Extract from article on childcare

- 14 May 2005;Used with kind permission of the Daily Mail

...Meanwhile, the Government is being urged to end the secrecy of family courts which sit without a jury or public scrutiny in order to protect the confidentiality of the children. Anyone who tries to raise issues in the public interest risks an injunction and imprisonment. The result is that miscarriages of justice go unnoticed and unchallenged. The Constitutional Affairs select committee recommended earlier this year that courts should be more open and publicly accountable, but the Government has yet to act.

Sarah Harman, a leading children's rights solicitor and sister of Harriet Harman, the newly appointed Minister of State in the Department of Constitutional Affairs, has written to Beverley Hughes, the new Children’s Minister, demanding more transparency in care proceedings.

She says: “'I am currently involved in a case where parents have children living at home and another child placed in care. The bread winner parent has suffered serious depression and anxiety as a result of one of his children being placed away from home and has been less and less able to do his job.”