Our tranquillity was destroyed one day by one single phone call on a Wednesday afternoon. Mum had officially applied to have the children returned and has said that she will do anything to get the children home as she was worried that the children were being mistreated, by us. To back this up we received, unannounced a visit by the local Police responding to an anonymous phone call from a ‘concerned neighbour’. The Police were doing their job, we understand that, but the Constable they sent looked about 18 and was asking where the children were. He looked embarrassed when we said they were at school, where they normally were at that time of the day. The officer asked if he could check upstairs to which we agreed. He came back down, again looking embarrassed and asked if he could wait for the children to return home. We made him a coffee and let him speak to our Supervising Social Worker on the phone. I think he was reassured by talking to somebody else and decided he would leave after talking to his supervising officer. He had left by the time the kids came home and they were oblivious to what had happened. We had a call from the kid’s Social Worker to ask if everybody was ok and to ask if we had told the kids what had happened. So we settled down for the evening and the kids were watching TV. At about 8pm there was a loud incessant knock on the door. I went and answered and, yet again, it was the Police. Yet another call claiming that a child could be heard screaming. It was a different officer but we showed him into the kids living room where they were sat watching the TV. The girls smiled and just went back to watching the telly.
Once again we went through the rigmarole of letting the officer talk to our Supervising Social Worker and after that call he spoke to the duty Social Worker. He asked the Social Worker if they knew who could be making the calls and the duty Social Worker actually replied no. Obviously the duty Social Worker wasn’t fully up to date with our case and the behaviour of the girl’s Mum. The officer asked us and I said yes. I told him that the girl’s Mum was a bit of a ‘loose cannon’ and she had said that she wanted the children home in whatever way she could. The officer said he would log the details and apologised for the inconvenience. The girls asked if everything was ok and why had the Police visited. We answered that it was a false alarm and the girls were happy with that. It was a bit of a shock but not unexpected that Mum would do something like that. Anyway the girls were oblivious to what was going on. So it got to bedtime and the girls went up, then our boys went up and then us. We were woken by the home phone ringing. I looked at the clock it was 2:15am. I answered and it was disconnected. This happened 3 more times but, when I tried 1471 it was number withheld. The following morning, after the girls had left, we chatted to our Supervising Social Worker and made them aware what had happened.
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