NICKY HARDINGHAM’S hand involuntarily
moves down to the bump on her stomach as she looks around her modest sitting
room at the shelves packed with pictures of her three children. It is as if she
is gently reassuring her unborn son that she will do everything in her power to
protect him.
Such feelings are natural in all mothers, but for Nicky, 26, they are also
tinged with overwhelming sadness. For these happy, smiling photographs, the
cupboards stuffed with toys and the tiny taffeta bridesmaid’s dress and matching
handbag in their daughter’s bedroom are heartbreaking reminders to her and her
husband Mark, 33, of the family they once had. Now the couple must cope with the
suffocating fear that their fourth child, who is due to be born in the next
three weeks, will be abruptly taken away from them – like the others – on the
orders of the social workers they say falsely accuse them of child abuse.
The Hardinghams’ story is utterly chilling. It begins with an anxious mother who
took her son to hospital because of a swollen leg and ends with a family torn
apart. It also underlines the powerlessness of ordinary people in the face of
the combined might of social workers, doctors and the secret courts with
astonishing powers to tear children away from their parents.
It is clear, as tears silently roll down her cheeks, that Nicky still struggles
to comprehend the day in November 2003 when Norfolk social services took away
her three children because of a fracture in her son’s leg.
To make matters worse, the children, all below the age of five at the time, have
now been adopted and she knows she can never get them back.
By their own admission, the Hardinghams are not worldly or sophisticated people.
But they insist neither of them has ever raised a hand to any of their children,
let alone abused them. It is an accusation that has also been met with disbelief
by their families, friends and employers.
Nicky told doctors and social workers about her family history – they suffer
from brittle bone disease (osteogenesis imperfecta or OI) – and asked if it
could be a possible cause of the boy’s injury.
But each time, she says, her views were dismissed. She was told that because she
did not have the disease herself, it would have been impossible for her to pass
it to her son. But no one properly established whether Nicky was a carrier, and
had passed the disease to her son without having obvious symptoms herself. The
couple live in a modern but neat terrace house still filled with the toys and
clothes belonging to their lost children.
‘We haven’t got the heart to change anything,’ Nicky says.
Their extended families live within a mile of their home and they have rarely
travelled outside Norfolk, where they earn £200 a week each in a crab processing
factory – Nicky in quality control and Mark as a forklift driver.
Their nightmare began in late October 2003, when Mark and the children caught
flu. ‘They were all really poorly,’ says Nicky, ‘but all recovered within a week
or so, apart from my son who was still unwell despite a week’s course of
antibiotics.
‘We took him to the doctor, who said there was nothing wrong with him. But
within a few days we were really worried because he wouldn’t stand up for love
nor money. It seemed as if the pain was in his hips or his right side. But when
I took him to the hospital in Cromer, they X-rayed him but could not find
anything wrong.
‘They said he might have an inflammation due to his virus and said, to be safe,
that we should take him to the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital in Norwich. They too
X-rayed him and said nothing was wrong.
‘On Sunday, November 9, I discovered that his left leg was swollen and really
hot below the knee. I took him straight back to the Norfolk and Norwich, where
they gave him more X-rays and blood tests. They told us he had osteomyelitis,
which is an infection in the bone, and put him on a high dose of antibiotics.
‘A string of doctors examined him the following day and it was Tuesday before a
paediatrician came to see us to say there was an unusual feature in his left
ankle and recommended a full skeletal survey, which I thought was a good idea.
‘Later that day, they said they could see five or six fractures on his body. But
they didn’t treat them, as you would expect, by putting them in plaster. The
penny only dropped about what was going on when they said they were going to
inform social services.
‘Mark had finished work by then and had dropped the other children at my
parents’ house to come to the hospital.
‘The doctors told us that the fractures were called metaphyseal and could not
occur naturally, but were caused by violent pulling and twisting.
They insisted they did an MRI scan and said our son would without doubt have
some brain damage from such violent abuse. But the MRI showed nothing.’
Nevertheless, social workers were called. Nicky and Mark were escorted into a
small, stark side room in the hospital and accused of physically abusing their
son. ‘All the time, we asked, “Where is the proof,” says Nicky. ‘If we had
abused him, why was our son coming to us for cuddles and reassurance, rather
than cowering in a corner? It was beyond belief. We took our son to hospital so
they could make him better. Now we were being accused of child abuse.
‘The social worker and paediatrician told us our son couldn’t leave hospital. We
said we had no intention of taking him out. We were asked if we could sign our
other two children over to my mother’s care, which we didn’t mind because they
were with her anyway. I was in shock. I was really upset that they were accusing
me. After that day, we were told that we couldn’t see our son unsupervised. We
weren’t allowed to pick him up or carry him anywhere. We weren’t allowed to
touch him.
‘The next few days passed in a haze. But on Friday, November 14, I was told that
the police wanted to see me and that the social worker at the hospital wanted to
accompany Mark to my mother’s house, pick up the other two children and bring
them in for examination.
‘ The police officer asked me to explain why my son had the injury, and I think
he knew that what I told him was the truth. We went to the police station
several times afterwards, but were never charged and the matter was dropped.
‘After seeing the police, we were told that the social work manager wanted to
see all of us. The medical examination of the other two children had been fine,
but they still wanted us to sign them over to an emergency foster service.
‘It was about 4.45pm on a Friday – too late to call a lawyer – and the social
work manager told us we had no rights. Either we signed them over or they called
the police, which would cause our oldest child a lot of distress, and the
children would be taken away anyway.
‘Mark was so angry he walked out. He thought that if he wasn’t in the room, they
couldn’t make him sign. But I was frightened about the effect on my daughter,
who was old enough to know what was going on. I signed the paper. I couldn’t
help it. It sounds terribly naive now, but I had no idea what the implications
would be.
‘What I didn’t know then was that we did have rights. The children had been
signed into the custody of my mother until the following Monday. If I had not
signed the paper, they could not have taken the children.’
Nicky’s voice becomes hoarse as she recalls how, astonishingly, a social worker
told her that to cry in front of her children was ‘emotional abuse’.
‘I was told I wasn’t even allowed to say goodbye. My daughter was crying and
wanted to come to me, but I was told to leave. That was it. The door was closed
in my face.
‘As we left the hospital, we saw the social worker leaving with our daughter
saying, “I don’t want to go with you. I want to see my Mummy and Daddy.”
Nicky insists that neither she nor her husband have ever hit their children,
preferring instead to administer ‘a stern word if necessary’. From the very
beginning, she has also provided doctors and social workers with a plausible
explanation for her son’s fractures.
‘My mother and three of my four brothers and sisters have brittle bone disease
and have had countless fractures,’ says Nicky. ‘I asked them if my son could
have the same disease and pointed out that he had not yet eaten solids, was
intolerant to lactose and had lived off Soya milk for the previous year. Perhaps
his diet could have made his bones weak?
‘We were given a list of family law solicitors in the area and picked one at
random. We knew we had got off on the wrong foot because I had signed the
children over. But we assumed that when we finally got to court, that would be
the end of it.’
They were wrong. Over the following two years, Nicky and Mark saw their children
under strict supervision for a maximum of two hours a day while they pursued
their attempts to get them back through the courts. They claim their lawyers had
no real interest in fighting their corner. They sacked one because they had no
confidence in him. A second resigned from private practice and joined Norfolk
County Council.
The proceedings, like all those in the Family Court, must remain strictly
confidential. But in the event, they lost the case and saw their children for
the last time more than a year ago.
‘The last day we saw them was the day before our daughter’s birthday,’ says
Nicky, in tears. ‘We had an hour to do the cake, the candles, see our sons and
say goodbye. Our little girl knew something was wrong and wouldn’t let go of us.
‘We gave her an album full of family photos. I often wonder whether she kept it
and looks at it. Do they think of us still? Are they safe? I worry the whole
time about them. I know their new parents make an effort to bring them all
together, but I don’t know how often.
‘As for Mark and me, all we are left with is the silence around the house. And
that is the most painful thing.’ Now the Hardinghams’ case has been taken up by
campaigning journalist John Sweeney, whose BBC1 Real Story documentary, to be
broadcast tomorrow, suggests that their explanations for their son’s fractures
may have been right all along.
The doctors dismissed Nicky’s suggestion of brittle bone disease because she
seemed not to be a sufferer herself. But Sweeney’s investigation shows that not
only may she have a mild form of the condition – and therefore be able to pass
it to her son – but that metaphyseal fractures can occur naturally.
Nicky adds: ‘When I mentioned my family history of brittle bone disease, the
paediatricians asked if I suffered from it, but I’ve never had a proper
diagnosis and don’t really know. They told me, “ In that case you haven’t got it
and you can’t give it to your son.” It was not open for discussion.’
Crucially, Nicky’s GP wrote to her saying that the two paediatricians who had
dealt with the case in the hospital, Dr Kate Armon and Dr Rosalyn Proops,
‘categorically stated’ that Nicky’s son could not have OI.
But, according to Sweeney, the paediatricians’ assurance is open to question. He
says: ‘Any categorical claim that a child did not have OI because a mother
didn’t seem to have it is wrong.
‘The signs of OI can vary from 40 fractures to none at all. A clinical
geneticist needs to check and a DNA test should be made in a case like this.
Without that you would be wrong to rule out OI categorically.’
In a disturbing parallel, Nicky’s grandmother Joyce was accused 60 years ago of
abusing Nicky’s mother, Margaret. In 1946, the authorities gave Joyce the
benefit of the doubt – and rightly so, since Margaret and three of her five
children suffer from OI and have been afflicted with broken bones all their
lives. Now Nicky is waiting for the results of a DNA test that could prove she
carries the OI gene, though there is said to be a ten per cent chance that the
condition will not be detected. Nicky shows some symptoms of OI, such as bad
teeth and hyper-flexible joints. Indeed, she dislocated her hip while giving
birth to her second child.
The most obvious sign of an OI sufferer is that the whites of their eyes are
pale blue. The geneticist who tested Nicky said her eyes were the same shade as
that of her brother, Wayne, who has the disease.
In addition, Harley Street radiologist Dr Colin Mackintosh told Sweeney that the
doctors’ presumption that metaphyseal fractures could be caused only by child
abuse was false.
Dr Mackintosh said: ‘There may well have been a miscarriage of justice because
these metaphyseal changes are not true fractures. I do not think – whether there
are several of these findings or just one – we should say this is strongly
indicative of child abuse.’
As if to prove the point, Nicky’s brother Wayne has a son who has recently
suffered a metaphyseal fracture.
We can never get them back – and it hurts so much.......
But due to his father’s medical history, the injury has not been investigated by
social services.
The fact that Nicky and Mark’s son had never eaten solid food was interpreted by
social workers as evidence of neglect, despite the fact that she had sought
medical advice several times and was always assured he would eat when ready. So,
too, were the boy’s lack of teeth and slow growth, though these can also be
symptoms of brittle bone disease.
The clincher, though, was the metaphyseal fractures, despite the view of some
experts that they are just indications of anomalous bone growth. Indeed, a study
carried out with the help of the Brittle Bone Society found 29 innocent
metaphyseal fractures in 39 children with OI.
George Hawkes, a lawyer who has taken over the case, says: ‘The science of
metaphyseal fractures is in its infancy. Allegations are made [in this case] on
a science that is not well known. We had a child with an appalling diet, which
was not the parents’ fault, who came from a family with a long history of OI.
Yet these two things were dismissed out of hand.
‘This was a case of weak science, leading to a mantra which said, this is child
abuse. It was tunnel vision.’
Deborah Jeffrey, Nicky’s manager at the crab processing factory, told The Mail
on Sunday: ‘When she told me that their children had been taken away because
they had been accused of child abuse, I was more than shocked. I can’t think how
anyone who has met them could think them capable of it.
‘I have never heard anyone say anything bad about Nicky or Mark. He is a big man
and his appearance could be seen as overbearing, but we joke at work that it is
Nicky who wears the trousers because he is such a softy.’
The couple hope the DNA test will provide grounds to reopen their case. But they
know that legal victory can only ever be symbolic – even hostile adoptions that
may later prove wrong cannot be reversed.
Nicky says: ‘It is important that we can show our children at some time in the
future how hard we tried to get them back. One of my greatest fears is that they
will grow up never knowing the truth. We want to be able to show them that we
didn’t stop fighting.
‘The worst times for us are their birthdays and Christmas. We are allowed to
send a card, but we have to sign it from “ Nicky and Mark” rather than from
“Mummy and Daddy”. They won’t know who we are, so we stopped doing it. Instead,
we put money into bank accounts, so that if they ever track us down we can show
we have saved up for them.
‘We get a letter every year from their adoptive parents, which is bittersweet.
We want to know they are doing well, but it hurts so much. We met our baby’s
adoptive parents only because social services said it would be good for them “to
see we weren’t as scary as we looked on paper”.
‘We felt they looked at us accusingly, but we can’t blame them. The people we do
blame are the social services, the doctors and the legal system. If any good
comes out of this, it will be that the law is changed to protect people like
us.’
Norfolk County Council said: ‘Having heard all the evidence, a judge, with the
complete agreement of the children’s independently appointed guardian, concluded
that adoption was in the children’s best interests.’
But now, Nicky and Mark anxiously await the arrival of their baby boy. Their
overriding worry is that social workers will be waiting at the end of the
hospital bed to take him at birth.
When Norfolk social services were asked what they planned to do when the baby
was born, they said: ‘It would be wholly inappropriate and would breach
confidentiality to respond to this question.’
But Nicky insists that it is indeed wholly appropriate to ask what will happen
to her unborn child. ‘We are much better equipped this time around,’ she says.
‘We have a new lawyer and we know our rights.
‘But I am nervous that social services will be out to get us,’ she adds
tearfully. ‘Are they planning to take this baby, too?’
