€60K in damages awarded to Roma family over son's removal from their home

Calahonda52

http://www.rte.ie/news/2015/1019/735913-roma-high-court/

The judge also approved an application for some of the money to be used now to buy a computer for the boy after counsel for the family said he was "a four-year-old boy who likes to play games".

Should this be appealed by the State on the basis that you really can't buy a decent gaming box for 60K?

Nodin

Calahonda52 wrote: »

http://www.rte.ie/news/2015/1019/735913-roma-high-court/

The judge also approved an application for some of the money to be used now to buy a computer for the boy after counsel for the family said he was "a four-year-old boy who likes to play games".

Should this be appealed by the State on the basis that you really can't buy a decent gaming box for 60K?

He said nothing about using 60k for the purpose, as you well know having quoted the pertinent section.

jamesbere

A Sega megadrive is what he should get, all the cool kids have them.

Ken.

Never mind the €60k. What I'd like to know is was anyone fired over this unmitigated disaster?.

Nodin

ken wrote: »

Never mind the €60k. What I'd like to know is was anyone fired over this unmitigated disaster?.

Not to my knowledge. I doubt anyone was even given a good kick in the arse.

Green Peter

Hindsight is great and the state's pockets are deep!

seamus

ken wrote: »

Never mind the €60k. What I'd like to know is was anyone fired over this unmitigated disaster?.

Unlikely, as the overall sentiment seems to be, "Good intentions, badly executed".
From this I imagine that the senior Garda who approved the action though is probably as high up the career ladder as he is ever going to be.

The defence lawyer does make a good point - that Gardai should not be afraid of carrying out their lawful duties in case they get sued, and by extension in case they get fired. Meaning, that where a Garda believes they are acting legally and in the best interests of those involved, that should be a reasonable defence in any case where that action turns out to be a bad idea.

In this instance, nobody has been permanently injured or traumatised, so firing someone when they honestly believed they were doing their job properly would be overkill, IMHO.

Menas

€60k does seem a lot, but the family were right to take this case. It was a dumb thing to do, removing the kid from his family with no good reason other than he had blond hair.

sasta le

And are they still living here legally?

DakarVert

If they family was here legally, For once I agree with the courts!!

Although €60k is a lot of money!

seamus

DakarVert wrote: »

If they family was here legally, For once I agree with the courts!!

I don't think the family being here legally or illegally has any bearing on whether the Gardai's actions were right or wrong.

Although €60k is a lot of money!

It's not that much really. The money will be held in trust in government bonds until the child is 18 at which point he can apply for it to be released to him.

The family can make applications on his behalf to make purchases for things that he needs. So hopefully they use this wisely to buy things like computers to give him a leg-up education wise. Then when he reaches 18 there's a nice little nest egg there to give him assistance getting into further education.

Walter Bishop

sasta le wrote: »

And are they still living here legally?

If they were here legally when the child was taken, it's probably safe to assume that they are still here legally...

sonny.knowles

Walter Bishop wrote: »

If they were here legally when the child was taken, it's probably safe to assume that they are still here legally...

Were they here legally to start with?

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

We don't know they're from romania do we?

Seems fair enough after they took the kid away. If only that other case in the uk were resolved

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

Seems like you cannot be right. What if police had done nothing and it turned out the child was abducted and taken out of the country in the intertime? You would still find people wanting disciplined action

Fred Swanson

Fred Swanson wrote: »

Citizens of Romania are allowed to live in Ireland without restriction.

You better be careful, if you confuse a Romanian with a Roma it will no go down well...

Samaris

Deleted User wrote: »

Seems like you cannot be right. What if police had done nothing and it turned out the child was abducted and taken out of the country in the intertime? You would still find people wanting disciplined action

Unfortunately, you can't really make a decision like that based on the child looking suspiciously blond and blue-eyed. The child acting like his parents weren't his parents, seeming afraid or confused (preferably BEFORE being taken from his family and stuck into some sort of home or custody) are better indicators and even they aren't remotely perfect.

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

Samaris

Deleted User wrote: »

Seems like you cannot be right. What if police had done nothing and it turned out the child was abducted and taken out of the country in the intertime? You would still find people wanting disciplined action

Unfortunately, you can't really make a decision like that based on the child looking suspiciously blond and blue-eyed. The child acting like his parents weren't his parents, seeming afraid or confused (preferably BEFORE being taken from his family and stuck into some sort of home or custody) are better indicators and even they aren't remotely perfect.

Edit: Actually, not sure this is the same case, I'm looking at the case of a seven year old girl who was removed from her family after neighbours raised concerns about a Roma family having a blond child. There was some issues with getting appropriate records from a hospital, but she was eventually concluded to be their daughter and returned.

Ah, found it; there was a case in Greece where a little girl of the same age (Maria) was removed from her family and it was proved that she -wasn't- their child. This sparked a bit of a witch-hunt across Europe of Roma families having blond or unusual-looking children, and two were seized in Ireland - the girl I was talking about and the toddler from this article. Both were proved to be the children of their respective families.

meeeeh

I think it's safe to assume they are from one of EU countries, Romania has the most of them but a lot are living all over Europe.

Anyway my partner, our first child and I have dark hair, our complexion is also a bit darker than average. And then there is this blond goat with very pale complexion that could be anybody's. We were never stopped and questioned. It was overzealousness not prudence.

suicide_circus

The gypsy kingpin back home will be pleased with this windfall.

Mod: User banned

Samaris

suicide_circus wrote: »

The gypsy kingpin back home will be pleased with this windfall.

And there's a good example of why these things happen. Well done for your demonstration.

suicide_circus

Samaris wrote: »

And there's a good example of why these things happen. Well done for your demonstration.

Having spent a lot of time in Romania I'm pretty confident in my assertion. But kudos on your righteous response.

Samaris

suicide_circus wrote: »

Having spent a lot of time in Romania I'm pretty confident in my assertion. But kudos on your righteous response.

You realise it's not even confirmed if they're Romanian or not? Roma -=/ Romanian. You made a wild, unsubstantiated, somewhat derogatory comment based purely on the fact that they're Roma. Not to mention a comment that was actually totally unrelated to the story - that a family had a child removed from them on the suspicion of kidnapping because the the child was blonde, the child later being proved after much disruption to be theirs.

Yeah, I'm fine with my response.

suicide_circus

Samaris wrote: »

You realise it's not even confirmed if they're Romanian or not? Roma -=/ Romanian. You made a wild, unsubstantiated, somewhat derogatory comment based purely on the fact that they're Roma. Not to mention a comment that was actually totally unrelated to the story - that a family had a child removed from them on the suspicion of kidnapping because the the child was blonde, the child later being proved after much disruption to be theirs.

Yeah, I'm fine with my response.

Bully for you sir. If you think that the majority of monies earned and begged for by Roma families across Europe is not funnelled back to organised criminal syndicates in Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary under pain of severe punishment you are sorely mistaken.

TallGlass

Why 60k? Where do judges pull these figures from. The Garda took the child, hardly a local mob. The child was returned in the end, I don't see how that means 60k maybe 10k. 60k is way over the odd, sure will we have people saying they where 'profiled' prior to arrest now been awarded money. FFS.

Skylinehead

This isn't really that bad, when you see people getting 20k for simply saying the word "whiplash".

Nodin

seamus wrote: »

Unlikely, as the overall sentiment seems to be, "Good intentions, badly executed".
..............

Christ knows why, as it seemed an unmitigated cock up from the get go, executed at high speed with all the subtle care of a brick to the head.

Nodin

Skylinehead wrote: »

This isn't really that bad, when you see people getting 20k for simply saying the word "whiplash".

That's awful.









Do you need a car to do that, just out of curiosity?

ScottStorm

TallGlass wrote: »

Why 60k? Where do judges pull these figures from. The Garda took the child, hardly a local mob. The child was returned in the end, I don't see how that means 60k maybe 10k. 60k is way over the odd, sure will we have people saying they where 'profiled' prior to arrest now been awarded money. FFS.

If the Guards took my son from me because he had black hair and mine was blonde, I would be after heads not money.

60k is at least some compensation, the begrudgery here is ridiculous, I don't care if the family are the heads of a roma crime syndicate what happened was wrong 10k would be an insult to anyone after the stress caused to that poor child and his parents.

Samaris

suicide_circus wrote: »

Bully for you sir. If you think that the majority of monies earned and begged for by Roma families across Europe is not funnelled back to organised criminal syndicates in Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary under pain of severe punishment you are sorely mistaken.

*ma'am to you :P

Yes, I am quite aware of the Roma begging issues, I live in a city. However, that doesn't mean that this family in particular are connected to it, and I see no reason for making snarky (and irrelevant) assumptions on the basis of their ethnicity. The child had albinism in this case.

asherbassad

Deleted User wrote: »

Seems like you cannot be right. What if police had done nothing and it turned out the child was abducted and taken out of the country in the intertime? You would still find people wanting disciplined action

Couldn't any child be a possible victim of abduction? And what of adopted kids of different ethnicity? You going to knock on someone's door just because they're white and their kid is black or chinese and demand proof of adoption?

meeeeh

suicide_circus wrote: »

Bully for you sir. If you think that the majority of monies earned and begged for by Roma families across Europe is not funnelled back to organised criminal syndicates in Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary under pain of severe punishment you are sorely mistaken.

Do you think Romas are organized in the same way in every country, things differ even from region to region, never mind country to country.

TallGlass

ScottStorm wrote: »

If the Guards took my son from me because he had black hair and mine was blonde, I would be after heads not money.

60k is at least some compensation, the begrudgery here is ridiculous, I don't care if the family are the heads of a roma crime syndicate what happened was wrong 10k would be an insult to anyone after the stress caused to that poor child and his parents.

What are you talking about? They didn't just take the child for the crack. They thought the child was trafficked. Your making it out like the Garda pulled up at some house and took a kid for a laugh. They where concern at the time, and had something not been done and in fact the child was trafficked we would be chatting in another thread and you'd be giving out nothing was done.

And to be very honest, I am sure you could prove without doubt to Garda that your child is yours. Why this didn't happen on the night I have no idea. In fact I would hazard a guess you'd never find yourself in such a situation.

Ok so what if someone gets insulted, I couldn't give a bollix. Thats 60k the tax payer has to foot again, 3 times what I am paid. That's winning a mini jackpot to me, 10k is more than enoght.

terryduff12

Had there been reports of a child missing or kidnapped? Don`t believe there was. With the new laws brought in making it illegal to slap a child all someone has to do is report you and social and guards will come and have every right to take the child off you

mynamejeff

Menas wrote: »

€60k does seem a lot, but the family were right to take this case. It was a dumb thing to do, removing the kid from his family with no good reason other than he had blond hair.

the reason he was removed was that initially when asked about the circumstances of the child's birth they gave the wrong hospital and date of birth. the child was taken when the family's details didn't match the hospital records.

ScottStorm

"What are you talking about? They didn't just take the child for the crack. They thought the child was trafficked. "

-- The Guards had no valid reason to take the child, and no an isolated incident in another country pertaining to a family of the same ethnic origin does not count. --

"And to be very honest, I am sure you could prove without doubt to Garda that your child is yours. Why this didn't happen on the night I have no idea. In fact I would hazard a guess you'd never find yourself in such a situation."

-- Had I not a passport for my son then it would be very difficult to prove he was mine, a birth cert is just a piece of paper. --

"Thats 60k the tax payer has to foot again, 3 times what I am paid. That's winning a mini jackpot to me, 10k is more than enoght."

-- Your wages and the value you place on money or your family unit are irrelevant to this discussion. --

suicide_circus

I will conceed that we don't know the circumstances of this particular family but if they are not subject to some Roma Mafia tax, they are an exception not to mention lucky.

toptom

Making a feck out of us, €60,000 for nothing. The Guards were right in the first place

TallGlass

ScottStorm wrote: »

"What are you talking about? They didn't just take the child for the crack. They thought the child was trafficked. "

-- The Guards had no valid reason to take the child, and no an isolated incident in another country pertaining to a family of the same ethnic origin does not count. --

"And to be very honest, I am sure you could prove without doubt to Garda that your child is yours. Why this didn't happen on the night I have no idea. In fact I would hazard a guess you'd never find yourself in such a situation."

-- Had I not a passport for my son then it would be very difficult to prove he was mine, a birth cert is just a piece of paper. --

"Thats 60k the tax payer has to foot again, 3 times what I am paid. That's winning a mini jackpot to me, 10k is more than enoght."

-- Your wages and the value you place on money or your family unit are irrelevant to this discussion. --

The Garda did have a reason, they didn't just decided to turn up on the doorstep and take the child. They didn't know the DOB, couldn't provide documents and the child looked nothing like the parents. And the romas a capable of anything to be perfectly honest. I'm sure there was more reasons why the Garda decided to take the child other than DOB and no documents. Surely you would have photos of your children.

Sorry but my wages have alot to do with this discussion. If I am feeding my taxes into this pot that's paying out stupid and outrageous compensation then I have my option. Now if you want to remove my funding from the pot I am more than happy to do so. So until that time my wages at work have alot to do with it. That's three years work for me, if the government feel fit to give cash away like that they adjust my taxes accordingly. Last time I checked we where recovering from a resession, if the Romas don't like it, they know where the door is.

ScottStorm

TallGlass wrote: »

The Garda did have a reason, they didn't just decided to turn up on the doorstep and take the child. They didn't know the DOB, couldn't provide documents and the child looked nothing like the parents. And the romas a capable of anything to be perfectly honest. I'm sure there was more reasons why the Garda decided to take the child other than DOB and no documents. Surely you would have photos of your children.

Sorry but my wages have alot to do with this discussion. If I am feeding my taxes into this pot that's paying out stupid and outrageous compensation then I have my option. Now if you want to remove my funding from the pot I am more than happy to do so. So until that time my wages at work have alot to do with it. That's three years work for me, if the government feel fit to give cash away like that they adjust my taxes accordingly. Last time I checked we where recovering from a resession, if the Romas don't like it, they know where the door is.

Read tabloids much?

meeeeh

TallGlass wrote: »

The Garda did have a reason, they didn't just decided to turn up on the doorstep and take the child. They didn't know the DOB, couldn't provide documents and the child looked nothing like the parents. And the romas a capable of anything to be perfectly honest. I'm sure there was more reasons why the Garda decided to take the child other than DOB and no documents. Surely you would have photos of your children.

Sorry but my wages have alot to do with this discussion. If I am feeding my taxes into this pot that's paying out stupid and outrageous compensation then I have my option. Now if you want to remove my funding from the pot I am more than happy to do so. So until that time my wages at work have alot to do with it. That's three years work for me, if the government feel fit to give cash away like that they adjust my taxes accordingly. Last time I checked we where recovering from a resession, if the Romas don't like it, they know where the door is.

I gather you are not familiar with the judicial independence from legislative and executive government.

Samaris

OK, so look at it this way TallGlass;

A two-year-old albino child is removed abruptly from his home, his parents are treated with suspicion, since his genetic condition means that he appears unusual compared to the family. The child is proved to be theirs, the parents sue, and are awarded damages.

Seems pretty straight-forward to me. And frankly, I'm just as happy that there's some recourse for damages for what amounts to state kidnapping.

I am unsure why there is a view of "If the Roma don't like (their albino children being taken from them and they to be treated as kidnappers), they can leave". I'm not sure I'd want to live in a country where my children could be taken away because I'm seen as a lesser class of citizen. And no, you don't get to remove your taxes from the pot just because you don't like what they're being spent on. Their taxes also partly paid for it.

darkpagandeath

Well I hate to say I told you so, But this is what happens when social media gets hold of other stories. The ones in Greece were not kidnapped, Neither were any of them here. Better safe than sorry used in clear cases of Racism. If it was a safety issue why were all the children not taken....

4ensic15

TallGlass wrote: »

Why 60k? Where do judges pull these figures from. The Garda took the child, hardly a local mob. The child was returned in the end, I don't see how that means 60k maybe 10k. 60k is way over the odd, sure will we have people saying they where 'profiled' prior to arrest now been awarded money. FFS.

The State offered 60k. The judge was asked to approve it or have a trial.

Sir Osis of Liver.

I'd happily let the cops babysit my kids overnight for €60k a piece.

Eugene Norman

Well I'm not normally PC but this was kidnapping by the state so it was likely to lead to a pay out.

Nodin

toptom wrote: »

Making a feck out of us, €60,000 for nothing. The Guards were right in the first place

Yeah, they're just paying out 60 grand for the craic.

arayess

Nodin wrote: »

Christ knows why, as it seemed an unmitigated cock up from the get go, executed at high speed with all the subtle care of a brick to the head.

yeah but if they didn't do anything they'd be hung too.
what can you do?

the parents didn't exactly have the required docs to prove their case etc.,..if i recall correctly.