Forced Caesarean – Careful What You Ask For

After the serially dishonest Christopher Booker was once again caught with trousers well alight as he tried to fashion the case of the Italian woman who was sectioned under the Mental Health Act, and whose baby was delivered by Caesarean Section and then taken into care, to his liking, another paper has been caught telling blatant whoppers about the case, this time the Daily Mail.

Bad news for both of them

“Explain why you snatched baby girl at birth: Judge's order to social workers behind forced caesarean ... Sir James Munby has demanded answers in extraordinary case ... The child was taken from the 35-year-old Italian in forced caesarean ... The case shines light on murky secrecy of Court of Protection” thundered the obedient hackery of the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre.

There is only one conclusion any reader could take from these headings, and the body of the piece, which continues with “Social workers who made a mother give up her baby after a forced caesarean must explain themselves to Britain’s top family judge. In a highly unusual intervention, Sir James Munby has demanded to know why the girl should not be reunited with her mother, a 35-year-old Italian”.

The Mail even managed to ambush Shami Chakrabarti of Liberty in their quest for quotable sources. But the deeply subversive Guardian has made the real revelation, courtesy of Joshua Rozenberg, who told that Sir James Munby “singled out for criticism a report in the Daily Mail on 3 December, which claimed he had ‘demanded to know [from social workers] why the girl should not be reunited with her mother’”.

Munby went on: “All I had done was to direct that any further application was to be heard by me. In other words, if any application was made, either in the court of protection or in the family court, I would hear it. That was all. Unhappily this canard has been much repeated in the media”. But he did say one thing which will please some hacks, although not Booker.

When Booker’s first article was published “none of the relevant information was in the public domain in this country ... How can the family justice system blame the media for inaccuracy in the reporting of family cases if for whatever reason none of the relevant information has been put before the public?” and thus the problem for the next time there is a controversial case of this kind.

Christopher Booker was able to attack the Court of Protection for its secrecy because ... it was secret! He was able to peddle his variously selective and dishonest account unchallenged because the full story had not been revealed. As soon as the judgment was made public, Booker was shot to pieces. If he gets the openness he pretends he wants, he’ll get shot to pieces that much quicker.

Be careful what you ask for, press people. You might just get it.