Consensus
Report
No
names, no proof, no consensus
Jonathan Gornall,
freelance
journalist
MPs
jump the gun in calling for action on mystery report that claims social
services 'snatch' children from parents
http://society.guardian.co.uk/societyguardian/story/0,,1781214,00.html
Wednesday
May 24, 2006
The Guardian
Last month, a Sunday newspaper ran a shocking story based on a report
alleging that innocent parents were being wrongly accused of abuse and
were having their children snatched away by overzealous social services.
It ran the story under the headline "MPs say hunt for abusers may
be out of control", after a cross-party group of MPs decided to
press for a meeting with the children's minister, Beverley Hughes, to
discuss the report's controversial claims. However, a Society Guardian
investigation has found that not only are the claims made by the report
inaccurate, but also that no one - including the MPs demanding action
- knows who was responsible for the 104-page document.
The report, Misdirection of Social Policy, alleges that parents are
being targeted by social services because of suspicions about Munchausen
syndrome by proxy (MSBP) - now also known as Fabricated or Induced Illness
- a condition where parents are deemed to have harmed their children
to gain sympathy and attention for themselves. It claims that as many
as 12,000 children a year are taken into care as a result. According
to the document, it was compiled by an organisation called Consensus,
which purports to be a group of concerned parents and professionals.
The report,
if not the identity of its authors, certainly captured the attention
of MPs. In March, Richard Taylor, the Independent MP for Wyre Forest
and one of the cross-party group, wrote to Julie Jones, president of
the Association of Directors of Social Services (ADSS), quoting the
Consensus report at length. He invited her to "marshal its rebuttals,
point-by-point".
When we spoke
to Taylor, he appeared to be a great deal less certain about the provenance
of the report. He said: "There is a group that has produced a report,
which is known as the Consensus report . . . but we are not claiming
ownership of it or anything like that. And I couldn't tell you who the
people were that produced it." So did he not initially wonder who
was behind such an inflammatory publication? "Er, I need to know
about its reliability and veracity, certainly, yes."
Meanwhile,
neither Lynne Featherstone, Liberal Democrat member for Hornsey and
Wood Green in London, nor Damian Green, Tory MP for Ashford, Kent, were
able to identity the report's authors.
In an attempt
to explain the attraction of the report for the cross-party group, Green
says: "We all came to it because we had individual constituent
cases who appear on the surface to have been very badly treated by the
existing guidelines, so almost with or without the Consensus report,
which happened to act as a catalyst, we got together and thought we
should bring it to the attention of ministers."
With no one
able to confirm who authored the report, we were directed by Green to
a solicitor who was advising the cross-party group. However, he says
that he had only supplied a copy on condition of anonymity. He suggested
we speak to David Mortimer, a Milton Keynes postman who has been involved
with groups concerned with the rights of fathers, including UK Fathers,
Mankind and Families Need Fathers. He is also a member of the Equal
Parenting Council and a group called Family Law Reform.
Mortimer's
home address appears on the front page of the Consensus document, but
he says his only role had been to act as a delivery boy for the report
and said he had no idea who or what Consensus was. According to Mortimer,
he was telephoned anonymously and asked if he would be prepared to hand-deliver
the report to named politicians and Whitehall officials. He said the
material had then arrived in the post. His only explanation as to why
he agreed to deliver an uncorroborated document was that it appeared
to share some common concerns about social services with his group,
UK Fathers.
Whoever its
authors are, the Consensus report attempts to support its argument using
statistics that frequently don't stand up to scrutiny. For example,
it misleadingly suggests that the total number of children in care is
rising. According to government figures - from which the report selectively
quotes - the number of children in care did rise from 49,500 in 1994
to 61,100 in 2004, but the overall trend has been steadily downwards
since 1976, when 96,000 were in care.
So what do
social services and child care professionals make of the report?
Andrew Webb,
director of children and young people at Stockport council and co-chair
of the ADSS's children and families policy committee, says: "The
document basically condemns itself fairly near the beginning when it
states 'the actual job of social services is to deal with dangerous
and unpleasant people'. Then towards the end it goes on to say 'initial
assessments are implements of familial destruction' - two quotes that
really point out how little it understands about the statutory nature
of social services. The Children Act 1989 gave us a duty to put the
needs of the child paramount. The Consensus document makes no reference
whatsoever to the needs of children."
Although
there are no signatories to the Consensus report, all 14 case studies
cited in the document as evidence of how the system is failing families
were provided by Lisa Blakemore-Brown, a psychologist and long-term
opponent of MSBP. Since 1996, she has written a series of letters to
ministers, health secretaries and even the prime minister highlighting
her concerns about the misdiagnosis of MSBP.
Blakemore-Brown
denied that she was the author of the report, but could not say who
was. "I was approached by this Consensus group and I think it's
headed by somebody called Dave Mortimer," she said. She suggested
that the authors of the report had chosen anonymity out of fear of persecution.
"We have had a lot of people doing things over the years bordering
on the criminal in the system, and we have a system that could jump
on anybody who puts their hand up and says, 'Yes, I'm the author of
that.'"
The cross-party
group of MPs are seeking a meeting with the Royal College of Paediatrics
and Child Health after discussing their concerns with the children's
minister.
One paediatrician,
who asked not to be named, said: "What is disgraceful is that members
of parliament have allowed themselves to be recruited to this campaign
and are apparently happy to peddle the report's allegations without
having any idea of the identity of its authors or their motives."
