By Laura Topham
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The months Alison Stevens spent apart from her son still haunt her.
Twenty four years on, she cannot forget the pain she felt when social services took away her three-year-old without warning - or just cause.
Doctors should have diagnosed brittle bone disease when Alison took Scott to A&E with a broken leg. Instead, they decided he was being abused by his parents and put him in care immediately.
It took 12 long, tormented weeks for Alison and her husband, Andy, an electrician, to clear their names and win their son's return. The joy and relief they felt at having their family reunited was immeasurable. Alison was left so affected by the experience that she was determined to help other people fight similar injustices.
Wrongly accused: Alison Stevens
Since then, she has helped thousands of parents as the head of the national organisation Parents Against Injustice (PAIN).
'I will always remember the hurt and confusion I felt back then,' says Alison. 'It was horrendous finding Scott's hospital bed empty, then being told by nurses they thought we were to blame for his injuries. For months we had to visit him in a foster home when we desperately wanted to have him home.
'I am compelled to help other people because I understand what they are going through and how badly the system can work. This can happen to anyone and, when it does, you feel powerless.
'The toll it takes on you is indescribable - parents call me on the brink of suicide. But through PAIN I am able to help them get their children back.' While the agony still feels fresh to Alison, it was back in 1985 that her son Scott was put in care. He had been having a bath with his brother Lee, then five, when he tried to get out and slipped awkwardly, hurting his leg.
'Leaving him was like having my heart ripped out'
When Alison and Andy took Scott to hospital, doctors insisted he stay in for observation.
'Returning to the hospital that evening to visit Scott, I never suspected anything was amiss,' says Alison.
'But when we reached his bed it was empty.
'A nurse took us into a room and explained that social services had taken him away because his fracture wasn't consistent with an accident. The doctor said that we must have twisted his leg. I was distraught.'
Alison and Andy returned home, scared and confused, not knowing where Scott was and having no idea how they could get him back.
Through Yellow Pages, they discovered PAIN, a national organisation offering advice to parents wrongly accused of child abuse.
'I called them and cried down the phone,' she says.
'They were very comforting, and put me in touch with a solicitor, who specialised in child protection cases, and a doctor for a second opinion.'
The doctor asked whether Scott was small for his size and if his eyes had a blue tinge - both of which were accurate - then explained his symptoms sounded like brittle bone disease. Social services continued to refuse to let the couple know how the case was proceeding.
Then, two days later, police arrested Andy for grievous bodily harm. He was released 12 hours later due to lack of evidence. Yet it was two weeks before the family was finally told where Scott was and allowed to visit him.
An interim order granted them two hours' access, three times each week. 'His foster home was with a one parent family in a scruffy council house. It was a really rough, messy environment,' says Alison.
'When we said goodbye, Scott started screaming. He was asking why we'd sent him away and telling us he hadn't been naughty.
'Leaving him was like having my heart ripped out - I just wanted to take him home.' Alison was put in touch with a brittle bone specialist by PAIN as well as another family whose sons had been taken away in similar circumstances.
Then, three months after Scott had been removed, their solicitor called and said social services had admitted it could have been accidental. The following day, Scott was returned to his parents. 'It was wonderful having Scott back, but he was a changed child,' says Alison.
'In the past month, I've had three families reunited. That's the best news you can ever hear.'
'He was constantly angry, used terrible language and wanted everything straightaway.
'He had clearly grown used to having no discipline, and it took three years before he returned to the little boy we had known. And he still thought he'd been naughty, which was heart-breaking.'
But it wasn't only Scott who was left affected - Alison developed the inflammatory disorder Crohn's disease six weeks after Scott was taken, which she puts down to the stress she suffered as a result of losing her little boy. 'The worry was so bad it left me with health problems,' says Alison.
'Since then, I've had depression, a hiatus hernia and inflammatory bowel disease.'
The family waited a year for an appointment with the brittle bone specialist, who swiftly diagnosed the disease.
Yet Alison's experience left her wanting to help other parents, so she set up a support group in Leicester and started working with PAIN, looking after the Midlands and Yorkshire.
In 2002, the Department of Health - which had paid for three full-time paid workers - stopped funding PAIN and the organisation was forced to close.
But Alison was determined to reopen it and took over running it on a voluntary basis, in addition to her full-time work as a hospital nurse. She is now helped by two other people. Alison's achievements have been remarkable.
It was PAIN that pushed for the Parents Allowed in Case Conference Bill in the Nineties. This month, her three-year campaign with John Hemming MP to open up family courts will pay off, as journalists and charity representatives such as herself are finally allowed to attend case conferences, enabling greater public scrutiny of procedures.
She is trying to change the situation for enhanced CRB (Criminal Records Bureau) checks because any allegation remains on a person's file, even if social services take no action - 17,000 people are affected by this. But while Alison is proud of these campaigns, it is her day-to-day work with parents - 'Just being there to listen' - that remains most important to her.
'Just looking at my little granddaughter spurs me on.'
'When someone is in that situation, they want to talk to someone who can empathise,' she says.
'Last week, one woman who called was incredibly upset and, after speaking to me, said she had been thinking of suicide.
'In the past month, I've had three families reunited. That's the best news you can ever hear.'
Alison takes ten phone calls a day and responds to countless emails and messages asking for advice and guidance.
She regularly attends case conferences and court with parents. Fitting in this huge workload around full-time nursing is difficult.
Even on holiday in Egypt two months ago, Alison found an internet cafe and dealt with inquiries - though she still had 300 emails when she returned home. She feels indebted to the group.
'Without it, I might not have won back my son,' she says.
'Today, Scott is 27 and has his own baby daughter, Holly. Just looking at my little granddaughter spurs me on.'
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1170370/Inspirational-women-Alison-wrongly-branded-child-abuser-fights-justice-others.html#ixzz1HML7mja9
Yvonne Stewart-Taylors Granddaughter was born in the U.S.A. on 26th May 2002 after her Mother went into premature labour 3.5 months early on a beach in Mexico. Her parents were transported by Air ambulance to University of San Diego hospital where the labour could not be halted. The little one was born by emergency ceaserian section weighing in at just 2lb 6oz. The baby stayed in intensive care for 10 weeks during which time I visited the new family and tried to help support them.
She had only a 50% chance of survival. It cost Barclays travel insurance over $1 million for her intensive care. In August 2002 she was flown by Air Ambulance from San Diego to Newcastle Upon Tyne where we were told we would have a problem getting her into the British system because she came into the U.K. without a passport and holds an American Birth certificate only.
We were at a loss as to how, at a time of heightened national security, S.A.G.A, working on behalf of Barclays insurance could have managed to bring her into the UK illegally. From
On Jan 03, 2003 she was admitted to hospital with a severe chest infection, remaining there for a few days and then sent home with a broken femur. I asked for a full inquiry into how this could have occurred. A locum pedeatrician at Lancaster diagnosed “Non-accidental Injuries” and Social Services took out an interim care order; accusing the family of child abuse.
We asked them to wait until doctors in San Diego could be consulted. We were refused. We endured 8 months of child care proceedings and had to fight the system. When San Diego Doctors finally sent e-mails to her Mother stating she had been born with significant OOP (osteopenia of prematurity); a bone condition which effects premature infants.
We had been told that if one of six family members did not admit to hurting her she would be placed for adoption.
We were all questioned by police regarding child abuse, including her great grandfather who had lost his wife (my Mother) a few months previously to terminal cancer. Police asked him why he came to visit us so regularly?
After 8 months the family court dispersed the child protection case to Australia, where after a few weeks it was disposed of as a waste of their time and resources. We had seen her for only 2 hours per week for 8 months, under social services supervision. Some weeks we didn’t see her at all because social services didn’t have enough staff.
We went through hell.
Had it not have been for the arrival into the UK, from Australia of her maternal grandmother, social services would have removed her from her birth family -she was still being breast fed at the time, and social services had no mother and child foster provision to place her in. Her Australian granny oversaw her care 24/7 without respite for 8 months; preventing them from being able to take our granddaughter away.
We were made to prove our innocence and treated like criminals. The social workers were so set on an agenda of ‘baby for adoption’ that one even changed the wording of the Australian social worker’s report to try and mislead the Court. Pergery of a document admitted to court. Social services went to great length to protect her from the mixed-race paternal family.
Later, when we complained, they admitted partially discriminating against us on racial grounds. They were not compliant with The Amended Race Relations Act, and had inadequate policies in place.
Our suffering and sense of loss was immense. We had all endured 8 months of hell.
We celebrated when the Family Court judge said we could bring her home and her parents could then take her to be with her Australian family. We were sad to see them go but relieved that social services had to let go. She had been neglected by the NHS, we had been falsely accused, and yet she did not become another of the thousands of children who have been wrongly removed from their birth families and illegally adopted in the UK. Our one saving grace was American Doctors’ e-mails and the fact that she is an American Citizen with no claim to British Citizenship until her parents are married, which to date they are not.
Had social services placed her for adoption to a UK couple they would have contravened international law.
We have exhausted all the complaints procedures only to either be ignored or fobbed off. The NHS were presented with our formal complaint along with the police in December 06 and to date the NHS has not answered our complaint. Social services have refused to answer the Australian complaint and the police have not addressed our concerns either.
My Husband who works for Cumbria Constabulary has, twice in the last two years, faced disciplinary action directly associated with this case and could lose his job after 6 months of investigation into his alleged misconduct at work. The authorities are now hell bent on making us criminals.
Not one family member has ever been prosecuted or charged with any offense yet we are listed on a secret police intelligence computer as ‘prospective child abusers’.
We have requested the removal of our names and been refused. My Son, his daughter and her Mother do not feel safe to return to the UK, as the social worker has said he will get her next time. It has cost us approx £25,000 and the Australian family the loss of their home, business and caused the family unit of 30 years to almost breakdown. We fear that due to the stress of it all her parents relationship will not endure much longer. The good name and character of our families has been tarnished and I can no longer function normally day to day. I lost my jobs, and fear my husband will soon lose his. We will be forced to sell our home and leave the UK in the near future. Institutionally racist Cumbrian Authorities have done us and our granddaughter nothing but harm and they are not even going to be dealt with, for this huge miscarriage of justice.
People aware of this case.
Tony Blair Prime Minister, Margaret Hodge Minister for Children, John Hemming MP, Beverly Hughes Minister for Children, Tim Collins MP, Tim Farron MP, Chief Constable Baxter (Cumbria Constabulary), Joan Stocker, County Council.
Non can intervene in individual cases or right the wrongs of the flawed family courts. The only chance we have of justice, is to go to the European Courts with others who have had their families torn apart.
US congress are also aware of this case involving one of their citizens and we intend to tell this story as widely as we can in three countries in the hope of naming and shaming those who have
The fact remains that she is not even British.
The current system is flawed, open to abuse and damaging or destroying families. How much longer can this continue?
Why do social workers have and abuse, so much power?
Note. I am not bound by the Court’s gagging orders to be silent as I was never a party to Proceedings. The parents do not have the same freedom I have to speak about this, as they are bound by the courts not to speak about it. I have deliberately concealed names to protect the innocent. I do feel strongly that this case should be made public, especially if it raises the profile enough to force changes to occur in the future and prevent others from enduring what we have been through. No, family should have to suffer as we have done.
Incidentally, our family were interviewed re-child abuse by my husbands work colleagues, is it any wonder we are still being looked at and treated like criminals by local police? Policies
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