social services and parental resposability

laurisa | 16:15 Fri 27th May 2011 | Law

25 Answers

my friend is having a spot of bother with the social services and i was just wonder if anyone knew the answer to this question

Can social services disclose privileged information about a case they have on a child to the biological father if he does not have legal parental responsibility? Are they breaking the law if they do so when the mother has specifically expressed that she does not want this information disclosed to him?

any help would be apreciated as my friend has no idea what to do
thanks

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daffy654

Is the father named on the birth certificate? Were the parents married at the time of the child's birth? How old is the child?

laurisa

Question Author

ok the father is on the birth cert but the child was born before the legislation that says just because the father is on the birth cert means he has parental resposability (this came into action on the 1st december 2003 and the child was born and registered before this date) no the parents were not married at the time and have never been and the child is almost 9.

laurisa

Question Author

oh and the father hasnt made any contact with the family for the past 7 years the social services contacted him

pink-kittens

why did they contact the father?

laurisa

Question Author

because he got drunk and showed up on her doorstep demanding access to the child after 7 years of being absent, (he got her address illegaly by the way) she told him that she would see what the social services say because there are a lot of complex issues surrounding him and his family. anyway she told the social services what he did and expressed that she does not want any other information disclosed to him other than what they can do about access because quite simply anything going on in her life with her child right now is her business not his untill he has parental responsability wich he does not, and they completly went over her head and disclosed all the information to him. we dont believe this is right

laurisa

Question Author

they have told her that he has a right to know as he is the father and is on the birth cert but i have checked the directgov website and it quite clearly states that

'Who has parental responsibility?

A mother automatically has parental responsibility for her child from birth. However, the conditions for fathers gaining parental responsibility varies throughout the UK.
For births registered in England and Wales

In England and Wales, if the parents of a child are married to each other at the time of the birth, or if they have jointly adopted a child, then they both have parental responsibility. Parents do not lose parental responsibility if they divorce, and this applies to both the resident and the non-resident parent.

This is not automatically the case for unmarried parents. According to current law, a mother always has parental responsibility for her child. A father, however, has this responsibility only if he is married to the mother when the child is born or has acquired legal responsibility for his child through one of these three routes:

(from 1 December 2003) by jointly registering the birth of the child with the mother
by a parental responsibility agreement with the mother
by a parental responsibility order, made by a court'

the child was born and registered before the 1st of dec 2003 and he has not done the other two things so i dont understand how they can be saying this to her and acting as if they have done the correct thing.

daffy654

Is your friend in a position to visit a family law solicitor? It seems that SS may have acted wrongly here.

laurisa

Question Author

thank you daffy thats what i thought i have told her to contact a solicitor about it i just wanted to make sure she didnt make a rash judgment as the ss would be tough to contend with but i was pretty sure they had done the wrong thing and it needs to be dealt with.

pink-kittens

parental responsibility is not the same as a right to see the child

How did he get her address 'illegally'? Who told him where she lives? He has a right to see his child

She may well have told them not to disclose any information, but what constitutes his right and an act of legailty are completely different - solicitor is the best way to go, I agree

SS are there to help BOTH parenst but most importantly the child/ren of those parenst also have 'legal rights' which SS will see are upheld

pink-kittens

excuse my typo's

daffy654

The right to see the child is not what is at issue here, we don't know the circumstances so are in no position to judge.
The issue is that SS have no right to divulge information to the father (or anyone else) If this man has no parental responsibility.

laurisa

Question Author

thank you daffy, he got her address because he works for the post office (he is not a postman) and found her through the system then knocked on her door, and no it is not an issue of access in fact she was trying to be nice and try and get him access through the ss all she asked was that they didnt divulge any other information that he could later use against her. they ignored this request unlawfuly i believe

themas

and presumably SS didn't even tell her they would ignore her request - just went ahead and told him regardless? This high handed attitude is, in my view, quite unacceptable even if they did have a legal right to tell him.

Clearly we can't judge the situation as the relevant facts are (quite rightly) not in your post. I do agree she should see a family law solicitor.

kryptic

I wouldnt trust the SS as far as I can spit.
A neighbour of mine (a hard working single mother) has had her teenage daughter taken into care because she was out of control. The SS came around her house and started to poke their noses in to things that werent relavent....do you smoke? when was your last relationship? and the mother of them all....have you ever contracted an STD.
What the ..... has an STD got to do with them?
Once the SS are involved, give up any sense of been in control of your own life.
Its not for nothing that they have a bad name.

laurisa

Question Author

@themas infact what they said to her was that they wouldnt tell him and later that same day they did, takes the royal mick,
thanks for everyones advice she'll be contacting a solicitor eairly next week :)

daffy654

I wish your friend good luck and hope she gets it all sorted out.

kryptic

//I wish your friend good luck and hope she gets it all sorted out.//
Dont bank on it.

laurisa

Question Author

well its worth a shot kryptic cant just let them get away with it scott free if it can be helped

pink-kittens

but what the OP thinks may have been an illegal disclosure may not have been which, daffy, if you had read the whole of my reply and not just the first sentence you would have noticed I know it's not about access
What I was trying to get out fo the OP is what exactly does she think has been disclosed illegally? As it isn't her address I'm not quite sure what it could be
Parental repsonisibilty is being confused here with disclosure law which is why I agreed with the need for a solicitor

rowanwitch

Is there any other way he could have obtained the information... perhaps by identifying a friend of your friend... or by using internet searches. (even if it was a dodgy search by someone who knows how to hack into official systems...) its a lot easier than you'd think to get hold of all sorts of iffy info these days/. Just think its best to go into these situations wih a few other scenarios in your mind helps keep the situation a little calmer as well

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