We are sorry, we f**ked up

I would have been happy with “We f**ked up, we are sorry” at the beginning. Instead things were just made worse, so much worse to the point of a suicide attempt. Saying to my children “I’m sorry, we f**cked up, we didn’t look at the paediatric neurologists records that prove you have physical disabilities and telling you repeatedly there was nothing wrong with you was wrong and harmful and we apologise” could have prevented my childs suicide attempt.

At that time, after a fresh child and family assessment was done and the physical difficulties were acknowledged because of the huge amount of proof available, there was never any acknowledgement allowed to my children by anyone acting on behalf of ECC that they shouldn’t have been put through what they went through.

It was literally social workers standing there unable to say anything went wrong as my children were talking about the severe emotional harm caused. They felt that nobody believed anything they were saying, despite the fact that it’s in their social care notes that they were told repeatedly there was nothing wrong with them, my children crying and screaming as they argue against that is also well recorded.

Someone saying on behalf of ECC that they were sorry, acknowledging the harm caused, telling the children they believed them.

If a child talks to a social worker regarding severe emotional harm caused by a parent does the social worker stand there and say nothing? Or do they engage with the child, talk about what happened, tell the child it was wrong that it happened, do anything and everything to help that child?

It doesn’t happen that way when things go wrong and it’s social care that causes severe emotional harm.

My children were making many disclosures of severe emotional harm that had been caused by social care, crying as they did so, because ECC were refusing to investigate citing excuses 1-5, the social workers just had to stand there, they then ended support early after my child’s suicide attempt as it was clear that my children weren’t engaging. Which isn’t surprising when their lived experience is that social workers are abusive and don’t listen.

All of that just to protect reputations. I wish that ECC had put in even a tenth of the effort they put into protecting their reputation into protecting my children, then my children wouldn’t be in the mess they are in now.

I was just sitting here thinking that someone apologising to my children 18 months ago, which would have taken about 20 minutes, could have been done verbally, easily, kindly, would have prevented two blogs, and a newspaper article and a report to OFSTED.

Nobody would be interested in a story about a local authority who as soon as they had realised beyond a shadow of doubt they had screwed up and caused harm to children, apologised profusely. In our case, the definitive evidence for ECC would have been the April 2020 child and family assessment which was evidence based as opposed to Gabriel Lowrie’s child and family assessment which was wildly inaccurate and based on his ego, likely because he was getting it on with Billie Faulkner. That proved that the children had been through something horrendous and the harm would be obvious.

It’s just not newsworthy, OFSTED would laugh at it, and likely use my complaint to show that Essex Children’s Services are doing well as they screwed up but fully and totally accepted responsibility, and most importantly did absolutely everything they could to put things right for my children.

I am feeling incredibly bitter at that moment and have been thinking of that twenty minute apology a lot. That twenty minutes would have changed so many things and made such an immense difference to my children’s lives.

My eldest would likely still be at university, my second child would likely have stayed at college and be at university now, instead they are both unemployed, neither can leave the house on their own, both have suicidal thoughts, one attempted suicide, the other has psychosis. They are both on benefits, and that isn’t going to change for the foreseeable future.

My third child could have gotten back into education sooner.

My forth child would never have started refusing school, an apology and explanation regarding Billie Faulkner convincing that child that they witnessed their siblings being normal in 2011 when that was impossible would have made a huge difference. Instead my child hasn’t been to school for almost two years, displays significant mental health problems, refuses to engage with professionals, and prospects for the future are not looking good.

Twenty minutes would have been all it took. Twenty minutes is nothing, it’s the apology that ECC can’t handle. They had the new child and family assessment, they have seen the evidence, but no matter how important it is to children’s safety and wellbeing, they just will never ever accept they are wrong about anything.

5 out of the 6 of us have PTSD, that is acceptable, an apology wasn’t.

My children’s lives have been forever changed for the worst, education wrecked, mental health wrecked, two of my children have visible scars as a reminder of the torture they went through.

The reputation of Essex County Council and the reputations of officers acting on it’s behalf are more important than anything.

My children were not even worth 20 minutes and an apology after Essex Children’s Services had evidence things had gone wrong.

Instead they subjected me to 18 months worth of gaslighting, up to and including the monitoring officer, which is still ongoing.

I have been focusing a lot on those twenty minutes and the apology that never happened in the past week. I cannot change the past, if I could I likely would have got down on my knees and begged someone, anyone, acting on behalf of ECC to apologise.

Then again I did that, and supplied enough evidence to show it was necessary.

Instead I have children who are still going through a horrendous time, myself who is absolutely broken having watched this play out and being helpless to stop it in the first place, and then to do something about it afterwards.

A suicide attempt which could easily have been prevented.

Two blogs, calling out at least a dozen officers, I should really count them up, the evidence to back up what i’m saying.

Essex County Council continually going over and above to protect their reputation and their officers.

A future press article.

Report to OFSTED.

Just really an absolute disaster for my children, meanwhile every single person responsible for this at ECC is sitting there all smug without having faced any consequences, and knowing full well they will be continued to be protected.

That is what angers me the most I think, and I struggle with it immensely, that this whole situation could have been sorted out in only twenty minutes, and with support for my children afterwards.

My children were subject to abuse by social care which was bad, they were then continually told they weren’t, despite having experienced it, they know that children can be emotionally abused by professionals and because children are weak and their voices don’t matter, that nobody cares.

They will get acknowledgement from the public, without a doubt the public will find the fact that a local authority, despite being warned it would happen, not only allowed a suicide attempt to happen, failed to investigate afterwards, but are more than happy for another suicide attempt to happen, is absolutely disgusting.

I am incredibly tired by all of this, I have so much on my plate trying to help my children, the two eldest have been so badly affected by what happened that they are unable to properly function, so I have to do an incredible amount for them, I’ve almost giving up getting my youngest back into education, i’m so tired of fighting. ECC SEND is absolutely rubbish, almost two years later and ECC are just leaving my child to rot.

We do have an amazing family worker at the moment, but the damage to my children, myself, and the children’s Dad has already been done.

I’m so tired and I am so looking forward to this all ending. Our story will be out there, people will read it, people will express utter disgust at what happened. The suicide attempt, the torturing of my children, the situation they are in now, the brainwashing into believing their Dad had sexually abused them. Even the little things, like Gabriel Lowrie twisting antibiotic induced thrush into unknown vaginal discharge.

There is just so much that went wrong, it was a cascade effect as everyone did everything they could to protect both their own reputations and the reputation of ECC, they are still doing it.

I’m already happy that there will be no more contact with ECC regarding any of this, apart from the response from the committee members, which they will have gotten from officers acting on behalf of ECC regarding how amazing they are at investigating attempted suicides, so amazing in fact that they are the most amazing in the UK. I’m planning on doing what Kiran Box did, and just not read it.

I know I have sent emails to officers with links here a few months ago, but I wish that there was a way I could block anyone from ECC from reading this, I have a sneaky suspicion that quite a few, if not all, of the officers mentioned here get off on reading about the devastation they have caused to my family while managing to get away with it unscathed, and that makes me feel sick. You can’t block an organisation from a website, because you can’t see who visits or even where they are from apart from by country and there is no block button either.

I’d do it in a heartbeat if I could, that is how desperately I want to take back the power that ECC have had over me for so long which they used to cause extensive harm to my mental health. They disgust me.