Father fighting Medway Council faces jail for contempt

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

‘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.

While in Medway’s care, the council failed to safeguard ‘J’. He was encouraged by his foster parents to play particularly violent video games in their possession.  These included one used by Norwegian mass killer Anders Breivik as ‘training’, and about which an MP has called for a ban.  They also refused to let him practice his music.

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

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

Miss Gill’s website claims she specialises ‘in developmental trauma, attachment science, schema theory, family dynamics, mental health and child and adult forensic assessment’.

She is also well-connected in Parliament.

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

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.

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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