My Barnardo's story
A month or so after my first contact at
Barnardo's I went back to see the manager of the Project, who I had spoken to
before on the phone. She had
originally insisted that I legally had to make special application for my
original birth certificate to the GRO as I had been adopted. That was despite
the fact that I had always known my original name already had my mother's birth
certificate and the birth certificates of two of my siblings as well as a copy
of my Adoption Order as well as already having a copy of my birth certificate.
Her first excuse for that time wasting exercise was that it had to be done for
government statistics. When I asked her to put that in writing so that I could
take it up with the department concerned, she suddenly changed her mind and
said the main reason for wanting me to get a birth certificate was because she
wanted to see if it had my father's name on it. About 10 minute further in to
the same conversation I asked about my father and she then forgot what she had
said a few minutes before and told me she couldn't name my father because she
knew he is not on the birth certificate. She was completely unaware that her
colleague had given me the full name of my father and his last known address a
month earlier. I showed this 'Project Manager' the photocopies of records that
her colleague had given me, I've never seen anyone come so close to collapsing
from embarrassment.
When asked for details of the home that I
was in and my time there, Mrs Haigh offered to get me a book on the old
Barnardo's homes from Barnardo's library! I hade to find the matron of the home
myself and then get Barnardo's to arrange a meeting with her.
I went through a complaints procedure
with Barnardo's that must have cost
thousands of pounds, where they brought in people from Barnarado's
regional offices and from NCH who came up with a solution that we all agreed
with. The little twit from Barkingside was visibly displeased at the time to
have been overruled by his colleagues and simply sat on what was a
quasi-judicial judgement until the time for judicial review had expired. What
an unprofessional little s***. It
took a further 6 years after that to get a full set of medical records from
them.
I have no difficulty at all in
understanding why some the Canadian child migrants want to sue Barnardo's for _400,000,000
the guy that started the original class action made it clear that he was doing
so because of how appalling Barnardo's attitude is now in comparison to all the
other of those charities that are still in existence.
I've tried to have my case transferred to
Barnardo's After Care Department But It's still with Mrs Haigh's department the
one that used to be known as
Barnardo's Counselling Services Project, reflecting Mrs Haigh's attitude that
all you really need is some of her dodgy counselling instead of proper access
to records. Now they have realised that was not a good name for such a
department and have renamed it, Barnardo's Family Connections, but it's the
same people, same attitudes, always 10 years behind all the other charities and
local authorities undertaking such work.
This goes a little deeper now
questionable professional conduct in my opinion, both of Barnardo's social
workers and of its legal advisers, again in my own opinion. That kind of
arrogance has no place in either social work or in the Law
I do think that the agencies do have to
be very careful when they are dealing with some very harsh realities from the
past. Barnardo's use that very important "duty to care" as massive
excuse to withhold a great deal more than just those harsh realities. In my
case one of documents that it continues to withhold is the NSPCC interviews
with my mother re things like breast feed and her relationship with my father.
Also all of the details of my unofficial foster parents (other than those which
have leaked). The details of my mothers attempt to remove me from Farm Hill to
arrange her own adoption. Barnardo's have very little real justification to
continue to withhold anything from me on a "duty to care" basis. In
fact I would have thought they have an overriding duty of care to reveal the
remainder of the record.
Barnardos most recent excuse for
continuing to withhold was that to reveal would be "against the public
interest", which really does show just how desperately they are scraping
the bottom of the barrel for a reason.
I should perhaps add for the sake of
understanding that everyone involved in my inception in to care and mentioned
in any non-professional capacity in my adoption and care records is now dead
the last to go being my adoptive father seven and half years ago. He was
absolutely disgusted with the way Barnardos was acting. We are talking in my
case, about records that are now between 34 and 50 years old
Why do these people always talk or write
to you as if you were an intellectually retarded 14 year old. Solicitors don't
usually do that. Mr Jackson at Campbell Hooper seems to always communicate in
that downright insulting way that Mrs Haigh and her line managers at Barnardos
always seem to have and which so many of the people who contact me remark
on. I hope Barnardo's After Care
department are more professional than that with people who just want their care
records or records of their ancestor's time at Dr Barnardo's Homes.
We'll see how it progresses. I'm sure I
will sort them out, but it is an expensive business meeting them in court as it
looks though I will now have to do.
My solicitor refers to points made in the
last letter from Barnardo's solicitors as
"impertinent" I have much stronger words.
For anyone who is interested Barnardos
feels that it does not have to comply with the requirements outlined in the
Gunn-Rosso v Nugent Care and Secretary of State for Health judgement. I have consulted the
barrister who acted for Nugent Care in that case who feels that I would have a
good case on at least one set of records, those concerning my now deceased
adoptive parents as that is "on all fours" with Gunn-Rosso . My
adoptive mother died when I was seven I last saw her when I was six years old,
very important for me to know what she said to Barnardos. Probably the same applies to those
records concerning my first foster family. Barnardo's are now reviewing the
latter but given the grossly unprofessional and almost certainly illegal way in
which it acted back then as wall as over the last few years, I doubt it is
going to be easy to get the full truth
even now after nearly 50 years. Backside covering is still a prime
objective at Barnardo's as it always has been over the last 140 plus years of
its historey.
I was born in 1953 and was looked after
by my mother and her friends the Threadgolds who became my unofficial foster
parent for a while. Then I was taken in to care at Barnardo's home at Farm Hill
Kelvedon Essex at 8 and a bit months old and was boarded out to with my eventual adoptive
parents at 20 months and adopted at 2yrs 9mths. But because of my adoptive
mother's early death that was not an end to it all. My Barnardo's file closes
when I was 17 and a half although I stayed with my adoptive dad and had legal
guardian in his sister, my "aunt". It often felt like I was being
raised by a committee. A committee that was trying to make a camel out of a
horse to borrow from the old adage
Three things happened at about the time I
decided to search. The first Gulf War, the discovery of the Rumanian orphanage
atrocity, the breaking of the Child Migration Scheme storey. I'd been in an
"orphanage" in this country and wondered if that was why I felt so
emotionally affected at what was happening there. I saw a programme on TV in which
birth mothers were discussing their feelings about not knowing if their sons
were going away to war. Before that I'd not really thought very much about
birthmothers having feelings about the children they gave up, I started to
wonder whether mine did (37 years on). I'd had always assumed that as I knew
who she was she must know how to find me if she had wanted to. I'd been told a
long long time ago that I had a brother and a sister, but somehow I'd managed
to forget that until it suddenly came back to me at that time. I asked my
adoptive dad if that was true and he said yes and that one was adopted the
other in a children's home, one was a full sibling the other probably not, he
remembered. So obviously the stories about Child Migration spurred me on.
So I took my self off to St Catherine's
House where the birth marriage and death indexes were kept at that time and
made a list of all the kids born with my surname whose mother's maiden name was
still the same (i.e. the ones that were probably illegitimate) for the 10 years
before I was born, there were about 10 of them. In amongst that lot were two
who were born in Maldon Essex which I thought might be the right ones. So while
I was in Chelmsford one day I thought I'd pop in to the Registrar of Births Marriages
& Deaths and see if could get him to sneak a look at the Register and see
if either of them had the same mother as me also one them had a very unusual
first name which could have been a girl's or a boy's name. The registrar soon
came back out of his back room to tell me that there was no doubt that they
were my brother and sister the sister had been adopted the brother not adopted,
and silly question, did I want the certificate?
When I first went to Barnardo's to ask about
my past and what they knew about my family, Helen Fenton still worked there,
she was one of the most helpful social workers I have met in my journey through
all of this, but she was about to leave Barnardos. My opinions of Barnardo's UK
have gone down further and further as every year passes since.
I showed Helen the two birth certificates
that I had obtained for my brother and sister. She looked at them and said
"oh those are not the names we have on our file" so she told me the
names they did have and they were names that were on list I made from St Cath's
so off I went to Hornchurch Register Office for the same exercise again then
off to Braintree and back to St Cath's to see what happened after me. At the
end of all that it became clear probably for the first time ever to anyone
other than my mother, that over 17 years my mother had had 11 children 7 of
them lost to adoption or long-term care.
With that lot around somewhere there was
a fair statistical probability of my running in to one of them one day without
knowing, so I thought I'd better track them all down and let them all know.
It turned out I'd been at college for two
years literally a couple of hundred yards from one of my sisters, her daughter,
my niece, had later been employed by a business partner of mine and had done
ticketing work for my own company so though I didn't recognise her we must have
met on numerous occasions.
Anyway bit by bit over the next six years
or so after my initial discovery I tracked them all down one by one, with help
and advice from many.
Sadly one brother had died at the age of
4 from measles largely because of my mother and her "husband's"
poverty stricken situation at the time, living in the middle of nowhere in a
small caravan with three kids at the time. Reading between the lines I don't
think the South Bedfordshire Rural District Council were too keen to give a
council house to people who weren't really married.
Another brother who had been adopted died
at the age 32 from coronary thrombosis, it is his two daughters that we are
still not in touch with. We know roughly where they are, but there seem to be
some difficult family circumstance involved that are still not altogether
clear. Certainly his wife remarried quite hastily and the address on his death
cert was a flat. The rest of his adoptive family seem to have had a huge
falling out over his adoptive father's will, that has eaten up all of their
money in legal fees (that is how I managed to find them by the way, because of
this big argument going on in the courts many years latter). I have had an
intermediary send letters but all she has had back is a letter from someone at
the house where they used to be say that she had ignored our previous letters
because she thought they were yet another bailiffs letter to the previous
occupant.
So I don't know, should I carry on with
that one or not?
It was nice to be at a family event with
so many of them recently, those not yet found miss out on all of that. Even the
one that escaped to Germany is keeping in touch more these days. That was
wedding that should have happened this time last year but the 2nd Gulf War got
in the way of that.
So yep, I guess I have to have another go
with Karen and Sharon. It seems strange having to different nieces both named
Karen. I've also got two great nieces called Shannon one of whom I met for the
first time a few days ago, the other is the daughter of one of the nieces I've
not yet found.
I've no doubt a morning spent upstairs at
Grays Thurrock public library and I'd be in a position to go round and knock on
their doors, but it needs a bit more thought than that, a bit more
investigation. What's happened in the ten or more years since Barnardo's first
tried to contact them for me, via their solicitor.
Sadly it's become very clear that
Barnardo's social worker can't be trusted to tell the truth about anything
much, so I'm still left with some
serious doubt's. Do any letters that have got through from the later ex NORCAP
intermediary make any sense to them at all? They wouldn't unless the original
message via Barnardo's / the solicitor got through as intended without any
scrambling by either.
It's a wee bit odd, way back when I first
found them, I mentioned the situation to Barnardo's SW and suggested perhaps
she could initiate contact via the solicitor who represented them on the
un-witnessed will case. She said "oh I'm in court with him next week I'll
try and get him to one side" and she asked no further questions about the
family. Originally she'd been insistent on knowing if the adoptive parents were
alive. At that time Barnardo's would contact the adoptive parents first if
alive, even if they had been given strict instructions not to. It was a bit like she already knew all
about them.
Apparently the solicitors said they
didn't want to rule out contact but the family had been through a very hard
time and were not feeling able to deal with at the present or words to that
effect. I know the Barnardo's SW also put the request in writing to the
solicitors and had a written response but she was never been keen to share that
correspondence.
I just have this feeling there is
something strange about all of this, am I just being paranoid, do you think?
I'm still trying to find out more about my
unofficial foster family as well, Barnardo's are just starting to make more
cooperative noises about that. I guess they've finally been shamed in to being
more helpful by all stuff I've published on the internet. I've just found Mrs
T's sister died in 2001 in in surrey 9 years after I started my search (she
would have been my aunt if the T's had been allowed to adopt me as my natural
mother wished) obviously that does not leave me feeling very impressed with
Barnardo's Family Connections UK the most unprofessional service I've ever encountered in this field of
work.
I've also just placed this again in case
any of the many siblings on my putative father's side are searching anywhere.
"...I am still seeking anyone who
has the name mentioned in their adoption file. I believe
his full name was and that he was born on the 3rd
of March 1927 at 415 Romford Rd, Forest Gate, West Ham (County Borough as it
then was) in the UK. His family later moved to Harold Hill/ Romford, Essex.
was said to have worked as a "Wall of Death Motor Cyclist at the
Kursaal in Southend-on-Sea, Essex in the early 1950s. also worked at
various times as a "Motor Lorry Driver (Contractors)" and as a
"Delivery Van Driver". I believe he died on the 7th of January 1982
at Westminster Hospital, London..."
Who knows maybe something will come of
it, it just a passive search, very much more difficult when it is paternal half
siblings. I don't know for sure if some of them were adopted or not. I do know
he'd had "three illegitimate children with a Romford Woman"
presumably as well a the brother he fathered with my mother, also a Romford
woman. A little while after I was born he married his pregnant 19 year old wife
and appears to have gone on to have several children with her. They would all
be easy to find, but how do you broach the subject? It would be interesting to
me to have a comparative DNA test with them just to prove was my father
or not.
Some at Barnardos were very anxious
that I should never know what the
records say about my father (two men were mentioned) and tried to claim there
were no records. Luckily had already I asked Helen F before she left Barnardo's
and she had given me full account, which was extremely embarrassing for Ann
Haigh who tried to deny the existence of any such a record at Barnardo's and
these are the people that their legal advisers are trying to kid us are
"highly professional", they even lied about having records of what
had become of my sister. Please please anyone, be vary careful about trusting
any Banardos staff offering you access to your records always ask for a list of
any documents being withheld and clear and full written explanations for
withholding.
It's all very complicated isn't it, and
with such a useless bunch of people at Barnardos very difficult for me to sort
out.
Anyway I'm getting closer to my lot as
they become less busy with their own families most of the next generation are
now grown up. It's 14 or 15 years since I found the first lot. I found two
brothers within a few months of discovering their existence perhaps that was
not such a bad thing, not much time to build up any false hopes and expectation
about them and what they would be like.
I have nothing but hear-say about the
previous generation(s) of my family some of it quite unsavoury. I think my
grandfather may not have been a very nice man in some ways. Some blamed him for
the way my mother was, though she was devoted to him. He died just before I was
born. After that my mother took up a nearer to normal lifestyle I suppose, in
that she stayed with one man and had 4 children with him
These days I'm a voluntary worker for a
post adoption agency that also helps people who have been in care and lost
touch with their family in childhood. I'm still a director of a publishing
company but more or less retired from proper work. I have Crohn's disease and
have bad days and good days, well weeks really. Though since becoming a
sufferer I've walked over the mountains in southern Turkey in to Iraq and
camped with local Kurdish people in their summer grazing grounds (helped out by
a Scottish anthropology student doing his doctorate). Also made it in to the
depths of the Amazon jungle just for a day or to, not too good with the malaria
drugs though. But anyway just wanted to say you can still have fun with
Crohn's. But Crohn's can have hereditary factor and Crohn's in the family can
be indication of susceptibility to other auto-immune diseases so important for
the others to know. Think I must have had some East European Jewish ancestors somewhere along the line
The more I look at Anthony Jackson's
(Barnardo's solicitor) letter the more I think what I've on the internet has
rattled someone's cage. All the drivel about how professional Barnardo's Family
Connections UK are and how professional he is , countering points I've made on
the internet.
Anyway I've asked my legal representative
to give Barnardo's the ultimatum that they act in accordance with the
Gunn-Rosso judgement and produce a legible NUMBERED set of documents with and
list of material withhold that gives CLEAR REASONS FOR WITHHOLDING, by the end
of August 05 or we return to Counsel with a view judicial proceedings.
Barnardo's used to use Richard White from
White and Sherwin at one time as their legal adviser on matters such as
this, he is really good. Now they
use this Jackson chap from Campbell Hooper, a patronising little man in my
opinion who has now had to apologise for his habit of calling me
"Robin" in letters and whose own professionalism leaves some
questions in my mind, when he advises his non illegally qualified client to
deal directly with my solicitors.
I know you're not supposed to say things
like this when you're in legal contention but I get the impression this guy
doesn't have a clue why care leavers and adopted people seek access to their
records, he thus gives some very strange advise. He has given Barnardo's to
believe that they should withheld such records "in the public
interest", where does this guy get off?
There needs to be some more attention
paid to access to records by the government. It remains that only law allowing
an agency to give someone access to records of an adoption finalised before 30 December
2005 is the discretion it is granted as an agency under Regulation 15(2) (a) of
the Adoption Agencies Regulations 1983. Some direction on how that is
administered is given the judgment in the Gunn-Rosso v Nugent Care and the
Secretary of State for Health. There is still no simple law that can compel an
agency to allow access to adoption records in every case, or if there is I've
yet to find out about it. There
are statutory instruments that specifically exclude adoption records from the
Data Protection Acts from Freedom of Information legislation. What Barnardo's are doing with my
records of my time in care and what Essex have done with my brother's records
is to simply declare that what would otherwise be care records to be adoption
records and not subject to the DPA
I insisted on Barnardo's arranging a
meeting for me with the matron of the home where I was as quite young child, as
they seemed unable to come up with any records of that time, she was very old
but it was easy to get a feel of what the place was like from her. As I've
mentioned above the manager of Barnardo's Family Connections UK had thought when I asked for details of time in care
that it would be appropriate for her to get me a "library book" out
of Barnardo's library about children's homes generally. Again you really do
have to wonder about the professionalism of anyone who would think that to
appropriate. I had to find Miss Simcox the matron myself without any help from
Barnardos. Luckily my brother and sister had already happened upon her whilst
searching for another of our siblings. When I did find her Mrs Haigh insisted
on coming to the meeting as well as arranging it. Then, Mrs Haigh felt it
appropriate to sit in on the entire first meeting with my brother, no privacy
to chat until we got out in to the car park. Proffesionalism?
I'm afraid it's pretty grim still, if you
were in care or adopted, or both.
PEOPLE who have been separated from their family need access to their records,
the distinctions that are being made about whether they were in care with a
local authority or a voluntary agency and whether or not they were adopted or
long-term fostered are all artificial and rather ridiculous distinctions. I'm
pleased to see Liz Barker stimulating debate on the subject in the House of
Lords recently.
Some people in Scotland and Ireland have
written to tell me how helpful they have found Banardos and wondering why I
have had such problems. Barnardos is always more helpful with records of other
defunct adoption societies than it is with records of adoptions it arranged.
Can't ruin its reputation or get sued as result of allowing access to some
other agency's bad practice, particularly when that agency no longer exists.
That's why Barnardo's are so much better at that kind of work in Scotland &
NI and in Eire where it's post-adoption projects mostly deal with other
agency's adoptions.
Recently a Mr Ruddock has taken over some
responsibility for access to records.
When I went through the Formal Complaint procedure with Barnados in
1995/6 it was accepted that Barnado's were at fault in using staff who had no
recent experience in matters relating to adult post adoption issues to decide
policy with regard to my requests.
Having a clear knowledge of Mr Ruddock's
past in the social work field, which has of course been a matter of public
interest with the Carlile case,
and his later writings on various subjects which I have seen published. I am
still curious to know what Mr Ruddock's part is in my deciding how Barnardos
progress with my request for further access to records. My confidence in Mr
Ruddock and his current work with Barnardos has been somewhat shaken by what I
have been told by some ex-Barnardo's people involved in trying to seek justice
for past abuse whilst in its care. We've asked Mr Jackson at Campbell Hooper about
this on several occasions but he has neglected to provide us an answer.
Anyway with reference to Mr Ruddock's
involvement. Access to your care
and adoption records should NEVER ever be on condition that you sign an
agreement not to take legal action against the holder for any abuse or illegal
action of any kind that occurred in the past.
I would never advocate or approve of
anyone trying to profit from past abuse, but If you are asked to sign such an
agreement, you should always seek proper independent processional legal advise
before you sign. Even if you do not consider that you suffered from any abuse
whilst you were in care, do NOT rely on legal advise from the organisation that
holds your files.
No access to records should ever come
with conditions of that kind attached. It is deeply morally wrong that a
childcare organisation should ever encourage its past clients in to such an
agreement.
Any child care charity that does expect
you to sign such an agreement really has reached the bottom of barrel morally
as has any employee or legal
representative of that charity who would try to persuade you in to such an
agreement.
There should be never ever be any
conditions attached to anyone providing information to the authorities about
abuse, nor any condition to giving evidence to a court in an abuse case. Or to
providing access to any records that would assist in such a case. I do hope
that such things do not happen at Barnardo's UK.
Oh dear that's got a bit long hasn't it,
well better go do some work, I would have been down at the Family Record Centre
today, but I reckon it's best to wait until everything has settled down again.
Not that I want to let the b*st**ds win, I'll be back there as soon as the
transport situation on the tubes is sorted out.
One last thing before I sign off. Does
anyone out there know what happened to the "Economic League" and
particularly all the records that it kept on people that it thought held the
"wrong" political beliefs?
Does anyone know if it is true that Dr Barnardo's
Homes inc were members of the Economic League in the 60s and 70s, (would fit in
with the fact that trade unions membership amongst it staff was not allowed in
the old days, and that Unison have only formally been recognised at Barnardo's
in the very recent past).
I never cease to be amazed at just what a
politically dubious organisation Barnardos often was at times in the past, so I
suppose it's not beyond the realms of possibility that it could have had ties
with the Economic League.
Anyone heard of Caprim which is still
around and does similar things to the Economic League?
That's it for now
Robin
Contact details
Phone 020 7871 1835 Fax 020 7691 9668
Copyright 2005
http://robin.robin.org/policy_and_law
http://robin.robin.org/search/barnardos/problems
Echo of Dickensian England heard in Ontario courts, see:-
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0LVZ/is_12_17/ai_90108597
For all of those of you have been touched in some way by Barnardos (Dr Barnardo's Home)