Kerry Robertson, who has mild learning difficulties, was told her wedding was being halted just 48 hours before she was to walk up the aisle with fiance Mark McDougall.Say what...?
Miss Robertson, 17, had bought her wedding dress and the couple had booked the church ceremony, bought the rings and organised a reception to be held last Saturday
But two days before they were due to say their vows in front of 20 guests, social services told the bride-to-be that she would have to cancel the big day because she 'did not understand the implications of getting married'.
Miss Robertson, of Dunfermline, Fife, has been in the care of her grandmother since she was nine months old after her parents were unable to look after her, with her welfare overseen by social workers at Fife council.So when she moved in with a man, they couldn't care less. When she got pregnant, they couldn't care less (though I just bet they have plans for this baby...).
In January this year, she met Mr McDougall, a 25-year-old artist from Arbroath. When Miss Robertson became pregnant, they began making wedding plans.
Mr McDougall said their nightmare began last Thursday when two social workers arrived at the flat they have shared for the past four months.
He said: 'We were about to go out and make final arrangements for our wedding when we heard a frantic rapping at the door.
'When we opened it, two social workers burst in and told us that the marriage was illegal because Kerry has learning difficulties and did not possess the capacity to make such a decision.
'Kerry burst into tears. 'But despite arguing with the social workers that we loved one another and didn't want our baby to be born to unmarried parents, they wouldn't budge.'
But when they decided to get married, they waited until the last minute, and halted it. Because they could.
Legally, if the system works the same in Scotland as in England, they could do absolutely nothing about the other two things (not without incurring the wrath of the HRA, anyway), but this one, they could. And so they did.
It's all about power with these people, isn't it? Power, and sticking it to the little people purely to show them who is in charge...
6 comments:
Somewhere on my blog I did a post about 'Dumb and Dumber' Dumb being my twin Bro. He suffers from some weird, as yet undiagnosed mental disability (from birth). Just over a year ago he got married, to dumber (who has Down's). Be offended by my terms if you will but the crux of this comment is thus, My Ma and I opposed this wedding every step of the way. Not because we are meanies but because we didn't believe Dumb (mental age 8 - 19 depending on circumstance) and Dumber, his Down Syndrome wife did not have the mental capacity to understand the legally binding contract they were entering into. Needless to say, Her family (that have spent their lives looking after two disabled children and now have a 5 bedroom house with swimming pool in this country and a villa in Turkey, all paid for by the Tax payer, via incapacity benefit/carers allowance etc), twin Bro's social workers and the care organisation that are sub-contracted (at £34 per hour) by SS to look after him thought me and Ma were wrong. We were accused of attempting to hold Bro back and of being the spastic version of racist bigots.
I suspect that modern day social workers find it easier to persecute those that are a weeny bit thick than those that are seriously deficiant in mentality.
Am ranting now, sorry.
Mummy x
Here's one for you.
"...did not have the mental capacity to understand the legally binding contract they were entering into..."
Oh, I don't doubt that (every case is different, of course), but you opposed it from the point of family. You didn't bering the weight of law down on them. You couldn't...
"I suspect that modern day social workers find it easier to persecute those that are a weeny bit thick than those that are seriously deficiant in mentality."
I think they're like jackals - they prefer the weak and helpless.
"Here's one for you."
oh, yes. I've just been reading up on this on a variety of websites.
It looks like the 'Summer of Discontent' they were hoping for is going to be - no pun intended - an Indian one...
There should be a Marxist barrier to entry to anyone who wants to be a 'social worker' viz., Groucho's claim that he wouldn't want to be a member of a club that would have him. If you can conceive of yourself being a member of an organisation that has the power to decide whether two people can marry then you should a priori be ruled out of contention for the post.
The question that sits on top of this is how can we, as a society, row ourselves back from this situation? Is there a way without bloodshed? Is there a way without mass bloodshed?
Above was me.
"we didn't want our baby to be born to unmarried parents"
Oh dear, that's an error. The SS will stop it for that statement alone. Old-fashioned conservative values like that? Obviously a sign of mental defficiency!
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