Media frenzy leaves baby unprotected
Published in Newcastle Journal, January 4, 2008
DAMNED if they do, sued if they don’t. Who would be a social worker?
Earlier this month, in a precedent-setting case, a 31-year-old Doncaster
man won £25,000 compensation in the High Court after successfully suing his
local council for having failed to protect him from his abusive parents
when he was a child.
Jake Pierce said he had been subject to beatings and other ill-treatment
from as early as he could remember until the day he ran away from home at
the age of 14.
Social services, said his barrister, had ignored obvious signs of abuse and
should have taken him into care in 1977. As a result of his experiences,
the hearing was told, Pierce now suffers from an acute personality
disorder.
Fast forward to the recent front-page headline in The Journal: “Pregnant
Fran told she’s in the clear.”
This was the latest in a series of articles about Fran Lyon, a pregnant
22-year-old from Hexham who last month fled the country to prevent
Northumberland social services taking her child at birth.
Whereas Doncaster has been taken to task for under-reacting to concerns
about a child, Northumberland’s "sin", according to the media coverage of
Ms Lyon’s case, has been to over-react to warning signs.
But has it? I don’t think so. In my view, Northumberland social workers and
doctors who care deeply about the well-being of vulnerable children have
been unfairly vilified as part of a national campaign with ulterior
motives.
I spoke to Ms Lyon in August for an article I wrote about her case for
Community Care, the social work journal, and she was utterly frank about
her own mental health history.
Suffice to say that, after a number of alleged traumatic experiences as a
teenager, at the age of 15 she was diagnosed with Borderline Personality
Disorder and spent a year at the Cassel Hospital in Richmond, south London,
undergoing in-patient psychiatric treatment, followed by nine months as a
twice-weekly out-patient.
This, in part, is the background to the concerns the council has for the
well-being of the child Ms Lyon has already named Molly.
Unusually for such cases, it can be made public because Ms Lyon herself has
chosen to share this information. However, all the information that is
available has not always been used to balance the extensive media coverage
of her case.
One myth, inadvertently repeated in The Journal, was that the decision to
take away Molly at birth had been made because “a paediatrician Miss Lyon
had never met said she was likely to suffer from a condition that would
cause her to harm her child”.
That simply isn’t true. I have seen the paediatrician’s letter; Ms Lyon
herself sent it to me, among other journalists. It is clear to me that the
doctor in question was responding to specific concerns, raised by others,
about “whether or not (Ms Lyon) does indeed fabricate or induce symptoms or
illnesses in herself” and whether or not this meant there was a likelihood
that she would do the same to her child.
Far from leaping to any conclusions, the vilified paediatrician was
actually recommending that before any decisions were made about the future
care of Ms Lyon’s child, it was “highly desirable that (Ms Lyon) undergoes
assessment by one of the forensic psychologists based at (X) Hospital . . . their
opinion on the issue of safety and risk is essential”.
This, in fact, appears to be the process that is now complete and that led
to The Journal headline, although there seems to be no evidence that Ms
Lyon is “cleared”, but simply that the council has now decided it would be
a good idea for Ms Lyon and her baby to be monitored in a mother and baby
unit.
This seems like a sensible suggestion. Indeed, originally, it was exactly
what Ms Lyon had asked for through the media.
Instead, Ms Lyon now finds herself far from home, and this month, when she
is born, Molly will find herself without the protection a range of professionals
believe she may need.
How did it come to this? It is my belief that the Lyon case has been
hijacked by those whose agenda may lie beyond the question of what is right
for Fran and Molly.
Meanwhile, Northumberland County Council is bound by considerations of
confidentiality and cannot comment in detail on such cases.
Clearly, however, there is a great deal more to the story than has been
allowed to meet the public eye.
Hopefully, Ms Lyon will prove to be the good parent she believes she will
be. But whatever happens, at least 30 years from now Molly will not be able
to sue Northumberland Council for having failed to try to protect her – and
it should not be vilified now for having tried to do so.