UK System
Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2007 5:59 am
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See Adoption
http://forum.fightcps.com/viewtopic.php?p=40017#40017
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http://icnewcastle.icnetwork.co.uk/sund ... _page.html
Open up our family courts
Jul 1 2007
By Phil Doherty, The Sunday Sun
A top lawyer has called for the Family Courts to be opened up to the Press to prevent what he described as appalling miscarriages of justice which have seen children taken from their parents for no good reason.
Bill Bache, who has dealt with a number of North cases and famously won mum Angela Canning her freedom after she was falsely accused of murdering her kids, said there would be an outcry if people knew what went on behind closed court doors.
He said: "What I have seen happening in these courts over a long period of time is the most astonishing decisions being made on the basis of astonishing evidence."
Because of the law of contempt, Mr Bache cannot give specific details of cases for fear of arrest and a possible jail sentence.
The Government had said it wanted to open up Family Courts to restore public confidence in them. However, after lobbying by social services, the NSPCC, paediatricians and other interested groups, Justice Minister Lord Falconer recently announced yet more restrictions on reporters.
Mr Bache said: "It does not surprise me that social services and the NSPCC have lobbied against moves to open up the courts. I've had experience of a number of social workers and while there are some excellent ones who do a very good job, there are far too many who are appalling and whose conduct is indefensible.
"When parents are already at a low ebb they try every trick they can to undermine and demoralise them and they are quite arbitrary as to why they intrude into the lives of families. Quite often they just bully parents because they simply don't like them.
"The problem is that some social workers have become hypersensitive to seeing abuse everywhere and this is why we need a counter balance in the courts.
"Social services and other professionals in the family courts use the Children's Act to protect themselves rather than the children. I find it depressing that their lobbying has effectively maintained the status quo."
The Government decided to launch a consultation on family courts in 2006 after three mums were charged with murdering their children on the evidence of experts. The youngsters were actually victims of cot death. The mothers were Angela Canning, Trupti Patel and Sally Clark, who died in March.
Paediatrician Sir Roy Meadow gave evidence against all three and his infamous comment in the Clark case - the so called "Meadow's Law" that there was just a one in 73 million chance of two cot deaths in one family - was roundly discredited and he was subsequently struck off.
While the cases were heard in open criminal courts, concern had been expressed that Meadow's theories had been applied previously in closed Family Court and not subject to public scrutiny.
Jan Loxley Blount, a former Government adviser on children said: "Opening up the Family Courts is the only way we will get real justice in these cases.
"At present they are taking children away from parents without any scrutiny whatsoever. For those who have had their children wrongly taken from them this is a life sentence."
Few in Teesside can forget the 1980s Cleveland sex abuse scandal where 120 children were removed from families by social services on the advice from two paediatricians using a test that was later discredited.
However, explaining the U-turn, Lord Falconer said: "I have listened to the views of children and young people. The clear message was the media should not be given an automatic right to attend family courts as this could jeopardise children's rights to privacy and anonymity."
David Barnes, a spokesman for the British Association of Social Workers, said: "We are not against more accountability of the Family Courts and welcome that more summaries of judgements will be made public as these are a way of understanding how the courts are making their decisions.
"Also, social workers are only human and there will be a small number not doing their jobs properly or even worse. This is why we do welcome more accountability."
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.
.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh ... opt201.xml
For the children's sake, it's time to lift this veil
By Alasdair Palme, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 2:00am BST 02/07/2007
When the state takes a child by force from its parents and gives it to another family, it is an offence to publish that fact, or any of the evidence produced for the court hearing. The punishment is an unlimited fine or imprisonment.
If a mother whose child is taken from her so much as communicates the information to someone not on the government-approved list - restricted to her legal team, doctor and MP - she commits an offence.
Some of the judges who work in the family courts, however, have come to realise that blanket secrecy does not serve justice.
Last year, Mr Justice McFarlane took the almost unprecedented step of publishing his judgment in the case of X, a child who was taken away from her mother, after the mother had asked social workers for advice in dealing with the girl's moods. The woman only managed to get her daughter back 18 months later.
Mr Justice McFarlane found that "every single element" of the grounds used to justify taking the child "was misleading, or incomplete, or wrong". He identified appalling malpractice on the part of social services, the local authority and its lawyers. He published his judgment in an effort to ensure that the same malpractice was not repeated. Usually, secrecy would ensure that no one, not even court officials, ever knew how badly things had gone wrong.
It is easy to see how the practice of keeping the family courts secret benefits incompetent social workers and lawyers: they are never called to account for their mistakes, for their mistakes are never identified.
But how could anyone think that such a practice benefits children?
In justifying its decision not to open the family courts to public scrutiny, the Department of Justice (DoJ) stated that children would suffer harm if their "right to privacy" were infringed by such a move, because then children would be named in the press.
But the blanket secrecy of the family courts could perfectly well be ended without children being identified by name.
In reporting rape trials, it is illegal to identify the victim. The press complies with that law. No one claims that the only way to protect the privacy of rape victims and to improve the quality of justice in rape trials is to impose a blanket ban on reporting anything about such cases, not least because everyone knows that would be a recipe for lowering the standards of justice. Furthermore, even if it is granted that children would "suffer harm" by any form of publicity, that "harm" has to be balanced against the lasting damage that can be done by wrongly taking children from their parents.
The DoJ seems to believe that the family courts never wrongly take children from their parents. But that is demonstrably false.
Because the courts are secret, no one has been able systematically to examine the quality of decision-making, so no one knows what percentage of the children who are forcibly adopted should never have been taken away.
The evidence of malpractice from the few cases that do manage to make it into the public domain is not reassuring.
Covering up incompetence is not the only motive for preserving secrecy in the family courts, but it is usually its only effect. If the Government really believed the "interests of the child" were paramount, it would end that secrecy tomorrow.
.
.
MP means Member of Parliament
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh ... lma229.xml
Family courts appeal wins backing of MPs
Ben Leapman, Home Affairs Correspondent, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 12:43am BST 29/07/2007
A campaign for a public inquiry into miscarriages of justice in family courts has won the backing of 23 MPs, writes Ben Leapman.
In a Commons motion, they condemn the Government for abandoning plans to lift the secrecy veil on hearings. They also criticise the financial incentives offered to councils to raise adoption rates.
Lynne Jones, Labour MP for Birmingham Selly Oak, favours reform after one of her constituents, a woman with learning difficulties, had her first two babies taken away by social services and put up for adoption. After the MP intervened, the woman was allowed to keep her third baby. Miss Jones said: "Social services are overstretched in terms of resources, so you get corners cut and injustices occur."
advertisementOthers backing the campaign include Liberal Democrats Norman Lamb and John Hemming, Conservatives David Wilshire and Andrew Pelling, and Labour's Kate Hoey and Alan Simpson.
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.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh ... lma129.xml
Daughter died while in care of social workers
Ben Leapman, Home Affairs Correspondent, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 12:52am BST 29/07/2007
The grieving parents of a 12-year-old girl who died in council care have condemned the secrecy of the family courts which took their daughter away.
Salma's father, Walid, protesting outside Parliament
Salma ElSharkawy was killed along with care worker, Beth Fitton, 23, when their car hit a tree and burst into flames near Buxton, Derbyshire, earlier this month.
Salma was removed from her family at the age of 10 after her mother Mary O'Sullivan, 49, asked social workers to help deal with her bad behaviour. Since then her parents had been fighting to get her back.
She regularly ran away from foster care and returned home, only to be returned to her foster carers by police.
A judge ruled, however, that she should remain in council care, despite being told by Salma in a handwritten letter: "I think social services are liars. I wish I could go home to my mum and dad. No one knows how I feel except my mum [and] dad. I feel very sad and down. If you don't say I am not going home my life will be destroyed."
advertisementIn her letter, Salma also criticises the Monroe Young Family Centre, where her family was assessed.
Walid ElSharkawy, 43, an IT technician, claims his daughter was let down by the family courts, lawyers and the council in Camden, north London. The parents have launched their own campaign to lift the veil of secrecy around family court hearings, with the threat of jail for parents who speak publicly about having their children taken away.
They join a growing number of voices expressing concern.
Last month, the Government abandoned plans to allow limited media access to the hearings, prompting Sarah Harman, a solicitor specialising in family law and elder sister of Harriet, deputy leader of the Labour Party, to increase pressure to open up proceedings.
Mr ElSharkawy said: "When I heard we were going to court, I thought we would be all right because we've done nothing wrong. But there is no justice.
"The case was fixed from day one by people who work with each other. You stand no chance of getting your child back. I want to open up the family courts and make social workers accountable."
Miss O'Sullivan, a hospital volunteer, said: "Social services were desperate to get the care order.
"Salma was my only child and I'm 49, so I won't be able to have any more. Someone has got to take the blame for this - she died in their care."
Miss O'Sullivan sought help in 2005 while her husband was working in the Middle East. After Salma was removed, her parents, married but separated, underwent psychiatric and parenting assessments in their quest to get her back.
The mother was diagnosed with dysthymia or chronic mild depression. The father claims he was told he was "too rigid", "lacked understanding of Salma's emotional needs" and had "little insight into her complex personality".
During his assessment, he says, he was given tasks including counting backwards in sevens from 100. Mr ElSharkawy said: "If you talk to your child during an assessment, they say you're 'trying to impose your character'. If your child answers you, they're 'begging for attention'. It's evil, the way they use words."
On occasions Salma slept rough while on the run from foster care. Her parents obeyed court orders by telephoning police each time their daughter turned up at their doorstep. They believe this cost them dearly because social workers told Salma that it proved they did not want her at home.
In 2006, a judge ordered that Salma should remain in foster care. She spent the last four months of her life at a children's home in the Peak District operated by Adventure Care Ltd, a private firm, at a cost to taxpayers of £2,920 a week - six times more than a boarding place at the top public girls' school Roedean. She was living in a house with Miss Fitton, receiving one-to-one care and personal tuition.
On July 3, Miss Fitton was driving Salma when her car hit a tree and burst into flames.
Camden council is to order an independent inquiry into Salma's care. A spokesman said: "This is an extremely difficult time for Salma's family and friends after her tragic death. We send them our deepest sympathy.
"It is always an extremely difficult decision for all involved - parents, children and social workers - when any child is taken into care, and this is always the very last resort. In Salma's case the court decided it would be in her best interest to take her into care."
• Do you know of a victim of injustice resulting from the secrecy in the family courts system? If so, please email us at [email protected]
We will not identify individuals without their consent.
.
.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh ... use112.xml
Court secrecy rules hide child abuse errors
By Ben Leapman, Home Affairs Correspondent, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 12:35am BST 12/08/2007
Shocking failures in the child protection system are being hidden by the secrecy of England's family courts.
Even in cases where it has emerged that children were abused while monitored by social services and the NHS, judges' criticisms and recommendations have been withheld from the public.
In one secret court ruling, a judge warned that babies were being "missed by the system". Critics said the failure to inform the public of lapses could cost lives.
advertisementThe details of a case involving a four-month-old girl deliberately burned in a faked car crash, in an attempt to cover up scalds she had received days earlier, can also be revealed.
At a criminal trial, Timothy Mallard, 23, received a seven-year jail sentence for grievous bodily harm and Tracey Watson, 28, a suspended sentence for neglect.
During that public trial, no details emerged of how both the baby, who cannot be named, and Watson were seen repeatedly by doctors, health workers and Lincolnshire social services before the attack.
It is understood those details were raised at a closed family court hearing. Secrecy laws prevent full disclosure of the court's findings.
John Hemming, a Liberal Democrat MP and chairman of Justice for Families, said: "Mistakes by social workers and other professionals are covered up as a result of family court secrecy. Lessons go unlearnt, sometimes with fatal consequences."
Kate Carrington, Mallard's mother, a retired sociology lecturer, called for a public inquiry into the case. "There should not be blanket secrecy to cover up people's mistakes," she said.
Ministers abandoned plans to open family courts to public scrutiny this year.
The Sunday Telegraph has exposed a series of cases in which parents have had their children removed and put up for adoption on apparently weak grounds. The families are barred from speaking publicly about their plight.
In the Lincolnshire case, Mallard, a forestry worker, drove into a tree at low speed in 2005 before setting his vehicle alight and dangling the baby in the flames.
Doctors found her ribs had been broken weeks earlier, and concluded that her hands had been thrust into very hot water two days earlier, leaving her severely scalded.
At Lincoln Crown Court in April, Judge Michael Heath told Mallard: "I find it very hard to understand how you could do what you did."
At the trial, at which the defendants pleaded guilty, details of their involvement with the child protection system did not emerge.
Watson had been treated for mental health problems years earlier, sources say.
In the month before the incident, the baby spent 12 days in hospital
Watson was a psychiatric in-patient until she discharged herself a week before the car crash. Six days before the incident, a social worker visited her and the baby. Four days before it, they were seen by a health visitor.
Lincolnshire Safeguarding Children Board is investigating the case behind closed doors. Its full findings may never be published.
Two inquiries are under way into cases of children killed soon after being seen by social workers.
The murder of four-year-old Leticia Wright by her mother and her mother's boyfriend will be examined by Kirklees Safeguarding Children Board.
In Ealing, west London, officials will investigate the case of 17-month-old Talha Ikram, who died after he was removed from foster care and returned to his father and stepmother.
.
See Adoption
http://forum.fightcps.com/viewtopic.php?p=40017#40017
.
.
.
http://icnewcastle.icnetwork.co.uk/sund ... _page.html
Open up our family courts
Jul 1 2007
By Phil Doherty, The Sunday Sun
A top lawyer has called for the Family Courts to be opened up to the Press to prevent what he described as appalling miscarriages of justice which have seen children taken from their parents for no good reason.
Bill Bache, who has dealt with a number of North cases and famously won mum Angela Canning her freedom after she was falsely accused of murdering her kids, said there would be an outcry if people knew what went on behind closed court doors.
He said: "What I have seen happening in these courts over a long period of time is the most astonishing decisions being made on the basis of astonishing evidence."
Because of the law of contempt, Mr Bache cannot give specific details of cases for fear of arrest and a possible jail sentence.
The Government had said it wanted to open up Family Courts to restore public confidence in them. However, after lobbying by social services, the NSPCC, paediatricians and other interested groups, Justice Minister Lord Falconer recently announced yet more restrictions on reporters.
Mr Bache said: "It does not surprise me that social services and the NSPCC have lobbied against moves to open up the courts. I've had experience of a number of social workers and while there are some excellent ones who do a very good job, there are far too many who are appalling and whose conduct is indefensible.
"When parents are already at a low ebb they try every trick they can to undermine and demoralise them and they are quite arbitrary as to why they intrude into the lives of families. Quite often they just bully parents because they simply don't like them.
"The problem is that some social workers have become hypersensitive to seeing abuse everywhere and this is why we need a counter balance in the courts.
"Social services and other professionals in the family courts use the Children's Act to protect themselves rather than the children. I find it depressing that their lobbying has effectively maintained the status quo."
The Government decided to launch a consultation on family courts in 2006 after three mums were charged with murdering their children on the evidence of experts. The youngsters were actually victims of cot death. The mothers were Angela Canning, Trupti Patel and Sally Clark, who died in March.
Paediatrician Sir Roy Meadow gave evidence against all three and his infamous comment in the Clark case - the so called "Meadow's Law" that there was just a one in 73 million chance of two cot deaths in one family - was roundly discredited and he was subsequently struck off.
While the cases were heard in open criminal courts, concern had been expressed that Meadow's theories had been applied previously in closed Family Court and not subject to public scrutiny.
Jan Loxley Blount, a former Government adviser on children said: "Opening up the Family Courts is the only way we will get real justice in these cases.
"At present they are taking children away from parents without any scrutiny whatsoever. For those who have had their children wrongly taken from them this is a life sentence."
Few in Teesside can forget the 1980s Cleveland sex abuse scandal where 120 children were removed from families by social services on the advice from two paediatricians using a test that was later discredited.
However, explaining the U-turn, Lord Falconer said: "I have listened to the views of children and young people. The clear message was the media should not be given an automatic right to attend family courts as this could jeopardise children's rights to privacy and anonymity."
David Barnes, a spokesman for the British Association of Social Workers, said: "We are not against more accountability of the Family Courts and welcome that more summaries of judgements will be made public as these are a way of understanding how the courts are making their decisions.
"Also, social workers are only human and there will be a small number not doing their jobs properly or even worse. This is why we do welcome more accountability."
.
.
.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh ... opt201.xml
For the children's sake, it's time to lift this veil
By Alasdair Palme, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 2:00am BST 02/07/2007
When the state takes a child by force from its parents and gives it to another family, it is an offence to publish that fact, or any of the evidence produced for the court hearing. The punishment is an unlimited fine or imprisonment.
If a mother whose child is taken from her so much as communicates the information to someone not on the government-approved list - restricted to her legal team, doctor and MP - she commits an offence.
Some of the judges who work in the family courts, however, have come to realise that blanket secrecy does not serve justice.
Last year, Mr Justice McFarlane took the almost unprecedented step of publishing his judgment in the case of X, a child who was taken away from her mother, after the mother had asked social workers for advice in dealing with the girl's moods. The woman only managed to get her daughter back 18 months later.
Mr Justice McFarlane found that "every single element" of the grounds used to justify taking the child "was misleading, or incomplete, or wrong". He identified appalling malpractice on the part of social services, the local authority and its lawyers. He published his judgment in an effort to ensure that the same malpractice was not repeated. Usually, secrecy would ensure that no one, not even court officials, ever knew how badly things had gone wrong.
It is easy to see how the practice of keeping the family courts secret benefits incompetent social workers and lawyers: they are never called to account for their mistakes, for their mistakes are never identified.
But how could anyone think that such a practice benefits children?
In justifying its decision not to open the family courts to public scrutiny, the Department of Justice (DoJ) stated that children would suffer harm if their "right to privacy" were infringed by such a move, because then children would be named in the press.
But the blanket secrecy of the family courts could perfectly well be ended without children being identified by name.
In reporting rape trials, it is illegal to identify the victim. The press complies with that law. No one claims that the only way to protect the privacy of rape victims and to improve the quality of justice in rape trials is to impose a blanket ban on reporting anything about such cases, not least because everyone knows that would be a recipe for lowering the standards of justice. Furthermore, even if it is granted that children would "suffer harm" by any form of publicity, that "harm" has to be balanced against the lasting damage that can be done by wrongly taking children from their parents.
The DoJ seems to believe that the family courts never wrongly take children from their parents. But that is demonstrably false.
Because the courts are secret, no one has been able systematically to examine the quality of decision-making, so no one knows what percentage of the children who are forcibly adopted should never have been taken away.
The evidence of malpractice from the few cases that do manage to make it into the public domain is not reassuring.
Covering up incompetence is not the only motive for preserving secrecy in the family courts, but it is usually its only effect. If the Government really believed the "interests of the child" were paramount, it would end that secrecy tomorrow.
.
.
MP means Member of Parliament
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh ... lma229.xml
Family courts appeal wins backing of MPs
Ben Leapman, Home Affairs Correspondent, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 12:43am BST 29/07/2007
A campaign for a public inquiry into miscarriages of justice in family courts has won the backing of 23 MPs, writes Ben Leapman.
In a Commons motion, they condemn the Government for abandoning plans to lift the secrecy veil on hearings. They also criticise the financial incentives offered to councils to raise adoption rates.
Lynne Jones, Labour MP for Birmingham Selly Oak, favours reform after one of her constituents, a woman with learning difficulties, had her first two babies taken away by social services and put up for adoption. After the MP intervened, the woman was allowed to keep her third baby. Miss Jones said: "Social services are overstretched in terms of resources, so you get corners cut and injustices occur."
advertisementOthers backing the campaign include Liberal Democrats Norman Lamb and John Hemming, Conservatives David Wilshire and Andrew Pelling, and Labour's Kate Hoey and Alan Simpson.
.
.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh ... lma129.xml
Daughter died while in care of social workers
Ben Leapman, Home Affairs Correspondent, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 12:52am BST 29/07/2007
The grieving parents of a 12-year-old girl who died in council care have condemned the secrecy of the family courts which took their daughter away.
Salma's father, Walid, protesting outside Parliament
Salma ElSharkawy was killed along with care worker, Beth Fitton, 23, when their car hit a tree and burst into flames near Buxton, Derbyshire, earlier this month.
Salma was removed from her family at the age of 10 after her mother Mary O'Sullivan, 49, asked social workers to help deal with her bad behaviour. Since then her parents had been fighting to get her back.
She regularly ran away from foster care and returned home, only to be returned to her foster carers by police.
A judge ruled, however, that she should remain in council care, despite being told by Salma in a handwritten letter: "I think social services are liars. I wish I could go home to my mum and dad. No one knows how I feel except my mum [and] dad. I feel very sad and down. If you don't say I am not going home my life will be destroyed."
advertisementIn her letter, Salma also criticises the Monroe Young Family Centre, where her family was assessed.
Walid ElSharkawy, 43, an IT technician, claims his daughter was let down by the family courts, lawyers and the council in Camden, north London. The parents have launched their own campaign to lift the veil of secrecy around family court hearings, with the threat of jail for parents who speak publicly about having their children taken away.
They join a growing number of voices expressing concern.
Last month, the Government abandoned plans to allow limited media access to the hearings, prompting Sarah Harman, a solicitor specialising in family law and elder sister of Harriet, deputy leader of the Labour Party, to increase pressure to open up proceedings.
Mr ElSharkawy said: "When I heard we were going to court, I thought we would be all right because we've done nothing wrong. But there is no justice.
"The case was fixed from day one by people who work with each other. You stand no chance of getting your child back. I want to open up the family courts and make social workers accountable."
Miss O'Sullivan, a hospital volunteer, said: "Social services were desperate to get the care order.
"Salma was my only child and I'm 49, so I won't be able to have any more. Someone has got to take the blame for this - she died in their care."
Miss O'Sullivan sought help in 2005 while her husband was working in the Middle East. After Salma was removed, her parents, married but separated, underwent psychiatric and parenting assessments in their quest to get her back.
The mother was diagnosed with dysthymia or chronic mild depression. The father claims he was told he was "too rigid", "lacked understanding of Salma's emotional needs" and had "little insight into her complex personality".
During his assessment, he says, he was given tasks including counting backwards in sevens from 100. Mr ElSharkawy said: "If you talk to your child during an assessment, they say you're 'trying to impose your character'. If your child answers you, they're 'begging for attention'. It's evil, the way they use words."
On occasions Salma slept rough while on the run from foster care. Her parents obeyed court orders by telephoning police each time their daughter turned up at their doorstep. They believe this cost them dearly because social workers told Salma that it proved they did not want her at home.
In 2006, a judge ordered that Salma should remain in foster care. She spent the last four months of her life at a children's home in the Peak District operated by Adventure Care Ltd, a private firm, at a cost to taxpayers of £2,920 a week - six times more than a boarding place at the top public girls' school Roedean. She was living in a house with Miss Fitton, receiving one-to-one care and personal tuition.
On July 3, Miss Fitton was driving Salma when her car hit a tree and burst into flames.
Camden council is to order an independent inquiry into Salma's care. A spokesman said: "This is an extremely difficult time for Salma's family and friends after her tragic death. We send them our deepest sympathy.
"It is always an extremely difficult decision for all involved - parents, children and social workers - when any child is taken into care, and this is always the very last resort. In Salma's case the court decided it would be in her best interest to take her into care."
• Do you know of a victim of injustice resulting from the secrecy in the family courts system? If so, please email us at [email protected]
We will not identify individuals without their consent.
.
.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh ... use112.xml
Court secrecy rules hide child abuse errors
By Ben Leapman, Home Affairs Correspondent, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 12:35am BST 12/08/2007
Shocking failures in the child protection system are being hidden by the secrecy of England's family courts.
Even in cases where it has emerged that children were abused while monitored by social services and the NHS, judges' criticisms and recommendations have been withheld from the public.
In one secret court ruling, a judge warned that babies were being "missed by the system". Critics said the failure to inform the public of lapses could cost lives.
advertisementThe details of a case involving a four-month-old girl deliberately burned in a faked car crash, in an attempt to cover up scalds she had received days earlier, can also be revealed.
At a criminal trial, Timothy Mallard, 23, received a seven-year jail sentence for grievous bodily harm and Tracey Watson, 28, a suspended sentence for neglect.
During that public trial, no details emerged of how both the baby, who cannot be named, and Watson were seen repeatedly by doctors, health workers and Lincolnshire social services before the attack.
It is understood those details were raised at a closed family court hearing. Secrecy laws prevent full disclosure of the court's findings.
John Hemming, a Liberal Democrat MP and chairman of Justice for Families, said: "Mistakes by social workers and other professionals are covered up as a result of family court secrecy. Lessons go unlearnt, sometimes with fatal consequences."
Kate Carrington, Mallard's mother, a retired sociology lecturer, called for a public inquiry into the case. "There should not be blanket secrecy to cover up people's mistakes," she said.
Ministers abandoned plans to open family courts to public scrutiny this year.
The Sunday Telegraph has exposed a series of cases in which parents have had their children removed and put up for adoption on apparently weak grounds. The families are barred from speaking publicly about their plight.
In the Lincolnshire case, Mallard, a forestry worker, drove into a tree at low speed in 2005 before setting his vehicle alight and dangling the baby in the flames.
Doctors found her ribs had been broken weeks earlier, and concluded that her hands had been thrust into very hot water two days earlier, leaving her severely scalded.
At Lincoln Crown Court in April, Judge Michael Heath told Mallard: "I find it very hard to understand how you could do what you did."
At the trial, at which the defendants pleaded guilty, details of their involvement with the child protection system did not emerge.
Watson had been treated for mental health problems years earlier, sources say.
In the month before the incident, the baby spent 12 days in hospital
Watson was a psychiatric in-patient until she discharged herself a week before the car crash. Six days before the incident, a social worker visited her and the baby. Four days before it, they were seen by a health visitor.
Lincolnshire Safeguarding Children Board is investigating the case behind closed doors. Its full findings may never be published.
Two inquiries are under way into cases of children killed soon after being seen by social workers.
The murder of four-year-old Leticia Wright by her mother and her mother's boyfriend will be examined by Kirklees Safeguarding Children Board.
In Ealing, west London, officials will investigate the case of 17-month-old Talha Ikram, who died after he was removed from foster care and returned to his father and stepmother.
.