Within days, two more social workers turned up on Sarah’s doorstep, but this time she was pleasantly surprised.  Ellen and Pam were normal human beings.  They actually sympathised with her about the fire, were understanding about her desire to home educate and were not so quick to judge.  Nevertheless Sarah was taken aback that they were even there in the first place.  Social services seemed to have an abundance of resources where her family was concerned.  As they departed, they assured the besieged single mother that they were satisfied that she was a loving and caring mother, that all four of her children were contented, well looked after, well-adjusted and safe and that no further action should be taken.

Meanwhile she received a letter from the Benefits Agency requesting permission to obtain all statements of recent years of her gas electric and phone bills. She was horrified.  Why were they still listening to her ex-partner, Beelzebub, when he was the fraudster?  Why was she being victimised whilst he was allowed to continue along his merry little crime-ridden road?  Why is it that it is always the women who get scapegoated?  And why is it that women get hounded, not men?  Eight months after she thought she’d shaken off her shackles, the ‘prince of darkness’ still had the state’s permission to control her movements.  Why?  Is it because the powerful positions in society are occupied by MEN? 

            Convinced about the conspiracy to cause her and her kids trouble and strife at every possible turnstile and that whatever she did she was damned, she turned to Jimmy O for advice:

            “Sounds like they’re digging their heels in.  You might be facing fraud charges.  Better let me listen to the tape first.  Don’t sign anything yet.  I’ll order the tape now and get back to you,” instructed her solicitor.

A few more days passed and Ellen and Pam showed up again. 

            “I’m sorry Sarah, they’re calling a child protection conference.  They’re not happy with your explanation of the fire and they want a few experts around a table to discuss it.  You don’t have to turn up if you want me to speak on your behalf but if you do attend, you get the opportunity to have your say; so you should try,” said a concerned Ellen.

            “What?  Child protection?  That’s a bit extreme isn’t it?  It was only a small, unexplained fire.  Hell, if I’d set it deliberately for insurance purposes I’d have done a good job of it.”

            “Well I think they’re overdoing the ‘erring on caution’ bit.  I wish they’d be more conscientious about the families who do need our intervention.  It’s always the same though. Still I’m not paid to make judgements,” commented Ellen.

            “So, what does it all mean?  What’s the worse thing that can happen at this meeting?” queried Sarah.

            “Well, the worst is that your kids will be registered ‘At Risk’ but don’t worry, it won’t come to that.  Really bad things have to happen before you get lumbered with that label,” said Ellen smiling warmly.

            Sarah smiled and breathed a huge sigh of relief.

BUT, a couple of weeks rolled by and Sarah and her brood found themselves floundering in shark-infested waters where she learned that all four of her babies were to be registered ‘At Risk’.  Sarah was distraught.  Her world had just collapsed.  For months now they’d promised it and now they’d done it.  The bastards were truly evil.  It was a final act of bile and treachery.  They were determined to take her children away.  Oh God.

            A po-faced panel of ten people had locked horns in earnest to decide that all of her children were at serious risk from her.  They’d come to this conclusion because of the fire, which they said had been started maliciously, because of the myriad of referrals, which had planted seed of doubt in their minds and because of the so-called ‘burn’ on Jessie’s shoulder, which had given them cause for concern.

            In all fairness, the two social workers, Ellen and Pam, were as shocked as she was.  They had voted against the registration arguing that Sarah posed no threat to her children but they were outnumbered.  Of course Sarah knew exactly who was to blame.  With all guns blazing, detective Welsh had been determined that Sarah and her kids would suffer this gross injustice.  He was the one with his grubby little fist in the air first when votes were required as to the demolition of her family and most of the rest just lamely followed his lead.  There wasn’t even a fire officer at the meeting or a statement from the fire dept.  The Chair, Mr Glen Snakey had insisted that there was an out of hours social worker in attendance on the night of the fire, yet Sarah knew that that was a lie, the ‘Burn’ had proven to be harmless eczema and the ‘referrals’ were made by her bloody-minded ex.

            Sarah was spitting blood.  These people, most of whom she’d never seen before, had been plucked out of a box labelled ‘Child Welfare Expert’ and were deemed suitable to decide the fate of her children’s future.  On the outside they were pleasant, professional, amiable people - decent types who you could trust to do the right thing.  That was the perception.  But it was a cleverly contrived facade.  She knew the reality.  This was nothing short of a collaboration of dark and sinister goings-on at the highest levels, instigated by her brutal ex-partner to start the ball rolling in Child Care Proceedings.

            Sarah vomited fury:

            “Gregory Potter planned all this. He did this to his ex-wife and now he’s doing it to me.  HE made those slanderous, spiteful calls to social services.  My kids have been set-up by the police and council.... We’ve been lied to and threatened for months with this ‘AT Risk’ label.... If we hadn’t had the fire, something else would have happened that would lead to this registration.  Something powerful and ugly is going on here.  I don’t know exactly what, but I will find out one day....”

            “I can assure you Ms Hawthorne,” butted in Snakey, “this had nothing whatsoever to do with your ex-partner.  Are you suggesting that Mr Potter started the fire?”

            “Well, no.  I don’t know how the fire started.  It’s a mystery to me.  Perhaps it was the kettle.  An electrician that I spoke to has told me that fires can start in electrical items even when they are switched off, if there is a fault.... I don’t know if there has been any supernatural influence.  I was just being honest about our experiences because they were so bizarre and because I couldn’t find a cause.  The point is we should not be blamed as we have done nothing wrong.  Things have been happening to us against our will and now these proceedings will prove to be very damaging.  I stand to lose my babies to a child abuser and I’m devastated....” she broke off choking on tears.  It was no use protesting.  As far as she was concerned the panel had emotional constipation.  She was trying to walk through a thicket of thorns.

            “This is about the care and protection of your children, not about blame,” they all seemed to chorus together.

            “Don’t make me puke,” screamed Sarah.  “You are such liars.  No one cares about my kids but me.”

            “If the children are at such risk, perhaps they shouldn’t go home with their mother

tonight,” suggested one of the prickly professionals.

            Another one joined in, “I think it will be necessary for the two older children and their mother to be assessed by psychiatrists.  We need to have a thorough risk assessment.”

            Sarah sat seething and glaring at the devils sitting around the awesome oval table.  But she said nothing.  In the heavily charged atmosphere and facing a busload of insecurities, her head began spinning and swirling.  They were planning to take her children away.  It was all she could think about.... Little lambs to the slaughter.  Her heart was heavy with the pain.  Tears stung her eyes.  She was in shock, overcome with disbelief and grief.  She looked over at her four children playing contentedly with the council’s building blocks and other nifty gadgets.  She even heard someone commenting on what lovely children she had and how well behaved they all were.

            “So why then are you doing this to us?” she heard herself squeaking.

            “You had a fire Ms Hawthorne.  It’s a very serious matter.  The children could’ve died,” said the school nurse.

            “Anyone is a risk from a fire.  You would be.  Why are we being blamed?  We’re not criminals and I’m a good mother,” Sarah blurted out.

            “It’s for your own good.  We’re only thinking of the children and what’s in their best interests,” said Snakey.

            “No you’re not, you want to cause us all suffering and sorrow.”

            As she sat staring through the blinding, throttling haze, she could hear their venomous tongues wagging.  They were talking proudly amongst themselves about other lives that they’d ruined.  They were chattering nonchalantally about people they know who had just been sectioned or sent to prison or pushed into some other cold, calculating institute of autocratic, totalitarian rule.  The beasts were wrecking people’s lives so easily, so offhandedly, so authoritatively and so triumphantly.  They didn’t care about the innocent victims under sufferance or about uprightness and honour.  And there was not a damned thing anyone could do to challenge their decisions.  Sarah really wanted to survive this gross injustice and she desperately wanted to emerge at the end of it a winner and with all her faculties intact, but right now she felt like an infant born out of a corpse.

            Eventually the stony-faced Satanists decided that she could take the children home with her for the time being but that an urgent core group would need to be set up and many more meetings arranged.  When Snakey ordered her to keep all combustibles on her person she couldn’t help but think about all the lighters that littered the streets, and all the syringes.... not to mention the fact that she’d probably be stopped by the police for carrying offensive weapons! 

            The Chair tried to tell her that the registration wouldn’t jeopardise her work with ‘special needs’ children but when he refused to give her such an assurance in writing, she knew that that too would turn out to be just another lie.

They walked home in sombre mood.  The depressing and guiling news had blown a fuse in everyone’s heads.  David spoke first:

            “If any stupid social worker tries to take us away, I’ll run away and hide.  I’ll climb up that big tree opposite our house and hide in there - all night if I have to.  Bloody bastards.”

            “You can say that again,” agreed Sarah.  She reached out to her kids and cuddled them close.  She was gutted.  What in hell’s name was going on?  She couldn’t for the life of her figure it out.  How could they do this to her family?  Cara lost her own flesh and blood.  Now she stood to lose hers.  Savage Greg Potter was winning again.  How could this be happening?  Where were her rights?  Who was Gregory Potter?  Damn it; who the hell was he?

            “No-one’s going to take you away,” she screamed.  “God help any of them if they try.  They’ll have to kill me first.”

At home she called her solicitor. 

            “They’ve registered my kids ‘at risk’.  They’ve got no right.  They said we’ve got to see psychiatrists and that we face months of meetings with social workers and loads of meetings with other health care experts.  Surely I don’t have to put up with this?  It’s an invasion of our privacy and totally unwarranted.  I must be able to challenge it legally; mustn’t I?” Sarah blurted out.

            Jimmy O was unsympathetic.  Strangely he didn’t even sound surprised.  It was as if he knew this was going to happen.  Sarah forced herself to ignore her suspicions.  She told herself she was being paranoid.  Something unsavoury was going on with Greg and the authorities; that was pretty clear.  But there was no proof that Jimmy Oliver was in on it.

            “Unfortunately the Council do have the right to register kids and carry out Comprehensive Risk Assessments if they feel children are at risk.  It is their duty,” her solicitor informed her.  “You just have to go along with it.  Hey, lighten up; more power to your elbow at the end of it all though.  Don’t worry; it shouldn’t affect the current court proceedings.  If they don’t find anything of concern then there’s nothing to panic about is there?” 

            Then Jimmy O put the boot in by telling her that Gregory was again asking for custody of the babies even though he’d recently backed down from that in exchange for substantial contact.  It was as if Greg also already knew that her kids were registered [or that he knew beforehand that they were going to be.  Well, he would, wouldn’t he?  Hadn’t he planned all this?]   Of course none of this was about the babies; it was about games - dark, dirty, despicable tricks.  And it didn’t matter what Greg said or didn’t say about his residence application.  The truth was he’d never intended dropping it and he never would.  It was his ticket to continue teasing and torturing his fatigued ex-fiancee.

So that was that.  Now she was in for a collision course with big, bad mighty social services.  She knew that she was now well and truly at their mercy.  ‘Better not slip on a banana skin now,’ she instructed herself.  Because of the loathsome ‘At risk’ label, she faced the very real prospect of losing her babies to a maniacal child batterer.  Is this what the Child Welfare Experts really wanted?  Everything that they were supposed to stand for seemed, in reality, to be totally the opposite.  And she knew that her case was, by far, not an isolated one.

Desperate to talk to someone who could feel her pain, someone who really knew and understood how she felt, she contacted Cara again, praying that she’d talk.  Sarah wanted her to testify in court against repugnant Gregory Potter.  But she hadn’t so far responded to any of Sarah’s letters.  And it seemed she wouldn’t take any of her calls either.  Sarah was informed that staff cannot accept personal calls anymore, so she was told not to phone there again.  She was assured that her message would be passed on to Cara though.  Sarah wondered if Cara had been warned off.  Had the ‘heavies’ been threatening her again?

Her only other hope was the head-teacher of Dingleton High.  She didn’t like phoning Miss Jones; she’d made a number of calls already and didn’t want to become a burden.

            “Hello, I’m sorry to be a nuisance, but I have nowhere else to turn.  You are the only one who tells me the truth and who is supportive and has not been intimidated yet by Greg.” 

            “Well it’s funny you should say that.  Have you told him about our conversations?” Miss Jones asked inquisitively.

            “Crikey no.  I say very little to him.  I’m terrified of provoking him.”

            “Well that’s odd.  Only he knows somehow that you’ve been calling me.  I got a letter from the LEA telling me that Mr Potter is threatening me with court action if I don’t back off.  He reckons he’s going to sue me for defamation of character.”

            “Oh God, I’m so sorry about that.  I don’t want to get you into trouble,” babbled a distressed Sarah.

            “Don’t worry about that.  Just let him try,” barked the headmistress.  Sarah was impressed with Miss Jones’ tough talk.  She grinned as she recalled her as being a petite lady with a huge formidable character.  Miss Jones continued:

            “I’ll help wherever I can.  Cara only had the school to fall back on too.  Yet she still lost out completely.  This was despite the report that I wrote for the court when she and Greg were divorcing which was overwhelmingly in her favour.  I never understood that.”

            “I’ve been trying to contact her to get her support but she won’t talk to me,” sighed Sarah.

            “No, she won’t.  She’s been hurt too badly.  Her memories are too painful.  She was treated appallingly, not just by him but by the Authorities too.  Her little children Kim and Lee suffered terribly.  They went into a shell when their mother was forced to flee.  There was so much involvement with the child welfare services, yet they never called a conference.  I sit on lots of conferences and I wished I’d had the opportunity to speak up on Kim’s and Lee’s behalf but I never got the chance.”

            “That’s weird.  We had one tiny fire - completely unexplained, and now all hell’s been let loose.  My kids are now registered ‘At Risk’ after one meeting and I’m so terrified that that sweet-talking con-man Greg Potter is going to get my babies too.”

            Miss Jones gasped, “Well, that’s astonishing.  I know how very hard it is to get a child registered.  I’ve seen lots of cases where shockingly abused children are not put on the ‘At Risk’ register.  It is alarming.  Something strange must be going on.”

            “I think there is an all-male collusion lurking in the background,” said Sarah.

            “Well, men are in charge, that’s for sure,” continued the Head.  “We’re women.  We’re the underdogs.  Our place is in the kitchen.  Listen; tell your social worker to give me a ring.  I’ll put her in the picture about Mr Gregory Potter.  Have you thought about writing to your MP too?  It’s worth a go.”

            Sarah breathed her thankyous, then gave her pal Lol a quick call.

            “I’ve just been chucked into the lion’s den.  They’ve registered all my kids ‘At Risk’.”

            “They’ve done what?  Christ Almighty they’ve got some explaining to do,” belched Lorraine.  “I bet you feel really lousy Sar.”

            “I’m doing my head in.  Don’t know where to turn.  I swear I’ll top myself if I lose my kids.  Oh God, what if the court rules in his favour?  The system is a sham.  It’s run by men.  If social services and all the other Devil agencies were privatised they’d stop wasting their money on me and would soon sod off and leave me alone.  I’ve just heard that the lizard has threatened the school Head with slander.  Those lousy libel laws make me spit.  They are there to protect dirty dealing, despicable little men.  I reckon they don’t get to the top unless they sign corruption treaties or something.  Have you noticed it’s all men right at the top?  Powerful men are moral cretins.”

            “Men make you puke,” Lol added.  “They are all the same.  In public they are Mr Gentleman, Mr Honourable member of society, but at home, in private, most of them are truly evil - bastards beyond belief.   I saw a programme this morning about domestic violence.  Two women a week in this country DIE at the hands of the men who supposedly love them.  It is such a common occurrence that no one bothers to report it in the papers anymore.  Such is the deafening sound of women’s silence.  Out of all crime, less than half is reported to the police and out of all the calls that are reported, the majority are about domestic violence.”

            “Yeah, they bang on about human rights, what about women’s rights?” Sarah skitted.  “Women are not human beings, they are objects - body parts, for men to profiteer from and sexually indulge in.  Women are stifled and forced into inferiority.  If that isn’t the case, why aren’t there as many if not more women in government and other powerful positions as men?  Women are generally more intelligent, better managers, mentally tougher, less selfish, have more common sense and possess more morality in their little fingers than men.  But men lie and bully women out of top jobs because they fear women rising up against their male supremacy.  They fear exposure and they are terrified of the world knowing their sadistic secrets.”

            Lol butted in, “What they’re too thick to realise tho is that too many of us sisters are becoming their victims and that together we are a formidable force.  More and more of us are let down and abused by the court so we are finding other ways to be heard - on radio and TV chat shows, in women’s mags....”

            “While they are there busily protecting their empires, the women continue to suffer psychic violence and physical assault and the little children continue to languish in the depths of despair,” said scathing Sarah.

            “Son’s of hell,” blasted Lol.

            “Masters of pain,” hissed Sarah.

            “Fathers of shame,” jeered Lol.

            “Twisters of truth,” spewed Sarah.

            “Sons of war,” spat Lol.

            “And no one knowing the full scale awfulness because of towers of silence,” barked Sarah.

            Their slagging off session was interrupted by the piercing shrill of her doorbell.  She opened it to see silly men in vans happily bugging poor unsuspecting residents.  Government agents shoved fat booklets through people’s doors expecting folk to spend hours ticking stupid little boxes where questions ask you how many people live in your house, who is related to who and how and what type of bog roll you use - Andrew’s or Kwik’s no frills?  Christ in this island you can’t breathe, fart, piss, whistle now without them knowing.  The government in all their glorified wisdom insist on spending millions of other people’s dosh on totally useless CENSUS questionnaires on the pretext that information is needed so that councils can plan how many/what size hospitals/schools/bus stops etc etc etc are needed.  RUBBISH!  Folk tell them often enough that the class sizes are too big, school buildings are falling down, hospitals are understaffed, waiting lists too long etc etc etc.  They don’t need every individual household to tell them what they already know but choose to ignore.

            “What if I just bin this bureaucratic crap in my wheelie?” enquired a peeved Sarah to the state stooge standing on her step.

            “The law says you have to fill it in.  You can go to jail for non-compliance,” chanted the puppet.

            “Stuff the law.  The law’s an Ass.  WE are being persecuted by virtually all of her majesty’s agencies.  My son is accused of arson, I’m accused of fraud, we’re accused of having psychopathic tendencies.... I stand to lose my kids, my job, my mind.... and all because of an evil-minded, lying bastard who has corrupt friends in high places.  And all you nit wits are bothered about are booklets full of BULLDUST.”

More weeks shuffled by.  Sarah was insistent on the house remaining spotless at all times.  She wasn’t going to give any welfare worker the satisfaction of visiting a dirty hovel and more reason to believe that her kids were at risk or neglected.  But it was a strain and Sarah took her irritation and tiredness out on the kids.  She was forever shouting and swearing at them.  It wasn’t their fault and she tried hard to keep herself in check and not burden them anymore.  Not that any of the health care professionals would be concerned about fairness.  Her frustrations would be an excuse for them to remove the kids from her. 

            By now the family had to stomach weekly sessions with a team of Health visitors, Educational Social Workers and Family Placement Social Workers.  Sometimes social workers Daphne and Meg insisted on sitting on her sofa for two hours at a time exchanging gossip which they informed her was part of the risk assessment.  Sometimes Sarah’s dad sat in on the meetings too.  Every so often he’d lower his voice and sternly hiss “Sarah” in exactly the same way that he did when she was cheeky as a child.

            Sarah was forced to give details about her past, her parents’ past [including the state of their marriage] her brother and his family.... She had to talk about the places where she’d lived and worked and her childhood, schooling and qualifications.... The social workers wanted to know about her pregnancies, David’s reaction to Anna’s arrival, what illnesses David had as a child, how old David and Anna were when they started talking, how David and Anna got on at school.... The list was endless.  It was unrelenting, tiresome nonsense; a complete disemboweling experience; and none of it to do with how she might reduce the risk that they said she was to her children.

             They insisted it was a background.  Sarah called it an invasion.  Every week they pestered her with more of Greg’s ‘concerns’.  Apparently the master of lies called regularly at their office with tales that Jason and Jessie had arrived at the church - dirty, in clothes inappropriate for the weather, in soiled nappies, with beetroot raw bums, with cuts and bruises and all the rest of it.  While all the time he was insisting that Sarah was harassing and abusing him.  And they believed him! 

            Mr Malignant also carried tales about her older children.  He’d say that they were associating with drug addicts, that they’d been seen drinking alcohol, torturing cats and dogs, stealing from shops, pick-pocketing, riding their bikes on the main road miles away from home.  And they questioned her about it!

Soon after, Sarah and her family were dragged into the valley of death again for a confrontation with a table-full of Devils.  As the conference progressed, fourteen pairs of horns grew longer and uglier and insults between Sarah and them bounced like great balls of fire.  The toffee-nosed bunch picked at everything and anything they could regarding Sarah’s methods of bringing up her children.  They had a go at the fact that she home educates, that her children don’t socialise in the way that they felt children should, that is in a classroom with thirty odd other kids of their age surrounding them.  They were worried about the fact that David and Anna were mature beyond their years, very aware about the world around them and that they weren’t childish or silly in the sense that they expected children to be.  They didn’t believe her when, after being pressed, she spoke about the spirits.  This was even tho she could tell them that a Priest had visited her, that he had blessed the house and had informed her that many other people have had spiritual experiences.  He had also given her some documentation on research which had been carried out by reputable Christian bodies.  Yet they still poo poo’d it all and instead unleashed a slow-acting poison.

            They’d even brought in reinforcements.  A fire representative was there to give his version of events and the council’s priggish legal representative sat so high on her pedestal that Sarah felt sure that if she stared hard and long enough, the woman would eventually topple off.  Their self-satisfied solicitor couldn’t wait to recite the conditions necessary for triggering child protection procedures and she delighted in informing Sarah that her case was dangerously close to it. 

            Sarah had had a comprehensive lung-full of it.  With nostrils alert to signs of impending doom and danger, she clawed her way back:

            “Is this how you repay people who are perfectly honest with you and who are only trying to do the right thing for their children?  Why am I having such a battle fighting for the right to do what’s right for my children’s sakes?  What kind of democracy is that?  Now I understand why there is so much public discontent and such a need for private armies.  Your type WASTE taxpayer’s money by your heavy-handed officialdom, your bureaucracy, your bad management, your incompetence.... Not to mention your high wages, luxury buildings, posh cars, exorbitant allowances, military might and your FAILURE to tackle crime and do the jobs you’re paid to do.  YOU people should be subject to performance related pay - you’d soon be out on your ears.”

            Sarah was beginning to warm up now.  She was on a roll.   Her forthrightness surprised even her.  It was as if someone or something had sprang into her mouth and was speaking for her:

            “And what is worse is that government officials and persons of high standing collude in the most despicable manner to mask their sins and sentence innocents to pay heavily for their crimes.  If all publicly funded organisations were fully accountable to the public, corruption would soon be snuffed out.  It would be quite simple to achieve.  Scrap the confidentiality and data-protection laws and allow the public, especially journalists, access to important documentation.  There should be full openness and transparency.  It is the public’s money; they have a right to know how it is being spent.  Officials needn’t be worried; if they have done nothing wrong, journalists will soon lose interest and will stop poking around.”

            The Devil’s disciples were struck dumb.  Sarah was in her element now putting them on trial.  She bulldozed on undaunted, unremitting and unchallenged:

            “The public don’t want any more fudge ups, lies, deceit, miscarriages of justice and more publicly funded bodies overseeing existing ones.  We’ve had enough of cosmetic government enquiries, concealment and cover up, secrecy and privilege, hypocrisy and pretension. We want laws to be enforced fairly for EVERYONE including royalty, other titled persons, fat cat bosses and dignitaries. 

            Why are bosses of multinationals allowed to make such obscene profits at the expense of their workers?  Why are they allowed to barge around imposing their will over everyone and monopolising the world?  Why are they allowed to break the laws and avoid paying their taxes?  Why are they allowed to pollute the planet and destroy the environment? 

            Why are organisations allowed to be institutionalised racist and sexist?  Why aren’t police commissioners, drugs barons and smugglers, human traffickers, porn bosses, corrupt sports officials, railway bosses, paedophile gangs, fraudulent government officials, professional hit-men.... brought to book? 

            Why are sanctions put on countries when it is always the innocent civilians who suffer? 

            Why are children forced to spend time with fathers who hate their kids and want to hurt them?  Why are there so many sick and suffering children on our street and so many battered and abused and dead women?  And why are kids fostered out in spite of social services not because of them?  And as far as schools are concerned, they should be burnt down.  They fail our children.  Kids are brainwashed there; taught to be slaves.  The government don’t want an educated, thinking population.  They don’t want to be challenged and so they bimbamboozle the public to protect their corrupt lucrative lifestyles.  They start by controlling children’s minds, professing to ‘educate’ them.  Now they want to take over the minds of three-year-olds!  Get them young to inflict the most damage.  

            Why are judges, magistrates, politicians, council officials.... never answerable?  How can governments with their army of spin-doctors be called democratic?  Why do organisations need a ‘public relations’ firm?  If they are reputable and beyond reproach, they shouldn’t need a gloss-over.  Their work would speak for itself.   Mother Theresa did worldwide good works.  She didn’t need a PR company or a bag full of guns or big bad bodyguards, she had an army of sisters.” 

            Sarah was firing on all cylinders now.  It felt good to get so much off her chest, and her audience were prefect participants.  They sat silently, timidly and politely, taking it all in.  She cruised on unrestrained:

            “Why do the likes of you imprison harmless victims and good people such as peaceful protestors, whistle blowers and political activists?  And why do you attack easy targets like me….?  I’ll tell you why.  You want to silence the voices of dissent.  The real criminals - those fat cat men who have stolen all the money, have an army of supporters and craters full of weapons are untouchable; they are above the law.  You fear them.   You won’t mess with them because they are more powerful than you.  Who’s going to put them on trial especially since they hide behind their honourable positions in society or their grand sounding titles or their seemingly respectable business practices?  They are protected.  So instead you pretend.  You pretend to be fighting crime, you pretend to protect children, you pretend to help the old and infirm and in the doing you all too often lock up the wrong ones - the ones who can’t fight back - the ones who are vulnerable and alone and the ones who have no voice and no powerful backup.   Shame on you.”

            Sarah had enjoyed her few minutes of glorious fighting talk but she knew she was going to have to pay for it.  She was in for it now.  The bloody bunch of bureaucratic bigots began to bang on about all the ‘assessments’ that would need to be undertaken by her and David and Anna and they insisted that her kids would need to questioned alone and in depth by psychiatrists and social workers.  She would not be allowed to be present because they did not want her to influence them. 

            ‘There they go again,’ she thought, grimacing.  The weak bastards were picking on the most powerless again.  Just like her unsavoury ex they intended to punish her through her kids.  This was not about offering her assistance and support as the liars had tried to make out.  This was council control at all costs.

            It wasn’t until they got up to leave the jaws of death that Snakey had the courtesy to inform her that she was allowed a solicitor as long as he/she remained a silent observer only.  ‘How one-sided can you get?’ said the voice in her head.  They can have whomever they want at the meetings and they can consult with whoever they please.  Their legal beadle is an active participant at the table and is allowed to pass judgement.  But she is on her tod and is silenced by confidentiality laws!  They were even hell bent on keeping her at arms length from her own kids - all of whom were younger than aged eleven! 

            She also learned that she had the right of appeal.  Sarah felt annoyed that Jimmy O hadn’t thus far offered to support her and sit in on the meetings.