As part of Normal Like Me, The Justice Initiative shares its mission and values to ensure that Legal Health Principles are upheld. Family 'secret' court/child protection cases, where parents believe that they have been wrongfully accused of harming their children, will be forensically investigated, thus laying the grounds for any potential miscarriage of justice. As the UK has a Wide Margin of Appreciation, justice must be afforded to all. The democratic legal principle and Rule of Law must be afforded to all citizens, despite the continued lack of access to legal aid funding and resources.
Janet started unpicking the etymology and origins of Fii, using and applying forensic science methodologies. The results were and are continuing to prove monumentally astonishing. The theory of Fii, (Munchausen's / Munchausen's by Proxy) as we know all know it to be, was simply a 'thought' and that's just it, nothing more than a thought.
Often in the UK, those who are not suitably qualified, including professionals instructed within the Judicial System (Family Courts / Criminal Courts), relay complex/perplexing presentations as MSbP / Fii (Fabricated Induced Illness) resulting in children being removed from their parents or carers, as it is believed that they are ‘making up symptoms’ for attention, financial gain and or that the Autism es them too rigid, therefore medically seeking. The Courts determine that the making up of symptoms is emotional harm and physical abuse. Children are removed and families destroyed – causing significant and untold lifelong trauma.
In the USA, Fii is referred to as: Factitious Disorder Imposed on Another (FDIA), also called Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy (MSbP) (which is no longer referenced to as such.)
Janet, continued to unpick family (secret) court cases and child protection cases, where there were allegations of Fii, Harm, Neglect, and Emotional Abuse especially where 'complex health' seemed to be the 'danger statement'.
Janet, makes it known that Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy (MSbP), is denoted in the DSM 5 [The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, often known as the “DSM,” is a reference book on mental health and brain-related conditions and disorders. The American Psychiatric Association (APA) is responsible for the writing, editing, reviewing and publishing of this book.] However, The DSM is not as globally recognised as much as the ICD. [The International Classification of Diseases.]
In Europe, the ICD is produced by a global health agency with a constitutional public health mission, while the DSM is produced by a single national professional association (USA).
The ICD is approved by the World Health Assembly, composed of the health ministers of all 193 WHO member countries; the DSM is approved by the assembly of the American Psychiatric Association, a group much like APA's Council of Representatives.
However, both the DSM (5) and the ICD (11) denote the mental disorder of
Factitious Disorder Imposed on Another (FDIA)
The coding is referenced as:
[The diagnosis of Factitious Disorder Imposed on Another is assigned to the individual who is feigning, falsifying or inducing the symptoms in another person, not to the person who is presented as having the symptoms. Occasionally the individual induces or falsifies symptoms in a pet rather than in another person.]
[Factitious disorder imposed on another is characterised by feigning, falsifying, or inducing, medical, psychological, or behavioural signs and symptoms or injury in another person, most commonly a child dependent, associated with identified deception. If a pre-existing disorder or disease is present in the other person, the individual intentionally aggravates existing symptoms or falsifies or induces additional symptoms. The individual seeks treatment for the other person or otherwise presents him or her as ill, injured or impaired based on the feigned, falsified, or induced signs, symptoms, or injuries. The deceptive behaviour is not solely motivated by obvious external rewards or incentives (e.g., obtaining disability payments or avoiding criminal prosecution for child or elder abuse).]
However, is being a concerned parent carer a mental disorder, or when a mother ‘knows’ or observes micro nuances in their child a mental disorder?
What is a mental disorder? How can we measure mental disorders?
Whilst Janet does know of real cases of Fii/FDIA they are so rare it is almost impossible to measure in terms of population percentage. However, of those who did have ‘estranged behaviours’ and have or did cause harm to their children, the real reasons for these estranged behaviours were never researched or clinically assessed in any detail. Making for Fii/FDIA and or Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy is simply another thought or theory for odd behaviours.
Most if not all ‘mental health and or psychiatrist disorders’ cannot be measured with scientific rigour. No ‘tests’ and/or assessment psychiatric can accurately determine a ‘disorder’. Psychology and psychiatry are ‘subjective’ in nature.
Hard science seems to have been fabricated from thin air, especially when it comes to reading the RCPCH (Royal College of Paediatric Child Health) guidance on ‘Perplexing Presentations (PP)/Fabricated or Induced Illness (FII) in children.
This guidance: https://childprotection.rcpch.ac.uk/resources/perplexing-presentations-and-fii/ published in March 2021, claims to provide best practice advice for paediatricians in the medical management of PP and FII cases to obtain better outcomes for children.
Yet, when accessing the Forensic Criteria or rather the flawed and severely outdated mythical criteria ‘list’ when determining alleged Fii/FDIA in judicial cases, there seems to be one glaring error, the omittance of forensic scientific rigour.
Not one body, organisation and or authority has ever challenged the ‘medical expert judicial or ‘subjective judicial criteria list’ of supposed red flags let alone has anyone challenged the origins of Munchausen’s, Munchausen’s by Proxy or what is now referred to as ‘Fii/FDIA/or PP).
Most recently in 2022, Dr Fiona Gullon-Scott (Clinical Psychologist and Expert Witness) and Ms Cathie Long (Independent Social Worker and Expert Witness) published FII and Perplexing Presentations: What is the Evidence Base for and against Current Guidelines, and What are the Implications for Social Services? https://academic.oup.com/bjsw/article/52/7/4040/6543955
They go on to state: “FII is not a diagnosis, and the definition is far broader than FDIoA. RCPCH admit that there is a limited evidence base for the prevalence, specificity or sensitivity of FII and the associated ‘alerting signs’, and yet local authorities across the UK have Child Protection Policies developed directly from the RCPCH guidelines. An increasing number of families of children with neurodevelopmental presentations (such as autism), or presentations of complex or less well-known conditions such as Ehlers–Danlos syndrome, are finding themselves being investigated for FII by Social Services, and consequently labelled as potential ‘perpetrators’ of child abuse, based on FII guidelines.”
Whilst the RCPCH’s ‘Guidance’ seems to draw many conclusions, mostly based on the same glass-rimmed unchallenged honorary subjective views. Little has changed in terms of science. The dilemma remains, that there is very little to no evidence, to factually and legally conclude that Fii/FDIA is a rigorous mental and or psychiatric disorder.
Munchausen’s was a thought, drafted into a theory, with NO scientific rigour, by a doctor who was a specialist in endocrinology aka hormones (Richard Asher), where most of his patients were women. These women, in his eyes, were seen to be ‘inventing’ ‘making up’ and or ‘fabricating’ medical issues, which could not be medically explained. The etymology of Munchausen’s stemmed from a character in a book/movie where the character was deemed to ‘invent tales’.
A few decades later, along comes the disgraced Roy Meadow, who repeats the unscientific and unproved nomenclature claptrap, into Munchausen’s by Proxy.
If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.' By 'he' who shall not be named - based on:
'Never admit a fault or wrong and blame them for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.'
Over the decades, parents have been criminally prosecuted, jailed, their children removed, and their lives destroyed, all because health and or complex health was and still is mistaken for fabrication, because MUS (Medically Unexplained Systems) are not understood. Why, is it that the courts, professionals and or legal teams don’t have the time to forensically investigate the oftentimes autonomic issues and or rare diseases? Or does it take a whole pot of funding to diagnose a family?
What is ‘normal’ how is normal measured? Whilst there is no scientific evidence to decide a conclusive diagnosis for Fii/FDIA/PP etc there is enough evidence that factually proves that Fii/FDIA is simply a subjective theory that remains without any scientific rigours that the courts can rely on.
Fii/FDIA and or any other name it may be referred to as is not just remitted to the UK judicial and medical system, but rather the world over. Often seeing the same handful of ‘experts’ giving their repeating run-of-the-mill ‘nothing new’ ‘little evidence’ unscientific bile consultations speech, therein repeating the ‘lie’ and being left unchallenged.
USA author Beth Alison Maloney (legal advocate) [Protecting your Child from the Child Protection System] articulates the above with just the title of her book.
Janet Willicott coined the following in 2016: ‘My Government is here to protect me; it’s not about me having to protect myself from my government.” (JW Willicott, Mother to a Disabled Child)
Whilst the legislation allows for all children to be free from harm, it comes down to the legal test (one word) [may] it is that a child may need support and or a child may be in harm’s way, that authorities have to act, however, if the acting to prevent the harm, is the harm, then we all need to have a complete overall of the system to prevent all and any harm, which includes the harm by Professionals and the Judicial System.
‘It takes a Village’ yet when it comes to Professional harm and or misconduct and or when Medical Professionals and the Judiciary (have no time) to investigate Fii cases, or do not understand the (language) that is used by concerned parents, who then must be held to account for the ‘real harm’.
Evidence is everything, it takes on average 2 years to unpick or forensically investigate complex health. Therefore, it is not surprising that child protection cases are rushed through, based on (cost) and concern about perceived harm.
Sadly, the rise in Fii is now causing serious concern, as the Social Workers, Community Paediatricians or Designated Safeguarding Leads who do not know the child, ‘rush’ to protect at any cost, thus failing to see their real harm. Oftentimes, its too late, the child ends up dead or impacted by medically unexplained health conditions and or the child is removed from the arms of their loving parents, which then sees the trauma so intense that their parents end their lives, as the injustice is just too much to bare.
“You, never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” – Buckminster Fuller
Janet and Justice Initiative calls for the following: To “diagnose” anyone with the above said, there needs to be 5 x consultant psychiatrists with a minimum of 15 years experience in complex health conditions, 3 x geneticists with a minimum of 10 years experience in DNA / RNA data analysis and 2 x Forensic Health investigators who have identified and unpicked apart at least three, million-pound taxpayer funded Family Court matters - all of whom, would need to sit on a specialist panel and confer before any mention of Fii is considered as the harm.
During 2023, Janet will ensure that The Justice Initiative secures CiC Status and is awarded Sustainable Development Goals funding, which will be used to forensically investigate alleged miscarriages of justice, that have been purported and ruled as child harm or neglect based on Fii/FDIA.
Please see:
Fabricated or Induced Illness and Perplexing Presentations Abbreviated Practice Guide for Social Work Practitioners
Safeguarding and protecting a child is everyone's 'business'.
The traditional proverb, "It takes a Village", originates from the Bantu Language or from the ethnolinguistic grouping of the Bantu People in (Africa) - a grouping of some 500-700 languages that apply this proverb to raising, protecting and keeping safe their children. [There is no clear etymology.]
Nevertheless, the proverb is pertinent here; Janet Willicott is African by birth and understands Ubuntu's true and holistic value. Ubuntu is also of Bantu origin and coined/first used in ca. 1846 [Hare, H.H. et al.], meaning:
'Human Quality' - more modern usage is referred to as the ability to relate to each other [Goodness Ncube] or "A person is a person through other people", or "One’s humanity is recognised through recognition of an "other" that is despite their uniqueness and difference."
[Michael Onyebuchi Eze].
Children, Young People, The Disabled, The Infirm, The Vulnerable, The Minorites and those with a variety of complex and perplexing health needs - all need support, and all need the village to support them. Yet, they are 'unintentionally' forgotten about in favour of 'we see no issue' - therefore, the issues do not exist.
We all make mistakes, and to 'err is human' - [Pope, 1711] - So why do Medical, Clinical, Psychological, Therapeutic and Educational Professionals err? Or why are these Professionals erring so frequently, and why is Fii on the rise?
Paediatricians, especially those who are 'designated community safeguarding leads' / Social Workers, GPs/ Police, SENDCo's and the very few honorary specialists, all purport to know and understand the theory. Yet, not no one has ever challenged them and or the theory/origin of Fii.
"The Institute of Medicine report ‘To Err is Human’, health services and agencies around the world have increasingly focused on improving the safety and quality of health care. Historically, the commitment by health care professionals to ‘First do no Harm' has produced a focus on the absence of interventions that may cause adverse outcomes.
This clinical approach links to the Hippocratic Oath, which includes the promise "to abstain from doing harm". The Oath reminds clinicians to first consider the possible harm that any intervention might do. This approach to interactions with patients leads to an emphasis on the ‘absence of harm’ rather than a focus on the ‘creation of health’.
To improve the care of patients, a paradigm shift is required in the health care services from a ‘disease-based intervention’ model to a supportive ‘health’ model. Just as ‘health’ is not the absence of illness or disease, preventing patient harm is not simply avoiding interventions. To ‘first do no harm’ health services need to actively improve their focus on health and the entire patient experience." [Karen Luxford - Clinical Excellence Commission]
So, if Professionals are to improve or focus on the entire patient experience, why do they fail?
Why are Parents (Women, Mothers), Carers and Grandparents, those from Domestic Violence pasts and or the LGBTQ+ community, or those who 'think' - accused of harming their children by allegedly having Fii aka (Erroneous Beliefs) (ASD) (Rigid Thinking) (Being Dr Google) (Being too Disabled) (Medically Seeking) (Inventing Illness) (Fabricating Symptoms) (Wanting to Home Educate Children) (Not 'forcing' children into attending School enough)?
Were only one of these ('criteria'' flags) to 'pop up' a few times. All it takes is one 'professional' to determine a possible Fii matter - a s.47 is enacted upon (Child Protection) with possible s.37 (Family Court) Proceedings. [The Children Act 1989]
Usually, anywhere between 1 to 30 professionals 'gather' to vote (strategy meeting) to determine whether the Parents harm the child (typically single mothers) alleged Fii. The 'factual decision' is often made by a medical professional who is usually biased or has no legal remitted capacity to determine/diagnose Fii. Depending on the secret strategy meeting, the majority of the time, it is off to the Family Court to be found guilty/not guilty of harm or neglect.
Whatever the court decides, children can be removed from parental care or left in the ’harmful’ care of their parents, who then have special orders placed upon their person, preventing them from supporting their children correctly. Often Parents may be coerced/forced into taking the latter to 'reduce trauma', placed upon children" through the process. Medical / health treatment is often removed, with detrimental outcomes.
Doctors who do not know the Children or who have never met them write repurposed reports submitted to the Family Court that 'factually' determine the alleged 'harm' caused by their parents.
Legal teams argue 'facts' and cross-exam experts who have only ever been given ⅛ of the actual bundle of facts. The Judge decides on only the evidence before them. It does not matter if half of the legal bundle contains factually inaccurate falsehoods or if the evidence is entirely missing or criminally altered.
The Paediatrician et al. [NHS], Local Authorities [UK Gov] and Judiciary [UK Gov] - spend hundreds of millions of pounds, pretending to know actual harm from misinterpreted harm. Yet no one professional has unpicked the ‘bundle’ of evidence highlighting truth from fiction. Most of the time, all the evidence is always contained within the bundle, but it’s not forensically pieced together.
The Theory of Fii or the ‘Lie’ or rather professionally speaking, the as-of-yet unfounded unethical diagnosis, can be summarised as follows:
'If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.' By he who shall not be named - based on:
'Never admit a fault or wrong and blame them for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one, and if you repeat it frequently enough, people will sooner or later believe it.'
But look at what the Jewish people achieved. The Truth was finally revealed, and the big lie was drowned in the discriminatory sea of history.
2023 and the rise and rise of Fii continues; whatever happened to Ubuntu, it takes a Village to Raise and Protect a Child.
Parents and Mothers have become empowered to think for themselves and understand their children’s lives more than ever. The Suffragettes fought for women’s rights, yet 100 years on, Mothers are still being accused of caring for their children 'too much'. Motherly instinct should never be dismissed.
Perusing the below graphic (triangle) - What happens if one or all four leading professionals are incorrect? Nothing happens to them as it stands.
STATUTORY & MANDATORY Fii
In the coming months, I will be preparing for and calling for a specific set of ground conditions regarding the exponential rise in Fii, aka Munchausen’s by Proxy / Munchausen’s.
To “diagnose” anyone with the above said, there needs to be 5 x consultant psychiatrists with a minimum of 15 years experience in complex health conditions, 3 x geneticists with a minimum of 10 years experience in DNA / RNA data analysis, and 2 x Forensic Health investigators who have identified and unpicked apart at least three, million-pound taxpayer funded Family Court matters - all of whom, would need to sit on a specialist panel and confer before any mention of Fii is as the 'harm'.
Truth and Trust Reconciliation are needed to remove the Us versus Them barrier and to safeguard and protect children.
Janet started her tri-varied career in mercantile and labour law, then onto education (private tutoring in Europe) and teaching students in (China). After a career in Corporate Eventing (Environment and Public Health) - she read full-time Combined Sciences, focusing on Public Health incorporating Law and Education.
Her primary professional focus is Health (all Health) and how education and law interplay with cross-sector accountability and cross-judiciary disciplines. She focuses on Special Educational Needs and All Disabilities, DME (Double Multiple Exceptionality), ASD, Ethnic Minorities, DV Victims, All LGBTQ+ Communities, Rare Diseases, Genetics, Complex and Perplexing Health Difficulties and Fii (Fabricating and Inducing Illness) / Munchhausen's by Proxy.
Since 2020, Janet has focused on Forensically unpicking Family Court Matters where parents have been wrongly, falsely, or unjustly 'accused' of harming their children as part of her PhD research.
The Chartered Society for Forensic Sciences accepted her Affiliate Membership in January 2022. Janet hopes to establish a brand-new area of Forensic Science (Family Court, Health and Social Care Record-Keeping Analysis.)
UK Citizens are not told of Family Court Matters, as they are (secret courts) and heavily guarded, and any 'spilling the beans' carries a criminal offence and often incarceration. However, hundreds of millions of Pounds Sterling are frivolously wasted on bringing 'unjustly' accused parents (often women/mothers) to court. The taxpayer must learn how much of their tax is wasted on professional incompetence.
Janet has prevented and continues to prevent children from being unjustly removed and argues for their Health to be treated with legal dignity under a duty of care and candour.
The opposite graphic (see triangle image) is Janet's research on why Fii is rising. Fii / Munchhausen's by Proxy is extremely rare, and Fii is but a mere theory with no scientific rigour to support the hypothesis. Forensically unpicking Family Court matter bundles, where Fii has been recorded as a 'danger statement', offers a unique insight into where the safeguarding process has failed.
The failure and incompetence of professionals have caused severe and significant lifelong harm; families are never the same. Often, the wrongfully accused parents commit suicide due to the stressors of injustice.
Janet must Promote and Protect Health in the UK, EU and Worldwide and will publish her research within 18-24 months, after 15 years of unpicking all the 'details' that professionals inadvertently misinterpret.
Time / Language → Complacency = Negligence
As part of Normal Like Me, The Justice Initiative shares its mission and values to ensure that Legal Health Principles are upheld. Family 'secret' court/child protection cases, where parents believe that they have been wrongfully accused of harming their children, will be forensically investigated, thus laying the grounds for any potential miscarriage of justice. As the UK has a Wide Margin of Appreciation, justice must be afforded to all.
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