See also: Slow
Parents are forced to have their Children Adopted 14/08/2005
'A haunting interview with the couple judged by social
services not able enough to raise their own family'
THE couple sit surrounded by piles of Christmas decorations, cards and
presents. This used to be a magical time of year for them and they smile as
they tell of past Christmases when they sat up all night wrapping the
parcels and hanging tinsel.
But this year, the most important part of their
celebrations is missing. Their four-year-old daughter and 18-month-old son
will be spending Christmas in a foster home while social workers arrange
their adoption.
The shocking story of how this family was torn apart by Essex social
services because the mother has a low IQ and is deemed too slow to
understand the needs of her children was revealed by the Daily Mail earlier
this year.
The children were taken into care after social
workers judged that the mother did not have ‘regular’ routines for her son
and daughter, that she left the girl to play alone, could not cook simple
meals and took too long brushing her teeth.
The father, who does not have learning difficulties,
was, bizarrely, said to have too many routines.
The parents had not hurt their children or let them go hungry. There was no
sign of abuse or cruelty and, sitting in secret, a family court judge told
the couple they had done nothing wrong, but still ordered that the children
be put up for adoption to give them ‘a better life’. The view of the social
services and the court was that the children would not reach their full
potential with their parents.
A REMARKABLE outcry has followed the original story,
with parents, politicians, social workers and disability rights campaigners
still contacting the Mail, eight months later, to voice their outrage and
dismay at what some believe is an experiment in social engineering.
And the feelings of loss have not begun to diminish
for the father and mother.
It is now 12 months since they last saw their little boy and girl, but they
have just received their first longed-for photographs of the children. In
the set of pictures, their daughter has her arm around her little brother as
they pose in a garden, and is smiling shyly for the camera.
Their son, who is almost unrecognisable from the baby
they last saw at a fraught social services contact meeting, gazes up at his
sister. The reminder of the year they have lost with their children has made
the couple weep, but it has also made them more determined than ever to
fight on. There have been many setbacks since they started their legal
battle to get the children back more than a year ago. The couple, who cannot
be named to protect their children’s identity, were banned last November
from seeing the children after the mother, driven to despair by the stress
of losing her children, pulled a social worker’s hair during an access
meeting.
They have battled through the secretive family court
system, but they have lost all appeals. Mrs Justice Pauffley sitting in the
Court of Appeal said: ‘They are decent people, but they are not capable of
managing the intricate anticipatory process of parenting.’
Now their lawyer is applying to the House of Lords
for justice and the couple are determined to go to the European Court of
Human Rights if necessary. ‘I think social services thought we would give up
and go away, but we will not,’ the father says. ‘The social workers have
asked us to prepare a life-story book for the kids, but we have refused
because that would mean we have given up and are getting ready to say
goodbye. We are not and we never will.’
Their
faces obscured for legal reasons, these desperate parents await the judgment
The
mother, who is 29, has a low IQ but can read and write, is equally
determined. ‘It doesn’t get any easier,’ she says. I am very lonely
here on my own. Social services thought I couldn’t cope on my own, but they
got the wrong impression. They thought we would just forget the children,
but we can never do that.’
The couple
are only too aware that while their lawyers make applications and prepare
the case, the children are being readied for adoption.
Two potential adoptive families have already dropped
out of the process, one after it was discovered that the little boy has
hydrocephalus, a swelling of the brain, which is affecting his development.
The parents fear that the condition is the result of
an incident while their son has been in council care, and detectives in the
Essex Child Abuse Investigation Unit are currently reviewing the boy’s
medical records.
The concerns over the child’s health are causing the
couple still more anxiety. Last week, as they prepared for a lonely
Christmas at their neat maisonette, they told how they are haunted by
glimpses of other fair-haired children in the streets and shops.
The father, a 38-year-old messenger at a large
manufacturing company, says: ‘It is so long since we saw them. It can’t be
right to keep them away from their mother. ‘They look so beautiful, but when
I first saw the pictures social services gave us I sat in the car and cried.
I got so upset about it.
‘It still hurts so much. Even when I see a
blonde-haired girl or a baby boy in the street, it hits me so hard.’
WE SAW this little blond boy in the supermarket the other day, the same age
as our little boy and he kept looking at me and smiling,’ adds the mother, a
pretty young woman. ‘It was so hard for me. There are things to remind us
all over the place. And now Christmas . . .’
She gestures at the bags of gifts they have prepared
for their children. In one, sweets and treats, in another, a shiny toy truck
which makes an engine noise and a cuddly toy dog with a brush to groom it.
Last week, they wrote gift tags to their children ‘from Mummy and Daddy’ and
took the presents to the social services offices in the hope they will be
passed on to the youngsters.
The father does not know if they will reach his
children. ‘They are opened to make sure they are suitable, and I don’t know
what they tell the children about where the presents come from. I don’t even
know if they know they are from their mum and dad.
‘We put a photograph of the four of us in with their
birthday presents earlier this year, but it was taken out because social
services don’t want them to have pictures of us.’
The couple’s Christmas will be a quiet affair. There
will be presents and turkey, but the spectre of what should have been taking
place will cast a shadow over the day.
‘The present we really want is for our children to be
returned,’ says the mother.
‘That’s what we want most in the world. To have them home with us.
‘Maybe next Christmas,’ she adds wistfully.
