>> www.itv.com/news/story/2014-09-01/ashya-kings-parents-held-as-extradition-hearing-adjourned/
>>
>> To me it's wrong on so many levels.
>>
>> Pat
What is wrong? Taking the kid to Spain, or hunting the parents down for taking the kid to Spain?
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The NHS may think it's right and may even be right, but it isn't everyone's boss and doesn't have the right to have people arrested in Spain for no good reason.
These parents aren't crazed religiosos trying to prevent lifesaving treatment as Jehovah's Witnesses sometimes do. They took the child to Spain to give him some perfectly respectable (and very expensive) treatment not easily available here. The NHS is completely out of order on the face of it.
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No idea.
The copper who was on the wireless said that, based on the information that they, social services, and the medical professionals are privy to, he was sure they had done the right thing in the interests of the child and the protection of the child's life.
Regardless of that, what's happening now must be very hard on the boy.
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Many people/agencies have a duty of care for the boy.
The parents are fully autonomous and can choose what they like for themselves.
They can choose what they like for their child but do not have free rein in this when people/services with a duty of care for the child feel any (in)action is highly prejudicial to the child's wellbeing.
I think the parents were aware of this and took the law into their own hands.
The services had no alternative but to raise their concerns.
I'm sure time will show there was a breakdown of communication/trust at some point but if the child died en route to Spain and the hospital hadn't said anything they'd be getting the shaft right now (see also Sharon Shoesmith)
Last edited by: Lygonos on Mon 1 Sep 14 at 15:21
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There's so much misleading information on this, I'm not sure.
The hospital claimed the batteries on his feeding equipment would expire. The family claimed they had power supplies.
Would you take what appears to be a terminally ill five-year-old by road to Spain?
Would the whole family need to go to Spain to sell their apartment, to fund the child's treatment?
The family seem to have broken no laws, so why the extradition hearing?
Why go to Spain, if the treatment they want the child to have is in the Czech republic?
Are the hospital staff/surgeons/consultants trying to 'save face' by not letting the child have treatment by someone more competent. I've met specialists who would do this!
Why hasn't some PR guru taken this up (Max Clifford may be reluctant at the moment). The sum required for the proton treatment isn't astronomical. A public subscription could raise it in days.
And so on, and so on....................................................................
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....As I said, so many levels.
Who released the information they were Jehovah Witness's ( Pedant Alert, don't bother, I'm not in the mood but I know it's wrong, just can't be bothered to work out what's right)
Pat
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A leading brain consultant, Assistant Chief Constable Chris Shead said:
"if Ashya doesn’t receive urgent medical care or the wrong treatment is given his condition will become life threateningâ€.
“Time is running out for this little boy. We need to find him and we need to find him urgently.â€
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>> A leading brain consultant, Assistant Chief Constable Chris Shead
Is the Assistant Chief Constable really also a leading brain consultant CP? How unusual.
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>> >> A leading brain consultant, Assistant Chief Constable Chris Shead
>>
>> Is the Assistant Chief Constable really also a leading brain consultant CP? How unusual.
>>
Wonder which one is the day job and which one is the moonlighting one :-)
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>> >> A leading brain consultant, Assistant Chief Constable Chris Shead
>>
>> Is the Assistant Chief Constable really also a leading brain consultant CP? How unusual.
>>
Heavy sarcasm unnoticed? :)
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>> A leading brain consultant, Assistant Chief Constable Chris Shead said:
>>
>> "if Ashya doesn’t receive urgent medical care or the wrong treatment is given his condition
>> will become life threateningâ€.
>>
>> “Time is running out for this little boy. We need to find him and we
>> need to find him urgently.â€
He's a spokesman for the Police explaining action taken on evidence from experts - ie the kid's doctors.
He doesn't need to be an expert himself to do that.
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>> The hospital claimed the batteries on his feeding equipment would expire. The family claimed they had power supplies.
So? Who are we to believe?
>> Would you take what appears to be a terminally ill five-year-old by road to Spain?
No.
>> Would the whole family need to go to Spain to sell their apartment, to fund the child's treatment?
No.
>> The family seem to have broken no laws, so why the extradition hearing?
A charge of putting a child's life in danger? (Or whatever the wording is)
>> Why go to Spain, if the treatment they want the child to have is in the Czech republic?
Exactly.
>> Are the hospital staff/surgeons/consultants trying to 'save face' by not letting the child have treatment by someone more competent. I've met specialists who would do this!
We don't know. That is simply speculation. Speculation is futile.
>> Why hasn't some PR guru taken this up? The sum required for the proton treatment isn't astronomical. A public subscription could raise it in days.
Why chose this particular child/family? What about all the other children/families?
At the very least the father/family have shown extreme discourtesy to the staff at the hospital in England by not informing them that were taking the child out of their care.
>> And so on, and so on..........................................
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I think the point is that they're NOT Jehova's Witnesses.
The policeman on the radio this morning was very insistent that they had 'information' suggesting that the situation was not as simple as perhaps it looked, hence the need for arrests etc.
I feel for the poor, confused, dying child in a foreign hospital separated from his parents.
And I don't understand why they needed to take the child to Spain - when the treatment is available in Eastern Europe (?) in order to sell the property.
Yes, I'm sure they *did* have to go to Spain to sell the property - though could have no doubt appointed a power of attorney to somebody else.
So, all in all, a complete muddle, but it's not really 'news' is it.
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And how long does it take to sell a property if they desperately need the funds?
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I think they are Jehovah's Witnesses though I'm not sure what it has to do with the price of fish.
www.independent.co.uk/news/police-in-race-against-time-to-find-seriously-ill-boy-9698442.html
"It has been confirmed that the parents are Jehovah's Witnesses, although there is no suggestion this is linked to why they were taken. Police have said it was “irrelevant†while the search for the boy continued."
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It was mysteriously released on the day he was taken from hospital, presumably hoping to suggest the parents were not allowing him to have a blood transfusion.....
Pat
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Seems something very odd about that family. Things aren't alway what they seem and the police and the hospital don't want to say too much.
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Aha. I sit corrected. Sorry, and thanks for clarification.
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It does seem an odd and confused story. I may have been too quick to condemn the NHS.
Witnesses are very Old-Testament. They think they alone will survive the Day of Judgement, when God casts everyone else into the abyss.
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Mon 1 Sep 14 at 16:46
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Putting the parents in a Spanish cel won't help the little lad wil it.
Yes everything is wrong Pat.
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"Putting the parents in a Spanish cel won't help the little lad wil it."
It might do as they seem intent on effectively depriving him of medical treatment.
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He needs more than medical treatment Norwich.His mother needs to be next to him he is a very sick five year old child.His father was or is going to sell their home in Spain for better treatment, if there is is such a thing for this type of cancer.
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He needs both medical care and his parents. Unfortunately the parents seem intent on depriving him of the care he needs. Taking a desperately sick child out of hospital, and driving him across Europe does not look like responsible parenting to me. That is not the action of a normal parent.
As I said there is something very odd about that family.
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Seems odd that the cps have said there is not enough evidence to have them arrested with any offence, yet rnough to have a european arrest warrent issued.
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>> Unfortunately the parents seem intent on depriving him of the care he needs.
The account given is confused. But my impression was that these people wanted him to get this perfectly respectable therapy privately and quickly in Spain or the Czech Republic. I even saw a clip of the father saying he knew there was a chance the therapy might fail, but they were hoping for the best as it had worked in other cases.
So if he's a Jehovah's Witness he isn't taking the usual Witness line which is luddite about blood transfusions and no doubt other therapies for unscientific reasons of their own. He seems to want his child to be cured sooner rather than later.
But there is something a bit odd in the account. Perhaps it's just an impression generated by these illiterate ignorant modern hacks.
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>> >>
>> He seems to want his child to be cured sooner rather than later.
>>
"Jehovas's Witness demands more advanced medical treatment"
-Shome mishtake there shurely?
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There is no right or wrong here very difficult to judge people. Who are desperate for their
child to have the best treatment available.
Maybe doctors should have calmed the situation before it got out of hand.
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I think that is true, all breakdown may well have happened between the family and the hospital. I suspecr why they took him away to spain was because they wanted nothing more to do with the uk hospital but at thesametime be in familar surroundings and continue the childs care.
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It's impossible to know the full story, but I get the impression that treatment, other than palliative, had ceased in the UK hospital.
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>> Maybe doctors should have calmed the situation before it got out of hand.
>>
How do you know what the doctors did or didn't do?
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The European Arrest Warrant was used to hold the parents.
Why?
For a fuller ( UKIP LINK, for those who must be forewarned ) explanation see here:-
tinyurl.com/osxvu2n
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>> The European Arrest Warrant was used to hold the parents.
>>
>> Why?
>>
>>
>> For a fuller ( UKIP LINK, for those who must be forewarned ) explanation see
>> here:-
>>
>> tinyurl.com/osxvu2n
Trust you to link this to UKIP If you accept someone has done something wrong, the EAW is the perfect tool to bring them back to the UK and was long overdue
Last edited by: Zero on Mon 1 Sep 14 at 19:21
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I was about to post on this but then found this piece by Sarah Boseley on the Guardian's website.
www.theguardian.com/society/2014/sep/01/ashya-kings-tale-hard-understand-hospital-silence
Pretty much sums it up.
As she says it's impossible to get full picture without Hospital having its say. But Hosp Trust and Doctors are gagged by their obligation of confidentiality. On face of it, confronted with a critically ill kid who'd been 'disappeared' after full/frank discussions on treatment, the hospital had little option but to explore legal channels. As it looked as though he'd gone to mainland Europe then a European arrest warrant (issued only on say so of a District Judge (ie legally qualified officer formally known as a Stipendiary Magistrate) was right tool. Correct application of 'precautionary principle'
It may be, as it was possible to infer from BBC R4 news report at 18:00 today, that having flushed parents out CPS will stay or discontinue extradition proceedings. In any event its likely that once Spanish court has seen full legal/medical reports and is satisfied there's no risk on onward flight that parents will be bailed back to their Malaga address in next couple of days.
It's been reported by BBC that Portsmouth Council (presumably where UK King family home is) had obtained an interim care order. Again , they'd have had to convince a Judge. I suspect this order was made ex parte without parents being represnted in which case it will have an early return date for reconsideration once they're represented. Again, correct application of 'precautionary principle'.
The influence of the net in convincing parents that alterntative less damaging treatment ,ight be appropriate is also v. relevant. I've a friend who's a GP and frequently comments on time he spends talking people through or out of convictions about diagnosis or treatment based on web sites of varying veracity.
I bet Lygonos does too.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Mon 1 Sep 14 at 20:23
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>> I've a friend who's a GP and frequently comments on
>> time he spends talking people through or out of convictions about diagnosis or treatment based
>> on web sites of varying veracity.
>>
In my experience enlightened medicos learn to live with the net, not resist it.
My GP recently gave me a list of websites and said I should try them and do some research on the subject. then go back to her if I wanted to discuss it further.
A few years a go a consultant remarked "Obviously you have looked this up on the web so I won't waste time going over that again. What I can do now is ... "
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>> In my experience enlightened medicos learn to live with the net, not resist it.
>> My GP recently gave me a list of websites and said I should try them
>> and do some research on the subject. then go back to her if I wanted
>> to discuss it further.
I'm not saying nothing on net is of use but surely we can agree that there's a load of trash out there that Docs and indeed professionals of all stripes have to refute.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Mon 1 Sep 14 at 22:27
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>> frequently comments on time he spends talking people through or out of convictions about >> diagnosis or treatment based on web sites of varying veracity.
>> I bet Lygonos does too.
Doctors are rubbish at treating pain. They seem to think people with illnesses ought to suffer pain and just bear it. None was the slightest use with the cluster headaches that were ruining my life near enough, no exaggeration.
In despair I looked on the net. Not only did it tell me they were cluster headaches, it told me the treatments were sumatriptan shots and pure oxygen.
I asked the doctors to prescribe those, and they did. All OK ever since.
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I have the same complaint as that AC and my regular GP did not know about them and treated me for migraine, which as you know are different.
I saw a different doc with the next episode, he knew exactly what it was and gave more suitable stuff, which didn't really seem to help a lot. Towards the end of the last bout ( - they were every 4 - 5 years, lasting 3 - 4 months) I was given something to inject - forget what now, poss Sumatriptan - which seemed pretty effective but as the bout was coming to an end I really won't know till the next one. Mind you, not had them now for more than 8 years...
I don't really like knocking true professionals in any field, but my first doc was a bit of a waste of space with most things. I used to work in computer support, and like being a doc, if you have had previous experience of a problem which someone brings to you then it sure helps...
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>> ( UKIP LINK, for those who must be forewarned ) explanation see
>> here:-
Pretty harmless I thought. Anti-EU of course but why wouldn't it be? In any case that's what I think more or less, provisionally, until I know better. As if anyone gave a damn what anyone else thinks about this or anything else.
I hope in later life the nipper, if spared, will look back amusedly on the cuttings and clips showing him as an infant cause célèbre.
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'I can confirm we have obtained a European Arrest Warrant. What that will do is, when we find Ashya and his family, it will allow us to talk to his parents about what happened. Clearly we need to find out what their motive is in taking Ashya.'
This surely can't be the same Assistant Chief Constable I quoted above, pontificating on the medical situation as if he were some kind of expert?
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It's just like the Arab-Israeli war. Both sides come out looking like complete idiots. And probably nobody will ever find out the truth. And thus huge quantities of newsprint are generated.
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Totally, the only people who could tell us the full truth, the doctors, can't. Patient confidentiality and all that.
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So we have to assume that they have presented the true picture to the police, that the police have understood what they have been told, and that they have then taken appropriate action without introducing any agenda of their own.
A lot of trust - do we trust them?
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No, they won't have said anything that compromises patient confidentiality. They will just have said words to the effect that the best medical treatment is here and the parents removed the child without discussing it.
Only person I feel sorry for is the kid - no five year old deserves to be treated as a football and effectively banned from seeing his parents.
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>> No, they won't have said anything that compromises patient confidentiality.
They will have if the child is at risk.
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There are ways to state 'at risk' that don't breach patient confidentiality. Believe what you like...
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>> So we have to assume that they have presented the true picture to the police,
>> that the police have understood what they have been told, and that they have then
>> taken appropriate action without introducing any agenda of their own.
>>
>> A lot of trust - do we trust them?
In the absence of any evidence to contrary I think we have to trust the professionals.
The hospital are faced with situation where a child, a week after brain surgery, dependant of a feeding pump and with more treatment needed, is removed from their care. They've no way of knowing if parents can operate kit they removed him with and there's evidence party have fled country. Furthermore, parents are advocating a form of treatment which medics think non appropriate.
They've little option but but to take sort of action they did. They're going to be damned either way though.
If the police had an 'agenda' it would probably to do nothing (qv Rotherham).
There's a further check/backstop as to appropriateness of action as warrant needs signature of a District Judge.
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I'd agree Bromp, except that all these people, hospital, judges, etc will err so much on the side of what they perceive to be caution (also known as a*** covering) that the lad will probably never see his parents again.
He's not in danger now, is he? So why are his parents locked up?
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Just to clarify things in general, is it an offence to remove your child from hospital if you are not satisfied with the care or treatment being given?
When our daughter was born the hospital wanted to put her in intensive care on a drip as a precaution because my wife is diabetic on insulin. She argued from other sources that breastfeeding was the best procedure for quick stabilisation of blood sugar levels, and refused to consent, threatening to take the baby home.
The hospital backed down and admitted that this was just routine because it made things easier for them, and compromised on a short check and then the normal ward, with the baby, for a few days.
Could we have been arrested, without charge, for this offence?
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>> Could we have been arrested, without charge, for this offence?
I think there's a post from Lygonos above dealing with principles where chils is discharged by parents.
If you'd taken your daughter home where she was still accessible to Midwife, Health Visitor, GP etc than IMO no offence/no need for warrant.
If,OTOH, you'd just vanished with her and boarded a ferry to France without any clear indication you were equipped to manage her condition then possibility of offence of neglect (and possibly others too) arrest possibly justified.
My guess is that now child's whereabouts and care are established either UK will discontinue/stay and/or Spaniards will bail parents in next 48hrs. Unfortunate that Spain detained them and moved them to Madrid but if they knew Spain then surely it was a risk they contemplated.
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What did the Spanish actually arest them for?
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We keep being told they have not committed a crime, so why are they being held in prison?
Viewing the Fathers video, it appears the hospital threatened to take out a restraining order on the parents if they continued to object to chemo and radiotherapy.
He also states the clinic in Prague, and himself, have repeatedly asked for copies of the childs xrays and CT scans to enable the new treatment but both have been ignored completely.
Pat
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I do dislike this kind of story, it pulls the heart strings but in the news we really only get to hear one side of the story which may sometimes not be properly balanced.
And if they'd taken to kiddy off to Spain but he'd died on the way - what then? Would we have been saying what on earth did they do that for, slam 'em up and throw away the key?
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An about-face seems to be occurring now. CPS discontinuing the warrant. Police saying the situation the child is in is "not right'. BBC: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-29036154
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>> An about-face seems to be occurring now. CPS discontinuing the warrant. Police saying the situation
>> the child is in is "not right'. BBC: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-29036154
I think that's the right course now the child has been found. If there is need for state, in its paternalist role, to intervene in treatment then proceedings in the civil courts are way to go. It was reported earlier that such proceedings have been commenced and it may be that parents have given undertakings sufficient for any criminal case to be abandoned.
Doesn't mean they were wrong to go down that route on facts as known late last week though.
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I dont trust the parents one iota. The reason they are in jail and not seeing the child is because they refused to accept the extradition. Had they done so they could have been with their child in a heartbeat.
Draw your own conclusions.
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Let's see: Accept extradition and get sent back to teh UK and lose sight of my child. Or refuse and stay in Spain near my child.
Difficult choice.. not.
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>> Let's see: Accept extradition and get sent back to teh UK and lose sight of
>> my child. Or refuse and stay in Spain near my child.
>>
>> Difficult choice.. not.
>>
>>
Or refuse and spend time in jail, separated from my wife and my child ill and on its its own in a foreign hospital.
Easy choice.
REALLY easy choice.
Do you honestly think anyone would have chased them across europe with an address warrant if they had told people where they were going and why?
I know where the majority of the issues lie
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I might be a bit dense but how will accepting extradetion mean that they will spent child with their child?
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>> I might be a bit dense but how will accepting extradetion mean that they will
>> spent child with their child?
Presumably because they'd all be on flight to UK lickety split.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Tue 2 Sep 14 at 16:55
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There was no guarantee of that hence the decision not to accept it.
Quite right too.
Pat
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>> There was no guarantee of that hence the decision not to accept it.
>>
>> Quite right too.
>>
>> Pat
Cobblers
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>> I might be a bit dense but how will accepting extradetion mean that they will
>> spent child with their child?
Refusal to accept means the judge did not grant them bail or any surety. Had the accepted they would have been reunited with the kid pending an agreed return to the UK
Now you can say they were sticking to their principals. My principles would go to the crapper to be with my sick child.
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>> Had they accepted they would have been reunited with the kid pending an agreed return to the UK
Cobblers. Their Spanish brief may well have advised them to refuse extradition as they could be reunited quicker. The path every legal intervention seems to take nowadays appears to be designed to cause all those involved the maximum amount of distress whilst doing the minimum amount of good.
We don't know the whole story, I bet the parents are just as scared as the child is.
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Interesting to see what happens now they are free to go where they wish.
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>>an agreed return to the UK<<
What would be the point of that? The child wouldn't have got the treatment they want him to have and it would all have been for nothing.
Pat
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>> >>an agreed return to the UK<<
>>
>> What would be the point of that? The child wouldn't have got the treatment they
>> want him to have and it would all have been for nothing.
The child can't get the treatment in Spain either. So why the hell did they go there?
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>> >> >>an agreed return to the UK<<
>> >>
>> >> What would be the point of that? The child wouldn't have got the treatment
>> they
>> >> want him to have and it would all have been for nothing.
>>
>> The child can't get the treatment in Spain either. So why the hell did they
>> go there?
>>
Had it been me, or any other Parent that can show any element of ability to provide care, I would have explained where I was going, why i was going and provided the hospital with a care plan, and asked them for the notes.
Not just rogered off with no notice, no warning and no forwarding information.
Now under those circumstances had I been in charge of the hospital care I would have assumed the parents were unable to care for the childs medical needs in the correct manner.
That is why they were pursued across Europe, quite rightly too. Their actions then and since have convinced me they are unfit.
Last edited by: Zero on Tue 2 Sep 14 at 18:19
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>> >> Had they accepted they would have been reunited with the kid pending an agreed
>> return to the UK
>>
>> Cobblers. Their Spanish brief may well have advised them to refuse extradition as they could
>> be reunited quicker.
That is not the case, they were jailed BECAUSE they didn't accept the extradition.
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The Spanish may be playing another game. They have gone well OTT, in separating the child from his parents and siblings, and are yet to release the parents from the cells!
Unfortunately for the family they may have been used as pawns. No doubt the police are also feeling embarrassed, and are now be looking at the veracity of the NHS Trust's information fed to them.
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One point that may well have prevented all the drama in various countries (and spotted at Hampshire Police's first news conference by an on the ball journalist) is why did the hospital staff involved take more than six hours to inform the police about missing Aysha and his parents?
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>> why did the hospital staff involved take more than six hours to inform the police about missing Aysha and his parents?
Good question. They must have given them a 6 hour head start I guess? Or someone did.
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It was the first thought that came into my mind when the Hampshire Police big wig said Aysha had been taken from the hospital around 2pm and that the force had been notified shortly after around 8pm.
As you rightly point out, the head start was considerable.
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Rather undermines the hospital care regime if they hadn't noticed a vulnerable patient under treatment leaving the ward.
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No it doesn't. The parents were staying in a charity provided accomodation in the hospital grounds and the staff believed that is where the boy was. He had been taken there a number of times. This whole sorry saga could easily have been resolved if at any time the parents had acted in a rational manner.
It is sad that the lad is being subjected to stress which is ultimately due to the parents inability or desire not to accept or understand the medical situation
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>> No it doesn't. The parents were staying in a charity provided accomodation in the hospital
>> grounds and the staff believed that is where the boy was. He had been taken
>> there a number of times. This whole sorry saga could easily have been resolved if
>> at any time the parents had acted in a rational manner.
>>
>> It is sad that the lad is being subjected to stress which is ultimately due
>> to the parents inability or desire not to accept or understand the medical situation
Pretty much summarises what's been reported. Parents were able to take him off ward as part of his rehab. Only after he had not returned as expected plus time for exigencies etc was a search of grounds started following which balloon went up.
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So the palaver was not related to a lack of medical oversight, as he did not require to be under observation on a ward. So, how was his health threatened by being off-site? Not a lot, by the sound of it.
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>> So the palaver was not related to a lack of medical oversight, as he did
>> not require to be under observation on a ward.
He needed to be observed regularly but not continuously. He could be taken off ward for social rehab etc reasons for say 3 hrs but should be present for 'obs' (heartbeat, BP etc) when rounds were done.
>>So, how was his health threatened
>> by being off-site? Not a lot, by the sound of it.
He could not eat normally and was fed by a pump either naso-gastrically or via a 'peg' to his stomach. If that failed his health was threatened pretty quickly. Possibly issues with hydration as well.
I suspect, reading between lines, that Hospital had doubts about parental insight into his condition and the means/distance to any possible recovery.
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There is a world of difference between being in the grounds of a hospital a few hundred yards from medical experts and facilities and being in the back of a car on a French autoroute.
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Not if the only treatment being given is to feed the boy. The withdrawal of the warrant on the grounds that there is no prospect of a case against the parents, indicates there is considerable doubt that there was a risk.
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How likely is it they can now sue for wrongful arrest and obtain enough compo to pay for the treatment they want?
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1. Well that could be a Spanish problem??
2. By the time they get the compo it might be too late unfortunately.
This case is now so high profile that all things being equal the NHS may well bend over backwards to ensure no criticism (if warranted) is leveled at them or some mystery benefactor may stump up the cash.
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It's a weird case with two apparently contradictory threads running through it:
1) He was at death's door and needed constant proper medical attention / He was in rehab under the parents' care and the doctors were happy to leave him unattended for at least 6 hours.
2) His parents had committed an offence so serious that they must be pursued across Europe and slung in jail when caught / No offence had been committed and the "charges" such as they were have been withdrawn and everyone now has egg on their faces.
Meanwhile proper criminals, eg those plotting terrorism or fomenting civil wars, are free to travel about Europe with impunity. Can't we have a few European Arrest Warrants for some of them?
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>> It's a weird case with two apparently contradictory threads running through it:
>>
>> 1) He was at death's door and needed constant proper medical attention / He was
>> in rehab under the parents' care and the doctors were happy to leave him unattended
>> for at least 6 hours.
Surely you can see difference between moving round hospital grounds for a few hours between Dr/Nurse Obs rounds and a 6 hr ferry trip followed by a 1800 km drive?
>>
>> 2) His parents had committed an offence so serious that they must be pursued across
>> Europe and slung in jail when caught / No offence had been committed and the
>> "charges" such as they were have been withdrawn and everyone now has egg on their
>> faces.
Again, surely you can see difference between 'kid's been removed from hospital without support' and 'he's OK in hospital in Spain, we've got undertakings from parents in other court proceedings to secure ongoing treatment' (and the PM and his Deputy, more interested in headlines than facts, are on the case)
>>
>> Meanwhile proper criminals, eg those plotting terrorism or fomenting civil wars, are free to travel
>> about Europe with impunity. Can't we have a few European Arrest Warrants for some of
>> them?
>>
Whataboutery.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Tue 2 Sep 14 at 22:08
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>> >>
>>
>> Surely you can see difference between
Yes, there are certainly differences.
But at the end of the day "the authorities", whoever they are, have not thought them significant enough to be worth pursuing any further. Perhaps they should have thought it all through before acting so dramatically?
It seems to be the norm now that people with responsibilities and powers either;
a) ignore the problem, turn a blind eye, and stiffle any attempts at investigation.
or
b) rush in with dramatic public-spectacle actions involving helicopters, police swoops and European Arrest Warrents.
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I haven't posted on this yet ..because I don't really know where I stand on it.
One part of me thinks the parents were very unwise, if not neglectful and if necessary the state has to step in sometimes and take over ..yet another part thinks maybe they were fighting for their son as best as they could.
My last posting in the Police was at Barnet, North London. A husband and wife both worked there as detectives and I knew them reasonably well. Their youngest son had cancer and sadly died aged 7, but they fought long and hard for him, taking him to New York for treatment that he couldn't get here.
Not much gets through my hardened skin, but their difficulties did. On the day my wife and I took my new born son out of Barnet General Hospital, aged 1 day, on one of the happiest days of my life.. I saw Richard Brown going into the hospital with his son, Jack .. and well knew the weariness that family were going through and why they were there, it sort of took the edge off things.
Can you blame parents for trying to do their utmost for their kids? What do you do if that desperation evolves into unwise behaviour?
The detectives story is here if you are interested:
tinyurl.com/oey6l35
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The King family saga is turning (has turned?) into a real old muddle.
So many unanswered questions.
They have seven children. Don't they have schools or work to go to? Do they always have to do everything as a group of nine? Did they all need to go to Spain to sell this property, and how long did they think that was going to take?
People have offered money to the Kings so that they could have this treatment. Why? how was this child selected? Aren't there other children equally, or more, deserving of expensive treatments?
The authorities will now trip over their own shoelaces in an effort to make amends for any real, or imagined, errors.
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>>People have offered money to the Kings so that they could have this treatment. Why? how was this child selected? Aren't there other children equally, or more, deserving of expensive treatments?<<
Surely the donor of that money has a right to make their own selection?
Pat
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>> >>People have offered money to the Kings so that they could have this treatment. Why?
>> how was this child selected? Aren't there other children equally, or more, deserving of expensive treatments?<<
>> Surely the donor of that money has a right to make their own selection?
Of course.
But why is it that so many people are illogical?
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Perhaps they would think your thought process is illogical too:)
Pat
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>> Perhaps they would think your thought process is illogical too:)
>>
>> Pat
>>
Oh!
I say!
Steady on!
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>>
>>
>> >> Surely the donor of that money has a right to make their own selection?
>>
>> Of course.
>>
>> But why is it that so many people are illogical?
>>
I don't see that it is illogical for a benefactor to support one cause or individual rather than another.
What would be really illogical would be to leave your money to the NHS and say "you are the experts, spend it as you see fit".
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In picture I have seen, it seems that Spanish "Police" are not the Policia National or the Policia Local, but the para-military Guardia Civil - the heavy mob of Spanish law enforcement.
Rightly or wrongly, most Spanish folk are still pretty fearful of the Guardia whose modern day functions are motorway patrols and policing small communities where there is not sufficient justification for a Policia National presence.
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>> I don't see that it is illogical for a benefactor to support one cause or
>> individual rather than another.
The reasons for that choice may be completely illogical.
>> What would be really illogical would be to leave your money to the NHS and
>> say "you are the experts, spend it as you see fit".
>>
Some might argue that they are indeed the experts and therefore it would be completely logical to leave the decision to them!
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>> Some might argue that they are indeed the experts and therefore it would be completely
>> logical to leave the decision to them!
Depends what experts you are talking about. The problem of control in the NHS is very badly understood IMO by the politicians in charge and many of the people who work in it.
Most businesses run on a mixture of behaviour/input controls, (managing what people do) and output controls (measuring what they produce and giving them targets related to that).
At the extremes, somebody on a production line fitting steering wheels is managed by behaviour control - if he or she performs the right actions, the desired result will follow. A commission-only salesperson may have some behaviours defined but the main control is simply the results.
The health service we grew up with had very little in the way of output measures. Behaviour or process control could be said to apply to routine work like cleaning and basic nursing. But things like the allocation of resources, development of skills, and care quality were essentially managed by senior clinicians (or a small core of hospital managers who were probably former doctors anyway) "doing the right thing" as they saw it. That is, they were working to a framework of professional ethics; shared values; subjective quality standards; high level aims, rather than closely defined targets (e.g. "eliminate smallpox") and professional consensus, informed by experience of where the most benefit could be created.
All of that seemed very woolly to people who thought that they could measure and manage complicated transformation processes using simple targets.
People who simply ignored the adage, "what gets measured gets managed", the corollaries to which are that you either need so many targets that the measurement takes over the resources, or you completely distort behaviour - such as people being admitted to hospital after 3 hours and 55 minutes in A&E because the target for dealing with cases is four hours, and they pass the problem on to somebody else rather that miss the target; ambulances being parked outside the hospital for hours with patients inside so that the ambulance service, rather than the hospital, misses its service targets; or even hiring consultants to "re-code" causes of patient deaths so that they are removed from the avoidable mortality measures.
What politicians didn't like about the old system was that they couldn't measure and control it properly. They still can't, and attempting to do so is just draining effort and resources away from patient care.
I suspect similar things are happening with education, and the police.
Last edited by: Manatee on Wed 3 Sep 14 at 13:42
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"I suspect similar things are happening with education, and the police."
Indeed. I can't speak for the police, but in education the dreaded "Teaching Assessment Exercise" and its evil sister the "Research Assessment Exercise" have badly distorted how the third-level sector operates.
Essentially, its a treadmill of making sure you score OK on whatever metrics are in vogue this time around to secure enough funding to get into the next iteration of the same cycle. And its never ending.
As for the NHS, I was astonished to learn its the fifth largest employer in the world. Excluding armies, only the Indian state railway is larger. How on earth do you monitor and control such a behemoth centrally?!
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Story in today's comic about teachers who were themselves at school in the sixties and seventies being seriously deficient in English grammar, spelling and construction, so incompetent to teach the curriculum as it now is.
Well surprise surprise. Anyone who thinks I'm a lefty should have heard me on the subject at the time. Fell out with several people over all that balderdash about rote learning being obsolete and 'bad for children's emotional development'. Arrant perverse crap embraced by idle toerags masquerading as teachers.
Privileges like being British are a disaster when people in responsible positions are arrogant, thick and unprincipled. We haven't recovered as a country. Perhaps we never will.
Last edited by: VxFan on Wed 3 Sep 14 at 16:58
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I was waiting in a queue in a new wonder electronic Barclays and was watching BBC News 24 with subtitles. The text of the speaker referred to the the golf region when the topic was the Middle East.
A slip of the text ?
Oh ! It was the BBC :-)
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Do they not use automated speech recognition for live subtitles? Hence golf.
(They use asr for Youtube videos of course, and results are comically bad to the point of uselessness.)
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>> Do they not use automated speech recognition for live subtitles? Hence golf.
>>
Yes. You put "Tony Blair" into the machine and it comes out as "philanthropist".
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For live programmes, like the news, the subtitles are either entered using stenography machines and therefore use phonetics. So the subtitles can be wrong. Or respeaking might be used - repeating the broadcast into a microphone for auto generation of subtitles.
At the gym, the BBC News 24 subtitles can be amusing.
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I thought they used stenotype keyboards with real time automatic conversion for live captioning/subtitles - maybe they did once. I can't remember where I got that from.
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In the early years of subtitling live, up to at least 10 years ago, live subtitles were a stenographer operation. However the needed skills are rare and it is a very expensive operation to hire a stenographer. About £300 per hour was the going rate when I last hired one.
Speech to text makes the service a reasonable option and BBC RD did quite a lot of work on this - much, much better than the woeful 'service' (it's useless) offered by You Tube. Most of what you see now is speech to text, although I'd not be surprised if a few stenographers are still kept on as with a bit of experience a better service can be offered by some of them.
Last edited by: Slidingpillar on Wed 3 Sep 14 at 16:35
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>> I suspect similar things are happening with ...... and the police.
>>
You've hit it right on the head.
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Another account, judgement allowing tratment on Czech Republic and removing the child's status as a 'ward of court'.
www.judiciary.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/judgment-ashya-king-08092014.pdf
Paras 31-34 deal with reasonableness of court action over W/E of 28-30 Sept.
I stand by my original view that action in family court and moves to detain parents were correct application of precautionary principle.
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>> correct application of precautionary principle.
>>
I can't see any precautionary principle stated in the requirements of a EAW according to the European Commission website:
"Conditions
An EAW may be issued by a national judicial authority if:
the person whose return is sought is accused of an offence for which the maximum period of the penalty is at least one year in prison;
he or she has been sentenced to a prison term of at least four months."
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The EAW was issued on the grounds of "child cruelty" and would therefore comply with the condiitons you mention.
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But they had not been legally accused of it, and the section I quoted mentions nothing about a precautionary principle, ie just in case they might be accused of it.
Anybody might do anything, but that's no argument for locking them up just in case.
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The child was made a ward of court. The EAW cited child cruelty presumably on the basis of depriving a child of medical treatment and proper care. Nothing precautionary about that.
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>> But they had not been legally accused of it, and the section I quoted mentions
>> nothing about a precautionary principle, ie just in case they might be accused of it.
They don't need to be charged. Accusation/suspicion of an offence, in this case child neglect, is sufficient.
The judgement sets out side effects of tumour/treatment suffered and extent to which the kid was dependent on feeding pump and lose nursing care. Taking him away from hospital and on a long ferry/car journey is at least potentially neglect. Even a fit and healthy five year old would find that sort of journey a trial. Note he's being transferred to Prague by air ambulance.
If the authorities had done nothing and the kid died the hospital and Social Services would be the centre of a very different media storm.
In my view parents should be warned/cautioned for the offence of neglect but I suspect the way it's played in press and social media will pervert justice by making such a step untenable.
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>> In my view parents should be warned/cautioned for the offence of neglect but I suspect
>> the way it's played in press and social media will pervert justice by making such
>> a step untenable.
>>
Ditto.
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Right or wrong? - Zero
