They Are Brutal: Whistleblower Leah Summers Exposes Gloucester Social Services

For many of the families that are fighting desperately within the Social Services and Family Courts system to prevent their children being taken for adoption, or who are desperately trying to establish contact with their children already taken into Social Services’ care, or for those that are fighting to expose the abuse of their children in the child protection system itself, there is a fundamental question they all ask. 

And that question is: ‘If we as mums and dads can see the cruelty and crimes being carried out within the Social Services, Family Courts, and wider child protection system, why do the good social workers and other professionals not speak out’? 

The truth is that some do speak out, and they do so at great risk and cost to themselves. Others see the crimes of which they are an unwilling part and are bullied into silence or are simply too scared to speak out and lose their jobs and livelihoods.

One very brave lady who has been prepared to speak out is Leah Summers, who was previously a professional Family Group Conference Coordinator working alongside Social Services teams in Gloucestershire. When it became apparent to Leah that professional child protection boundaries were being crossed and both children and families were suffering as a result, she had the courage to blow the whistle. 

Yet within a short time, Leah herself had become the problem for her Local Authority, and her testimony as to professional failings with the LA’s child protection system and the sometimes-brutal treatment of families was to be silenced. 

Forced from her job, Leah is now speaking out for all to hear. She is both encouraged and saddened by yet more families who have now contacted her with their testimonies of abuse within the child protection system, and she is also grateful for the testimony of other professionals who now feel the need to speak out. 

Every mum, dad, and wider family member in the UK needs to clearly understand Leah’s warnings about abuses in the State child protection system and her courage in speaking out needs our attention and action. To be silent on the matter of the abuse of children and families, is to be complicit. 

UK Column has previously reported on qualified social workers blowing the whistle:

Child Stealing by the State: a Social Worker Speaks

Whistleblower: Social Worker Brutalised by Met Police and Social Services for Daring to Protect Children