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The Pedro Family: five children snatched by Lincoln County Council – without paper work

~ parents gagged after five months of fighting for them

The Pedro Family: five children snatched by Lincoln County Council – without paper work

Category Archives: Algarve Resident

Portuguese Government to analyse cases involving Portuguese children taken by British social services @CEOofHMCTS @MoJGovUK @UKHomeOffice

24 Thursday Nov 2016

Posted by Sabine Kurjo McNeill in Algarve Resident, EU Parliament, Petitions Committee

≈ 1 Comment

16-11-24-algarve-residentFollowing a relentless media campaign to highlight Portuguese ‘victims’ of Britain’s alleged “stolen children scandal”, the government has at last agreed to step in.

Pedro Proença – one of the Portuguese lawyers who travelled to England in a bid to help an ever increasing number of Portuguese families recover children from the enforced care of British social service – has told TVI24 that pro-bono efforts have at last borne fruit.

“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has guaranteed that it will be giving special attention to these cases, evaluating them one by one”, he said.

“If cases of real abuse by the British authorities are detected – processual failings or illegalities by the courts and social services – the Portuguese government will step into alert the British government”.

The news is a red-letter day for so many Portuguese emigrés struggling to recover children removed and even placed for adoption on what they claim were totally spurious circumstances.

Portuguese media ‘woke up’ to this scandal in 2014 when five Portuguese children were taken from parents whose pleas for help at the time fell on deaf ears.

Carla and José Pedro joined a protest taken to the European Parliament in which McKenzie Friend campaigner Sabine McNeill made a passionate speech that has since become a landmark in this agonising struggle.

Since then however many more Portuguese children have ‘disappeared’ into the British care system – and the Pedros are still battling for theirs. Hundreds of immigrants to the UK are in a similar agonising predicament, but in cases involving other nationalities governments have already stepped in.

Nationally, TVI24 has been fighting this issue with its documentaries “Love you Mom”, all of which are freely available online.

The four episodes so far have stressed the fact that “many mothers are told they will never see their children again, if they speak to the press”. Criticism over the (lack of) support given by Portuguese consulate authorities has also been highlighted.

Thus this latest news is what campaigners were aiming for. Said Proença yesterday: “We hope it will result in more children being returned to Portuguese families”.

Natasha Donn – Algarve Resident

PHOTO: the Pedro children, all still in care, with their mother who has vowed never to give up in her battle to get them back.

On the European Dimension of Forced Adoptions [in secret family courts – against the will of the parents]:

  • Human Rights and Family Courts – a report by Christopher Chope MP for the Council of Europe in 2012;
  • Social services in Europe: legislation and practice of the removal of children from their families in Council of Europe member States – a report by Duma member Olga Borzova for the Council of Europe in 2015;
  • Draft Mission Report and Recommendations – a report by the Chair of the EU Petitions Committee after a Fact Finding Visit to London in February 2016. 

The Report makes the following 15 recommendations:

1. Relevant statistics should be collected in order to offer a better overview of the issues related not only to non-consensual adoptions and binational cases but also more generally to family law, enabling comparisons between the EU Member States;

2. National family courts should systematically implement the Vienna Convention of 1963 on Consular Relations and articles 15 and 55 of the Regulation EC n°2201/2003 (Brussels II a) at the earliest stage of the child care proceedings and make sure that embassies or consular representations are informed in a timely manner of cases involving their nationals; specific detailed guidelines should be provided for a more efficient implementation of these provisions;

3. The Committee would like to draw attention to a statement by the European Court of Human Rights in Y v United Kingdom (2012) 55 EHRR 33, [2012] 2 FLR 332, para 134:

“family ties may only be severed in very exceptional circumstances and […] everything must be done to preserve personal relations and, where appropriate, to ‘rebuild’ the family. It is not enough to show that a child could be placed in a more beneficial environment for his upbringing. However, where the maintenance of family ties would harm the child’s health and development, a parent is not entitled under article 8 to insist that such ties be maintained.”

4. The Committee would like to draw attention to the risk of subjective interpretation of the grounds for decisions for adoption without parental consent which could emerge from a repeal of the Human Rights Act of 1998; the ECHR (i.e. the right of children to a fair process and the right to respect for family life) will no longer underpin decision-making in courts or local authorities;

5. More attention and appropriate policies should be dedicated to the prevention of care proceedings through monitoring and early warning procedures and the provision of suitable support to families.

6. The timescale of care proceedings (currently 26 weeks max.) should be considered a minimum in order to allow for the proper handling of each case and to ensure that the parents and /or relatives of the child have been given sufficient time to make proposals (on who could be the carer of the child for instance) or any required changes before the adoption is declared definitive;

7.The authorities should ensure that the quality of the social services does not suffer from the budgetary cuts implied by austerity measures (for instance the increase of files to be handled in average by each social worker can have negative effects in the capacity of a proper assessment of individual cases) and that the decisions on proceedings involving custody should be free of any excessive legal pressure, as well as it should not be affected by any financial interest of private parties, such as adoption agencies;

8. Social workers should be given more training on the specific issue of adoption without parental consent;

9. More comprehensive free legal aid schemes should be supported and enhanced all along the care proceedings with the aim to prevent any sort of discrimination;

10. The national authorities and charities involved in care proceedings should ensure that parents are better informed from the very beginning of the proceedings with adequate support to parents with literacy disabilities, including providing all of them with explanations regarding all the legal procedures that they will face, the decisions which may be taken with regards to the future of the child and the consequences, if any, of these decisions, especially in cases relating to section 20 of the Children Act of 1989;

11. In the case of parents who do not speak English, the provision of all the necessary information on the decisions to be taken and their consequences in their own language, or in a language they understand fully, must be ensured; as a first step towards this goal, the telephone helpline service should be made available in several languages;

12. The authorities involved in care proceedings should ensure that parents who have been victims of domestic violence, either as a child or as an adult, or who were themselves taken into foster care, are in no circumstances automatically considered to be at particular risk of causing future emotional harm to their own children; any kind of re-victimisation should be avoided;

13. Social services should ensure the prior identification of potential foster families of the same cultural origin as the child to be placed in care;

14. Solutions which would enable siblings to stay together should be prioritised; if no such solution is possible, every possible measure should be put in place to avoid the complete separation of siblings;

15. The Committee would like to promote the guidelines drafted by the Commission on “coordination and cooperation in integrated child protection systems” which should be kept in mind at every stage of the care proceedings by all services involved.

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THERE ARE NO PLANS to return the children to your care – Lincoln Council – Algarve Resident responds

15 Sunday Jun 2014

Posted by Sabine Kurjo McNeill in Algarve Resident, Judicial Mechanisms, Police Arrest, Search Warrant

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

Algarve, Britain, Grantham, Lincolnshire, Margaret Hodge, Member of Parliament, Pedro, Portugal, Portuguese Brazilian

English: Coat of arms of Portugal Español: Esc...

English: Coat of arms of Portugal (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This is the 6-page letter that the Pedros received in response to their Letter before Claim. In bullet points:

The Pedros challenge

  • the procedures for organising contact with the children;
  • the procedures for reuniting the family;
  • the legitimisation for having care of the children;
  • the duty of care to safeguard the children.

The Council responds:

  • your claim is without merit;
  • your challenges are misconceived;
  • conditions of contact are inarguable.

For

  • we know from Mr R d S that you planned to abduct your five children [the Police charge said 3 of theirs plus somebody else’s];
  • he was previously involved in an abduction;
  • you have links with him;
  • you also have links with a ‘campaigning group’ against forced adoption whose policy is advising abduction;
  • your commitment to return to the children to Portugal is known.

In summary, as my late husband used to say: criminals try to get away with anything! So far they have succeeded! But as the internet comes to the rescue:  Continue reading →

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EU PARLIAMENT: Abolish Adoptions without Parental Consent – Did you Sign?

Presented on 19 March 2014 in Brussels

Click on image to see video at EU Petitions Committee Live!

Recent Posts

  • Portuguese Government to analyse cases involving Portuguese children taken by British social services @CEOofHMCTS @MoJGovUK @UKHomeOffice
  • LOVE YOU MOM – #documentary on Portuguese TV about #ChildSnatching #ForcedAdoptions #SocialServices #ChildSnatchUK @UKHomeOffice @CabinetOfficeUK
  • PRAISE to a Lincoln County Councillor: 4 of the Pedro children to return?
  • THERE ARE NO PLANS to return the children to your care – Lincoln Council – Algarve Resident responds
  • THREE FORCED ADOPTION articles in the National Portuguese Newspaper Publico
  • PEDROS SUSPECT of abducting their children during contact sessions – after Police dropped charges!
  • LET’s ASK in Portuguese: why are children screaming to be heard in the UK?
  • POLICE DROP CHARGES against Portuguese Parents Fighting for the Return of their Children
  • LINCOLN POLICE – arrests and child snatch of Portuguese family without Court Orders
  • EASTER SUNDAY in Grantham – after good news – before possible reunion in Portugal
  • THE PEDRO CHILDREN are going back to Portugal – thanks to Consulate and Embassy!
  • WHAT HAPPENS to Children in England? Article in Portuguese Correio da Manha
  • PERSECUTED for petitioning against Forced Adoption in Brussels
  • “CAN WE GO BACK HOME, please?” – the voice of the Pedro children in The Portugal News Online
  • PORTUGUESE IMMIGRANTS caught up in UK ‘adoption scandal’ – in an English paper in Portugal

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Booker Articles

  • A terrible act of inhumanity that shows why justice must never be secret
  • Children Advertised like Pets for Sale
  • New family court guidelines won't improve a rotten system for children
  • Operate on this mother so that we can take her baby
  • Our 'child protection' system is an international scandal

Child Snatching aka State Kidnapping

  • Child Care Proceedings Exposed
  • Forced Adoption
  • Punishment without Crime
  • State Kidnapping
  • State Stealing Children

Family Court Victims

  • Carla and Jose Pedro – Lincoln Council
  • Kellie Cottam – Flintshire Council
  • Latvian Laila Brice vs Merton Council
  • Melissa Laird – deported for her son to be adopted
  • Nigerian Family Destroyed by Haringey Council

For your MEP

  • If you want to be re-elected, commit to 'Pro Child'!
  • Minutes of Petitions Committee Meeting on 19/03/14
  • Official Video of PETI Committee Meeting
  • Please Ensure Action Points of Petitions Committee
  • Six Minutes of Presenting Petition to STOP FORCED ADOPTIONS in UK

For Your MP

  • Barrister Flees Barnet Council
  • Care Proceedings Affecting Foreign Nationals
  • Children Placed in Foster Care – before House of Commons
  • International Concerns about UK Law
  • Petitions to the European Parliament

Munby Reforms

  • Baby J: Courts to adopt to realities of internet and Social Media
  • Controversial secret courts must be open to scrutiny says leading judge
  • Judge of the Week
  • New family court guidelines won't improve a rotten system for children
  • No-one should be jailed in secret says top judge

Petitions to Sign

  • Abolish Adoptions without Parental Consent
  • Abolish Secrecy and Remove Gags
  • The Secrecy of the Family Courts should be lifted Now

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