Petition On Child Abuse By Social Services

I looks as if the instigator of this petition is the same Charles Pagnell who wrote this history of the Cleveland child abuse scandal, and who describes himself as having been the Head of Research and Management Information Systems with Cleveland Social Services Department in 1987; in other words, he was in post around the actual time that the unwarranted removal of children from their families was taking place.

He writes elsewhere

"According to statistical evidence in 1992 and 1997, over two-thirds of reports of child abuse in the U.K. have NO substantive basis"

and

"The harm to children and families from false accusations of child abuse was well-documented by American researchers, Wakefield and Underwager who stated in a paper in 1995 that:
"We have built a system that, while intended to protect children, often does more harm an good. From 1979 to the present, every scientist who has investigated the level and type of error committed by the child protection system has concluded there is an unconscionable level of false positives, that is, saying there is abuse when there is not." "Although the damage to a falsely accused person is obvious, it is not fully realised that a child is also damaged by a false allegation and a mistaken decision. If a child is involved in allegations of abuse that are ill-founded and erroneous, it is not an innocuous, neutral, or benign experience. A child involved in a false accusation of abuse is subjected to highly destructive emotional abuse. The harm done to children when adults make a mistake…….is severe and long-lasting.". "

OK, so I don't need much persuading in this case, and calling for a Royal Commission to investigate the current system seems proportionate, I would say, so have therefore signed his petition.