Wednesday 9th March 2011

(13 years, 2 months ago)

Petitions
Read Hansard Text
The Petition of Jackie Goddard,
Declares that the Petitioner’s daughter T was removed from her care because of a burn and a number of incidents where her skin was inflamed. Initially the Petitioner could not explain the cause of these. However, it is now known that the burn was caused by the control panel on a heater which is now accepted by the manufacturers as being faulty. The Petitioner also received a new suite just before the inflammations were recognized. The lesions are also similar to those caused by Di-Methyl Fumerate, however, no test has been allowed to identify whether T exhibits such an allergic reaction.
When the Petitioner’s daughter was removed she was told her daughter would be going into foster care. Her father raised concerns that given that he was a justice of the peace and a registered child minder it would be surprising if he was rejected as a carer. The Petitioner also believes that the reason they took her younger daughter into care and left her older daughter was because the older daughter was of a darker colour and the objective was to satisfy adoption targets rather than protect her younger daughter. The younger daughter was, therefore, more “adoptable”.
The family believe that the medical evidence in this case should be reviewed as the courts decisions rely on information that has now been shown to be unreliable. The family also believes that this case demonstrates that Manchester Children’s Services have acted with a priority of achieving an adoption rather than a priority of protecting children.
The Petitioner therefore requests that the House of Commons urges the Government to take steps to reprioritise the child protection system to concentrate on protecting children and that the House of Commons institute a parliamentary inquiry into this case and the failure of the checks and balances involved.
And the Petitioner remains, etc.—[Presented by Chris Ruane.]
[P000899]