The sinister power of family courts

It’s right that some children are taken into care. One case in point is that of Ayeeshia-Jayne Smith, the toddler who was stamped to death by her violent young mother in 2014. She was known to social services for all of her short life, from the point when her pregnant mother was found living in a garage, but she was never removed. This week, a serious case review found that social workers ‘missed the danger signs’.

Danger signs. A nebulous phrase with numerous interpretations. In tragic cases like this one, the danger signs are ignored, possibly because it is tempting for social workers to avoid dealing with the most aggressive and confrontational families. Because of the strict secrecy surrounding family courts, it is often only when these cases arrive in a criminal court that we get a glimpse of how badly some children are let down. But there’s another risk: the opposite side to Ayeeshia-Jayne’s story.