I am so coldly, rigidly, white knuckled angry, that at 3am I still can’t sleep.

The cause of my anger is an article, so poorly researched, so sensationalist, so, so utterly, incompetently wrong, written by a ‘Whitehall Editor’ – one of that breed of professional journalist that is continually being held up to we bloggers as denizens of fact checking and painstaking research that we cannot hope to emulate.

The story has already whistled round the world, the Times of India, Australia, the US, it has been picked up by many eminent bloggers and repeatedly faithfully, and it is wrong on so many levels. Codswallop, bunkum, gobbledygook.

The tragedy is that there is a true story lying behind it, one that should have occupied many hours of patient journalism, many, many years ago. A story which every main stream editor has stonily ignored. Too complicated. Not sexy enough. ‘Can’t quote living people to flesh it out for our readers.’

Let me tell you the true story of the Court of Protection.

The Court was not set up by Jack Straw two years ago. It is not ‘an invention of Nu-Labour’. It has been in operation since medieval times in one or another of its many reincarnations; it has had more face lifts than Joan Rivers, more comebacks than Liberace. Every time it is criticised, it repaints the front office, changes its name on the stationary, and continues on its merry way with remarkably few changes.

If we go back to medieval times, it was the province of the Lord Chancellor, the man of God, the King’s conscience. Its core function was to prevent the King sequestering the assets of those who were in no position to stop him; because they were children, because they were mentally incapable. Since very few people actually had any assets, even up until the second world war it was not an onerous function for the Lord Chancellor. The occasional fourth son suffering from what we now term Down’s syndrome, of some minor baronet who had inconveniently inherited freehold land lying under a proposed shopping centre might require some action, but little else.

The welfare state with its ubiquitous ‘benefits’, and the rise of property ownership, changed all that, and the Lord Chancellor handed  this backwater to the quaintly named ‘Master of Lunacy’ and a handful of civil servants to administer. It was still a genteel business, early reports on ‘patients’ of the court as they are legally known, amounted to pocket sized lined sepia notebooks with the crown insignia  that contain such illuminating records as ‘sad case, his Father was my brigadeer’, and the sober ‘Noted’ from the Master, (the Judge) as proof that the patient had duly been visited and his welfare enquired about.

Things really kicked off in the 60s, the compensation culture was burgeoning, medical advances were discharging people from hospitals that were more dead than alive. We were living longer, our bodies and our brains not always in step.  Perfectly ordinary people who had day dreamed though life were inheriting sums of money that made eyes bulge.

By the 1980s the system was considered ‘not fit for purpose’ or whatever the term was in those days, and the 1983 Mental Health Act gave birth to ‘The Official Solicitor’. More paint in the foyer, another tranche of stationary, and the old girl creaked on again.

More criticism, yet another repaint, the printing presses rolled once more, and we were introduced to ‘The Public Trustee’.  The tea trolleys till rattled along the same corridors, the same civil servants with a few additions were still filling in the same sepia covered report books. In pencil. In case they made a mistake.They had to pay for their own Rich Tea biscuits now. Very little else had changed though.

There used to be a fine example of black humour in the acknowledgment of their place in the civil service pecking order. It was said that you couldn’t get fired – you were transferred to another department. Not sideways, but downwards. Very near the bottom was ‘MAFF’, the old Ministry of Agriculture, or the ‘Dumb Animals’ as they were known, if you got kicked out of that, you went down to the ‘Dumb Humans’ – otherwise known as the Public Trustee’s department, if you couldn’t hack that there was only the ‘Dumb Foreigners’ – or ‘Immigration’ left. It is with wry amusement that I note the new head of the latest resuscitation of the offending corpse is one Martin John – transferred from Asylum and Immigration.

Another mauling by the National Audit Office and the Quinquennial Review resulted in the 2005 Mental Health Act and rising from the ashes once more – ‘The Public Guardian’, now with a fancy purple foyer, and yet more poor quality stationary. Oh, and two burly security men on the door to keep the enraged ‘clients’ out.

When the ‘Public Trustee’ hove into view, the new chief executive in a rash moment, agreed to meet some five of the 36,000 patients under his putative care. He was duly ferried round to five different homes and returned astounded to report to all in the office – for not one of those civil servants had ever met any of the people whose lives they controlled – that these people could actually speak for themselves! They knew their own name, they knew what day of the week it was, Heavens! one of them had even taken him to task for ‘not answering his letters’! Gosh! they could write as well, they weren’t all dribbling idiots parked in the corner of an asylum somewhere. This was a revelation, he was hailed as a thoroughly modern hero.

By the next day the excitement had subsided and it was business as usual.

Let me tell you of some of the people he would have met. Let me tell you of Dan, name changed for obvious reasons, for he had been a ‘client’ of the Court of Protection for over 60 years.

Dan’s Father was extremely, Great Gatsby rich. His Mother lived in the country, visited at week-ends by her husband, drinking during the week. When Dan was six, his Father committed suicide. Not money troubles, he left rolling acres of millions. To Dan. Which was a problem, for Mother was pregnant, and a few months after his Father’s death, Dan had a brother. A brother who was not mentioned in the will. Bored with Dan, and with a squalling new baby, Mother called the family Doctor and told him that Dan had had an epileptic fit. Perhaps he had – perhaps he hadn’t, for it was never recorded that he had another. Dan was promptly shipped off to the P***** Home for Mental Defectives. Mother died shortly after that, and the family accountant/solicitor took charge of Dan, his brother, and the millions. His brother fared slightly better, he did get an education in a good school when the time came, but Dan was left where he was, with a cheque for his keep arriving at regular intervals. No one complained. If Dan did, no one was listening. The Lord Chancellor sent someone to see Dan every five years or so, and thus it was recorded that he was now living on a farm ‘enjoying a healthy lifestyle though obstinate and unhelpful – when asked to clean the pig pen, he replied why should I?’ Why indeed. The farmer and his wife were being paid £100 a week to give him a home. Time passed and Dan enjoyed a dalliance with a ‘serving girl’ as the Solicitor sonorously recorded, when explaining to the court why he had removed Dan from the farm and sent him to a more ‘secure’ environment. £250 a week.

When I met Dan he was 73, an eloquent and elegant figure, living in two rooms above a garage in a select Home Counties district. Both the gas cooker and the gas fire bore condemned labels. There were two deck chairs and little else. The room was drab and cold. Except for the laughter, for Dan had found a companion, indeed, he had married her in an unexpected act of rebellion. Together they told me of how they had met a man from a minor charity who had counselled them and told them of their right to marry – something the Solicitor had told them they could not do. Indeed, the charity had paid for the wedding ring.

As Dan spoke, I read back through the old reports. I came across a report of the odd occasion when a Mrs ***** –  strangely the same surname as Dan, had arrived. ‘Oh, my brother married the Solicitor’s daughter’ said Dan. She had taken him off to London for a ‘medical check-up’; that evening he complained to the staff of a pain in his testicles. On examination by a Doctor, two stitches were discovered. It was suspected that Dan had undergone a vasectomy. ‘It must have been whilst I was asleep in the Doctor’s’ said Dan. ‘Noted’ was the Master’s comment.

I found the receipts for the B.O.A.C (yeah! that long ago) first class flights to the South of France for the Solicitor and his wife ‘to check out suitable holiday accommodation for Dan’ – needless to say, he had proved ‘too unwell’ to go on holiday. Nobody had ever expressed surprise at all this.  Just ‘Noted’. I found the bill for his present accommodation – a stonking £1,000 a week for ‘care home facilities’ with an extra charge for delivering meals to Dan and his Missus in their Eyre above the garage ‘as requested’ – no mention of their cooking facilities being condemned, nor the lack of heating.

I was able to do something for Dan, I raised merry Hell at the court, I bent every rule, sent my reports accidentally to the wrong people, very nearly lost my job over it. He had to wait until the solicitor died, of course. The court doesn’t move that fast, but after some years he was in a decent home with decent furniture, and decent food. Aged 76. His wife was able to bring action for the sexual abuse she had suffered before Dan took her under his wing, she got compensation. The Care Home Owner shot himself. The millions were recovered. They are still in the Court of Protection. They have been since he was 6. Dan was considered too ‘unworldly’ after the life he had led to control his money. So he is still paying thousands of pounds to the court every year for his ‘Protection’.

If you are bored, just go away. I have more to say.

Let me tell you of Beryl.  Beryl had a daughter who was seriously ill at a tragically young age. Money was collected for her by well wishers through a newspaper. Beryl could neither read nor write. She was a traveller. She was introduced to a solicitor who would look after the money for her. All organised by ‘The Official Solicitor’. She still had all the paperwork with her ‘case number’ neatly printed on top. A house was bought – she was told – for her and her daughter to live in. A few weeks after moving in her daughter died. A few weeks after that, the yellowing paper-cuttings were being pulled out of a bin liner thick and fast now for me to read, the chimney in that house collapsed trapping her young son. His arm was so badly crushed that it had to be amputated. The son was produced to wave his armless stump at me.

Meanwhile, and some people have all the luck, her brother had been involved in a motor accident which he survived to enjoy life in a wheelchair with only half his original brain. Beryl had no money to repair the house, the solicitor said there was no money left but he would find her a house to rent near his new place of work. He did, it was a dismal place in what is acknowledged as the ar*e end of the world. He said the money from the house would be invested. Sometime later he told her that the investment had failed and she would now have to pay the rent herself. She did. She gave it to him every week. She was a good five miles from the nearest house, never mind shop, and her biggest worry she told me was that the kindly solicitor had given her a car, but it had failed its MOT and she had no money to pay for the repairs. I was  little puzzled by all this, because the name she gave me as solicitor was the name listed with the Court of Protection as being Receiver of the compensation the brother had received from his accident. The house was listed as being owned by the Brother. She told me I was mistaken, there had been no compensation.

A little checking back at the office, or rather in the pub round the corner from the office, for incredible as though it may sound, the case officer involved was – albeit a good and efficient man – a confirmed alcoholic who was in the habit of taking his case files round to the White Horse as soon as it opened, and doing his work there until it closed, with no adverse comment that I ever heard from anyone in that building, soon turned up the fact that the car had been the personal property of the ‘solicitor’, that he had sold it to the ‘client’ – for £7,000, and you never saw such a junk heap in your life – and that the brother had indeed been bought the house out of his compensation, nay had carried out some expensive repairs to it over the years. None of which were in evidence.

Now you may imagine that the Court of Protection swung into action at this point and ‘did’ something. There was one small problem. Two actually. Firstly the court was undergoing one of its periodic fits of renewal, name changing and foyer re-painting, with all the associated turmoil, union disputes, excessive sick leave such ‘change’ brings,  files being dumped in public waste paper boxes by over worked case officers, the entire telephone system being diverted to the emergency phone in the creaking lift and other assorted shenanigans that accompany the birth of yet another ‘new’ Court of Protection, and secondly, there was only £8,000 left in the brother’s account.

Now as part of the latest reincarnation, this one being into the ‘Public Guardianship – helping to protect Britains’ vulnerable’ one, it had been decided that the Public Guardian would no longer act as Receiver of funds for those tortured souls who were prone to pee in the office waste paper bin, could be found at dawn sitting outside the office demanding some money, or whose relatives had terminally fallen out and proved themselves a pain in the neck, henceforth the Public Guardian would appoint ‘professional Receivers’ from amongst those Solicitors that they knew. The problem was that those solicitors that they knew tended to be very well heeled and profitable practices involved in the Personal Injury bandwagon. Whilst they welcomed the potential £2,400 a year in fees for doing remarkably little, they were none too keen on the idea of some of the court’s finest sitting on their doorstep when they opened up in the morning.

That was the first concession. Henceforth each client would be allocated a Receiver who lived as far away from them and as inconveniently for the client as possible. The second concession had them scratching their head for all of two minutes. What about the clients like Beryl’s brother, who only had £8,000 left? Their money wouldn’t earn enough interest to pay their fees. Simples, said the Minister, and with one stroke of his pen, he decreed that those clients who only had £10,000 or so left would ‘have their autonomy’ grandly returned to them.

So the most vulnerable clients no longer had any protection. All across the country, nurses who had bought big houses when the local mental hospital closed, and taken George, and Tom and Dave , harmelss souls all, to live with them for a comfortable £300 a week or so, suddenly found cheques for £8 and £10,000 a piece whistling through their door with the admonition that it was, of course, to be spent wisely on the client.

Beryl got such a cheque. It was the last she heard of the Court of Protection. The Solicitor fled to Spain. Nobody pursued him. Least of all the court.

But, you say, it can’t all be doom and gloom; indeed it isn’t. There are families who selflessly raise deeply damaged children without ever dreaming of spending a penny of their compensation, there are husbands and wives who care for each other in old age, there are wives who take home brain damaged husbands changed beyond recognition by medical science and who ignore the tantrums of a virtual stranger, find it in their hearts to care for them day in day out, and who shrug ruefully as the court go through the pantomime of treating them as though they are criminals. Those people didn’t need a Court of Protection. They wouldn’t touch a penny of their loved ones finances if you ordered them to at the point of a gun.

They still get to pay hundreds of pounds a year for the privalege of being treated like that. Exactly the same as the people who did need protection and got nothing more than ‘noted’ on their file year after year. £26 million pounds worth a year of them.

The only thing that is ‘new’ about this Court of Protection, is that the same nincompoops, the same incompetent, disinterested, time serving and unprofessional idiots who are even now unpacking their new headed notepaper, now control not only your money, but your medical treatment. The doors are still closed. The public and the press still banned. Whilst they decide whether you should get food and water, or go on the Liverpool Pathway.

If that doesn’t make your blood run cold, nothing will. Now off you pop, get yourself an Enduring Power of Attorney form and outwit them.

You can appoint someone you trust to do all this for you. The court will still charge them for ‘not’ supervising them. They won’t check it is your signature on the form, they won’t even ask where your money is. They could, they have the power. Maybe they will one day, even the court believe that 10% is a conservative estimate of the number of Enduring Powers of Attorney that are being abused by relatives and Solicitors.  At least you will have the satisfaction of knowing that your life and money is in the hands of someone you once liked enough to ask them to do it for you.

Not someone you’ve never met.

Anna Raccoon

You will find more on this theme HERE

Human Rights
February 20, 2010 at 22:32

Yes, it’s called an Application of Demonstration and only the organiser has
to notify the police at least 24 hrs which happened! The demonstration went
ahead outside Parliament peacefully without any disturbances and any police
getting involved. I think ‘Application of Demonstration’ is only needed around
Parliament. http://www.met.police.uk/events/forms/3175A.pdf

Please look out for the next Parliament demonstration concerning the CoP,
we not going to stop until we get JUSTICE

SAM February 15, 2010 at 01:24

For anyone hoping to join in any demonstrations around Parliament, you have
to notify the police at least 24hrs in advance and they ask for 6 days in
advance by recorded or hand delivered application to any metropolitan police
Stn. Otherwise they can now criminally charge you for trying to demonstrate –
no matter how peacefully.
Help the cause to get the COP and the Office of
Public Guardianship fully investigated for all its appointees corrupt
behaviours – and help stop COP/OPG/OS’s & associates own organised
criminal activity, by getting your application in to demonstrate on time
please.

Human Rights
January 30, 2010 at 11:11

Add facebook group:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=274332338715#/group.php?v=info&gid=274332338715

The protest for the Court of Protection/Public Guardianship to be fully
investigated will take place on Fri 19th Feb 2010 at 11 am outside the Houses
of Parliament London.

If you had any problems and concerns against the Court of Protection please
attend!

Justice January 30, 2010 at 10:21

The Court of Protection is corrupt and I was put there even though I have
no mental disability and very healthy. I inherited a large fortune of around

A Citizen November 22, 2009 at 01:13

My wife has for years had to look after the finances of a mentally disabled
relative. Her experience of the Office of the Public Guardian–if that is its
name this week–has been one of almost unrelieved chaos: unanswered letters;
phone calls that reached a different person each time , but very seldom anyone
who knew anything whatever about the case or could even find the file relating
to it– or even, quite often, anything about the generalities of the OPG’s
work; unintelligible documents; letters that didn’t include the documents they
were promised to include; though on one occasi0n they did include the
financial details of some unfortunate totally unknown to us (happily we were
able to send them to the person they should have gone to). And so on and so on
and so on.

We wondered whether this grotesque and hopeless shambles had a boss, and if
so why he/she hadn’t been fired long ago, or posted as an Inspector of Peat
Bogs in the Outer Hebrides. (Of course we all know why, don’t we?).

Then, enter the Court of so-called Protection,. My wife has for many years
conducted her relative’s affairs competently and honestly. (Sure, not
everybody does, but she had). Now she found that she –ie, her relative–had to
pay this initial fee and that annual fee to be supervised by people whom, if
they are anything like their sidekicks in the OPG, one wouldn’t trust to
supervise a sweet-stall. And to transfer a large sum of her relative’s capital
(acknowledgement? receipt? account number? not for weeks) to the tender care
of the Court of Antiprotection, which today generously pays 0.5 percent
interest thereon.

Where does the money go? How is it invested? Don’t ask me–and don’t ask the
puff-filled joint website (www.publicguardian.gov.uk) of the OPG and the
Court, which scrupulously avoids awkward trivia like that. The Government pays
3 or 4 percent on its medium- or long-term borrowings, does it not? How nice
for the Court of Depredation to pay only 0.5 percent.

JJ November 20, 2009 at 12:47

Anna – might I offer some practical information on avoiding the COP?

Enduring Power of Attorney hasn’t been available since October 2007 when it
was replaced by Lasting Power of Attorney (although EPAs written prior to Oct
07 are still valid). There are two types of LPA: one deals with property and
affairs, the other with personal welfare. In England they are quite separate
powers. Neither is to be confused (although the Mail on Sunday in its recent
articles did just that) with a ‘living will’ or Advance Directive which
doesn’t have legal force.

Individuals can themselves draw up an LPA but I would recommend having it
written by a professional who can explain its features and offer advice.

Poff October 31, 2009 at 01:32

I would like to suggest that the explanation for Richard’s experience of
the Court of Protection might be that his mother does not have sufficient
financial resources for anyone to be interested in ransacking them – yet at
the same time enough to be of interest to the network as a source of small
regular takings.

Hugh Harris October 31, 2009 at 00:58

I have more websites than that one, but that may be the oldest blog on the
internet – and it looks it. I think I started it in 1994 or 5.

Meanwhile, I have become old myself and am having great anxieties about the
court of ‘protection’ because it has become fairly plain just from the
behaviour of the local council that there is huge potential for racketeers
posing as respectable citizens to milk the whole business of people getting
old. I will take your advice and arrange for power of attorney to go to my
children in the event of my health failing.

I will pass your url to Barbara Mitchels, solicitor, of Exmouth who I think
may be interested. She did warn me that it might be a mistake to have no
will.

lynn nightingale
October 30, 2009 at 09:43

No, my mother did not get her money back and my siblings were still calling
the shots after the hearing as they were before. Long before her house was
sold and i went to the COP. My daughters and i contacted the social services,
the police, i even wrote a letter to my mother,s doctor. Because it was family
they were not interested.
I feel it could have been nipped in the
bud.
We did get to see my mother after my sister put her in a home. She was
so pleased to see me, her grandchildren and great grandchildren, two of whom
she had never seen before.
It grieves me that my mother was the loser in
all this. She lost her home, her money and a large part of her family. I,m not
sure what the answer is.

lynn nightingale
October 29, 2009 at 19:23

Unfortunately not all families are caring. I went to the COP a few years
ago to stop my brother and sister from registering an EPA for my mother. I had
cared for my mother who was disabled for many years. They only took an
interest in her when she began to deteriorate mentally. I should say they only
took an interest in her bank account and property.
Shortly before my mother
was diagnosed with dementia and they tried to register the EPA, her house was
sold and she was moved in with my sister and her family. At the hearing, i
found out that they had had two thirds of the money from the sale of her
house, apparently gifted to them by my mother and my sister was taking much of
my mothers generous pension for her care. The EPA was revoked and a panel
receiver was appointed.
What annoyed me most was that nothing really
changed after the hearing. Despite letters and phone calls to the social
services my sister would not allow myself or my family to see my mother, she
would use all kinds of silly excuses. We had to wait a few years until my
sister tired of looking after her and stuck her in a home where she died
earlier this year.
Knowing my mother as i did, im pretty sure that she
would never have given up her home or given away her money, and she would have
certainly wanted to see all of her family as much as possible.

Anna
Raccoon October 29, 2009 at 19:28

Lynn,
That really illustrates my point. As you say, not all families
are caring, but what difference did the CoP make to you? Did they get your
Mother’s money returned to the family estate? Did you get to see your
Mother?
Seems to me that all that really happened is that the panel
Reciever was entitled to his fees, the CoP got their fees, and life went on
exactly as it would have done if the CoP hadn’t existed.
I would never
argue that all families can be trusted – they can’t. The point is – is the
CoP the answer to that problem?

Mrs A Rook October 29, 2009 at 13:12

Thank Goodness The court has been exposed!
I have looked after my Son
for nineteen years with no contact with his Biological Father for 15 years no
visits, telephone calls to ask how his son is, no financial help.
When my
son won his legal case he came under the COP. When he was 18 we were informed
to make a will on his behalf, to protect him and his monies if anything should
happen to me, and off course to exclude his biological father from gaining
anything, which he could have done.
To my disgust this will cost over
13,000 pounds as the COP Insisted his Father be traced also he was sent
financial details of my sons Including his Account Number Sort Code and how
much money he had.
The Man has no Interest in My Son,but guess what he was
Interested in the money!.
In short I Had to employ a solicitor and a
Barrister hence the total cost, when I objected to the COP i was made to feel
like i was a liar and was being Vindictive against my Ex.
It has been
sorted now, and my Son is now protected for the future, but it has been a
streesful and costly time.

Gloria Smudd
October 28, 2009 at 15:29

I’ll third it, Christine – keep it up… not that you seem to have any choice
in the matter whatsoever – you’ve already been battling since 2002.

Maybe it isn’t apathy responsible for the paucity of comments on this
thread – I was so astonished when I read Christine’s post last night I could
really only manage a feeble “I’m appalled” – and I am still appalled.

Saul October 28, 2009 at 14:24

Perhaps the reported

Saul October 28, 2009 at 13:30

Keep it up Christine, the authorities hate people like you. I however, have
nothing but admiration for you.

Christine Hockett
October 28, 2009 at 12:42

My aunt is now 85, totally deaf- although an accomplished lip reader (she
has been so since the age of 16),almost blind in one eye due to macular
degeneration and has a collapsed vertebra due to osteoporosis which causes her
pain on occasion. She is not on any medication (anti psycotic drugs) apart
from occasional analgesia. This is a physically frail old lady who needs care
and good food. The home is not purpose built but there are only 18 residents
and good food is cooked and immediately served. It is excellent. When I visit
we split a bottle of lucozade and a kit kit or milky way and she will often
lean towards me and seek confirmation that she still has her home saying – “I
haven’t signed anything you know”. There is no point in repeating these
conversations to anyone, because of course I have “ulterior motives” for my
actions. It may be right that my aunt should pay for the care she clearly
needs due to her frail condition as she had a property and some savings – as
she never had children or took a holiday, but her family do not deserve to be
wrongly accused because we didn’t want her locked away and have all her rights
taken from her. The only beneficiary from this mess is the state who are
financing whole departments of civil servants from my aunt’s money and hiding
behind Data Protection Act and Human Rights Act legislation so that they do
not have to be accountable for their actions. When I complained to the
hospital and asked how it was my uncle had fallen FIVE times, I was told that
any restraint was against his Human Rights – I replied that not watching him
or supervising as they would do for a patient in a recovery room or ITU had
violated his Right to Life as it had killed him. I only ask for honesty from
these people so that we can do our best for my aunt with her own money.

Anna
Raccoon October 28, 2009 at 14:12

I’ll second that Christine – keep it up. It was a very similar story that
led me to work for the CoP in the first place, and I know only too well that
there are hundreds if not thousands of stories like yours out there – the
media don’t want to know unless they can write a quick, cheap, sensational
story; the lawyers don’t want to know, no money, no glory; frankly most
citizens don’t want to know as you can see by the paucity of comments on
this thread. Some of those obsessed with whether I said Vice-President or
President! I despair at times, but since I will be 85 one day, I bang on
relentless in the hope that things might improve slightly before I get
there……..
Your Aunt has my total sympathy. My Aunt couldn’t speak at all,
facially paralysed she couldn’t express any emotion. Paralysed down one side
of her body, she nevertheless ‘managed’ to break her leg in three places
whilst in hospital – the black and blue leg apparently unoticed by all the
staff who had washed and dressed her for two weeks…..no-one ever owned up,
and I was left the task of explaining to this women who could neither speak
nor cry, that her beloved husband had died, and therefore she would not see
him again, No, she couldn’t go to the funeral, and the Court of Protection
had taken charge of her house and all her worldly goods and she couldn’t go
there either!
Eventually I was allowed to take her for a walk in the
sunshine in her wheelchair – and walked her straight round to my car and
drove her to my home. I phoned Social Services and politely informed them
that I had a paralysed 76 year old insulin dependant diabetic at my house,
and I required – in short order – a suitable hospital bed, lifting
equipemnt, and a district nurse armed with insulin before 5pm. I had already
taken the precaution of speaking to my GP who was ready, willing and able to
act as back-up, but I didn’t tell them that – you never saw such a
‘scramble’ in your life; all afternoon cars were pulling up as various
departments went into defcon 3………it did end months of wrangling as to
whether I had the ‘right’ to take my Aunt home, and she lived peacefully
with us for the rest of her life.
Although I did battle royal with the
CoP for the rest of her life, curiously it was my Aunt’s very high level
civil service pension which saved the day – they were the one department
that merely required a telephone call from me to switch their payments to my
bank acount without so much as a ‘who are you’….curious that, but it did
enable us to pay for the specialist 24 hour care that she needed.
Seven
months later the CoP grandly told us that we could have her pension to pay
for her care, and that I could make arrangements to have it transferred to
us……..

Isabel October 28, 2009 at 12:41

This is unbelievable. Yet, believe we must.

I’ve always felt that the great difference of Nazis in comparison with
previous amateurs was their organizational skills.

Gloria Smudd
October 28, 2009 at 00:53

Oh Christine, I am so sorry to hear all this. I’m appalled.

Christine Hockett
October 28, 2009 at 00:33

One further short point – after paying back

Christine Hockett
October 27, 2009 at 23:25

My aunt and uncle went into crisis in Dec 2002 when my uncle collapsed at
home. He was taken off to hospital to be medicated for Parkinsons disease, in
the meantime my totally deaf aunt was taken into “respite care” by Social
Services, who told us that due to the Data Protection Act, none of this was
any of our business as my aunt and uncle were their “clients” and would be
returned home. The hospital likewise refused to discuss my uncle’s case and
sometime in January we were told by Social Services that he had broken his
leg, which was not being treated. My aunt meawhile, was very unhappy in the
home, convinced that her husband was dead and on occasion was angry with
staff. Social Services called a psychiatrist to assess her. I attended in
spite of the hostility of the psychiatrist and Social Services, and observed
that my aunt refused to participate in the assessment, no consideration was
accorded for the fact that she was deaf, and the questions were all ones which
she knew she could not answer, i.e. what is the date today! The psychiatrist
recommended that she be taken as an inpatient in a psychiatric hospital for
further assessment and medicated with respiridone. I fought this course of
action and set about getting my uncle and aunt reunited in a care home. Social
Services were refusing to locate them together as my aunt needed “Elderly
Mental Infirm” accommodation, and my uncle needed nursing accommodation.
Eventually in February a place was found for them both in a home which
provided both. Social Services papers that I subsequently obtained under Data
Protection legislation showed that they were not happy about the cost of this,
although they had already informed us that my aunt and uncle would be “self
funding” as they owned a property and they would make a “loan” of the fees
until the finances were sorted out. On arrival at the home my uncle was found
to have level 4 bedsores to his shoulders, heels and down both legs, where
“splints” had been applied and not checked as the staff believed they were
“casts”. I told the Social Services who said that it was nothing to do with
them! I complained to the hospital about his condition and called for his
medical records, where I found that he had been found on the floor FIVE times,
he broke his leg on the fourth fall in January and the fracture was actually
diagnosed five days after the xray on the evening of the fall when he was
complaining of pain. On another occasion his notes were locked in the pharmacy
and the duty doctor refused to write him up for his drugs or analgesia. My
uncle died on 10th May 2003. When I collected his death certificate it stated
“Parkinsons Disease 4 years, Dementia 5 years”. I asked the doctor about the
fractured leg and she said that she would write another certificate, which she
did. I then asked if it should be reported to the Coroner and she did this
also. Following a post mortem cause of death was found to be bronchitus caused
by lack of mobility because of a fractured leg. Initially, Social Services
wanted my mother to take out a Power of Attorney, my mother refused becuase my
uncle was not fit to grant permission. During April, we met with Social
Services who said that they would take out a Receivership to handle the
finances and we would have control over their welfare. Following discovery of
my uncle’s broken leg and his treatment, the fact that they wanted to put my
aunt in a psychiatric hospital, I was not happy with this. On the death of my
uncle I visited the home and discovered that only a few days before his death
he had been visited by Social Services and the Court letter had been read to
him announcing that he was to be taken into the Court, although I had
expressly asked that service be made by touching the paper to his hand or
leaving it on the bedside table. I then contacted the Court and asked for the
case to be stood out. The Court responded by stating that if I felt my aunt
had capacity then I should obtain further proof. I contacted her doctor who
visited her in the home and reported that she had stated that she wanted my
mother to “do her business”. The doctor’s leter was sent to the Court who said
we should apply for Power of Attorney. We took my aunt to her solicitor who
drew up the papers and witnessed them, stating that she was “no worse” that
any of his other elderly clients. The forms were submitted to the court in the
September. At the end of the statutory 28 days we discovered that the Social
Services had objected to the application. It was at this point I served Data
Protection Act requests on them and found that they had written to my aunt’s
doctor stating that we wanted “control of her finances to use her money for
ourselves”. Had we wanted this – we would have left my uncle in the NHS
hospital where he was clearly being neglected and allowed Social Services to
put my aunt in a psychiatric hospital, where she would have very quickly died
as she has a fear of hospitals. I asked for an attended hearing at the Court
to get this matter properly aired, and found that Social Services were not
attending and the hearing would cost my aunt

Letters From A
Tory October 27, 2009 at 11:31

Now THAT is what I call a proper rant. Hope you feel better after you got
that off your chest.

joco October 27, 2009 at 09:36

Gloria’s riposte to Richard’s comment is apposite. His attitude being
typical of the ostrich-like, ‘bums in the air,’ posture of those whose
experience of government bureaucracy has not been too devastating.

The question is not whether his story or the ones you share are typical,
but whether Dan’s and Gloria’s are true. The exploitation and neglect of both
is surely the product of a culture that denigrates the Court of Protection as
institution belonging to the nether regions of the Civil Service.

Many years ago, when I worked in what is sometimes referred to as ‘the
charity sector,’ I was frustrated with the inertia and neglect of the Charity
Commission and so took the matter to my solicitor. His comment was very
telling: what did I expect from an institution that was ‘the very sump of the
Civil Service? Or as my old granny used to put it, ‘what could I expect from a
donkey but a kick?’ Whether the Charity Commission or the Court of Protection
is actually closest to the infernal regions, is neither here nor there. Until
they are more highly regarded and better staffed by a good class of Civil
Servant, all talk of Britain being a caring society will remain just that,
talk.

P.S. I love your alliterative typo, the Freudian slip about, ‘The tea
trolleys till…’ Perhaps this indicates your awareness that somewhere along the
line, if I may mix the metaphors, there is a gravy train a rumbling.

Gloria Smudd
October 27, 2009 at 02:26

Richard – good news for you and your mother that your recent experience of
The Court of Protection falls into the ‘positive’ category. You attest that
the system is working well for your mother and for you as her designated
representative in connection with all her financial and medical matters; you
say “….You will always find hard cases if you look carefully. But I doubt that
they are the norm. In my experience, anyway.”

We must all recognise your experience in terms of this discussion and
register your support for the existing system. By the same token, you must
acknowledge Ms. Raccon’s concerns based on her more extensive experience of
the same system; both your experiences may be equally valid but surely your
‘positive’ experience is the very least that one should expect when there
exists a little-known and overwhelmingly powerful Government-run system which
can take control of a subject’s financial and medical concerns unless a
definite legal step is taken to prevent this happening. Ms. Raccoon’s examples
of how matters could be so very different had your mother not designated you
as her deputy remain the sober topic of this thread. And a sober topic it
is.

Pytheas October 27, 2009 at 02:24

A great article on a disgusting matter. I wonder if people who are under
the power of the Court of Protection and have no living relatives and are in
possession of significant assets are ever consulted about making a will. Or
are they too “unworldly” for such a matter and it all goes into the
government’s coffers on their deaths.

Richard October 27, 2009 at 00:38

I hold a deputyship for my mother, who has Alzheimer’s , under the Court of
Protection. I don’t recognise the organisation you describe. My experience of
it is that it has been professional, if a little slow, and that it has given
me excellent guidance when I have needed it. It may be a little slow in
answering the ‘phone, but at least it hasn’t outsourced to Bangalore, unlike
my bank.

You will always find hard cases if you look carefully. But I doubt that
they are the norm. In my experience, anyway.

Polaris October
26, 2009 at 21:55

Anna – a moving and a damning indictment of a corrupt and exploitative
system we should all be up in arms over – this behaviour is endemic in the
‘care system’. My Mum took early retirement rather than fight the corruption,
neglect and exploitation enacted by those who supposedly were responsible for
the care and rehab of long term institutionalised ‘clients’ – their lives
completely destroyed unfairly by Quarriers Homes to whom they were entrusted.

Guthrum October 26, 2009 at 18:46

I think I may have got the facts wrong as to the History of the Court of
Protection in my diatribe, but correct in the assumption that the State is
both incompetent and corrupt.

I should have known better as my family lost its estates in 1617 in
Leicestershire, when one of my ancestors was made a ward of Court. The Duke of
Buckingham the King’s favourite and bed fellow ended up with the lands,
fortunately somebody assasinated him a few years later.

We got our own back by raising a troop of cavalry for Parliament in 1642.
Plus ca change !

Roger Dodger
October 26, 2009 at 17:50

An unwarranted and unrequested surprise vasectomy? That is truly shocking.
Dr Mengele would be sharpening his scalpel in anticipation.

Wonderful work as ever Anna. Moving further in front of the herd with each
passing day.

Can we have a list of reforms required to make it ‘fit for purpose’? What
chance such a ‘low’ priority will ever be meaningfully reformed?

Gloria Smudd
October 26, 2009 at 15:51

And just a quick question – how does one end up in the clutches of the
Court of Protection?

Gloria Smudd
October 26, 2009 at 14:27

Brava! Brava! Brava!

john
ward October 26, 2009 at 12:01

I’d say words fail me, but thankfully they don’t. My father has advanced
Alzheimers (thanks to secret NHS pill rationing – PMs excepted, natch) and the
mountains of paperwork my brother and I have to go through each time we want
to help his money earn more money is mind-boggling. Next week I am to visit
West Bromwich for the sole purpose of a Bank Manager examining my passport and
witnessing my signature.
All because (a) fecklessly amoral children and
lawyers rip off the vulnerable and (b) fat, gold-plated and unfireable civil
servants are 99% packaging and 1% spine.
Now bear in mind, Britain is a
country about to consider legalising ‘mercy killing’. How many abuses a year
will that throw up at the rate of 10%? How many care homes who want a bed free
for a richer potential inmate? How many Shipmans available to sign the forms
in return for a bung?
Gratitude isn’t a strong enough word for someone
prepared to stay up half the night and say what has to be said . I’m in awe of
Anna’s ethics, and no, that isn’t a fnar-fnar double entendre.
I just wish
this was an isolated case of an isolated form of legal insanity – but it
isn’t. It runs through banking, family courts, social services, local
government, the judiciary at most levels and over 90% of all multiple
retailing. Turn over any stone (as notbornyesterday does every week) and
underneath are the wriggling, slimey worms of a culture ruined by relativist
mores.
Let’s have more like this, Anna: sleep well tonight. You deserve
it.
Yesterday Man x

Jill Pearson
October 26, 2009 at 11:52

That is one of the most deeply disturbing things I have read in a long time
Anna. I know the system is rotten, I just never knew how much! thank you for
sharing it!

miss mink October 26, 2009 at 11:43

Flabbergasted . . .
How is it that the staff in these departments,
aren’t upset by these cases, making them behave more justly ?

Ch October 26, 2009 at 11:29

Great article again, Anna.

Isabel October 26, 2009 at 10:03

Outstanding. Thank you for this, Anna.

Alexander
Davidson October 26, 2009 at 07:31

Your article has confirmed a lot of what I have observed first hand or I
have been told, second hand, from victims. The term ‘Officer of the Court’
offers no protection against well-connected brigands sometimes referred to as
members of ‘The Establishment’.