A Baby Daughter Stolen With Costs | UK Column Interviews

0:00It's Paul in America, make it count. At the Ram Drive-In to Fall Sales event, make it powerful with our strongest Ram 1500 ever, make it move with the Ram Heavy Duty with an available Cummins diesel and make it go to the distance with a 10-year or 100,000-mile powertrain limited warranty. Hurry and now for great deals during the Ram Drive-In to Fall Sales event. Excludes fully electric vehicles applied to 2026 model-year vehicles non-transferable, visit MoPAR.com for complete details and a copy of the powertrain limited warranty. Cummins is a registered trademark of Cummins ain't Ram and Hammy are registered trademarks of FCA-US LLC. Good afternoon to the UK Column Audience. I'm here with a guest today, a lady called Caris who's come all the way from South Wales. Caris welcome to UK Column Studio 2. Thank you for having me. How was the trip down? Nice trip down. Nice trip down and a friend gave you a lift, which I thought was a nice touch.

1:00Yes. Thank you very much for coming down. It always makes a difference to be able to sit and talk to somebody in person, zoom calls and distance interviews are fine, but it does make a big difference when you can actually sit and have a chat together. Brilliant. You've got a story about your daughter, you're separated from your daughter and you contact me a little while ago to talk through what had happened and in particular you said that you were very keen to be able to tell your story to the audience. And as always with the mums that approached me with cases about the family courts, I am always very interested to hear about the cases because I've worked for quite a few years to try and get information and the truth out about what's been happening with the family court. But of course the other thing that I've learned is that every case can have similarities,

2:04but every case is unique to the family and the mother concerned and you kindly provided a really excellent summary here. So we'll work through that and our aim is to actually try and show the audience, explain to the audience what's happened to you and what you've experienced. And then there's really tough points that we need to discuss about how this system works. So let's start at the beginning and just tell us a little bit about yourself and then you became pregnant and that's really where the story starts. So you begin where you'd like to. Okay. So I'm a mother of two. I've got an adult child who is 26 now who was 19 at the time of my daughter's birth in 2019.

3:07This is about family court corruption. So I had no social services involvement in my son's childhood at all. I brought him up as a single parent very successfully. You used to encounter with your son? Oh yes, absolutely. We were very close. He's a successful, healthy member of society. I brought him up absolutely fine, no social services involvement. And then when my daughter was born in 2019, I was thrown into hell. So where was your daughter born? She was born in the University Hospital of Wales and Cardiff. Right, okay. So this is really the start, isn't it? Your daughter's born and what happens? You're there in hospital and what was the hospital like? How were you treated? For the first four days I was treated well. Normally it was the same sort of treatment I had after the birth of my first child.

4:08And then on day four, everything completely changed but I wasn't given any explanation as to why it had changed. How would it change? Just the attitude of the staff towards me, I'd had a traumatic birth. My daughter had been born by four steps after a very long labour and I'd contracted sepsis and I was on crutches. I'd been birth injured. So it was a traumatic birth and my daughter had been taken to the NICU as well because she had also contracted sepsis during the birth. It was a traumatic birth and we were held there. And yeah, it was sort of, I was treated well for the first four days and then there was a markshift in how I was treated and I wasn't given any explanation for that at the time. Just push this point a little bit. So what changed in the attitude or the way that spoke to you or what? Very much the attitude and also physically I wasn't treated very well.

5:10So obviously I was injured and well and I was treated nicely. I was treated with respect in the first four days and then after that not, I was not treated well at all and it was only after the removal of my daughter that I realised why from doing subject access requests to the hospital notes to find out what had happened and it was only then that I found out what had happened and why there was such a markshift in how I was being treated. Right. Were you on your own this stage as a mother or did you have a partner support? No, I had a partner. My daughter's father, we'd been together almost six years at this point at my daughter's birth so we were still together. Right. And did you notice the shift in behaviour as well? Did that affect him? He did but didn't really stick up for me, didn't question it. It was his first child so he didn't really have anything to compare it to like I did.

6:12Right. Okay, so the atmosphere changes and then what happens with you and your baby? So we were kept in hospital for two weeks after the birth to begin with that was necessary because as I said it was a long traumatic labour and both of us were well. There did seem to be a reluctance to discharge us but we were eventually discharged home. Unfortunately my daughter's father, his paternity leave had been used up during the time that we were at hospital so he literally had to drop me and the baby at home and go straight back to work 80 miles away so I was then effectively a single parent even though we were still in a relationship and during that time between what my daughter was two weeks old when we were discharged from hospital up until her removal, I was harassed by the medical profession.

7:12That's the only way to put it, I was harassed. I was subjected to a total of 38 appointments within an eight week period which did not happen during the after the birth of my first child. Where were those appointments supposed to be? Some of them were at home and they were un-slisted, they would just turn up at the door and announced. Is there being what a midwife was? Midwife saw health visitors, I also had a GP at one point and I think a lot of people can probably know how difficult it is to get a GP to come and visit someone at home. I didn't need anyone to visit me at home yet they sent somebody anyway and I knew it wasn't normal. So you've had a traumatic birth and you're a new tired mum? Yeah, I was on the franchise so I couldn't get up and down the stairs even but nobody was actually giving me support with any of that, the things I could have done with support with which is my mobility. I was birth injured, I was exhausted, I was exclusively breastfeeding and nobody gave me

8:13any support with any of that but they just kept coming. So what did they do when they came there? They wouldn't really do anything, they just looked at the baby, they weighed her repeatedly but other than that they didn't really do anything and nobody would give me any explanation for why they kept coming and I did sort of get increasingly anxious about it and questioned why it was happening and nobody would give me an answer. Okay, did they even indicate that it was not normal for them to be having so many visits? You obviously said to them why are you visiting me? Yes, they sort of gaslit me and acted as though I was being paranoid and I knew I wasn't being paranoid. Right, so how long does this go on for? This went on for eight weeks, so my daughter was two weeks old when we were discharged home and then when she was ten weeks old I was co-wrested into bringing her back to the hospital and to foster intensive. All right, so what did they say to you to get you back into the hospital?

9:15So my daughter had been suffering with sort of colloquial reflex symptoms and again it would just buy all the visits that I'd been having nobody was given any support with this so they co-wrested me back into hospital basically by suggesting that they were going to finally help with this newborn reflex so that's how they managed to get me to bring my daughter back to hospital when she was ten weeks old. Right, so you take her back into hospital and what happens then? So for the first couple of days it seemed reasonable, she was given medication for reflex, it seemed plausible and then her reflex dissipated, she was well, she was very well, you know there was no issue whatsoever, she was feeding well, she was sleeping well, she was happy and there didn't seem to be a reason to keep us there any longer but when I inquired about

10:16when they were going to discharge her I wasn't given an answer and it was obviously they were reluctant to discharge and it was at that point that they started doing things to sort of, well looking back I can see that they were trying to document against me, create scenarios to document against me but at the time it just seemed odd, it just seemed odd. And you were there with or in your breastfeeding and all that's going normally. Yes, yes. So when does that situation change then? So a week later, so by this point my daughter was 11 weeks old. I was informed that I could no longer enter the ward where she was staying even though I was exclusively breastfeeding her and I was told I would have to stay elsewhere and I wasn't allowed to enter the ward and if I wanted to have breast milk I would have to express it elsewhere and hand it to a nurse and that she would be fed my breast milk by a bottle. So when you first went back in, were you staying in the same room as your baby?

11:21Yes, so she had a cough and I was on a sort of camp bed thing next to her card. And then one day you were told that you're not allowed to stay on the ward? Yes, yes. So I was I was banned from the ward and I didn't know what was going on and I was in turmoil and I know now but I didn't know this at the time that a multi-agency secret strategy meeting was being held elsewhere in the hospital where information was being shared that was entirely too much to be false but was being presented to the people in this strategy meeting as though it was true. So they sort of started by that stage to I use the expression gang up on you. Yes. So all of those who were present at that meeting were given false information with which to make a decision on whether my baby should be removed from my care and based on that false information they were given. They decided that yes my baby should be removed from my care.

12:24When that decision was made you would just face with the fact that your babies in staying in the hospital and you're not allowed to see a what do you do you go home. At that point it was presented to me that it would only be for 72 hours it was they call it an EPO which stands for emergency protection order and it was presented to me as though they said it runs out after 72 hours so in my head I thought I was only going to be away from her for 72 hours which is bad enough with a 11 week old baby when you're exclusively best feed and that that was traumatic enough but I thought all of this would be over in in 72 hours what I didn't know is that an application to family court had been made I still didn't know about it at this stage. I was only actually given 40 minutes notice of the court hearing. I couldn't drive at this point I was still on crutches after the birth I was injured. I had no way of getting there I had to I didn't even have any money with me at the hospital I had to

13:26call a taxi and thankfully the taxi driver allowed me to ring up and pay him later because I had no many. So and I think their intention was that I wouldn't get to the court in time and this would all happen without me being there and it would be look as though I didn't care because I wasn't there but I was only given 40 minutes notice. And was that a long call court? Yes it's it was Cardiff Family Court. Yes. Okay so you get there but I you're represented it was there because sometimes I know mothers that are put in this situation and they get to the court and by some strange miracle there's a legal team waiting to help them. How did that go for you? There wasn't anyone waiting to help me but during that 40 minutes where I also had to try and get myself to the court from the hospital I was also ringing around solicitors firms I had no knowledge of family law at this point so I just sort of had to take the first solicitor that had availability for right now because I was only given the 40 minute notice. Right. And unfortunately the person that I got

14:34was not a good solicitor it was not a good person to help with this. Okay we can perhaps come back on to that. What's the result of that court case then? The result of that court case is that it all happened in secret. Obviously no jury, it's family court. It'll happen to secret. There's no outside oversight. Nobody from the outside can intervene including the police, including MPs. A necessary care order was put on my daughter for the entirety of her minority until she's 18. I wasn't allowed to present any evidence. I wasn't allowed to call witnesses including health witnesses, including my adults, and who I'd brought it on my own. I was just entirely prevented from doing that and I was also about that. Courage just to be clear that was all disordered at that very first hearing. No that was decided over 26 weeks so there were several hearings. I can't remember how many maybe six or seven hearings altogether. But many of those I was not allowed to speak.

15:41So over those we'll say seven hearings what was the actual basis for your daughter being taken away from you? The basis for my daughter being taken away from me was that I had been falsely diagnosed with a psychiatric illness that I didn't have at the age of 12, 30 years before my daughter's birth by a rogue child psychiatrist who was since struck off the medical register by the General Medical Council for Gross Professional misconduct because he had a passing of falsely diagnosing many many children and toddlers, not just myself, over a long period of time. So he had been struck off by the GMC 16 years before my daughter's birth and this is all a public record. If we were just sort of piecing parts of this together the implication would be that the medical team around you didn't know this initially but then they discovered that in your medical records it got referenced to this diagnosis by this psychiatrist. Yes that's right

16:47so they didn't know about this throughout my pregnancy and they only discovered the false diagnosis four days after my daughter's birth by through the Paris database at the hospital but nobody asked me about this if anybody had asked me about it I'd easily have been able to tell them this is a false diagnosis this psychiatrist was struck off 16 years ago this is a public record going look it up I would also have been able to offer to do a psychological evaluation as it happened I didn't get to do a psychological evaluation until eight weeks after my daughter was taken at which point the decision had already been made the care order already been put in place and nobody wanted to backtrack or be held accountable. Right so what was your partner doing during this time then? So the last little bit you said was they had gone back to work so babies born he has to go back to work. So I only saw him on two occasions between the time he had

17:47to go back to work after his paternity leave ended when she was two weeks old up until she was taken I only saw him on two occasions because he was away working and at the point where there was the first family court hearing I was only given 40 minutes notice of he was threatened by a social worker that if he didn't immediately leave me that my daughter would be adopted so he was coerced into ending our relationship and breaking up her family. Right do you think that the impact of what they said on him was was that strong enough to simply break the bond with you? Yes he was absolutely terrified. Right and how do you know what they said to him? He's told me. He's told me. Okay so your daughter's taken away from you and what is the what is the court order actually

18:52say in terms of contact? I get no contact at all I haven't seen my daughter for four years over four years now. And did the court say why that was? Initially in the original care order it says that I was concealing a mental illness and therefore was a risk to my daughter. Obviously they've known for a very long time now that that's not the case but they've wanted to cover that up and come up with different reasons they subsequent to that they then used the fact that I was exclusively breastfeeding and tried to assert that my daughter wasn't putting on enough weight because I was breastfeeding and I since then had got evidence from an IBCLC lactation consultant to say that I had exclusively breastfed my daughter completely appropriately in line with their guidelines and that there was nothing that I had done that was that could that was any reason to remove my daughter from my care that evidence was ignored the court wouldn't look at it and it's

19:56been ignored ever since for the last seven years so that was used for a while now obviously my daughter is seven so they can't really use that as a reason anymore because she's not breastfed anymore nobody's been able to give me a reason of why the care order still exists at one of my other family court applications it was asked in court what risk am I to my daughter and there was a four minute silence the social worker couldn't come up with a reason and it was like tumbleweeds in the court there was no answer she couldn't come up with a reason so nothing changed nothing changed nothing changed because obviously nobody from the outside can intervene it's a secret court currently you had those seven roughly seven hearings did you did you try and change your legal team or did you did you change legal teams yes I did so when I was when I challenged the original solicitor on why she was not fighting for me why she was not submitting my evidence why she was not responding to the social work reports and things like that

21:00that by sitting deadlines and letting things go and I realised that she was simply taken on the masses of legal cases and getting paid for them and not actually doing any work and I realised and at that point she abandoned me left me and represented so there were this was two weeks before the final hearing so it was an absolute crucial time type you know I really needed I really needed properly your support I did manage to get another solicitor but they told me in no uncertain terms that they did not have the time to go through the entire case and that this was not going to end well I asked for an adjournment for the judge to bring the the new solicitor up to speed and the judge refused so it was all pushed through last minute I didn't none of my evidence got submitted right and this all stayed under the jurisdiction of God if yes the family court the family court judge has actually reserved the case to repeatedly come back to her and I've tried

22:05I've tried my absolute hardest to get it heard by somebody else and she will not allow it to happen well that that is actually a very common thing I've heard of of this on many occasions where people feel that they're trapped under the jurisdiction of one judge the judge reserves the case to themselves and and then you're constantly faced with the same judge yes and perhaps I'll add in there for the audience I know many of the people that watch the UK column when we talk about these family cases we constantly say if you're in the family court there's a judge there is no jury there's no usually no legal sorry there's usually no press team so you are simply in a room with a judge and that judge makes all the decisions and this of course is why many of the mothers and dads within the who've experienced the family court systems say effectively it's it's a star chamber

23:09it's a closed court which it is yes carries so if we just go on from here so once that terrible decision is made and you're not allowed to see your daughter what do you do then because I know you didn't stop fighting no I haven't stopped the last seven years have been consumed with this I'm fighting to be reunited with my daughter so I initially made an application for contact because I really wanted to still be seeing my daughter she's still such tiny baby as I wanted to be seen here while I was fighting for everything to be a return so I made an application for contact and the problem I've repeatedly encountered is once a decision has been made in family court so once this cohort I was put on my daughter with when I had no legal legal help and I was refused that adjournment to get legal help

24:10once that decision has been made every single hearing that I went into after that happened on the basis that what was written in that initial judgment is true and factual which it isn't I have a whole heap of evidence to show that it is entirely demonstrative force but nobody will look at that evidence yes well is that is a key point the very often once a decision is made it's like they they don't want to go back on it because to go back on their original decision I can imagine there's worry there's worry in their minds about liability because it's effectively an emission of failure or guilt absolutely and so they become entrenched but that that of course doesn't make it any any more palatable for you or other mums and dads but many people talk about this yeah it's just like banging your head against a brick wall you can keep saying that it's not true and you can prove that it's not true nobody cares I've reinforced this a little bit because

25:10I'll say locally many years ago there was a couple and they had a baby from one of the local hospitals and the hospital said to the parents fairly early on they thought there was well there was a problem with the baby but the hospital said they thought it was cancer and the mother said I understood that something was wrong with my baby but everything said to me it's not cancer this is crazy because we're talking about a two three day three day old baby and to cut a long story very very short it subsequently emerged that the mother was right the problem with the baby was actually something that was fairly common and very easily fixed but the mother had refused cancer treatment for the baby in that brought social services into the into the mix so when when the diagnosis from

26:14the hospital came that it's a minor problem and easily corrected the mother was never reunited with that baby and so that baby is taken away from her and then on the basis of that baby being taken away social services then went on to take three more babies from her ship she had twins on the next occasion and then she tried to have a child outside the system so she had never done anything to the child and the father had never done anything to the child she'd been correct in her instincts okay she's not a medical professional but the local local authority continued to take children effectively on the lie that the mother had been at fault in the birth of the first baby yes I've met many people that have been subjected to the same thing over and over every child after that gets taken not for any reason and then we'll and for our audience and then it can get

27:16to the stage where if a child is taken away and is fostered or brought up in a care home that when they're adult and become pregnant their child is taken away on the basis that they they were a child who was fostered or brought up in a care home so the the child is actually penalized when they come into adulthood yeah absolutely I think I did a freedom of information request at one point and something that I discovered is that the vast majority I can't remember the exact figures or statistics but the vast majority of people who have children taken away from them by social services are either care levers or victims of domestic violence they're overwhelmingly that the people that get children taken the most so not actually people who have a harm their children or have any intention to harm their children victims their victims were vulnerable people vulnerable mothers sometimes dads but yeah vulnerable people can receive you fight for contact with your

28:24with your child what do you actually do to so I have I've made multiple court applications outside of the family court I thought because of the the family court system is closed and secret and nobody can penetrate that I I have made many other court applications outside of the family court and one of those was as a result of two and a half years after my daughter was taken I applied to become a child's shaperone and a child's shaperone basically shaperones children in entertainment settings so like TV or theatre pantomime that sort of thing and is this an individual child or a group of children it can be either it can be one one child actor or it can be a group of children there's some rules on how many children of certain ages you can have and your care at

29:25one time so because I'm learning here yeah when would a child's shaperone be used and who who would use them who would pay for that shaperone so they're at the entertainment agencies any child in an entertainment setting has to be shaperone by law so yeah so I applied to become a child's shaperone I've been working as a TV actor myself previous to that so many of my colleagues also shaperone children on set so part of the application to be a child's shaperone is that you have to be assessed and approved by your local authority and it has to be the local authority area that you live so obviously given the fact that the Valeu-Kloikian Council had presented false evidence to the family court to steal my daughter I thought I had absolutely no hope of being a child's shaperone but I knew that I hadn't done anything wrong and I could prove that I hadn't done anything wrong even though I hadn't been given the opportunity to so I thought I'm going to

30:27so I made the application to my local authority and I was assessed and a standard UK procedures for it to be a child's shaperone and it involved a few things it involved things like references had to attend a course or in my local authority for child's shaperones I had to have a panel interview with members of the Valeu-Kloikian Council who assessed me and so they assessed positively and approved me and issued me with a child shaperone license so let's just reinforce the point so you have your child taken away from you on the basis that you are not safe to look after that child as a result of a false ronious psychiatric diagnosis when you were a child and then when you apply subsequent to that to be a child's shaperone the local authority

31:28approves you yes and so how long did you work as a child's shaperone for? So I worked as a child's shaperone for six months very successfully there were no complaints or incidents or anything wrong I really enjoyed it I got on extremely well with the children that were under my care and I loved it and then very suddenly less than 24 hours after one booking that I had I received an email from the Valeu-Kloikian Council to say that my child's shaperone license had been revoked so I emailed them back to ask for a reason obviously I knew the reason would be that they'd realised the contradiction that they'd kidnapped my own child but yet I had said that I was safe to look after anybody else's child but I wanted them to explain that in writing so I asked for the reasons they would not reply over that month I sent a total of seven emails asking them to explain why they'd revoke my shaperone license and they had no response

32:30so at that point I contacted my local magistrates court and I put in an appeal against the revocation of my shaperone license and I thought this might be an opportunity for me to finally to read your name is it work yeah to present the evidence that the family court have refused to allow me to present that I that none of this was true and unfortunately the magistrates court can apparently not go behind what a family court judge has said so even though I had all of this evidence to show that nothing in the family court judgement was true the judge in the magistrates court couldn't look at it and as a result of that a judgment was made against me so the the Vail of Golan council was able to use the false family court judgment against me as if it was fact but I wasn't allowed to present any evidence against it so they won by default yes and so my shaperone license is still revoked and and I now have to pay the local authorities legal costs you just can't make it up right was was this the start of you having to pay cost to the

33:35local authority yes that was the best yes can we ask how much those costs were there's the shaperone license costs were seven thousand five hundred pounds but there have been other costs of the local authorities that have been put on me since then for other court applications that I've made right okay so so that that was the child shaperone so what are the cases did you take trying to break through the the judgement of the family court had made in taking your daughter what are the challenges did you make through the courts that then resulted in you being given cost so I tried to do a judicial review which is where a court looks at whether a decision that's been made as correct or not and this is where I realized that no judge is ever going to allow me to show them evidence because if they did it would open the door first

34:40hundreds of thousands of other bogus family court decisions to be overturned and it would be scandal okay so tell us tell us what happened then when you so my application was immediately shut down the judge would not look at evidence the judge determined that my case was totally without merits even though he had no idea of those any merit because he refused to look at any evidence right and just remind me again what what court that was you'd you'd taken the case to that was the administrative court so in Cardiff it is actually the same building as the family court but it's a different floor and it's effectively a different court would that be what we call a county court so straight civil court so and you were just in front of a judge in that court there's no jury no I think the only way you can get a jury is if you're in Crown Court you have to commit a crime yes which I have considers trying to get in front of a jury right so you

35:42you try and challenge it and the judge doesn't take any of your evidence or did he take no refused to look at any evidence dismissed it without looking at any evidence dismissed it as totally without merit yeah even though he hadn't looked and and then ordered me to pay the local authorities legal costs even though I was and represented and like because I couldn't afford to pay for my own legal representation what with the cost out of that case I can't remember the exact figure I can't remember the exact figure that that was roughly it's a couple of thousand I can't but altogether now all of the costs that have been put on me amount to 32 grand as far as I'm aware and there were also there were also legal costs that were put on me from the local authority that whether local authority had actually made the court application so for example they because I had made these repeated court applications they put an application into put an extended civil restrained order on me to prevent me from making any court applications

36:46in any court right this is I think other people might describe this carousel as making you vexatious yes and attempting to restrict your your ability to put further challenges in through the court cut through the courts yeah that's right how many challenges had you put in when they tried to restrict you like this maybe five or six something like that right been such a long time I can't remember exactly but I think five or six applications which then obviously each application has been several hearings yeah about five or six but the point is that none of those hearings has ever given me an opportunity to submit evidence not once and I wouldn't have had to make repeated court applications if on one occasion just one occasion a judge had agreed to look at evidence that's all I was asking for and I've been prevented from showing evidence what were the cases shut down before you sorry were the cases shut down

37:52and you didn't even get an opportunity to sit in front of the judge and did you manage to get into a court and I got in some of them were dismissed on paper right without me ever seeing a judge and every appeal I've made has been dismissed on paper without any evidence without me ever seeing the judge right but there were occasions like the judicial review and with the shrapnel license appeal where I was in front of the judge but it was a permission stage so every permission stage it's been shut down right okay and you well a little while ago when we we were speaking and texting you were very worried one morning because you were always at the next day you were going into court and you thought there was a possibility that they were going to commit you to prison yes what why were you so anxious then um so I'd been sent in a um I don't know what you call it a notice of a hearing um which I'd have had to attend which was called it was titled a

38:55commital to prison hearing right and who initiated that the Valeur-Gomorgan Council right um because of the fact that I have not yet paid any of their court costs that they that I have been court ordered to pay I haven't paid any of them so um they applied through a commital to prison hearing so um there was a real risk I could have gone to prison and I wasn't put in prison at that hearing but the judge ordered me to pay their costs even though I'm on a low income and they've taken my career was that the first case where you you made an offer to pay something was that the first one yes right that's right um and as much as I beggerage paying them a penny because they've destroyed my life and my family and my career um I just didn't need anything else you know on top of no okay and and perhaps are we explained a little bit more to the audience the the key thing is when money's

39:56money's erode or owing there's a big difference between saying you won't pay and you are happy to pay but you can only pay a certain sum you can only afford to pay a certain sum and I believe that that was your approach you offered to pay them a very nominal sum nominal sum um they weren't happy with that so the judge put that up at that hearing I put in a statement to make it clear that did not accept the costs and the reasons why I did not accept the cost because they kidnapped my child with false evidence and that I'd been prevented from ever submitting any of my own evidence and that my daughter has been deprived of mother and necessarily for seven years so the court was fully aware of that but still ordered me to pay the costs but they didn't put you in prison they didn't but there's still a risk that that will happen again because you went to another court case there was another one following that one yes yes that's right and there will be others as well because there's so many different strands of costs that they have ordered me

40:57to pay as a result of me trying to fight them and trying to get this evidence presented and a court finally there's so many strands of costs that eventually I can see me going to prison are you saying that the veil of glimorgan counsel has not what's the term consolidated the costs so even though the cost of a crude through different court actions involving the veil of glimorgan there you are they haven't consolidated it in one bill not currently no right so you would have to say that that is a such a wasteful approach I mean I'm just being a little bit pinnickety for councils owed money it can't even get its act together to consolidate that into one something they're completely in order to take that through the county of Hong Kong shambles and if you think of the hundreds of thousands of pounds they've unnecessarily spent on keeping my

41:58daughter under a tidy unnecessary care order for entire life so far just how they've squandered public money yeah in that way and and now they expect me to effectively pay for their own campaign of abuse and torture against me it's just it's like well I do it would be funny if it wasn't so awful but you've said to me because the basically the the sum that they're trying to get from you effectively means it's it's not worth you trying to get a job at all because no no they're just doing an attachment of earnings and I wouldn't be able to live so yeah so I basically have to keep myself in poverty it'll just many would just be taken from me otherwise are you sitting here at the moment with another call to order over your head well how did the final hearing go that was a week ago I think so the extended civil restrained order was the judge put it on me so I now cannot make court applications without going through an additional permission step

43:05and I've never heard this happen to anyone else before I've already under a section 91 14 barring order in the family court and now they put this extended civil restraint order on me as well so if I was to make any court application now I would effectively have to go through two permission steps and get through those before I could even make the application before you could even attempt to get at them as it were right yeah they're that desperate to cover up what they've done that they're going to the most extraordinary lengths I think in most cases they expect people to have been worn down to the point where they've given up by now I know a lot of people that have been subjected to what I've been subjected to and I've spoken to many in the last seven years a lot of them have they're not in this estate psychologically anymore that they can continue to fight because it it just is so destructive and I think they hope that I would get to a point where I'd be so

44:07worn down that I wouldn't mentally be able to keep fighting like this and I don't think they know what to do because so far I have managed to keep fighting I have some really dark days but yeah I have so far managed to keep fighting and my focus is being reunited with my daughter yeah we some some rise this your daughters take and under false pretenses on a false diagnosis by a man who's later struck off so your child is struck off for his diagnosis so that that is a record which was incorrect in your medical notes that incorrect note is then used to justify taking your daughter and even though all of that's happened you can't produce the evidence you're not permitted to reduce the evidence in a family court or another court in order to set out the injustice and essentially be reunited with your

45:11daughter yes it's right it I'm always thinking I'm I'm putting it over in this way because I know that there are many people that can listen into these interviews and not surprisingly some of them say there's got to be more to it than this so they'll listen to you speaking or another parent and they'll say well they wouldn't do that what they do yeah and then when you go through perfectly reasonable steps in order to obtain justice in this wonderful country the United Kingdom in 2026 you are absolutely prevent from putting your evidence forward that's right I reinforce this situation by it's part of my own experience of being at a family court with a mother it was actually in South Wales but not where you were and I'd supported the family over a few weeks and

46:14then I was in a hearing and suddenly to my astonishment the local authority waived a piece of paper at the judge and said that a few days beforehand I had I brighaygherish attempted to break into a contact centre in South Wales I was utterly stunned it was ridiculous because of the day in question I was in Plymouth not in this location but at another UK column studio and I had at least six seven witnesses that I was there the whole day so I couldn't possibly have been 160 miles away breaking in the judge didn't seem too phased when I've reacted and said well this is a complete lie and I then said to him I will produce witness statements to disprove this and subsequently there was another hearing and I had six witness statements all saying where I was on a particular day

47:21no possibility that I could have been at the contact centre and I looked at the judge and I said holding the local authority piece of paper that this is perjury and I can still see the judges face because he sort of leaned over the bench towards me and he smirked and that that was what I picked and then he said oh no Mr. Garrish I rather think the local authority has made a mistake and I knew as those words came out of his mouth that actually he was he was playing with me but he was warning off the local authority you've made a mistake you've gone too far but this was in the early days of my learning process when I started to understand just how corrupt the family law system is and in another hearing in that same case when I started to

48:24push a bit in court he leaned forward and he said Mr. Garrish if you dare to report any of this case or what's taken place in my court I will put you in prison and that is the reality of the family court so I'm sharing that with you and the audience of course because I have never been through the process of a family court except as a McKenzie friend but I've done that on a number of occasions and what I've witnessed has been utterly horrific yes there has actually been several instances like that in my own case where the local authority put an accusation that's completely absurd that I can easily disprove and again the judge has just said it's a mistake rather than a blatant lie and perjury which is what it really is but they don't have a good health countable so they just they I think they just get brave and get cocky that they can just do this.

49:25This is one of the key issues for the for the parents because because the parent is faced with the judge faced with a local authority usually faced with the local authorities solicitor and or barrister possibly a psychiatric professional who's there to testify against you and and very well in the not so long ago but it would be the CAF cast the guardian adlitum representative. They usually actually local authority social workers the one in my case was. So the parent is faced in a closed court with no jury in trying to defend themselves against six or eight people that's arranged against them and of course all those professionals who are targeting the family members are being paid out of fact out of your yes the public are paying for it

50:25yeah yes that's right yeah most of these people have most of the so-called experts that they use to testify against parents are people that do this all day long that's all they do is write reports against parents and they get paid for it yeah I don't know what it is now but certainly for we'll say one of them were involved to reports five thousand five and a half thousand pounds for writing a four page report on somebody maybe yes and a lot of them are copy and pasted as well from other and they just remove them and remove the names and add the new names and that's how they do it and yes like you said they get paid thousands for it yeah carries you you said just now that you've come across other people who've experienced this how did that start to happen how did you go from your case to meeting other people I just through going through what I've gone through I've come across other parents I initially started looking for other parents who had had their

51:27children stolen by the same local authority as me where did you look for them just through I don't know how I did yes so through social media and then sort of having contact with one or two people then I became in contact with a lot of other people and over seven years quite a network of people now that I have come into contact with and it's I say it's surprising it's not surprising to me anymore because nothing surprises me anymore but it's it would be surprising to most people how they use the same tactics and in every single case over and over again they recycle the same things they've got the same checklist that they try to get people on and it's like a tick box exercise and they use the same tricks the same tricks every time one of those tricks which you mentioned early on is effectively they split they work to divide and conquer divide divide the partnership get husband and wife or partners

52:32apart because then each of the individuals is more vulnerable to whatever happens that's right in fact the only people I've known who have managed to stop this process before the end of the care proceedings are partners that refuse to turn on the other partner yes yeah I I have a friend who happily in the last couple of years has been able to speak to his daughter but he had to make the decision as a father to give up contact with his daughter because the threat was if you don't if you don't your daughter will go into care and he felt it was better that his daughter stayed with is a strange partner and nevertheless he had and I think about 12 years of not being in contact with her at all so I'm absolutely from this particular friend no first hand this this business that you know once the once the child's gone you don't have the

53:37contacts it's only been when this particular young lady has now become adult that she's been able to reach out to her parents to her father yeah a lot of cases as well they try to bring in a child psychologist to sort of brainwash the child that the a restrained parent is dangerous and I've I've learned in a lot of cases that you know the child grows up and gets to adulthood and actually thinks that parent is a monster because they've been brainwashed for so many years by the local authority yes to believe that and it causes so much damage because it's so much damage and that's my worry many cases about this but perhaps we could say in your case you know your partner is a loving parent of your daughter that's not a not such a risk no I hope not yeah um you meet other people who've gone through the through the process and you say there's a lot of

54:38them have you been able to to meet them in person yes so for all there's um quite a lot of us in South Wales um I think I read the statistics that that three times as many children get removed in Wales than in any other area of the UK um three times over it despite the tiny comparative population so um although it's awful all over the UK Wales seems to be particularly bad yes I I hadn't heard that that figure I I had heard people say I have heard that people say that it's it's bad the situation is bad but again this key point is that many years ago you could say that all the children were taken from tended to be taken from vulnerable families but one of the things that people report to me who are very close to what's happening is that as times gone on it's like they've got more confidence and they can they can go for professional people

55:43yes people that you think no they wouldn't go near that family because mum or dad is a policeman but actually they do and then you start to feel that there's actually something more powerful under the surface than it just being the local council hmm the the judges aren't holding them accountable they're letting them get away with it and they know they know it's wrong I've looked in the eyes of judges and they I know they know I know they know otherwise what would be the harm in looking at my evidence but they won't do it yeah they won't do it well a question which I always ask and I think there's a good reason for asking but I know with the audience there's quite a lot of people that sort of sigh so the question is what what about a local MP did you try to local MP or local counsellors many times yes many many times what was the result was the yeah even the ones in my daughters area and the result is initially they appear concerned and they want to help and they want to see all of your evidence and everything

56:47so that's happened multiple times over now I've gone to a lot of effort to make sure that my evidence is all in order and show them everything and at that point they tend to just go silent and you don't hear from them and then you chase them and chase them and chase them and chase them and most recently with my local MP in my own area I had to chase for a year and a half before I finally then got a reply back to say sorry we can't help you anymore and so who was that MP the MP is Kanishkina Ryan I believe and this was a representative of Kanishkina Ryan's who would come to my house who had spoken to me had seemed very concerned about the situation had then asked for all the evidence which I then given her and the last I heard from her at that point was that she was going to a case conference about my case that week and that very shortly somebody would be assigned to my case so I'd be hearing from somebody shortly for help right and then a year and a half went past and I had no contact and I was chasing and chasing and chasing and

57:49heard nothing and then eventually got a reply back saying sorry we can't help you anymore so I just think they're being told don't touch this being told don't touch it that's one way of saying it or they're warned off is another way of saying it they're warned off these cases and then that that implies or suggest that there's a sort of power held over the local MPs you don't want to get your nose too close to this because I absolutely think that's what's happening because the exact same thing happened when I contacted the MP for my daughters local area to say you know obviously I'm not a constituent of hers but my daughter is and I have parental responsibility for my daughter and therefore I'm asking for her help on behalf of my daughter this is exactly the same thing happened she was very nice she wanted to she was very nice she again wanted to help she said she didn't want to step on the toes of my local MP but she would help help you know and together she was she was very willing to help and then a year down the line all of a sudden it's can't help you

58:54anymore no explanation she wouldn't give any explanation why she can't help anymore this went cold yeah and did you hear this same sort of story about MPs from other moms that you've spoken to it's been the same for everybody I've spoken to same pattern same pattern yeah and what about local counsellors same again same again local counsellors and also we um because Wales is devolved so it's we've got the Senna as well not just um Parliament so I've tried with all of those people as well involved in the Senna then Wales and again it's the same same same thing over again same pattern right yeah and I've heard this story many many times and to be fair some of the counsellors clearly did attempt to do something but even in their own authority an elected counsellor is simply told by an officer of the council that they have no business asking questions that's it in children's

59:56services and children's services department is not obliged to answer any questions for the elected member that's it so they're shut down shut down as well yes I fully believe that the representative that came to my house was extremely concerned she appeared concerned she was very sympathetic she was very nice and I honestly believe she wanted to help and has been prevented from helping yeah so where's this left you now um it's left me with no where to turn really um I've been threatened with prison many times for um speaking about my case or talking about my case or identifying any part of my case but I've got to the point where I feel like I've been in a prison for seven years anyway and not committed any crime ever so there's not really much more I can be threatened with anymore I want people to know that this is happening because the media won't report on it the the mainstream media you will not hear about this at all have you approached mainstream

1:00:58media I have yes I have I've spoken to two different BBC journalists um and also somebody from Wales online some names who do you can you gosh I can't remember the names I'll be able to give you the names but I can't remember them off the top my head it was a while ago right and what did they do did they come and see you initially again quite similar with the MPs seemed concerned but then won't report on anything that the court hasn't ordered or the court hasn't said is a fact so obviously that's the whole point I want to do in a list is because the court is not looking at evidence and the court is just rubber stamping things that are completely untrue and that there's no evidence for and I want I want somebody in the media to speak about that but they're not they will not look at any evidence that goes against what a court order says I reinforce that for you I I had a conversation at some time ago with um the telegraph newspaper they were interested in the

1:02:01family court case but the person said to me the trouble is the mother is relying on family court evidence for her defence so she's saying to our reporter that to prove what I'm saying I've got to show you family court documents and we the newspaper are not allowed to look at these documents and I said well is there a way of summarising what the family court documents are saying so that you can understand what the mother's saying to which the man said to me well that's all very well but then when we go a step further my legal team and my editorial board are going to be saying well they'll pass double we we're going to be in danger of breaching the family court secrecy rules that's right so I said to the journalist who was a very

1:03:01experienced person surely that's your story isn't it that secret courts are withholding evidence which is needed for people to prove that they're innocent yes and it went quiet and we discussed some other subjects and I offered to give some specific help in that case and then what happened nothing no more contact no thanks for the help no recognition that we've got a secretive court system which is stealing children it just went completely silent so I say that back to you Chris so that you can understand that I I do I do understand a lot of what you're talking about yeah I'm really very close to you talk about this what would you you've come all the way down here to to Plymouth to talk this through and I'm really delighted you have have

1:04:04because I know that you've got a big bag full of court documents and as you've said you packaged evidence to give to MPs in order to prove what your case is but for me the reality is that there's so many mothers and some fathers coming forward talking about what's happened to them through the family courts and as you said a few minutes ago they go through a check box this happened that something else happened they said this they accused me of that so we have hundreds thousands of parents all over the country worse in some areas than others but it's in Wales it's in England Scotland Northern Ireland all telling the same story of lies corruption, perjury in court in order that a child's taken away from a parent it's it's happening you are the evidence and what you say is the evidence so well done for coming

1:05:08here and talking through what would you like people to take away from what you've what you've told me about what's happened to you I just like people to know that this is happening and that I think people think if they don't hear about something on the news or they don't read it in a newspaper that it can't possibly be happening and people generally have the opinion that if a court has said something then evidence must have been looked at and it must have you know been examined in detail and that for that to be the truth and that just isn't the case just isn't the case so it's not that this is complicated this your case the story that you've told me is not complicated in any sense because it's not as though there was a protracted period of something had happened you'd been drunk on a couple occasions or you'd had previously suffered from depression some tangible thing that could say well okay there was some need from the local authority in your case

1:06:08it was absolutely black and white absolutely nothing yeah I think the key to getting the lid off this is the numbers of parents I have been lucky enough to be able to talk to a lot of parents over a lot of years but the issue that keeps coming up is the trauma around the whole thing and the fact that if I just I'll stick with it the dads can be different in a way but for the mums for a lot of them the trauma is so intense that after a particular period of fighting maybe years of fighting the the mums haven't really got it together in order to work with other people the emotions go up and down so they can be with a group of mums and then they fall out or they argue and this means that they can't build a sort of good cohesive base to tackle what's actually happening yeah so also even putting

1:07:14their evidence together I mean it's extremely triggering going through all of those lies and being able to put everything in an order that you'd be able to present somebody else so that they'd understand what has happened and I mean I've had to find resilience that I would never have thought possible a few years ago to be able to do that in my own case so obviously there are a lot of people that are just unable to do that which is completely understandable if you think that you've had part of you ripped away it's there's no words for it yeah and it's something you can't escape from because there's one mum said you think about your daughter every minute of every day yeah yeah final message to other mums out there who are having problems that you're having what would you say to encourage them I would say if you're at the beginning of this process and a social across you to sign something do not sign it do not sign it if you have evidence against what they're saying put it all together get support get support family support support

1:08:20from a partner support from anybody it makes it a lot more difficult for local authorities to take a child from somebody who's got a lot of unwavering support around them for people who will not turn on them that's really important there's so many things about to think of the I'll add one for you the one I'll add is and I've always believed this it's really important that you look after yourself because if you don't look after yourself you you're not in a condition to fight so no matter how hard it is you have to take the opportunity to get out and absolutely that's really unfortunate try and get your mind off it yeah I mean I don't I don't think I would have been able in a position to do this interview say five years ago because I was a complete mass as well it just completely ruined you you have to find some kind of strength from somewhere to do it but you did find that strength yes that's really fantastic can I say I'm going to say

1:09:27that's probably a natural conclusion so I'm going to say thank you very much for coming down and talking to me my last words to the camera are that I believe there is a way of of bringing this thing to the light to make the wider public understand just what's happening it comes down to numbers and the key is to be able to get as many mums to come out of the woodwork as possible many mums who've got it together um that they can talk about their cases in a measured way emotions never going to disappear but we we need the numbers to make the difference because the testimony that each of the mums gives is the evidence and all the stuff that's in the thousands of pages for some of them in the court documents this is evidence in a sense but when a bank gets robbed when you have two people say well I saw the car stop and I saw the men get out and this is what happened

1:10:33that is their verbal testimony is the ultimate testimony it's not actually what they wrote down in a police statement so my approach to this is we need more mums to come forward and to tell their stories because that becomes the body of evidence against the state and to not be frightened of the threats that are put on you because that's what keeps you locked in that prison is the threats the fear I understand some people do have things to lose like if you still have in contact with your child they'll use that as a reason to not speak out because they'll take away the contact so it is very difficult but to just like have the courage that you haven't done anything wrong and to just speak out because eventually you know if you're telling you're telling the truth so there's nothing you know even if you're threatened with prison you still are telling the truth and at some point you're going to be able to prove that yeah so yeah I think it's really important

1:11:34for people to not be coerced by fear into not speaking out brilliant carous thank you very much thank you so much for having me and thank you for talking about this markup comment take ram and hammy our registrar trademarks of FCA us LLC