PLEASE SEE NEWS PAGE:

US Federal Court Acknowledges Link Between Vaccines & Autism. http://www.parents-protecting-children.org.uk/news_view.asp?id=24

Parents Protecting Children UK has recently submitted evidence to the Parlimentary Select Committee on Looked After Children http://www.parents-protecting-children.org.uk/news_view.asp?id=21

Welcome to the Parents Protecting Children website. We hope that you find this site a useful source of information.

Currently there are 55 documents available for download from this site, 34 recomended titles in our book list, and 31 links to other useful sites listed on this website.

Please look in the news section to find the latest headlines.

I hope that technology in the form of your web site helps bring the cause of false accusations home to those who don't know of the pain caused by such false accusations, and brings together those falsely accused so that they don't suffer the pain of isolation in addition to all else.
Good luck.

Arnold Wesker
Playwright

No one can deny how important it is to protect children from harm, but this means that children also need to be protected from those who would, through negligence or malice, seek to foster mistrust or physical distance between a child and their truly caring parent who has been unjustly accused.

Rt Rev Laurie Green
Bishop of Bradwell

Anyone who suddenly finds themselves under a cloud of false suspicion in a matter of child abuse needs to know what to do and whom to turn to. They also need to be aware that they are not alone or unique in facing such difficulties. This website is designed to inform and advise, and as such it is very much to be welcomed.

Earl Frederick Howe
Shadow Health Spokesperson

“Once the label of child abuse has been attached to a parent it is extremely difficult to remove. Yet we know that there are many hard to diagnose conditions that have been mistaken for parental maltreatment with devastating consequences for families.”

Earl Frederick Howe to House of Lords 12 02 03

“I am reminded of the witch hunts of previous centuries. This time, the victims are frequently nice middle class families whose only fault is to be concerned about their child, who has ill-defined symptoms from which he or she does not rapidly recover. …, some social workers…..are not prepared to consider that those conditions might be organic.”

Margaret, Countess of Mar to House of Lords 17 10 01

“The line of cases through Rochdale, Cleveland and the Orkneys must surely convince us all of the dangers. Use by a powerful group of individuals--paediatricians, social workers and the police--of some dubious diagnostic technique or social work theory,…. can lead to massive injustice and family break-up without any objective justification at all.”

Lord Tim Clement Jones CBE to House of Lords 17 10 01

I (too) had been the subject of a witch-hunt, when our son developed post viral fatigue following pneumonia. This developed into Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, known as CFS/ME. I was suspected of abusing our son, by supposedly inventing or causing his illness (“over-anxious parenting”).

An extremely expensive and time-consuming child-protection inquiry was undertaken, during which both our children were briefly on the “At risk” register, and we feared that they could be taken from us.

As in Sally Clark’s case, we were eventually cleared because we were educated and middle class, with connections. We could fight. Our children’s names were removed from the register when a senior councillor and our MP, both of whom knew us, spoke up for us. Most of the people wrongly accused have nobody to speak up for them, and are not able to fight so well. In the Lords debate in October 2001, several speakers drew parallels between false accusations of child abuse and medieval witch trials. On Thursday 13 02 03, a BBC documentary, Cot Death Mothers: The witch-hunt strongly criticised the part played by some expert witnesses, in particular, Professor Sir Roy Meadow. Other experts are also being investigated.

In a paper to the United Campaigns Against False Allegations of Abuse (UCAAFA) conference in November, the distinguished social-work consultant Charles Pragnell quoted research findings that the effect of false allegation is not a benign or neutral process, but causes long-term damage to children. This was true for us. Our daughter, who was five at the time we were investigated, lost much of her sense of independence and became fearful of being taken from me; this has never been fully regained. I overheard two of her friends plotting how they would rescue her if she were taken into care.

Jan Loxley Blount . Church Times. 21 02 03

“It is not fully realized that a child is also damaged by false allegations and a mistaken decision. If a child is involved in allegations of abuse that are ill-founded and erroneous, it is not an innocuous, neutral, or benign experience. A child involved in false accusations of abuse is subjected to highly destructive emotional abuse. The harm done to children when adults make a mistake……...is severe and long-lasting.”

Charles Pragnell to UCAFAA conference 09 11 02 (quoting research of Wexler)

Our duty to the child must ensure that the original suspicion is robust and that the subsequent investigations are appropriate and quickly undertaken. For the sake of the child, those responsible for their care must not be put under long term unneccesary trauma as `investigations` are put in place.

Lisa Blakemore Brown British Medical Journal 15 12 02