Social Services

SOCIAL SERVICES
JUDGE, (NO) JURY AND THE EXECUTIONER

Subject: Please circulate this email worldwide and post on your web sites.

Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2001 15:46:30

Dear Lord Howe,

I thought this would interest you.

Amazing! NO death certificate or official cause of death and a police investigation into allegations of perjury against Meadow and TAMPERED MEDICAL EVIDENCE yet they forge ahead with no regard to the family. Not the first time either seems they did not learn from their previous mistakes. Nearly 10 years later and the same thing is happening again and again and again with the same players. Meadow involved in this case too. Could you let me know what time your debate into false allegations starts please.

Thank you,

Penny.

Couple lose adoption battle?
Oct 14 2001

By Tony Larner, Sunday Mercury
(The names of the couple and children have been changed for legal reasons).

A Mother branded a baby killer by Birmingham [UK] social services has lost a heartbreaking battle to stop her daughter being adopted. Karen Haynes, 35, and husband Mark were left devastated when their four-month-old son Michael died in 1999. The couple believe genetic problems or a controversial drug may have led to the mystery death - but when Karen gave birth to Emma a year later, the baby was whisked away by social workers. They had obtained a child protection order after medical experts suspected the mum had smothered Michael. Yet no criminal investigation has ever been held and a full inquest has still not taken place. Last week Karen and Mark, a 42-year-old systems analyst, lost their fight to stop Emma from being adopted when social services won a High Court freeing order.

The decision means the couple can have just one final meeting with their daughter - before she is lost to them forever. The custody ruling was made despite a plea for the court to await the completion of a crucial police probe into Michael's death. The investigation, carried out on behalf of HM Coroner, is expected to be finished within weeks - paving the way for a full inquest which could finally exonerate Karen. But despite the submissions, the court agreed to allow Emma to be adopted to a new family. The decision has left the Birmingham couple shattered. "They are consumed with grief," said a family friend. "Karen has done nothing wrong yet she and Mark now face the heartbreaking task of saying goodbye to their daughter. They will be allowed one final visit with Emma. After that, they can expect just a couple of progress letters a year, and maybe the odd photograph. If the court case had been postponed until after Michael's inquest, they may have won Emma back. Now, even if Karen is exonerated at the inquest, they face an uphill struggle to get their daughter back. But they will never give up because they know they are innocent - and they hope to prove it at the inquest."

Michael was born in September 1998 but, in his first few months, was taken to hospital twice after he stopped breathing. Doctors diagnosed digestive problems and prescribed Cisapride, a drug which has now been withdrawn from sale in the UK after being linked to 136 deaths worldwide, including those of two British children. On January 27, 1999, Michael was taken to hospital, suffering from breathing difficulties. A scan revealed he had suffered brain damage and he died on January 29. In a report commissioned by Birmingham Social Services, child abuse expert Professor Roy Meadow said Karen had probably smothered the child. Prof Meadow also gave evidence in the trial of Julie Ferris, a Birmingham mum with a mental age of six, who was found guilty of killing her two children. She is fighting to win an appeal. He also testified against Cheshire solicitor Sally Clark, who was convicted of murdering her two babies and jailed for life in 1999. Campaigners have lost a battle to win her an appeal despite proving statistical evidence given by Prof Meadows at her trial was inaccurate.

Labour MP Sion Simon had written a letter to Birmingham social services asking for Emma's adoption hearing to be postponed until after the inquest. He told the Sunday Mercury: "Mrs Haynes has never been charged with any offence yet her daughter was taken away from her. "The police report has not been completed and an inquest has not yet been held so, in my view, any adoption is premature." A spokesman for Birmingham City Council's social services department said: "This decision was taken in the High Court and appeals have been turned down. "We cannot comment further on the details of this case, other than to say that in all adoption cases the courts appoint an independent guardian to ensure the whole process is conducted in the best interests of the child."

Almost 10 years earlier (nothing has changed!).

From The Independent 21st August 1992 Page 1

Parents of sick children 'being falsely accused
by Brian Morgan

FEARS that parents may be falsely accused of smothering or attacking their children are being examined by the British Paediatric Association. Many association members are worried about wrong diagnoses of a rare mental syndrome - Munchausen by Proxy (MSBP), where adults harm children to gain attention. The association is to set up a working party to agree a diagnosis for one form of MSBP, "repeated smothering". It will "agree the appropriate investigation of children with suspected imposed upper airway obstruction," said Paul Dunn, for the association. Sue Amphlett, director of the charity 'Parents Against injustice', believes Munchausen by Proxy could become a "dustbin diagnosis for health workers unable to discover the real cause of illness. Wardship cases have hinged on a contested MSBP diagnosis.

MSBP was first described in 1977 by Professor Roy Meadow. of Leeds University. Several hundred cases have been documented, some leading to trials. In today's Lancet and British Journal of Hospital Medicine, Dr Colin Morley, consultant paediatrician at Addenbrooke's hospital, Cambridge, warns against false accusations of mothers whose babies suffer breathing problems. He challenged some diagnostic indicators published this year in a BJHM paper by Professor David Southall and his colleague, Dr Martin Samuels.

They had suggested recordings of physiological data from a baby suffering suffocation may, in time, be as good as video surveillance for establishing the guilt of abusers. Dr Morley says diagnosis should be based on "fact rather than opinion".

In his BJHM and Lancet letters he asks for evidence on cases of wrongful diagnosis using the criteria. He is backed in the Lancet letters column by Paul Johnson, consultant at the Nuffield Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at John Radcliffe hospital, Oxford. Dr Johnson wrote: "Why should mothers risk incrimination based solely on opinion from an as yet unproven technique?" Professor Southall, Dr Samuels and Dr Morley will all serve on the BPA working party. Professor Southall said yesterday: "We see hundreds of babies a year who have been referred to us because of unexplained cyanotic attacks [going blue]. MSBP is always the last option when we have done all the physiological tests. But then we have to go out of our way to find objective evidence that will stand up in court."

Christopher and Jennifer Attwood, of Birmingham, were accused of Munchausen by Proxy as their five-month-old daughter Emma lay in intensive care at Selly Oak hospital. They were cleared only after a post-mortem examination proved Emma had had polymyositis, a rare muscle destroying disease. Shortly before she died the Attwoods were approached at the hospital by police. They were questioned all night, and Mrs Attwood was taken home at 4 am for a search of her house. Minutes of a child protection case conference, seen by the Independent, show that on 20 February police said they were told by a hospital doctor that Emma had been "suffocated or smothered". The police and health authority refused to comment. Mr Attwood said: "You would not think anything had been learnt from Cleveland or Rochdale."

From The Independent 21 August 1992 page 3

Parents accused as their baby lay dying

After a doctor raised the 'possibility' that a seriously ill infant, Emma Attwood, had been smothered, a nightmare began for her mother and father. Brian Morgan reports

EMMA Attwood was a healthy baby until she was five months old. She was born in May 1991 the third child of Christopher and Jennifer Attwood of Handsworth. Birmingham. Mrs Attwood spent her adolescence in care, and started living with her husband, a care worker, when she was 18. She was keen to have children and create the stable home she had missed: "Emma was planned. We'd always said we wanted lots of children and we cared for all three of them. Our priority is the children. We do not have any luxuries, just the essentials, but we've been very happy."

Last December, Emma was taken ill. Mrs Attwood found her breathless in her pram: "She'd gone grey and her lips were blue." A neighbour quickly revived Emma, who, the hospital said, had been suffering from bronchitis. That was the first of seven attacks. Each time, Emma was taken to hospital. Doctors variously diagnosed whooping cough, bronchiolitis and epilepsy. She was prescribed anti-convulsants. Emma's final attack was on 28 January. She never recovered.

After emergency admission to Dudley Road Hospital, she was transferred to Selly Oak Hospital for intensive care. Her parents stayed at her side, leaving their other children, Thomas, four, and Lucy, three, at home in the care of a social worker friend. Three days later, doctors told the Attwoods that Emma had only a 10 per cent chance of survival. Mr Attwood said: "We were coming to terms with that and with the certainty of brain damage." Mrs Attwood saw six uniformed police officers arrive outside the ward. She said: "They were holding Emma's medical notes, but we didn't take much notice at the time." They then entered the ward and started asking the Attwoods questions about Emma's condition. Mr Attwood said a doctor told him his other children had been taken away by the police. He said: "I went mad. I thought they had been taken into care." Mrs Attwood said she was told they would be arrested if they did not co-operate. So they agreed to go "voluntarily" to the police station. They say they were "frogmarched" the length of the hospital and, despite their protests, taken there separately in two police cars. From 11pm, according to the Attwoods. They were held incommunicado with messages of advice and support from friends and relatives being kept from them. They say they were too distraught to think of calling a lawyer.

Other officers knocked at the door of the Attwoods' home. Their friend, Hilary Baisley, said she was forced to wake the other two children. She went with them to the police station, where "the three of us were just left in a canteen without any supervision until after midnight. The children had been asleep in bed and were in no danger. It was the parents they suspected and they weren't there. The police acted illegally. It was abduction and I am making a formal complaint to West Midlands Police." Mrs Attwood was questioned by the police about her background and former boyfriends. Mr Attwood was asked about his wife's attitude to Emma. After being held apart from her husband throughout the night. she was taken home at 4am for the police to search her home. Mr Attwood was released at 6am, by which time both had been without sleep for 24 hours. He said: "I have never experienced anything like it. We were treated like common criminals. My legs were shaking and I was like jelly. The police could have done any thing they liked and they did. You would not think anything had been learned from Cleveland or Rochdale." Emma died four days later on 5 February, after her life-support system was switched off.

The next day, social workers held a child protection case conference on the Attwoods' other children, which the Attwoods attended. There they heard that Emma's consultant paediatrician. Dr Robert Sunderland, had mentioned Munchausen by Proxy as a possibIe cause of Emma's illness. On 1 February, Dr Sunderland had told the police that doctors had ruled out epilepsy and were investigating a possible insensitivity to lack of oxygen. He said: "There remains a final possibility of non-accidental suffocation, sometimes known as Munchausen by Proxy or 'gentle battering' . . . there was no evidence of this."

In June, the inquest at Birmingham coroner's court heard evidence from three pathologists. Each said Emma had died of polymyositis, a muscle-destroying disease that is rare in babies. But in a letter to the coroner, Dr Jeff Bissenden, consultant paediatrician at Dudley Road Hospital, said: "Social services have good reason to believe Emma had died as a result of Munchausen by Proxy. Clearly, one option is to accept the pathological findings...in which case all child-abuse proceedings against the parents must be dropped and apologies made for false accusations." He suggested a further analysis by an expert on muscle disease before this........irrevocable step" was taken. Professor John Emery of Sheffield University, an eminent paediatric pathologist who assisted in the autopsy at the parents' request, says every sudden infant death should be as thoroughly investigated. Professor Emery has said the case illustrated the importance of establishing the true reason for any sudden infant death. He said. "This baby had an autopsy more thorough than one in a hundred other cases of sudden infant death, without it, the polymyositis would never have been diagnosed. The Government should provide money for Coroners to have a full paediatric pathologist's autopsy every time.

From February to July, the Attwoods lived with the fear that their other two children would be taken away from them. Lucy and Thomas were only taken off Birmingham's "at risk" register last month. Sue Amphlett, director of Parents Against Injustice, a charity that acts for parents, says: "The way the family was treated is appalling. It is not acceptable to remove toddlers from their beds when they are already in the care of a responsible person. "The mere fact that Munchausen by Proxy is now in Department of Health guidelines as a registerable form of abuse may encourage health workers to fall back on this as a diagnosis. The label can scar a family for life," she said. Guidelines issued by the Department of Health in October 1991 specifically warn child protection committees to guard against "uncoordinated and/or premature action" and the "harm caused by unnecessary intervention". The Social Services Inspectorate is investigating why Birmingham social services failed to provide emergency child protection cover to the Attwoods in January. Its emergency duty team did not respond at a crucial time to co- ordinate the abuse inquiry. In a letter to Frank Attwood the children's grandfather, an assistant Birmingham social services director Bob Judges, said the team was overstretched that night. He apologised for the lack of immediate response. He added that West Midlands Police "appeared to have taken a number of steps independently".

A police spokeman said: "It is [our] policy to work closely with social services, the regional health authority and other agencies." The force will not comment on the Attwoods' case because it is the subject of formal complaint. Birmingham social services said it was investigating a complaint by Mr and Mrs Attwood and would not comment. The department wrote to them last week to apologise and to offer condolences on behalf of the area child protection committee. The Attwoods say they are not prepared to accept an apology until the matter has been fully investigated and the results made public. The regional health authority refused to comment yesterday. Dr Bissenden was on holiday. Professor David Southall who pioneered the study of Munchausen by Proxy at the Brompton Hospital, London, but who now works at North Staffordshire Hospital Centre, said yesterday: "..... from what you have told me, Emma Atwood would have been subjected to physiological recordings as soon as she was admitted after the first apnoea attack, and we would have picked up such a major muscular disease very early on. Her parents would not have been suspected of MSBP [Munchausen by Proxy] here. I will say that missing a case of MSBP is very serious. Because if you miss it, it could be sudden death for a baby or severe neurological impairment due to lack of oxygen. And MSBP can lead to doctor abuse, where the doctor performs life-threatening interventions as a result of the fabrications of symptoms by a carer," he said.

copyright Brian Morgan 1992 All rights reserved.

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