4 minutes.
Mr Hammond was also part of ‘Project Fear’ with his view that it would take longer than World War II to leave the European Union.
In the event, he has been made Chancellor of the Exchequer, which is a promotion. Pray for him to have the great wisdom and vision that job needs at any time, but especially at this time. I still pray that the Lord will intervene and that he will not be there long.
MICHAEL FALLON
Mr Fallon retains the post of Secretary of State for Defence. He was part of the ‘Assad must go’ triumverate (with Mr Cameron and Mr Hammond) and the same arguments apply to him as apply to Mr Hammond. It was a spectacularly ignorant and stupid line originated by William, Lord, Hague, totally driven by the desire of the US to destablise that country for financial and strategic reasons – Russia has bases in Syria.
It has cost hundreds of thousands of lives and drove the migration disaster of last summer, in which thousands of Islamic State activists were able to infiltrate European Union nations.
The United Kingdom needs a Defence Secretary able to stand up to the US in NATO and end the current policy of military build-ups and sabre-rattling at the Russian border. Make no mistake, such things are planned by the elite for their benefit, not ours. A top insider, Craig Breedlove, former head of NATO, was at the Bilderberg meeting in Dresden last month. And a series of leaked emails published in RT show how keen he has been to push the Obama administration into agitating in Ukraine and aggression against Russia.
I am praying that Mr Fallon has a change of heart and becomes a man of peace, whose strength is in the Lord. His voting record is good on the issues that matter. He voted against ‘gay marriage’ and against doctor-assisted dying, for instance. But he voted for military intervention against President Assad’s forces in Syria. if the Lord will not change his heart, will the Lord replace Mr Fallon as well.
Write to your MP (a separate letter with a different date will be best) and ask him/her to ask the Secretary of State for Defence to pull British forces out of NATO’s aggressive current confrontation with Russia.
AMBER RUDD
The new Home Secretary was, like Mr Hammond and Mr Fallon, a ‘Remainer’ who voted against having a referendum at all. She also voted for ‘gay marriage’ and, like Mr Fallon, for military action in Syria. That vote, mercifully, was lost. She abstained on doctor-assisted dying. Her voting record goes back no further than 2010, because that was when she first became MP for Hastings and Rye.
Amber Rudd stands in need of our prayer as she takes charge of this vital office of state. We should especially pray against the introduction of intrusive surveillance measures and the use of real or imagined threats to curtail civil liberties.
DAVID DAVIS
Thank the Lord that the veteran parliamentarian has become the new Secretary of State for Brexit, or whatever it will be called. This is an inspired appointment, as apart from a lapse when he voted for Masstrict, Mr Davis has been constantly opposed to the EU, as he has to measures like ‘gay marriage’.
So Mr Davis will need much prayer as he negotiates the UK’s exit with the European Unions’s Commission and/or Council of Ministers (they are currently fighting a turf war over which will handle the talks). He will need to invoke Article 50 quickly and be unafraid to pull out of the Single Market completely if that requires accepting freedom of movement.
Freedom of movement was perhaps the biggest factor persuading people to leave the EU, because of the problems it brings. It is not a matter of hospitality, it is a matter of social cohesion and security, as I showed in this video.
Mr Davis should remember the four reasons why the Germans will back down: Mercedes, Audi, Volkswagon and BMW. Other countries trade with the EU without being in the Single Market, the USA and India, to name just two.
Write to your MP (separate letter!) and ask him/her to congratulate the Secretary of State for Brexit on his appointment and wish him well. Ask your MP to ask him to invoke Article 50 immediately and to be ready to leave the Single Market completely if freedom of movement is demanded as a condition of remaining in it.
Dr Fox will be responding to nations across the world who are now queuing up to do trade deals with the UK. He reputedly knows the United States very well, but Commonwealth countries are obvious new trading partners. It was encouraging to see Ghana preparing a trade delegation. The European Union has caused much hardship across Africa and developing countries in other parts of the world by dumping food aid, knowingly depressing prices and impoverishing local farmers.
There is an opportunity here for us to do more for fair trade than just buying tea and coffee. We should also pray that overseas aid becomes much smarter. I’m anxious to be in touch with those who know best how fair trade principles could form the bedrock of Dr Fox’s approach, and let us pray that he will have great success. Let us pray that Brexit re-establishes Britain as a newly-free, global, outward-looking trading nation, one built this time on fairness and justice, not on deception and exploitation.
Write to your MP (yet another separate letter!) and ask him/her to congratulate the Secretary of State for International Trade on his appointment and wish him well in it. Ask your MP to ask the Secretary of State how fair trade principles will inform his dealings with developing nations.
LASTLY
Lastly, look out for chattering classes and the Twitter-sphere expressing ‘alarm’ and ‘concern’ over the elevation of Boris, David Davis and Dr Fox. Such will mean they are good appointments! We should never put our trust in princes, but Theresa May (be sure to put an ‘h’ in her name) has shown she was true when she said ‘Brexit means Brexit’. Those of our readers who supported Remain should also be praying the Lord uses the Brexit vote and this new administration for his glory and to advance his Kingdom on earth.
Mrs May will be familiar with these two prayers from the Anglican Morning Prayer service in the Book of Common Prayer. They can apply to an individual or a nation and they spoke to me vividly this morning:
A Collect for Peace.
O God, who art the author of peace and lover of concord, in knowledge of whom standeth our eternal life, whose service is perfect freedom; Defend us thy humble servants in all assaults of our enemies; that we, surely trusting in thy defence, may not fear the power of any adversaries, through the might of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
A Collect for Grace.
O Lord, our heavenly Father, Almighty and everlasting God, who hast safely brought us to the beginning of this day; Defend us in the same with thy mighty power; and grant that this day we fall into no sin, neither run into any kind of danger; but that all our doings, being ordered by thy governance, may be righteous in thy sight; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
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