⟡ PLACEMENT HARM: SHAMING & EMOTIONAL ABUSE ⟡
Filed: 29 September 2025
Reference: SWANK/WESTMINSTER/PLACEMENT-HARM-SHAMING
Download PDF: 2025-09-29_Core_PC-178_WestminsterCouncil_ShamingAbuse_PlacementHarm.pdf
Summary: A record of institutional humiliation — where Westminster’s placements teach shame, fear, and silence instead of dignity, safety, and voice.
I. What Happened
While under Local Authority care, the four children of the Applicant were subjected to repeated acts of emotional abuse within the foster placement.
These include: the banning of a medical alert bracelet, intimidation through fabricated “safety” stories, derogatory language learned from carers, and discriminatory remarks about nationality.
The pattern reflects a culture of control through shame — a form of social training wholly alien to lawful safeguarding.
II. What the Document Establishes
• Blocking a medical alert bracelet constitutes clinical negligence and disability discrimination.
• “Fear-based messaging” is not safety education but psychological conditioning.
• Normalising insults teaches emotional hierarchy, not resilience.
• Discriminatory and humiliating remarks qualify as identity-based abuse under the Equality Act 2010.
• Professional corroboration (via Bruce Murphy) confirms verbal abuse occurred.
• The placement environment therefore meets statutory and clinical definitions of emotional harm.
III. Why SWANK Logged It
• To record that the State’s substitute parenting model is a pedagogical failure.
• To show that humiliation is not supervision.
• To preserve proof that silence has been enforced through fear of sibling separation.
• Because the record must outlive the excuses.
IV. Applicable Standards & Violations
• Children Act 1989, s.31 — Emotional abuse threshold met.
• Children Act 2004, s.11 — Duty to secure lawful safeguarding.
• Equality Act 2010 — Protected characteristics: race, nationality, disability.
• Fostering Services: National Minimum Standards (2011) — Standards 4, 7, 9 violated.
• Working Together to Safeguard Children (2018) — Emotional abuse definition met.
• Human Rights Act 1998 / ECHR Articles 3 & 8 — Protection from degrading treatment; right to family life.
• Case Law: Re B (A Child) [2013] UKSC 33; YC v UK (2012) 55 EHRR 967; K & T v Finland (2001) 36 EHRR 18.
V. SWANK’s Position
This is not “difficult behaviour in placement.”
This is emotional choreography for the convenience of the institution.
SWANK does not accept the replacement of affection with fear.
We reject Westminster’s attempt to re-brand degradation as care.
We record every humiliation, word-for-word, until compassion becomes policy.
⟡ This Entry Has Been Formally Archived by SWANK London Ltd. ⟡
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Filed with deliberate punctuation, preserved for litigation and education.
Because evidence deserves elegance.
And children deserve better adults.