The “harassment and vilification” of Graham Badman

Posted by: Debs on: October 7, 2009

• In: Badman | Challenges | Liars
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It appears that the DCSF can see any old thing as a “campaign of harrassment and vilification” if it gives them an excuse to refuse inconvenient Freedom of Information requests.

…the Department had initially been drafting a response that included the release of invoices with only personal data redacted. But before the draft was complete it was apparent that there was a campaign of harassment and vilification against Graham Badman and other individuals/organisations that had contributed to the Report. In the light of this, at the weekly review meeting of FOI cases, it was considered that the balance of public interest might have shifted towards withholding…

…a letter had been written from the Department to the ICO, dated 17 July 2009, about the campaign of harassment and vilification and advised the Department’s views/reasons for possibly not releasing information under section 38 which the Department considered might intensify the campaign…

…The panel discussed whether release of invoices was still likely to provoke harassment. It concluded that this was, sadly, in the light of the campaign, still the case…

…The panel noted that the response had made clear that should circumstances change, and the prospect of harm, harassment or distress to individuals no longer be a factor, the Department would be prepared to reconsider its use of section 38…

Sorry to disabuse the DCSF, Badman etc of their romantic notions, but a video and couple of blogs does not quite constitute a “campaign”, by any stretch of the imagination. This spoof blog, which provides some much needed light relief for the persecuted home educators of England, is satire, not “vilification and harassment”. This video is an expression of more than understandable anger at the proposals in Badman’s report from a home educated child, not “vilification and harassment”. This blog post calls Badman a “liar by omission”, a fairly mild accusation which surely even Badders himself would find hard to refute. He wrote the report. He knows he used a self-selecting sample of LAs and almost completely ignored the home educators. He knows that he picked and chose the “evidence” to back his argument and utterly disregarded the evidence to refute it. He decided to cut the quote from the Church of England at the point where they started saying there was no change necessary to the current system. Is satire not allowed anymore? Anger? Seeking the truth? Well, yes they are but we’ll take away your sweeties and keep our information to ourselves if you indulge in them, say the DCSF, the very embodiment of the playground bully.

The letter referred to in the above quote warns of “difficulties in complying with FOI requests”:

I am writing to let you know in advance of a campaign by some supporters of home education which is threatening to inundate the Department with FOI requests. This issue may at some stage reach your office in the form of complaints about our responses. I am aware that a few requesters wrote to the ICO a few months ago about delays, which we dealt with.

The matter has over the last few months taken an unpleasant turn in terms of harassment and a display of hostility towards Mr Graham Badman (a former director of children’s services at Kent County Council) who recently completed a review of elective home education on behalf of the Department, and also others who have been involved in the review.

So it seems a campaign of sending in lots of Freedom of Information requests, which I would argue is not actually a campaign but simply home educators fighting for their freedom by trying to get to the truth, has been conflated by the DCSF into a “campaign of vilification and harassment” of Graham Badman and others. This is nonsense. The Freedom of Information Act exists, and there would surely be no point to its existence if people did not use it. If the powers that be were being straight with us in the first place, and using actual evidence to back up the ridiculous claims they make, there would be no need for all the FOI requests we are making. As it is, it is our right to make them, and make them we will.

“The matter has over the last few months taken an unpleasant turn…” No, “the matter” took an unpleasant turn on the day the Government of this country decided to launch an attack on home educators, and it is here the DCSF and their cronies must look to see what “vilification and harassment” really looks like. Although they don’t need to because of course, they’re the ones doing the vilifying and harassing. It’s this:

Parents who educate their children at home could be using it to cover up abuse, neglect and forced marriage, the Children’s Minister has claimed.

Baroness Delyth Morgan said home schooling could be masking a range of evils including sexual exploitation and domestic servitude.

And this:

Thousands of children supposedly educated at home by their parents are at risk of abuse, neglect, forced marriage, sexual exploitation or domestic servitude, the Government said yesterday.

Baroness Morgan of Drefelin, the Children’s Minister, has ordered a review of the rules covering the estimated 20,000 home-educated children in England and the 20,000 or so labelled as “missing from education”, who have dropped out of school before the age of 16.

The review follows mounting concern from local authorities that their overarching duty to promote and protect child welfare is undermined by the present rules, under which responsibility for a child’s education rests squarely with the parents. The role of local authorities is to compile a list of children not attending school and to take appropriate action if a child is not getting a “suitable” education.

And this:

Some parents claim they are educating their children at home to hide the fact they are abusing them, welfare officers say.

The Association for Education Welfare Management has asked the Children’s Minister, Margaret Hodge, for the power to check up on home educators.

And this:

Ms Gilbert was one of three children abused by her foster mother, Eunice Spry, over 19 years. The abuse went unnoticed – in part because Spry chose to educate the children at home.

Last spring, Spry was imprisoned for 14 years by Bristol Crown Court. And this month, the Government has announced it will conduct a review into the rules governing home-schooling. It will examine whether local authorities should be entitled to monitor all home-educated children to ensure they are properly taught and treated.

And this:

A public consultation gathered a wide range of views – including many on home education. Some local authorities and children’s organisations expressed concerns about the current system’s ability to adequately support and monitor the education, safety and wellbeing of home educated children.

And this:

Vijay Patel, policy adviser for the NSPCC children’s charity, also sees the need for a review. “Some people use home education to hide. Look at the Victoria Climbié case. No one asked where she was at school. We have no view about home education, but we do know that to find out about abuse someone has to know about the child.

Lies. Unfounded accusations. Misleading conflations. Misinformation. And not just on a few private blogs, but in the national press; on the news; on the radio. “Harassment and vilification” is 3 consultations in 4 years and the promise of another one next year, this time into what constitutes full-time education, all aimed at grinding down and eventually wiping out home education.

I wonder if, as a result of the supposed “harassment and vilification” Mr Badman is suffering from us home educators, he is planning to leave permanently the country where he was born and raised, to become a refugee, taking his family with him, to escape the persecution of a Government that chooses to see something that is his legal duty as an “anomaly” to be got rid of? No, I didn’t think so, but many home educators are doing just that. Because they have been harassed and vilified, you see, and persecuted and libelled against, by the Government and media of their home country.

It is hinted that if this “campaign” (WHAT CAMPAIGN?) stops, then the information may be released. Is it within home educators’ power to stop a campaign that doesn’t exist? No. It is within the power, however, of the DCSF, to stop seeing a video and a couple of blogs as a “campaign” and to just provide the information that has been asked of it. Since the DCSF is the one here who thinks it can redefine the words “campaign” and “harassment” and indeed “vilification”, it is they who have the power to revert to the proper usage of those words, and stop hiding behind these pathetic excuses for not complying with Freedom on Information requests.