Pink Tape

a blog from the family bar

Protecting Our Children

Episode 2 of Protecting Our Children aired on BBC2 tonight. And if it didn’t bring a tear in Episode One, Episode Two will definitely do it for you. I only caught the second half of Episode 1 last week, and was left wondering whether there might be some gaps in coverage (above and beyond the [...]

Guest Post: Social media – our master or our servant?

This is a guest post written by Sarah Phillimore (@svphillimore), a barrister at St John’s Chambers. It arises from a discussion Sarah, myself and other colleagues had last weekend about the difficulty in obtaining s26 contact orders in placement proceedings and the spate of media reports of teenagers tracked down on Facebook by their biological [...]

Managing Adoption Services to Achieve Financial Savings

OMFG. Yes, that is a legal-technical term. When I read the following extracts from Martin Narey’s review of adoption services in Kent, sent to me by a legal friend who often suggests material for the blog, OMFG seemed to be an apposite response: “Adoption should never be pursued simply because it saves money. But there [...]

Abuse of Process: Dramatic Extent of Stalking in the Family Courts

Last week NAPO (The Trade Union and Professional Association for Family Court & Probation Staff) and PAS (Protection Against Stalking) published a “dossier” of 33 cases that “exposes shocking use by convicted murders, rapists and stalkers of family and civil court processes to continue to cause fear and alarm to their victims.  The briefing details [...]

And for tonight’s rant…

…I shall mostly be complaining about section 20 of the Children Act. It’s a well intentioned provision, but often exploited and misused in ways which make my blood boil. s20, for those who don’t know, is a provision which places a duty upon Local Authorities to accommodate children who have no available parent or who [...]

What She Said – Adopting Words on Adoption

David Cameron has stepped into the adoption debate this week, distracting us all from the economic catastrophe with a message of hope for all those children “put up” for adoption who are “languishing” in care as a result of court delay (caused by lawyers, natch and probably ones with a human rights obsession too) and political [...]

Open letter to CAFCASS

“An open letter in respect of my resignation from Cafcass 26 September 2011 Dear  …………………, I have long had my doubts as to whether Cafcass as an organisation is fit for purpose.  I have been critical of the honesty and integrity of the management of the service, things that continue to concern me.  I have [...]

Hurrah for independent Guardians

A County Council v K & Ors (By the Child’s Guardian Ht) [2011] EWHC 1672 (Fam) I have not had the chance to fully read this judgment, but this case appears to be an astonishing rebuke to CAFCASS’ bureaucratic, authoritarian managerial approach, and firmly reminds them of the need to allow Guardian’s to exercise their [...]

Adoption Tzar

Although not formally confirmed yet on the Department of Education website it is reported in Community Care that “Former Barnardo’s chief Martin Narey will be tasked with encouraging “sceptical” social workers to see adoption as an option for more children in care in his role as the government’s first adoption tsar.” I’m all for permanence [...]

Different Demons

There are two main groups of critics of the family courts: they are Father’s rights groups (such as Fathers4Justice but of course there are many others) who concern themselves primarily with private law disputes, and a quite separate group concerned primarily with care proceedings and “forced” adoptions (John Hemming MP and journalist Christopher Booker to [...]

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  • About

    A blog in which I ricochet from too serious to too flippant, and alternate between a bit clever, a bit interesting and a bit ranty: Pink Tape neatly functions as both a blog about family law and a therapeutic escape valve for me. >>more




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