The Hampshire Social Services caseworkers don’t want us to read this story. In fact, they placed an injunction against the Mail Online news site when they found out the story was in the hands of an investigative reporter there. That was two months ago; the Mail pursued a legal fight to get the injunction lifted so that Michael Shergold’s CPS story could be told.

Michael Shergold, 55, is the father of four children - the three he raised and the one he wasn’t aware of until social workers sent him a letter asking him to get in touch. They told him a woman he’d had a brief relationship with had a child which was taken from her on child cruelty charges.

They found the child an adoptive home in 2006 and didn’t bother contacting Michael Shergold until January 2007 even though he’s lived in the same house for the last 11 years and wasn’t hard to find. At first they strung him along, pretending they would evaluate his home as a permanent home for the boy. The evaluations included a series of invasive questioning sessions.

The true reason that Social Services caseworkers contacted Michael Shergold was that they wanted him to donate one of his organs to the boy because the boy’s mother has already refused. Her reason: she wants to have more children!

Last November a judge ruled that Michael Shergold could not have custody because it would be too disruptive to the child. Was it because he had remarried - this time to an American woman of color? Two days later the child was formally adopted out to his foster parents.

Though Michael Sherwood and his other children are not allowed to see this child, the social worker still wants him to agree to donate his body part so the child won’t die.

The statement Social Services made on this matter is jaw dropping:

What kind of NONSENSE is that? This man was robbed of his child under color of law. Those responsible have apparently committed what I consider a treasonous offense against a British citizen. This is shameful and reprehensible. These social workers and the judge(s) that agreed to this injustice should be held liable and punished.

The mother who concealed this child from Michael Shergold was found guilty of child cruelty, but is allowed to see her son even though he’s been adopted. Mr. Shergold, who is guilty of nothing, and who has a long-time steady job, a stable home and marriage, and plenty of successful parenting experience, is not allowed to see his son. He is only allowed that “contribution he could make to his son’s life” meaning an operation to remove one of his vital organs.

Where’s the justice?

Source: ‘You can’t see your son - but can he have one of your organs?’: how social workers left one man with a terrible moral dilemma by Alison Smith Squire, published on November 2, 2008 in the MailOnline.

In the United Kingdom, two men are imprisoned for defying child protective services orders, and helping foster children. One man is convicted of the terrible crime of ANSWERING THE DOOR when his teenage grandson knocked on it. The grandfather, Charles Roy Taylor, age 71, has been sent to prison for twenty months. The court decided he was “undermining the care plan”. Sadly, Mr. Taylor and his wife are the boy’s only living relatives. When the boy ran away, he wanted to see them.

The other case involves an unnamed 56 year old man with health problems who is now incarcerated for sixteen months. In that case a boy in foster care ran away from his foster home to see his mother. The man then drove the mother and son to Dover, and from there they went to Paris. He was convicted of “child abduction” though, as the writer of my source article points out, it is a strange kind of child abduction when the child, voluntarily and on his own, runs away from the foster care placement.

Source: Child protection? No, ruination by Camilla Cavendish, published March 13, 2008 in The Times.

I just found this press release about a Scottish grandparent group. It seems they have the same kinds of problems that we here in the USA do, regarding rights to be with grandchildren and interference by CPS in what should be normal and natural family relationships. - LJM

…

The Campaign For Legal Right Of Contact between Grandparents/grandchildren.

Why grandparents worry about their grandchildren when the one sided unfair family laws of today leave them open to abuse. The social services and NSPCC cannot cope with the rise in child abuse and how grandparents could fill that gap.

Source: Grandparents Apart Self Help Group Scotland

May 27, 2007 09:24:45

(PRLog.Org) – Press release. Immediate. 27th May 2007

As you can imagine this campaign is a very emotional one. If you have not suffered the problem of being cut off from someone you love you cannot envisage the devastation and heartbreak it causes.

I’ve been told “that will never happen to me.” I thought that too, but it did happen; fate can be very cruel when a member of your family unexpectedly dies. It can change family life for ever. Not only is this campaign an emotional one but is a very serious and frightening one for our children. The following are problems for children that the governments of the past have failed to address.

One sided unfair laws that give one resident parent complete legal control over children’s lives. A control that has been proven time and again to be abused, by using children as weapons and to blackmail grandparents into giving money or into buying this or that or you won’t see your grandchildren and the children are told terrible untrue things (called alienation) about their grandparents. Just about everybody knows somebody this has happened to. Is it any wonder children have no respect when they grow up with all the lies and deceit they are taught.

It is estimated that there are 100,000 alcohol and 60,000 drug related homes that children live in. Now a full blown alcoholic or drug addict can be very devious and care little for the real welfare of children. In their desire to satisfy their habit they will readily use the children in blackmail to keep their supplies going. The one sided unfair family laws are on their side, a restraining order can be very easily obtained to ban anyone who is thought to be a threat to their exposure and if no one is allowed contact with the children abuse goes on unnoticed, until it really gets out of hand. Meanwhile the children can be going through hell all this time.

The Social Services.

There are more and more badly abused children being taken into care by social services from the homes I described earlier and grandparents have been banned from. Children that need love and family comfort which grandparents could supply if they were not regarded as irrelevant persons by social services. This service is bursting at the seams to cope and have resorted to treating children as business commodities, giving workers huge bonuses to get children adopted as quickly and as cheaply as possible rather than looking after the children’s real welfare with their grandparents.

This type of treatment only cares for the physical body of a child and does not take into account the child’s emotional, mental or even spiritual side. It is well know that children that go through the social system are underachievers and are often very disruptive because the child as a whole is not considered.

One of our grannies (I cannot name her as the case is ongoing) calls me regularly to keep me up to date, is broken hearted today. A sheriff gave her contact 2 hrs every eight weeks with her 4 year old grandson who is in foster care. On the last visit her grandson was taking her hand and giving her big hugs and kisses and asking “where do you live, is it a house you live in, can I come and see you.” The shock came after her last visit when the SS called her and told her that all contact was stopped. A hearing of the children’s panel had been called and it was by their recommendation.

The reason given by SS was the boy was very disruptive and upset when he left the granny and would not speak to the foster dad or the social worker.

Although the granny had a court order to see him the SS had taken it upon themselves to stop contact with the magic saying, ‘To continue contact is not in the child’s best interest.’

Adoption without consent.

Later I got a phone call to say the social services had adopted this grannies grandson without letting her or her daughter (the child’s mother) know anything about it. She was phoning the social worker to check that her meeting with him the next day was still on when she was told.

The heartbroken Gran said “I knew something was wrong when I got put through right away and didn’t get the usual rubbish, she is not at her desk, or she is not in. I was so shocked at her attitude when she said, Have you not heard the adoption went through 3 weeks ago. I asked her if I was to see him again, the answer was, what do you think, then I don’t think so, he is adopted you know” he is not now a cared for child. How much bonus was paid for ruining that child’s life?.

The granny had just received a letter from the sheriff clerk to tell her she would be getting a court date soon for the hearing to continue her contact with the boy. Even the sheriff court had no idea this has happened and her solicitor is totally shocked.

Grandparents Apart Self Help Group Scotland
22 Alness crescent
Glasgow G52 1 PJ