Quote from: David McKeown on May 18, 2023, 07:37:08 PMQuote from: RadioGAAGAA on May 18, 2023, 05:14:05 PMQuote from: Itchy on May 17, 2023, 11:14:28 PM
Very surprised with your take on this.
My take is fairly simple. NG has been badly failed by social services and her legal representation* - not the Derry county board.
Some of the expectations on the Derry CB "investigations" of matters in this thread are wholly ludicrous.
*my natural dislike of the legal system is also probably shining through; barristers are quick enough to rake all other professions over the coals in court inquests with the benefit of hindsight and an assumption of infinite resources - so IMO what is good for the goose - how the f**k are family law practitioners not expected to identify the signs of an raise concerns with the investigating authorities in divorce/child custody cases? If there are already such expectations, will there be any action taken against NG's representatives?
**teachers are educators, yet are expected to pick up on and raise child abuse concerns.
Probably should jump in here and defend my colleagues. Not only is that a vast generalisation it also displays an ignorance of the legal system. Mistakes can and do happen and on that basis I have been very keen not to make any comment on this case because I wasn't involved. There are important general things that have to be remembered though.
Firstly and most importantly family courts are private and therefore it is impossible to know what was and what was not raised in any case but if allegations are made of a violent or sexual nature the court must conduct what is called a Re L hearing. That is a hearing to determine the truth of any allegation. That is done to the civil standard which is much lower than the criminal standard and involves a detailed and thorough investigation.
Social services will be involved and will investigate. They are notoriously conservative and will take very seriously any allegations of domestic abuse. Guardian Ad Litems will be appointed, they are specifically trained to speak to any children involved and to rely the views of those children through separate lawyers appointed by the Guardians.
Grandparents or other family members are also often separately represented.
The court will hear evidence and come to a conclusion. The test for them is not whether one parent is more suitable than the other its to determine whether either parent is suitable. These cases are usually protracted and are very thorough.
The point I am making is that we have no idea what happened in this family case and its therefore very unfair to criticise or worse lambast the whole professional
It's a nice big answer, but doesn't actually address the concern I've raised. Well, I suppose it partially might, as you say, its all private, so maybe allegations were made, but if that were the case, would custody decisions not have been paused pending completion of judgement on abuse investigations?
If teachers (who, lets not forget, have a primary role of educating) are expected to be able to identify and raise cases of child abuse, solicitors and barristers who spend their time practicing family law (i.e. their primary role is dealing with relationships in difficulties) should have the exact same expectation of being able to identify and raise instances of abuse. Indeed, one would think the solicitors and barristers working with abuse victims would be much closer to their core role than teachers.
The requirement of the system to only kick in "if allegations are made" is, IMO, either a complete abdication of responsibility or a failure of the system to assign responsibility to both social workers and law practitioners to protect victims who are afraid to make the allegations.