The last year has really hammered home to me just what a mess this country is in,it is now normal for criminals to be protected.The innocent have no rights,despite millions of pounds being spent on strategies and policies to improve life in this country.
The safeguarding children framework is a classic example,it is designed to protect children up to the age of 18...what a joke!!
This is the official line from the home office..........
I am sorry to hear of your experience of not getting the help you obviously need concerning the safeguarding of your daughter. 'Working Together to Safeguard Children', the main inter-agency guidance to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, defines a child using the definition in the Children Acts 1989 and 2004, as anyone who has not yet reached their 18th birthday. The processes that the guidance sets out for safeguarding children therefore apply to all children up to the age of 18. The fact that a child has reached the age of 16 or is living independently does not change their status or entitlement to services or protection under the Children Act 1989.
So that's the official line but what of the reality?
We are told that as parents of a 16 year old we have no rights,but of course we can be prosecuted for her not attending school!!!
Social services drag their feet in cases like ours until the child is old enough for the case to be closed,but even then they won't hear the end of me!
Our daughter was groomed by a man with a chequered history,she was not the only girl who he had done this to.It is now nearly a year since we saw her and we have no idea if she is safe or not,social workers are a complete joke,I have written to them and told them that if anything happens to her they will have blood on their hands.
We are told to forget that we ever had a daughter and move on with our lives,could any mum ever forget 15 years of love?? I seriously doubt it!
We are told that she is safe despite the fact that not one social worker in Bristol has ever laid eyes on her,in fact the last time she was seen by anyone in authority was in mid November,but hey we shouldn't be worried...or so they tell us!
We are of course not the only family that this has happened to,there are hundreds of others out there going through the same nightmare as us,some girls are as young as 10 and in 99% of cases the social workers are not interested.So just who is supposed to be looking out for their welfare,should it be social workers,parents or charity workers?
I can safely say that if it wasn't for the help and support that we have had from CROP we wouldn't have survived the last year,but as a charity they are struggling to cope with the size of the problem.
The police officers that we have dealt with have been fantastic,don't get me wrong,but the law itself is useless unless it is used appropriately.
I would like to be able to say that social workers could do a good job if they had more funding but recent months have made it clear that it's unlikely.I have made complaints about the way our case has been handled and had those complaints been handled properly I would have been satisfied.No such luck!!! Our social worker has denied that conversations have taken place,despite police officers being present on many occassions,to be honest it has just put my back up even more.
We have now decided that this country is no longer for us,it's time to move.
Our son will finish his compulsary education then we are planning to leave for pastures new,not a decission we have taken lightly but in the circumstances we have lost all faith in what this country used to stand for.
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It would seem that social services has a legal responsibility for the safety of children up to the age of 18. Since your daughter is not attending school and is under school-leaving age, I would have thought that a care order would have been the logical step. I have read recently about children disappearing off school registers and that those should be investigated. Your daughter has disappeared off a school register and it appears that no one is doing anything to ensure her school attendance. I guess social services might pay more attention if she was a young Asian woman forced into a marriage. That would get the tabloids' attention, and rightly so, but why not your daughter? Who is guaranteeing her safety and how are they doing that?
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