Outrageous!

Social workers said because I was a soldier, I was more likely to be violent to my own children

2009-04-05T07:22:00.000-07:00

Sitting in his mother-in-law's living room, Matthew Dean's eyes widened in shock as he listened to what his social worker was telling him.

Because he was a man and a soldier - accustomed to fighting for Britain in war-torn countries - he was, they said, more likely to be of a violent disposition, and therefore more capable of abusing his baby son, Louie.

'I was furious,' says Matthew. 'To be told that my occupation and gender should have any bearing on my parenting skills and sense of decency was absolutely beyond belief.'

Story here

It was only the latest in a string of traumas social services had subjected Matthew and his wife Katie to since decreeing they were a danger to Louie - and taking him away from them.

Perhaps the most poignant repercussion was the three-month pregnancy Katie later felt forced to terminate - having been told that she would have to hand that child over to social services too.

Carrying Louie proved traumatic. As an insulin-dependent diabetic, Katie found being pregnant depleted her blood sugar levels and she would often collapse from exhaustion. 'It was far more difficult than my two other pregnancies,' she says.

Louie was born five weeks premature by Caesarean section in August 2007 in a nearby civilian hospital. After two weeks in intensive care he was discharged.

'After such a horrendous start he seemed healthy,' says Matt, 34.

Yet at a routine check-up ten weeks later, their paediatrician expressed concern that his head was larger than that of an average baby.

A scan showed he had blood on his brain that needed to be removed by drilling into his skull.

Their case was transferred from Ministry of Defence welfare officers to Hampshire social services who decreed that Katie's mother and father would be Louie's foster parents.

'It felt like we were being interrogated too,' says Christine. 'We had to say where we were schooled from the age of five and even whether our relationship was physical.'

'They told me that because I had an unconventional upbringing I was more likely to abuse my children. I was equally as shocked when they said my job would make me more prone to violence.'

Worse still, at regular meetings at their house and Katie's mother's house, the social workers tried to cause trouble between the couple themselves.

'They said I didn't have to cover for Matt,' says Katie. 'They bullied me more because I seemed more vulnerable.

'They were definitely trying to split us up. They asked us how this had affected our physical relationship. They even said Louie could end up dead if they let him come back and live with us.

'Yet we co-operated throughout and they admitted they couldn't find anything negative about our family life.'

Czech female Fritzl gets lenient sentence

2008-10-25T04:07:00.000-07:00

Cannibal cult mother who skinned son and made him eat his own flesh gets 9 years in jail

A cannibal cult mother who tortured her son in a locked cellar while relatives skinned him and forced him to eat his own flesh has been jailed for nine years.

Klara Mauerova, 31 - a member of a sinister religious cult and her sister Katerina led the sickening torture of her eight-year-old son Ondrej and his ten year-old brother Jakub.

A court in Brno in Czech Republic heard how relatives partially skinned Ondrej and forced him to eat his own flesh.

The judge also jailed Katerina, 35, for ten years for her role in the sickening abuse.

The two boys had told judges how their mother and relatives had stubbed cigarettes out on their bare skin, whipped them with belts, and tried to drown them. They were also sexually abused and forced to cut themselves with knives.

The terrified youngsters said they were kept in cages or handcuffed to tables and made to stand in their own urine for days.

The sick abuse was discovered when a neighbour installed a TV baby monitor to keep watch on his new daughter.

But it picked up the signal from an identical monitor next door showing one of the victims beaten, naked and chained in a cellar.

Mauerova had installed it so she could gloat over her victims' suffering from the comfort of her kitchen.

2008-10-03T08:39:00.000-07:00

Disgraceful Behaviour By Child Doctors

An Ontario man who spent 12 years in jail after being wrongly convicted for the rape and murder of his four-year-old niece launched a lawsuit against six doctors Thursday, including a forensic pathologist excoriated this week by a judicial inquiry.

“To avoid professional embarrassment, for the next 15 years, they did not revise or qualify their initial opinions even though they knew or ought to have known that their opinions were scientifically flawed.”

Troy Anthony Davis

2008-09-20T17:41:00.000-07:00

America To Execute Innocent Man?

On Monday, March 17, 2008, the Georgia Supreme Court decided 4-3 to deny a new trial for Troy Anthony Davis, despite significant concerns regarding his innocence.

If there is even a possibility that this man is innocent, then what words can one use to describe the American system of justice?

2008-09-16T18:02:00.000-07:00

Parents Treated Appallingly Following Bogus Therapist Accusation

The couple, who had no criminal history, suddenly faced decades in prison. He was charged with repeatedly raping their 15-year-old, severely autistic daughter, and she was charged with child abuse for failure to stop it.

Julian Wendrow, who spent 80 days in jail without bond before prosecutors dropped the case, is furious.

2008-09-14T08:08:00.000-07:00

Families Need Fathers Betray Father

Families Need Fathers (FNF) is to pay tens of thousands of pounds in damages and legal costs after one of its officials admitted writing a defamatory letter to a judge in an attempt to undermine the father’s custody case.

Unbelievable!

2008-09-06T05:15:00.000-07:00

EU wants to ban 'sexist' TV commercials

MEPs want TV regulators in the EU to set guidelines which would see the end of anything deemed to portray women as sex objects or reinforce gender stereotypes.

The F-Word

2008-09-05T13:26:00.000-07:00

Sorry gentlemen, but I was battling with my conscience since yesterday wondering whether to put this blog up here. It's a FEMINIST blog called The F-Word, and the topic here is on prostitution. But as a few angry men have put in entries, I've put a link here for any of us to give them some support.

It's a statistical survey that measures how many men thought it "it was unacceptable for a female relative to sell sex, but fine for a male relative to pay for sex". Hypocrites?

Of course, this scenario could have been presented differently. For example, how many people love eating pork chops but would not slaughter a pig? It could have been presented with a scenario unrelated to sex and "gender".

It's another thinly disguised attack on men.

2008-08-31T15:09:00.000-07:00

Woman Sentenced To 30 Years

Denise Harvey, 40, of Vero Beach, was sentenced to 30 years in state prison for having sex with a 16-year-old who was a high school friend and baseball teammate her son's.

A barbaric sentence - and, also, another example of a judge giving a separate sentence for each count of the offence; a bit like the man who got 200 years in prison for having some 15 illicit images on his computer (some 15 years for each image).

Why not give this particular woman 1,000 years?

After all, each 'thrust' would have been illegal!

2008-08-27T15:36:00.000-07:00

Another False Rape Accuser Walks Free

A woman who cried rape against her former fiance has walked free from court, to the fury of the innocent man's family.

2008-08-21T13:00:00.000-07:00

War heroes have blasted a council after being forced to abandon plans for a Veterans' Day parade due to lack of official support.

But ... Councillors in Doncaster were heavily involved in a gay pride march last weekend ...

2008-08-16T22:27:00.000-07:00

Women can win cash payments of £1,000 a year to study science as universities struggle to fill places on undersubscribed courses, an investigation has found.

And yet women are far more likely than men to give up their careers in science.

2008-08-13T13:02:00.001-07:00

Man arrested for hitting daughter.

A man who was arrested and cautioned for slapping his 13-year-old daughter across the face fears he will no longer be able to work with children.

Man arrested for confronting gang

2008-08-13T08:27:00.000-07:00

Government wants powers to open your private email account

+ Councils and health authorities are to be given the right to access e-mail and internet records under surveillance powers to be introduced next year, the Home Office said yesterday.

2008-07-24T18:43:00.001-07:00

John Cleese 'I'm paying her £900,000 a year. And we had no children. It really is astonishing.'

2008-07-24T07:45:00.000-07:00

A painter and decorator who lit a cigarette in his own van while on an errand for his wife has been handed a £30 on-the spot fine - for smoking in his "workplace".

2008-07-21T20:49:00.000-07:00

Husbands who kill wives can no longer claim they were provoked.

Pre-meditated murder by women is OK.

2008-07-15T07:15:00.001-07:00

Family man Gary Crutchley only wanted to take a picture of his children enjoying a day out.

But his innocent snaps of his sons on a slide ended with him being branded on the spot as a 'pervert'.

2008-07-06T14:56:00.000-07:00

Nine years ago, Sweden took the step of punishing the men who buy sex rather than the women who sell it. There, it is legal to be a prostitute. But the man who pays for her service is committing an offence.

The debate comes as the Government here is drawing up proposals for law reform that could de-criminalise prostitutes who would, instead, be offered help to get out of the vice trade or given anti-social behaviour orders, in favour of a crackdown on men who trawl for sex.

Salon owner close to losing business after refusing to hire a Muslim hair stylist who wouldn't show her hair

2008-06-18T04:25:00.000-07:00

It seems too lunatic to be true. But here a hair salon boss reveals how she was driven to the brink of ruin - and forced to pay £4,000 for 'hurt feelings' - after refusing to hire a Muslim stylist who wouldn't show her hair at work.

Sarah felt that a job requirement of any hairdresser was that the stylist's hair would provide clients with a showcase of different looks. Especially one working in a salon such as hers, which specialises in alternative cuts and colours.

Yet the ten minutes during which Sarah's world collided with Bushra's has resulted in an extraordinary employment battle, in which she was accused of 'direct' and 'indirect' discrimination.

Story here

For a year, Sarah has been facing financial ruin, due to a compensation claim for £34,000 brought by Bushra, 19, who has maintained she is due that figure after being turned down for a job at the Wedge salon in London's King's Cross.

In the event, the tribunal ruled this week that while Bushra's claim of direct discrimination failed, her claim for indirect discrimination had succeeded.

Sarah has therefore been ordered to pay £4,000 compensation by way of 'injury to feelings'.

All women want is a nice guy?

2008-06-04T06:34:00.000-07:00

Cellar monster Josef Fritzl (who locked his daughter Elisabeth in a cellar for 24 years and fathered her children) has been sent hundreds of love letters from lonely women offering him romance.

'The war couldn't split us up so why should social services?' say devoted couple who fear they could be separated after 60 years

2008-05-20T04:40:00.000-07:00

They fell in love during World War II and have been together ever since.

So Thomas and Iris Bashford should have been looking forward to marking 60 years of commitment and devotion with their diamond wedding anniversary.

Story here

But social services officials have given them the devastating news that they could be living apart by the time their anniversary comes around later this year.

The couple have been together for 66 years. They met just before Mr Bashford joined the Navy in 1942 and will celebrate their diamond wedding anniversary in October.

He went to war aboard a minesweeper in the Mediterranean with a picture of his 16-year-old sweetheart in his wallet and they married two years after his return in 1946.

Mrs Kotchie, 58, said: 'It was suggested dad could go to a home but funding would not be available for mum.

'I feel pretty grim about the future,' he said. 'The war didn't split us up but now this could. I never thought I would see the day when I was separated from my wife. We have both worked our whole life, paying into the system, and I am not happy that we are being treated like this.'

Daughter fails math test, so dad thrown in jail

2008-05-12T21:50:00.000-07:00

A northern Kentucky man is in jail today – serving a 180-day sentence – because his 18-year-old daughter failed a math test and didn't get her General Equivalency Diploma, or GED, as a previous court order required.

Story here

Even Brian Gegner's ex-wife agrees the judge's decision is absurd.

"They probably should have punished me if they were going to punish anybody," said Brittany's mother Shana Roach. "Because she did live with me at the time, but because he had the custody, that's why he's being punished. But I don't understand the punishment altogether because she's going to school, she's been going for four months. The only thing that's holding her back is she can't pass her math test."

Butler County Juvenile Court Judge David Niehaus ordered Gegner to jail for contributing to the delinquency of a minor by not following a court order which required Gegner to be sure his daughter got her GED.

2008-05-01T13:38:00.000-07:00

Senior judges today launched an unprecedented attack on a council they accused of "disgraceful" conduct over the adoption of a young girl against the wishes of her father, who was hospitalised at the time.

2008-04-29T07:07:00.001-07:00

Two elderly sisters who have lived together since birth today lost a last-ditch legal appeal to obtain the same inheritance tax rights as married and gay couples.

i.e. for two people to benefit, they must be gay.