Arrested for Human Trafficking, daughter taken, what to do?

Posted by No_Run86@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 7 comments

Hi, I registered my baby daughter in a GP surgery, using a United States birth certificate (Washington state), since she was born in Spokane and is a US citizen (that's the only nationality she holds in case it makes a difference, though she is also eligible for my other nationality: I am a EU national with Settled Status in the UK). The GP Surgery accepted it without commenting anything with me but they think it is false and so, behind my back, reported me to Social Services and the Police. I was arrested because when the Police knocked at the door, on Monday afternoon, they demanded to see my daughter's id, I provided the Birth Certificate (which I didn't know they suspected it was false), in sequence and even though I wasn't fully aware of what were the allegations they then proceeded to arrest me for Human Trafficking and Social Services took my daughter away to foster care. I was interviewed and released several hours later on a bail condition that doesn't allow me to be near children, including my own. My daughter has a valid, authentic US passport and I have now gone to the Police station and provided it to them, from what I can understand they have now analyzed it for authenticity (they searched my house after arresting me but for some reason didn't found it, although it was on an unlocked drawer). They haven't commented on the passport but hopefully they are that the US Passport Service checks eligibility thoroughly before issuing passports. My feeling is the Police are aware now that arresting me was a mistake but even so don't seem to be taking any quick action (there's a parallel process going on in the Family courts, where the judge imposed a 2 weeks protection order on my daughter because of my bail conditions). I have a criminal solicitor but I haven't been able to talk to her yet as she is always busy and never returns my calls. I am trying to get an apostilled birth certificate from Washington (didn't get it initially because I was advised that UK entities doesn't usually require that and to be honest my solicitor that's handling the family court side of things didn't even know what an apostille was when I tried to discuss this possibility initially with her). Regarding the certificate I am 100% sure it is legal: I got it by walking in to the Spokane Regional Health District offices which is the public authority that issue them. I also have the "Certified" type of birth certificate which has enhanced security features and it is legal for all purposes (at least in the United States). From what I have seen from the document I have received from the family court, the surgery thought it was strange that the barcode on the front has a different value than the one on the back, that there's a field named "Fee value" that's blank and that the back of the certificate has a lot of blank fields. I don't know the reason for the first two but the last one is easy to explain: the back of the Washington birth certificates contains a form to request changes ("Affidavit for Correction"). Sorry to say but the Police and everyone else involved doesn't seem to be acting at pace and I am desperate to be with my daughter again, she's only a baby and at that age every single day together matters and she is probably being fed on formula rather than breast milk as I would have preferred. Does anyone have any insight on how to get things moving faster?