7 January - You couldn’t make it up
I’m afraid Bonkers is about to unleash another story critical of Bexley
Social Workers, not that I would suggest that they are worse than any other.
Over my 81 years (sorry - someone asked how old I am - I have encountered Social
Workers at a personal level only twice. My son when very young had a
slightly twisted foot which the doctor said would eventually right itself. It
did, but meanwhile he would trip himself up and give himself a bruise or two.
Despite the dodgy foot being on his medical records the Social Workers would have to
come around for a house inspection.
I can understand why they may have done that once or twice but after a while it
may have been more sensible to look up his record and ask the lad what he had
done this time. Not a big deal but it did tend to confirm my view that a
profession content to name itself after
a Communist Newspaper
and use the initials SS may not be made up of the brightest people.
When I was looking after an octogenarian aunt
the Social Workers were a total let down and her General Practitioner and MP
had to intervene. In Bexley a Social Worker was happy to tell me that
they would punish vulnerable
people they deemed to be awkward.
More generally we only hear bad things about Social Workers in news reports that
end with some nonsense about lessons being learned. I suppose they must do
things other than ‘steal’ people’s children but we don’t often hear about it.
I don’t think I will ever forget reading their memo which said in mid-December
that they would investigate reports from school teachers “after the party season”
which proved to be a death sentence but except that it didn’t result in a death
a new report may be every bit as bad.
My scepticism that such a thing could happen has been tempered by seeing some of
the legal correspondence in which Bexley Council is referenced.
The allegation that Bexley Council has faced is that an eleven year old boy,
let’s call him Jamie before this gets too complicated, was put into Council care
when his teachers made reports that things didn’t seem to be quite right at
home. After being with one OK foster parent he was moved to another where he was
unhappy. After only two weeks the foster parent indicated that she was going to
throw him out from a Thamesmead address I know fairly well and which I have
avoided for many years. Maybe irrational but I do not feel safe there.
The day after being given the warning which had confused Jamie he was detained
after school by his teachers and released into the custody of three men in a
black car. They took him to a hotel for the night and in the morning a convoy of
three cars took him to the airport. One man accompanied Jamie on a flight to
Sierra Leone which was his place of birth but where he knew no one.
Much more recent correspondence suggests the three men were contracted by Bexley
Council which may have they thought that they were delivering the boy into the
hands of his father. Jamie has not been able to discover if there was a Court
Order but assumes that if there was his UK parents did not contest it.
Jamie was not aware that his father may have moved to Sierra Leone but a
stranger collected him from Freetown Airport. The escort said that he needed to
do a bit of shopping but would be back. He disappeared into the crowd and was
never seen again, The stranger took Jamie across the border to Gambia and from
there to Guinea where he was left to fend for himself in a half built house.
He has subsequently discovered that the stranger was a family friend.
Jamie did a runner about five years later and managed to get back to Bexley and
back into care. Quite how he ‘escaped’ and paid for it is as yet unexplained
except that a temporary passport was involved.
The story so far can be told because Bexley Council found a legal defence to the
alleged neglect and that aspect of the case against them is ended but the legal
documents I have seen do not deny what Jamie calls his kidnapping and delivery
to a starnger. The subsequent trauma is difficult to prove, especially as
Jamie has successfully turned his life around.