The Musas’ living hell. The story of a family torn apart by official interference and incompetence.

by planetparker

 The Social Services department of Haringey Council in London is known throughout the breath of the United Kingdom (and further afield) for not very good reasons. These were the people who sat on their hands while the unfortunate “Baby P” was battered to death and passed up many opportunities to intervene. Far from having learned any lessons from that tragic episode they seem intent on pursuing a bizarre form of victimisation against an innocent family and its children.

 The Musas are natives of Nigeria. They are a married couple who are committed Christians. In April 2010 Haringey Social Services seized their five children into care on suspicion that they were the victims of human trafficking and that their mother was a sex worker. The Social Services department were eventually forced to carry out DNA tests on the children, which proved Mr Musa’s paternity, although they were slow to reveal the test results to the family. Mrs Musa stated to the social workers, in the presence of a nun, that her sole sexual partner was her husband.

 A feature of this case is that Haringey Social Service’s determination to punish the Musas grows in inverse proportion to the evidence that they are able to muster. The allegations regarding child trafficking were based on the word of an unnamed informant. Even though they had been disproved the Musas’ children still remained in care, being sent out to foster parents who receive £400 per week for the privilege. Their eldest daughter claimed that she has been sexually abused while in foster care. Social Services then conspired to wipe out her existence by changing her name. What is more she has not been seen for nearly a year.

 At the time of these seizures Mrs Musa was pregnant. She went into hospital and was delivered of a baby boy. At 3 am one morning a group of social workers, accompanied by no less than six police officers, burst into her hospital room to seize the baby. His mother was breast-feeding him at the time. (The rapists, stalkers and pond-life of Haringey must have had a field day. The London Metropolitan Police was established to protect the public from harm, not snatch newborn babies from their mothers’ breasts. But then Mrs Musa is probably black and the Met is still institutionally racist.)

 The present state of play is that the Musas are still a family divided. Court orders have been made allowing them to see their children, often at distant locations, yet invariably the children are not brought there to meet their parents.

 I am not a legal expert, but I think that the Musas have clear grounds for seeking a writ of Habeas Corpus against Haringey Council. But unfortunately they are denied adequate legal council, many of whom seem to be working on behalf of the council or who seem scared senseless of taking it on. This has been accompanied by a penchant on the part of some senior judges to issue gagging orders preventing full and independent reporting of the story. What are they afraid of? What dreadful misdemeanours or set of misdemeanours have given rise to this affair, which sadly is not unique?

 I intend to reproduce a number of the press reports that have slipped through the net wire of censorship. I would urge people to read them, because their continued presence in the public domain cannot be taken for granted.