When Your Evidence Is Not Valued!

If you would like to listen to the podcast episode on this topic please click the appropriate link for your phone at the bottom of this article.

It's great when you give evidence at court and you know the judge is listening intently to what you have to say and is valuing it more highly than the evidence presented by others.

It is a satisfying feeling that makes you feel that all your hard work has been worth while. But as you know it does not always work out that way.

Sometimes, no matter how hard you work, you come up against circumstances that are not favourable; where the judge does not see it your way.

You may have have observed behaviour that leaves you in little doubt about the conclusion you feel it is necessary to arrive at. The only problem is the existence of experts in the case who tend to be more highly valued than you, who are both 'singing from the same hymn sheet' - both opposed to your assessment and conclusion.

This was precisely the situation I found myself in several years ago.

It's an uncomfortable position to be in where everyone, including the Children's Guardian, the Independent Social Worker, the parent and the judge are all against you.

It is a lonely position to be in also, but if you're sure you're right, you have to stick with what you are certain is in the child's best interests, no matter what others are saying.

In the case that we were all involved with, the mother was someone who was an accomplished liar, who was skilled at saying just the right words and providing gestures, which made her come across as convincing.

She was not just a skilled liar, she was very adept at performing 'disguised compliance,' making others believe she not only had the best interests of her child/ren, but valued and appreciated working cooperatively with professionals.

I can't 100% identify how or why I knew she was not trustworthy, but one of the telling signs was the way she treated people she no longer needed. People who had outlived their usefulness in her eyes were swiftly and remorselessly discarded.

It was so shocking and embarrassing that the few people who were, after a while, willing to share how she had behaved towards them, were initially shocked and hurt by her treatment of them.

However, whenever I queried her account of what had gone on between them, she quickly glossed over the event glibly, offering me a totally different account of the events which demonstrated no sign of upset or distress on her part.

She actually left a trail of devastation in her wake.

Unfortunately, this was not something that either the Children's Guardian or the Independent Social Worker were aware or perhaps would have considered significant enough to alter their view, had they chosen to focus their attention on it.

And as hard as I tried I had no evidence that the judge would consider dissuaded them from the view that her three year old child who had been in foster care for the best part of a year should not be returned to the care of her mother.

Sadly, the child who had thrived in foster care was returned to a parent who was not only unable to adequately care for her but highly abusive to her also.

This mother gave birth to another child whilst her first child was looked after and the two children remained in her care for about a year before her true colours eventually came to light and the squalid, distressing and abusive experiences the children were subjected to were realised.

I had moved on to another position by the time the children were removed from their mother's care. Which was something I knew was simply a matter of time before it occurred. Unfortunately both children suffered terribly especially the older child who had got used to a good standard of care only to be yanked back in to a highly abusive unhygienic environment.

The truth of the matter is that we can all be fooled or deceived from time to time and the decisions that judges come to are only as good as the evidence placed before them.

Being only human, the decisions we make, like judges, are only as good as the quality of the information we are either provided with or glean from those we accept information from.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/incredible-witness/id1679934113

https://open.spotify.com/show/5w3CWjV1CcwdsA7tTiAPVO?si+43d84dcf6c8049ed