R (Chromatic) v Hornal & Westminster: The Emotional Territory of Article 8 and the Bureaucratic Audacity to Trespass

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🪞SWANK ENTRY
“They Violate Because They Do Not Feel”
On Artificial Persons, Article 8, and the Emotional Barbarity of Social Workers

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⟡ Filed:

15 July 2025

⟡ Reference Code:

SWANK/PRIVLIFE/KH-01

⟡ PDF Filename:

2025-07-15_SWANK_Addendum_PrivateLife_Article8.pdf

⟡ One-line Summary:

Article 8 reminds us that even emotion is a legal territory. Westminster trespassed.

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I. What Happened

It’s not often that one opens a legal textbook and finds their trauma explained better than any lawyer ever has. But Merris Amos, in her chapter on Article 8: The Right to Respect for Private Life, has done precisely that.

There it is in black-and-white, footnoted glory: the emotional dignity of a human being is protected by law. The right to privacy of thought, emotional boundaries, and sensibility is not a poetic suggestion. It is law. It is Article 8(1).

And yet, in the strange bureaucratic burlesque that is Westminster Children’s Services, this legal truth is routinely violated by people who seem deeply allergic to the concept of restraint.

Kirsty Hornal, for instance, seems personally offended by the idea that she might not be entitled to inspect, interrogate, and insult every crevice of my emotional life — particularly if it’s in the name of “concern.”

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II. What the Evidence Says

The passage I annotated reads:

“An intrusion into such matters has an extra dimension, in the shape of the damage done to the sensibilities of a human being by exposing to strangers the inner workings of their mind…”

And yet, somehow, Kirsty believes she’s entitled to my:

• Feelings

• Fears

• Medical status

• Grief

• Household layout

• Family dynamics

• Religious beliefs

• And even, occasionally, my furniture choices

Not because there is risk.
Not because there is law.
But because she wants access — and nobody has told her no loudly enough.
Until now.

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III. Why SWANK Logged It

We logged it because this page proves what the entire Children Act industry pretends not to understand:

• That a safeguarding concern is not a legal override of private life.

• That concern is not a credential.

• That familiarity does not create jurisdiction.

• That trauma is not an invitation.

The law protects private life because people like Kirsty exist — people who believe that paperwork elevates them above proportionality, who see no problem with emotionally ransacking a mother’s life, who believe compassion is a checkbox and dignity is negotiable.

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IV. Violations Documented

• Article 8(1) – Violation of emotional and psychological privacy

• Common Law Duty of Confidence – Breached by overreach and repeated forced disclosures

• Disability Neglect – Ignoring protected health conditions (eosinophilic asthma, muscle dysphonia)

• Safeguarding Misuse – Claiming oversight where no necessity, legality, or proportionality exists

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V. SWANK’s Position

We file this page not because we need to prove that harm occurred.
That much is obvious.

We file it because the law — even in its coldest technical form — agrees.

Even a company, Amos notes, may claim Article 8 protection if unjustly scrutinised.
And yet I, a living human mother with a severe respiratory condition, am given less privacy than a boardroom agenda.

The law recognises emotional invasion.
It recognises dignity as a legal site.
It recognises what Kirsty never will:

That emotion is evidence.
That dignity is non-negotiable.
And that social workers are not exempt from the European Convention.

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⟡ SWANK London Ltd. Evidentiary Catalogue
Downloaded via www.swanklondon.com
Not edited. Not deleted. Only documented.

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