{"id":7292,"date":"2011-09-12T18:06:07","date_gmt":"2011-09-12T22:06:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/watchwomanonthewall\/?p=7292"},"modified":"2011-09-12T18:56:51","modified_gmt":"2011-09-12T22:56:51","slug":"7-fat-kids-taken-away-forever-parents-banned","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/watchwomanonthewall\/2011\/09\/7-fat-kids-taken-away-forever-parents-banned.html","title":{"rendered":"7 Fat Kids Taken Away Forever! Parents Banned!"},"content":{"rendered":"
Parents of seven told: Your children are too fat, so you will never see them again<\/h1>\n
By Jane Simpson \u00a0Last updated at 9:14 AM on 5th September 2011 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\nTorn apart: The parents, far left and right, with six of their children who they fear will be taken away from them<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Four obese children are on the brink of being permanently removed from their family by social workers after their parents failed to bring their weight under control.<\/p>\n
In the first case of its kind, their mother and father now face what they call the \u2018unbearable\u2019 likelihood of never seeing them again. \u00a0Their three daughters, aged 11, seven and one, and five-year-old son, will either be \u2018fostered without contact\u2019 or adopted.<\/p>\n
Either way, the family\u2019s only hope of being reunited will be if the children attempt to track down their parents when they become adults.<\/p>\n
The couple, who have been married for nearly 20 years and are not being named to protect their children\u2019s identities, were given a \u2018draconian\u2019 ultimatum three years ago \u2013 as reported at the time by The Mail on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Warned that the children must slim or be placed in care, the family spent two years living in a council-funded \u2018Big Brother\u2019 house in which they were constantly supervised and the food they ate monitored.<\/p>\n
News of the decision to remove them was broken to the couple, from Dundee, on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Critics called it a disgraceful breach of human rights and a chilling example of the power of the State to meddle in family life. \u00a0In an emotional interview, the 42-year-old mother said: \u2018We might not be the perfect parents, but we love our children with all our hearts.<\/p>\n
To face a future where we will never see them again is unbearable. \u00a0\u2018They picked on us because of our size to start with and they just haven\u2019t let go, despite the fact we\u2019ve done everything to lose weight and meet their demands. We\u2019re going to fight this to the bitter end. It feels like even prisoners have more human rights than we do.\u2019<\/p>\n
The couple have not committed any crime and are not accused of deliberate cruelty or abuse. Their solicitor, Joe Myles, said there was \u2018nothing sinister lurking in the background\u2019 and accused social workers of failing to act in the family\u2019s best interests.<\/p>\n
\u2018Dundee social services department appear to have locked horns with this couple and won\u2019t let go,\u2019 he said, adding that the monitoring project caused more problems than it solved. \u2018The parents were constantly being accused of bad parenting and made to live under a microscope. \u00a0 ‘We have tried very hard to do everything that was asked of us. My wife has cooked healthy foods like home-made spaghetti bolognese and mince and potatoes; but nothing we\u2019ve done has ever been enough’ \u00a0 The couple have three older children who are all distraught and angry at the ruling.<\/p>\n
Speaking through tears, their 15-year-old daughter said: \u2018The social workers should hang their heads in shame. A person\u2019s weight is their own business and only we can do anything about it, not them. My parents are good people and they love us all. The four little ones don\u2019t know what is about to happen to them.\u2019<\/p>\nFears: How the Mail on Sunday reported the case in 2008 But despite subjecting them to intense scrutiny, social workers did not impose rules on what food the children should eat, and there was apparently little or no improvement.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Social workers became aware of the family in early 2008 after one of the sons accused his father of hitting him on the forehead. In truth, he had fallen and hit his head on a radiator \u2013 a fact he later admitted. However, the allegation opened the door to the obesity investigation.<\/p>\n
While the couple admit experiencing what their lawyer calls \u2018low grade\u2019 parenting problems, which would have merited support, they were aghast when the issue of weight was seized on as a major concern. \u00a0A council report at the time said: \u2018With the exception of [one of the names], the children are all overweight. Advice has been given regarding diet but there has been no improvement. Appointments with the dietician have been missed.\u2019 \u00a0 Investigation:<\/p>\n
The family have been subject to an obesity probe – at meal times social workers took notes and children met with dieticians (picture posed by model) \u00a0At that point their then 12-year-old son weighed 16 stone; his 11-year-old sister weighed 12 stone; and his three-year-old sister weighed four stone. It is not known how much the four younger children weigh now. \u00a0The couple were ordered to send their children to dance and football lessons and were given a three-month deadline to bring down their weight. When that failed, the children were placed in foster homes but were allowed to visit their parents.<\/p>\n
After the couple objected to this arrangement, the council agreed to move them into a two-bedroom flat in a supported unit run by the Dundee Families Project. They insisted on the couple living with only three of their children at a time. \u00a0At meal times, a social worker stood in the room taking notes.<\/p>\n
Doctors raised concerns that the children put on weight whenever they spent time with their parents, a claim they vehemently denied. \u00a0The couple and their children also had to adhere to a strict 11pm curfew. This involved \u2018clocking\u2019 in and out by filling in a sheet held by an employee who lived on site. \u00a0Although the children\u2019s weight was the major concern, other allegations were included in a report.<\/p>\n
It showed that social workers were worried when the youngest child was found crawling unsupervised. The parents point out they were never far away and the flat had no stairs. \u00a0They also found her \u2018attempting to put dangerous objects\u2019 in her mouth. The family say this is natural in toddlers and she was never successful.<\/p>\n
To have a social worker stand and watch you eat is intolerable. I want other families to know what can happen once social workers become involved. We will fight them to the end to get our beloved children back. \u00a0Social workers were further worried when she crawled through the contents of an upturned ashtray \u2013 an \u2018unfortunate one-off incident\u2019, claim the parents. All the concerns were dismissed by the family\u2019s legal team as \u2018low grade\u2019 problems. \u00a0It is understood the father crumbled under the strain of being so closely monitored in January this year and moved into a council flat elsewhere in the city.<\/p>\n
[There’s still a lot more to read…]<\/p>\n
Find this story at www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-2033486\/Your-children-fat-again.html<\/p>\n
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