It’s been a busy week. I’ve been collecting things to blog about as I’ve gone – quite a lot of interest this week. Fortunately, a lot of it has already been covered in detail by Suesspicious Minds, which saves me the trouble.

Firstly, Sarah Phillimore has been on her soapbox over at the Human Rights blog :
No one has the right to expect the State to make them better parents, venting in frustration at the too familiar scenario where through care proceedings therapeutic needs are identified which there is no functional way of achieving. FDAC of course has demonstrated in cases involving substance abuse that investment in helping parents change can help break the cycle of repeated removal of baby after baby and so save the costs of future proceedings and state accommodation of children (as well as the human cost). But the problem is much wider – parents without substance abuse problems but who have longstanding psychological difficulties are left without hope and without children, even where their difficulties are amenable to change.

Next up, s20 and Human Rights Act claims. One in Hackney, covered by Suesspicious Minds (Couple win damages for Hackney keeping children in their care) and two judgments of HHJ Wildblood QC in Bristol both dealt with by Suesspicious Minds (firstly And I’m all outta bubblegum and Bad week for Gloucestershire continues to get worse). I’m not going to make any comment on those as one is my case and ongoing.

Also reported in the press this week was a harrowing case : Woman made foster daughter kneel in scalding water. Worth noting because it was actually pretty well and accurately reported – the judgment is pretty awful reading (see Lancashire County Council v ABC & Ors [2015] EWFC B124 (29 January 2015)).

The initiative in Bristol to run free family law classes for the public has been circulated pretty widely this week. You can read about that here on the www.familycourtinfo.org.uk website, which incidentally now has a twitter account : @familycourtinfo.