Baroness Hale Retires

Baroness Brenda Hale, the chief architect behind the pivotal Children Act 1989 and one-time feminist academic, will retire on 10th January 2020. I gave my version of her biography (admittedly partisan) when she was appointed to that role in September 2017. I will not repeat myself though you may be interested in looking back at it. You will, no doubt, be keen to watch her valedictory ceremony and speeches.

I neither mourn nor celebrate her going. If it had not been her, it would have been someone else.

Hale was the first woman President of the Supreme Court, though that is less significant than it might appear given that the Supreme Court, a creation of the Blair/Brown Governments, came into being only in October 2009. The Supreme Court assumed the judicial authority previously enjoyed by the House of Lords. This acquires an interesting political spin when one recalls their Judicial Lordships’ recent (and, it seems, only 3 months later, remarkably pointless) ruling that Boris Johnson’s proroguing of Parliament was unlawful.

I disagree. In a Constitutional Monarchy, one meaningful action which the Monarch can, and is required, to take is to dissolve Parliament if the so-called representatives of the people have demonstrably deviated from being representative of the people. This was already the case when the Supreme Court made their ruling, and it is even more clear now. Their ruling was, “the decision to advise Her Majesty to prorogue was unlawful because it had the effect of frustrating or preventing the ability of Parliament to carry out its constitutional functions”. But this is incorrect. In a democracy, the ultimate sovereignty lies with the people. And in a Constitutional Monarchy the Monarch is charged with protecting that sovereignty against usurpation by errant Parliamentary representatives, as was the case here. The Supreme Court, under Hale’s presidency, has proved to be a highly partisan political body and this experimental appellate court should be disbanded. However, I digress.

Though I will not reprise my previous biography, there are two quotes which I have repeated many times and which serve to illustrate whence she cometh,

It is now well recognised that a misplaced conception of equality has resulted in some very unequal treatment for the women and girls who appear before the criminal justice system. Simply put, a male-ordered world has applied to them its perceptions of the appropriate treatment for male offenders…. The criminal justice system could … ask itself whether it is indeed unjust to women.”

Even more importantly, from the 1989 Children Act, para 2(4), this killer stroke is Hale’s greatest achievement,

The rule of law that a father is the natural guardian of his legitimate child is abolished.”

I will return to that.

There are those who would pour praise upon Hale on the basis that the 1989 Children Act enshrined in law the Paramountcy Principle, namely that the welfare of the child should be the courts’ paramount consideration. I have met no one who disagrees. It is not that laudable principle which is contentious, but the manner by which it may be achieved.

What we have here is yet another deployment of Moral Vampirism. This is a tactic in which a valid moral concern is used to blindside us to policies which are enacted under its cover. It is a form of verbal legerdemain whose purpose is to deaden critical faculties. For example, it may seem good for a court to listen to “the voice of the child” – if it’s said quickly. But that is not a policy which any parent would indulge in overmuch at home, otherwise it would be all video games and no school.

One of the many things for which the Family Courts can be criticised is the lack of monitoring of the outcomes of their own decisions – and I include Public Law as well as Private Law cases. There should be a database of millions of longitudinal case histories stretching back half a century, something any social scientist would give their right arm for. But it does not exist. Instead we are obliged to rely on “studies” coming out of an academia which is so ideologically skewed as to make most such reports worse than valueless.

How convenient it is that the feminists insist everything is a social construct and biology counts for nothing. Yet motherhood is firmly and inviolately embedded in the biological, whereas fatherhood is entirely dependent upon social approbation and reinforcement. By denying this, the feminists hide women’s natural privilege. Reversing the social endorsement of fatherhood in primary legislation – abolishing the rule of law that a father is the natural guardian of his legitimate child – is the action of a bully. It is the action of the powerful and secure upon those who have not the means to defend themselves. It emanates from a mindset which still wants to extract benefit from men without giving anything back in return. There is no longer a deal on the table. There is only coercion. Then fools cry that young men today lack “commitment”. But, as C.S.Lewis (or Geoff Dench) might have put it, there is a more ancient magic which men possess: in the end, they can just walk away.  

What lies behind all this is a towering arrogance. The feminists believe that men are unnecessary. More specifically, they believe that fathers are unnecessary. The weight of evidence to the contrary cuts no ice. The feminist project is to “free” women from dependency upon men, and marriage is, in their view, the quintessential embodiment of that dependency. Ergo, the principal aim of feminism is, and always was, to smash marriage. Despite this being espoused openly in a vast outpouring of feminist literature – and being carried out very successfully in practice – the public remain unaware of this central policy objective, bamboozled as they are by the smoke screen of “equality”. Here’s a quote from Baroness Hale (plain Mrs Justice Hoggett at the time, I think),

“Family Law no longer makes any attempt to buttress the stability of marriage or any other union….Logically we have already reached a point at which, rather than discussing which remedies should be extended to the unmarried, we should now be considering whether the legal institution of marriage continues to serve any useful purpose (Eekalaar & Kats, 1980)”

…an opinion which did not prevent her marrying twice herself.

The trend away from marriage, and the related loosening of the bonds between fathers and their children, was not the sole creation of Baroness Hale – but she was part of the feminist-driven process which caused it and she had a larger part in it than most. The project of demonising men and making women fearful of men is part of the same policy direction. That fatherlessness is related to severe adverse outcomes for children is now undeniable – but that does not stop it being denied. And the blame is also so wonderfully deniable: it is all the fault of feckless men. What an odd coincidence that men have become feckless at the same time that feminism successfully engineered society in accord with their ideology.

And with the decrease in marriage, and the rise in transient cohabitation and single living, comes, not only fatherlessness, but also a destruction of communities. It will not wash to lay the blame for the divisions in our society, now so painfully evident, at the door of “Tory austerity”. This has been building for fifty years, across many Governments of both political complexions. The one constant, and always the driver of social change, has been feminism: the Teflon ideology which is never held to account.  

The beneficiaries of this social engineering are not only the two million or so men who have been mangled by the Family Courts’ child arrangements over the last forty years, but also the single parents struggling to raise children alone. These single parents are not only the product of divorce, but also – and mainly – the product of the decline of marriage. Welcome to the urban man deserts. Even ten years ago one could identify many city postcodes – perhaps some in every major city – in which two-thirds to three-quarters of families with dependent children were single parent families. And between 80% and 90% of families with dependent children in these districts do not have two married (or civil partnered) parents.

Marriage is not for the benefit of men or women. It never was. It is not a lifestyle choice. Marriage was devised as a structure for the raising of children. The attack on marriage is therefore an attack on children.

The destruction of marriage goes hand-in-hand with the drive to get women working more hours outside the home (the true objective behind the pay gap bullshit). This is to be achieved (in the minds of those who advocate this policy) by state-controlled childcare. It is fully consistent with the morphing of state education from academic education into social re-education. This is the “progressive” agenda. Brenda Hale has done her bit to push it along. To anyone who knows anything about the psychology of child development, it is a horrifying prospect.

Even those people who prefer to remember Hale mostly as a child rights campaigner and as “the judge who tried to put children first in court settings and cases involving child welfare issues” are obliged also to recall that her creation, the 1989 Children Act, “includes the right to remove children from parents without their consent (forced/ non consensual/ involuntary adoption)” and that this is presented as justified on the basis of “the nebulous test of ‘risk of future harm’”. Those who sup with the Devil should be aware that one’s spoon can never be long enough. Once you have let the state into your family, you have compromised your authority to protect your own children. The same weapons that may seem to assist you now can later be used against you. This same “nebulous risk of future harm” has been used in the Family Courts for decades to sunder fathers from their children – and in far greater numbers than involuntary adoptions.

Researching Reform have commented on this issue recently in the context of new guidance on human rights law published by the British Association of Social Workers. The article reacts to the guidance’s referring to “dispensing of parental consent to adoption” as merely “controversial” with some incredulity. The author notes that, “Forced adoption is no longer seen as controversial by experienced academics, politicians and campaigners in this field. It is seen as a phenomenon which breaches the human rights of children and families without good reason”. The author further notes that, “social work practice is to a very large extent not backed up by science or data”. The article also claims that covert surveillance via social media is being used by social workers, observing that, “a spike in child welfare professionals using platforms like Facebook to spy on families and children has been particularly concerning, after a study carried out by Lancaster University confirmed that social workers were breaking the law by accessing users’ personal information”.

Non-consensual adoption is the subject of Family Court Judge Stephen Wildblood’s latest play, as reported by Louise Tickle in the Guardian. Having noted that both the father and the mother are present in the Court, the play has the judge rule “I therefore dispense with the consent of the mother and of the father to the placement of Kye for adoption”. But then Tickle writes,

Listening to the words that will remove a baby from its mother, for ever, feels akin to what it must once have been like to hear a judge pronounce the death sentence. It is hard to think of a more serious act – even imprisonment – that the state can now impose than extinguishing the relationship between a parent and their child.”

Yes, quite. But only the mother, it seems, will be so affected according to Tickle. And where was the Guardian’s concern these last 50 years when exactly this treatment was meted out to fathers in numbers vastly greater? Empathy gap, at all?

All this has been but a precursor to an examination of the statistics of children in care – which will come shortly in a following post. For now, consider Figure 1 which shows the increased numbers of children “in care” (England only) since Hale’s creation, the 1989 Children Act, was passed. Figure 2 shows the increased number of children being adopted from care (in England) over that same period. Nearly 90% of the latter are enforced adoptions in which the parents’ consent is “dispensed with”.

Figure 1: Total number of children “in care” in England (top curve)

Figure 2: Number of children in care who were adopted, per year (England)

12 thoughts on “Baroness Hale Retires

  1. Pingback: Tories who seem to understand the importance of marriage – The Conservative Woman : Inside UK – INSIDE UK NET

  2. J Johnson

    RT News did an excellent documentary about forced adoption in the UK that every parent should watch:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7TcFWqKja8

    Russia, the former communist country, now doing a video about how anti-family and Marxist feminist the UK has become. When are British men going to stop putting up with this shit and torch the system?

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  3. David Eggins

    Working mainly with domestic abusers as we do (which feminists like to call perpetrators upon accusation, which is bound to be true and to be believed) , both male and female abusers, more than 1,000 males and more than 100 females the question has to be raised how and why is it that we are probably one of very few organisations that worked with female abusers? Radical feminism does not permit it!
    RELATE, the national couple counselling service caved in pretty much in 2004 – they should have known better! Politically perhaps they did so, because this is “the strategy”. The facts that 4.7% of DV being by women in 1994 and now publicly being acknowledged as about 36% with “truly outrageous” research indicating more or less “equality” – see Tonya Nichols at this link https://youtu.be/RtOsEkY_UHc and read the 560 plus papers at this link https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gkWdlOEB1RLdEHkE1ZNEZ9_pDWmdray_/view?usp=sharing. Of course long-suffering men will not complain: they are frightened that their children will be taken into care. £60k £70k £80k are fairly normal male representative costs in the Family Courts. The record we have heard of so far is £126k! This compared, most often with the woman’s legal aid bill of Zero to her. Violence against women and girls. The strategy! The strategy places children very largely with the mother – girls are much more abused by their mothers than they are by their fathers! Boys tend not to be welcome in REFUGES, which perhaps accounts for some of the larger proportion of boys being fostered. And very probably accounts for Ms Horley’s very healthy salary as reported in the Mail and the Times – here: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/domestic-abuse-refuge-charity-boss-sandra-horley-accused-of-bully-culture-b3mj2dcfw. Mothers and fathers kill their children in more or less equal numbers. When she does it – she was deranged/ temporarily insane – or it was his fault. When he does it that proves conclusively that all men are evil. Game set and match!

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  4. Logan

    “Women should be at least half of judges” says Lady Hale in the piece linked by another poster. Oh really? Funny how the feminist playbook works with ‘statistical’ equality, isn’t it? WHY should women be half of Judges, when women are not half of those sentenced to jail? In fact, there aren’t even any women’s prisons anymore – just glorified daycare centers. How about this: women should be half of judges when and if women are half of people jailed and half of all prisons (real ones) are women’s prisons (feminist logic). Otherwise, the call for parity is giving a disproportionate amount of power to women to jail men, while actively maintaining a system that does not allow male judges the same power over women. Feminism and it’s oh-so convenient versions of equality.

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  5. Nick Langford

    The paramountcy principle was enshrined in law in the 1925 Guardianship of Infants Act and was maintained in the 1989 Act – arguably, the principle itself is very much older; a similar principle has been used for at least 1,000 years. As for not having met anyone who disagrees with it, I have met many. Inded, the first lawyer I ever discussed family law with, some 20 years ago, said it was a flawed principle. Its great advantage is simplicity: no one else’s rights need to be considered, and to all intents and purposes, parents have no rights in family law at all. Thus it keeps the decisions of the courts (and others) focused and relatively straightforward, but dismissing the rights of all other parties is a long way from justice. It is particularly ineffective when the rights of other – non party – children may be involved, or when the parents of a child are themselves minors. Critics have suggested that the rights of the whole family should be considered, but that would vastly complicate the law.

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    1. William Collins Post author

      My ignorance. I note that Stuart Hontree’s book on PA also cites the origin of “the best interests of the child” as the 1925 Act. He also cites 26 people who have spoken critically of the doctrine and its dangers (including Hilary Clinton). I guess it’s another example of the use of moral smokescreen: it is not the principle per se but the opportunity it presents for those suitably situated to impose their own agenda under its cover. Who is in favour of violence against women & girls? But that does not stop VAWG being a pernicious strategy of aggression.

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  6. Callum

    I agree with your premise about foster and adoption families but I would go even further and say that social services, in pursuit of their ideology, are willing to allow children to be abused and/or die. In my comment above I have laid out one aspect of CAFCASS’ anti-Male agenda but feminist ideology is bad for girls as well. I will give two examples:

    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/dec/08/girl-sexually-exploited-by-over-40-adults-whilst-in-care

    Quotes from the article:

    “Laura was “horrendously exploited” during two periods of residency at a children’s home in Sheffield. Evidence gathered by Kelwick and Laura’s family suggests that while living at the children’s home Laura was able to come and go as she pleased, despite often showing signs of having been abused when she returned.”

    ““it took months for authorities to sit up and take notice”, and by the time they did, the then 14-year-old “had been sexually exploited by over 40 adults”. According to the family, social services “turned a blind eye” to the abuse”

    “Despite this, Sheffield Children Safeguarding Partnership has turned down a request for a serious case review into Laura’s treatment, arguing that it would not be “appropriate”.”

    I think we all understand who she was being exploited and raped by, and why it was ignored. They obviously feel her personal tragedy is a price worth paying for their ideology, which is why they are refusing a serious case review (SCR).

    The second example is concerning Amber Peat, the well documented case of the 12 year old girl that succumbed to suicide:

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6648857/Schoolgirl-13-hanged-fleeing-home-lively-lessons.html

    I reserve my comments for the SCR:

    https://www.nottinghamshire.gov.uk/media/1734193/scrkn15.pdf

    The white washing of the social services culpability in this case is so staggering beyond belief. From the report, in the introduction, the fourth point in:

    “1.4 This review established that while there were concerns for the emotional well-being of KN15 [Amber], it could not have been predicted that she would take her own life.”

    On the last page in defence of their position, the first time her previous suicide enactments are even mentioned, they quote the coroner:

    “Whilst I can see the force in the submission that the child would have been more likely to have divulged information about her previous ligation attempts had the appropriate support have been in place, and that appropriate support would have been expected to have reduced her risk of dying in such circumstances, I am unable to conclude that the child
    probably would not have died if any of the opportunities had been taken to assess her and put interventions in place.”

    I am blown away by the sheer idiocy of the Judge, though not surprised, and it was obvious the system was going to use this to refuse responsibility. To understand this SCR better, it helps to known how many times each of the following points were mentioned:

    – Amber’s previous ligations: 1 (as quoted above)
    – “Errors” by GP’s: 8
    – “Errors” by the schools involved: >25 (I stopped counting)
    – Supposed “domestic abuse” by biological father: 9
    – Social services errors: 0

    This reminds me of the Duluth Models “denying, minimising and blaming” section (could feminists be projecting?!). It should be noted that they also blame the mum and step-father, which is correct, though they have in return publically blamed social services, which is also correct. In all the many, many SCR’s I have read, the common theme is to refute any responsibility by the Social Services and instead try to blame anybody they possibly can in a scatter gun hit job. I’m sure having read more SCR’s than me that William will have noted this phenomenon.

    Not one social worker has ever faced criminal charges for perjury or falsifying evidence in court. None that I’m aware of have faced criminal charges for their part in allowing a child’s death or abuse. I can’t even find any social worker that has been “struck off” who hadn’t already changed career. We joke about feminists believing women should bare no responsibility for their actions but is there a clearer example of this being true than social workers? Or are we to believe that social workers are infallible?

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  7. Douglas

    Thank you, William. Unlike you, I shall celebrate the going of Hale. And I will fight anyone who is just as bad for Britain, for men, for children, for unified families, or for a healthy and fair society.

    On Researching Reform, even in the midst of wishes readers a happy Christmas, the team remember the parents going through “the most awful pain imaginable” as they fight to win their children back from “social” “services”.

    Merry Christmas.

    Reply
  8. Callum

    https://www.theguardian.com/law/2019/mar/24/lady-hale-at-least-half-of-uk-judiciary-should-be-female

    Lady Hale speaking about women: “we should be half of judges at least”.

    If taken in isolation, the words “at least” could be seen as a misspoken way of saying a 50/50 balance should be maintained. We all know what she really means.

    Further to her role in destroying father’s relationships with their children, please see the CAFCASS “safe contact indicator” to see where her attitude has led:

    https://www.cafcass.gov.uk/download/6637/

    This is used to decide if the non-resident parent should have child contact when spousal domestic abuse is alleged (and probably even when it’s not). It makes no mention of false allegations nor parental alienation. It is a tick box exercise in which two statements are placed next to each other and the social worker must choose the most applicable (they are not scaled; it is one or the other, which is concerning). There are some corkers in there but here are my favourites (or not, if you know what I mean):

    “Resident Parent is not afraid” / “Resident Parent is afraid”

    “Perpetrator accepts impact on victim” / “Perpetrator denies impact on victim”

    “Contact not used to pursue conflict” / “Contact used to pursue conflict”

    “Resident parent is not undermined” / “Resident parent is undermined”

    “Will repair a ‘broken’ relationship” / “No realistic prospect of repairing a ‘broken’ relationship”

    “Will contribute to child’s identity” / “No realistic prospect of contributing to child’s identity”

    Considering most of these are more concerned with the mother, and her input/feelings will be the main driver of which answers are ticked, it would seem impossible for any man to have any meaningful contact with their children in any capacity when this form is used.

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    1. Douglas

      The most damnable part of the CAFCASS ‘Safe Contact Indicator’ is
      “Will maintain a beneficial relationship” / “No realistic prospect of a beneficial relationship”
      That is the primary dichotomy. All else is irrelevant if the ideologue filling out the form decides against the parent, or is otherwise bribed to do so.

      The question that really needs asking is not of the parent but of CAFCASS and any social worker’s report:
      “Will help a beneficial relationship” / “No realistic prospect of helping a beneficial relationship”

      Reply
  9. Groan

    An eloquent and economical description of the state we are in. It is expressed in my experience of social care. Where simultaneously with “anti oppressive practice” ,which is basically about shafting fathers, there is a concern about “attachment” which drives the desperation to find “families” either foster or adoptive to recreate the conditions that are supposedly so oppressive in another context. There could not be a better expression of this than the relentlessly anti father CAFCASS and the huge resources put into recruiting foster and adoptive families in LA care departments.
    As you say all the evidence, and after over 40 years being far ahead in the European league tables of family breakdown there is plenty of evidence, puts growing up with two “natural parents” (in fact no matter how dysfunctional) way ahead in good outcomes for children.
    All those mess propelled along by ignorant politicians all too happy to go along with child centred or female friendly policies Conservatives as much as left wing.

    Reply

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