Thursday 10 March 2011

Lord Falconer's misleading remarks about the Johns case on the Today programme

I have just been listening to Lord Falconer on Radio 4 speaking about the John’s fostering case. He seemed to describe the outcome by saying the issue was not decided but that in certain circumstances people might be deemed unsuitable to foster in a particular case of an eleven or twelve year old uncertain about their sexuality.
That is not true, as can be seen if you go and read the ruling, which was nowhere near as specific.
Indeed, such specification was one of the things the Johns’s sought, but were refused:
27 ... The claimants sought the following declarations (as refined following the hearing):
(c) It is unlawful for a Foster Service to ask potential foster carers their views on homosexuality absent the needs of a specific child.
The ruling, however, was to make no order in this (or any other) regard.
Most listeners won’t know this and therefore will have been misled.
Ho hum.
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2 comments:

  1. Dear John,

    My daughter has just drawn my attention to your posting of 10 March 2011. It was not I who was interviewed on Radio 4 - I suspect that it may have been my colleague Lord Falconer of Thoroton (I am Lord Faulkner of Worcester).

    Perhaps you would be kind enough to correct your blog?

    Regards,

    Richard Faulkner

    ReplyDelete
  2. My apologies - the hazards of homonyms for the uninitiated!

    I think what I will do is delete the whole post after you've had a chance to see that I've noted your request, since it is quite difficult to lose the wrong spelling from the page header and it may still be picked up by search engines.

    Thank you for pointing this out.

    ReplyDelete