Immediate. 12.30pm 23rd September 2006

Governments are failing to protect abused children.

The NSPCC are bombarding us with their adverts. The child has to get his own supper again, or he goes home to a fist. If the NSPCC claims of abuse in the home are correct then all the governments of the UK are turning a blind eye to their findings and are colluding in child abuse.

The governments stance is grandparents having a right of contact is not in the best interests of the children. Is this stance justifiable when NSPCC is constantly advertising on television about how much children are abused in their own home? Contact can simply be by phone, letter, email etc. or visits. Contact to make sure they are safe.

Grandparents agree that a mother is usually the best person to care for her children when all is well. What happens when it is not?

Mothers have the protection of the law and the government at their beck and call. Could this be the problem? It is the children that should have that protection, with grandparents able to support them by seeing what’s happening and to help them in these circumstances.

The majority of children are well looked after, but too many are not. These children are left out, maltreated and unnoticed until they end up in hospital or the abuse is so far gone that neighbours report it to social services and they take the children, scarred for life, into care. This is a huge emotional and financial expense that could be avoided with early intervention.

Government figures say 60,000 children are living in drug related households in the UK. They are not helping them or letting anyone else help them either.

Grandparents are asking for a legal right of contact, not parental rights. They ask for the right to contact their grandchildren a couple of hours a month or by negotiation through mediation, letters and birthday cards, presents and phone calls. Children need this right unless their safety would be in danger by doing so.

But the governments are closed to this idea and allow more and more children to be abused in their own homes when it could be spotted earlier if grandparents were allowed that right of contact.

The governments adamant stance is not in the best interests of children. We need them to wake up to the very strong advertising of the NSPCC that there is wide spread of abuse of children in their own homes.

Or is the Governments assuming the NSPCC are telling lies?

Ends