Post allegation involvement by Social Services

Immediately following the allegations against me, my daughter was taken into SS care. I can't blame them for that, after all, they were doing what they were supposed to do given the limited amount of information available to them. However, what followed, you couldn't make up.

Following my bail, my daughter was returned home to her mom, where she stayed for about 2 months, where she continued to steal, swear, be physically threatening to her mom and younger brother and to her peers, running away from home, and lots of other stuff to numerous to list. Eventually, she threatened her mom and brother with a pizza cutter, so I am led to believe. Now that may sound a little bizarre, but they are not exactly blunt instruments. She was removed from home and placed in a respite house, where she very quickly accused a young boy of 17 or 18 of sexual assault. To the best of my knowledge, he got a 15 month prison term.

My daughter ended up being placed voluntarily with foster parents at the other end of the country, for, and I quote "the safety of her mother and younger brother". In the time since she has been there, she has made further accusations and carried out violent attacks against other people. These include, but are not limited to:- school teachers, social workers, foster carers and a prison officer. I have no idea what, if any action has been taken as a result of them.

It now became time to start the fight to see my son. I had been having supervised visits with him almost right away following the court case, and within the guidelines laid down by my probation order. This was from September 2000. Now my son, although quite rightly upset by what had happened, was happy to see me whenever he could. Then comes Christmas 2001, some 15 months after the court case. All of a sudden, out of the blue, about two weeks before Xmas, the Social worker assigned to the case, (Dawn Peters, Wolverhampton council), decided that I could no longer see my son, and his name was to go on the at risk register. That was how things remained for 3 or 4 months. I didn't get to see him over Xmas at all. I was able to speak on the phone, but that was all. What's more, the probation officer assigned to me must have been sleeping in the same bed, metaphorically speaking, because she agreed. In total contradiction to, and well outside of her remit. But that is another story.

In late March of 2002, it was suddenly announced that I would be required to undertake supervised visits with my son for six weeks at the local SS offices. This turned out be one hour visits with him in the presence of what I can only now call a mixture of untrained busy bodies and people who took a real and pro-active interest. It was pretty obvious from the outset that the first SS worker was looking for any evidence at all to keep me away from my son permanently. She lasted 3 weeks. The next worker seemed to be better, even joining in with games etc, and one week actually bringing a game to play. She also lasted 3 weeks. Aha, my six weeks were up. Except they weren't. All of a sudden, Dawn Peters  decided more time was needed to inflict even more child abuse by the state on my son.

And so it continues, only now the worker is nothing to do with the SS, but is a voluntary external auditor, who subsequently becomes chairperson of the protection committee, to my great relief. More of that later.

So here I am, having completed the 6 weeks supervised contact with my son, being told by Dawn Peters that I would have to continue for at least another 4 weeks. Luckily for my son and I, the worker now assigned was external to Social Services, being an ex-bobby, and as it turns out, the first person in what could be called any position of authority over the outcome of the visits to see the real relationship between my son and I. His report was such that Dawn Peters had no alternative but to try other methods of deceit to try and keep my son and I apart, including falsifying statements, blaming others for her own incompetence, suddenly deciding that she did not have the authority to allow the removal of my son from the child protection register (although she had the authority to put him on it) and actually making up interviews that she said she had had with my son, the local mental health committee representative, family councillors and school social workers, none of which ever actually taken place. A great day was had by all when her lies came to light, but of course, her actions were "a misunderstanding", or "misinterpretation" on everyone's part except her own.

Now while all of this was going on, and while I was banned from visiting my wife's house, I had a call from my wife to ask if I could get permission to go around because she had gotten up one morning to discover that she had no water. This subsequently turned out to be because of a broken heater, but I digress. I attempted to gain permission of Dawn Peters, but she categorically refused. When I pointed out that to refuse would leave my son and wife without water, she basically said that was not her problem. I asked her if she was therefore aware that refusing a child the right to clean fresh drinking water constituted child abuse, at which point she became very aggressive and threatening. Perhaps I had hit a nerve? I eventually went over her head, and permission was gained from her superiors.

And so, several months later, I get to the point where the child protection committee is sitting to take my son off the protection register, and get the SS child protection department off the back of my wife and son. There were one or two false attempts at this, due to the probation services either not acknowledging, or just refusing to appear at the meetings, but eventually a meeting was called to finalize this issue. To my great surprise, and relief, the chairman of the committee had been replaced by the ex-bobby previously mentioned. His report was read out to everyone in the room, and it said that my son was not at risk from me, and that I did not present a risk to him, nor, in the opinion of the reports author (Whoever that is) did I present any risk to any other children. And it is unlikely that I ever had done so.

As a result of this, and with Dawn Peters still putting up objections, obviously based on her own secret agenda, and being overruled by the chairman, my sons name was removed from the register. Dawn Peters was also instructed to correct ALL of the lies and falsehoods she had presented, both orally and literary, although whether she has done this I don't know. And she was also told that her intervention would no longer be allowed, and that her files on my son were to be closed. I am fairly convinced, that had it not been for the dignity and control of other people sitting on the committee, that a loud cheer would have broken out at that point. I went back to seeing my son whenever and wherever I wanted, with no one looking over my shoulder.

The sad thing is, that it is my understanding, that shortly following this, Wolverhampton SS decided that they would no longer allow external workers to participate in the protection of children, but would instead, strengthen their ability to carry out state administered and condoned abuse of children, without any sort of accountability. I wonder, and worry how many other children since then have been abused by the likes of Dawn Peters and her cohorts?