The baby snatchers: Judge orders social workers to hand back newborn child
taken from hospital at 4am
By DAVID WILKES
A newborn baby was illegally snatched from its mother by social workers in
the early hours of yesterday morning.
Officials claimed the 18-year-old mother was unfit to care for the child
because of mental health problems.
But hours later a High Court judge ordered the infant to be returned
immediately, saying the social workers had acted beyond their powers.
Mr Justice Munby told the officials that they "should have known better".
The troubling case follows complaints from parents that social workers have
taken their children for adoption without good reason, and suggestions that
families are being broken up to meet bureaucratic targets.
Last night campaigners welcomed the ruling and praised the mother's lawyers
for their prompt action to reunite the baby with its mother.
The child, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, was born healthy at
2am yesterday.
Later Ian Wise, appearing for the mother, referred to as "G", told the High
Court in London that the child was taken from her at about 4am without her
consent.
The child was removed after staff at the hospital were shown a "birth plan"
prepared by local authority social services.
The plan said the mother, who had a troubled childhood and suffers from
mental health problems, was to be separated from the child, and no contact
allowed without supervision by social workers.
In his ruling, the judge ordered that the local social services authority
and NHS trust "take the necessary steps to reunite mother and baby
forthwith".
The mother now faces a legal battle to remain with her child. Mr Wise said
she intends to fight to keep her baby. The judge described the situation as
"most unfortunate". He said no baby can be removed simply "as the result of
a decision taken by officials in some room".
Removal can be lawful only if a police officer is taking action to protect
the child, or there is a court order in place.
The judge said doctors and midwives at the hospital could not have been
expected to understand this and acted as they did when faced with "a bit of
paper" with the birth plan.
He said: "On the face of it, what was done was without lawful authority. The
professionals involved in this case should know better.
"You cannot remove children, short of immediate murderous intent (situations
where a child is in immediate danger), except by lawful means, which means
either by a police officer or court.
The judge added: "There is no suggestion in the documents shown to me so far
that the mother is posing a risk of exposing the child to immediate physical
attack and physical harm."
The ruling was made shortly after midday, and mother and baby were reunited
46 minutes later.
Last night the mother's solicitor Stuart Luke, from the firm Bhatia Best,
said she faces the prospect of an application by social services for an
interim care order, which he said would be vigorously contested. It is
likely to be heard this morning before local magistrates.
Adoption targets were brought in seven years ago, when Tony Blair was trying
to persuade social workers to find adoptive homes for more children.
The then Prime Minister set targets to raise the number of children being
adopted by 50 per cent to 5,400 every year.
He promised millions of pounds to councils that managed to achieve the
targets. Some have already received more than £2million for successful
adoptions.
Campaigners say the number of babies under a month old being taken into care
and then adopted has risen from 500 in 1997 to 1,300 a year. Last year a BBC
investigation discovered more than 100 claims of miscarriages of justice by
parents whose children were taken by social workers for adoption.
The Radio Four Face the Facts programme quoted social workers who admitted
they are under pressure to take children because of Whitehall targets to
increase adoption.
Last night Liberal Democrat MP John Hemming, who has been campaigning
against inappropriate adoption of babies, said: "Councils are in a big rush
to take babies at a very early stage because it is makes it easier to break
the attachment that naturally forms between baby and mother over time.
"This case illustrates again how the system is not working in the interests
of the children or the families, it's working in the interests of the
bureaucracy.
"What's unique about this case is not the unlawful removal of a child, but
that some lawyers have sufficient backbone to make the right application to
the court to have the child returned to its mother."
Mr Hemming added: "There are financial rewards - a fund of about £35million
- for getting children adopted. Admittedly, it has been proposed that
adoption targets are scrapped on April 1, but clearly there are still
problems."
Layton Bevan, co-founder of Families and Social Services Information Team, a
support group for families frustrated by social services' actions, said:
"It's obscene the way some social services can take children away from
parents without the proper paperwork.
"We are aware of this happening in hundreds of cases a year through the
sheer incompetence and organisational failure of social services
departments.
"If they need to meet adoption targets they will do it by taking children
from vulnerable families.
"Worryingly, the social services involved seem to have no accountability and
ride roughshod over the law and the parents and children involved."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/
How social services are paid bonuses to snatch babies for
adoption By SUE REID - 31st January 2008
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/
National disgrace: The number of babies taken from their mothers and put up
for adoption is rising sharply
For a mother, there can be no greater horror than having a baby snatched
away by the State at birth.
The women to whom it has happened say their lives are ruined for ever - and
goodness knows what long-term effect it has on the child.
Most never recover from this trauma.
Imagine a baby growing in your body for nine months, imagine going through
the emotion of bringing it into the world, only to have social workers seize
the newborn, sometimes within minutes of its first cry and often on the
flimsiest of excuses.
Yet this disturbing scenario is played out every day.
The number of babies under one month old being taken into care for adoption
is now running at almost four a day (a 300 per cent increase over a decade).
In total, 75 children of all ages are being removed from their parents every
week before being handed over to new families.
Some of these may have been willingly given up for adoption, but critics of
the Government's policy are convinced that the vast majority are taken by
force.
Time and again, the mothers say they are innocent of any wrongdoing.
Of course, there are people who are not fit to be parents and it is the duty
of any responsible State to protect their children.
* The baby snatchers: Now teenage mother faces battle with social
services to keep newborn child
Read Article...
* I had to flee Britain to stop my baby being snatched by the State
Read Article...
* MAIL COMMENT: The shameful secrecy of the adoption system
Read Article...
But over the five years since I began investigating the scandal of forced
adoptions, I have found a deeply secretive system which is too often biased
against basically decent families.
I have been told of routine dishonesty by social workers and questionable
evidence given by doctors which has wrongly condemned mothers.
Meanwhile, millions of pounds of taxpayers' money has been given to councils
to encourage them to meet high Government targets on child adoptions.
Under New Labour policy, Tony Blair changed targets in 2000 to raise the
number of children being adopted by 50 per cent to 5,400 a year.
The annual tally has now reached almost 4,000 in England and Wales - four
times higher than in France, which has a similar-sized population.
Blair promised millions of pounds to councils that achieved the targets and
some have already received more than £2million each in rewards for
successful adoptions.
Figures recently released by the Department for Local Government and
Community Cohesion show that two councils - Essex and Kent - were offered
more than £2million "bonuses" over three years to encourage additional
adoptions.
Four others - Norfolk, Gloucestershire, Cheshire and Hampshire - were
promised an extra £1million.
This sweeping shake-up was designed for all the right reasons: to get
difficult-to-place older children in care homes allocated to new parents.
But the reforms didn't work. Encouraged by the promise of extra cash, social
workers began to earmark babies and cute toddlers who were most easy to
place in adoptive homes, leaving the more difficultto-place older children
in care.
As a result, the number of over-sevens adopted has plummeted by half.
Critics - including family solicitors, MPs and midwives as well as the
wronged families - report cases where young children are selected, even
before birth, by social workers in order to win the bonuses.
More chillingly, parents have been told by social workers they must lose
their children because, at some time in the future, they might abuse them.
One mother's son was adopted on the grounds that there was a chance she
might shout at him when he was older.
In Scotland, where there are no official targets, adoptions are a fraction
of the number south of the border, even allowing for the smaller population.
What's more, the obsessive secrecy of the system means that the public only
occasionally gets an inkling of the human tragedy now unfolding across the
country.
For at the heart of this adoption system are the family courts, whose
hearings are conducted behind closed doors in order to protect the identity
of the children involved.
Yet this secrecy threatens the centuries-old tradition of Britain's legal
system - the principle that people are innocent until proven guilty beyond
all reasonable doubt.
From the moment a mother is first accused of being incapable as a parent - a
decision nearly always made by a social worker or doctor - the system is
pitted against her.
There are no juries in family courts, only a lone judge or trio of
magistrates who make decisions based on the balance of probability.
Crucially, the courts' culture of secrecy means that if a social worker lies
or fabricates notes or a medical expert giving evidence makes a mistake, no
one finds out and there is no retribution.
Only the workings of the homeland security service, MI5, are guarded more
closely than those of the family courts.
From the time a child is named on a social services care order until the day
they are adopted, the parents are breaking the law - a crime punishable by
imprisonment - if they tell anyone what is happening to their family.
Anything from a chat with a neighbour to a letter sent to a friend can land
them in jail.
And many have found themselves sent to prison for breaching court orders by
talking about their case.
As High Court judge Mr Justice Munby told MPs last year: "It seems quite
indefensible that there should be no access by the media, and no access by
the public, to what is going on in courts where judges are, day by day,
taking people's children away."
However, it is not only secretive and publicly unscrutinised family courts
that are creating an injustice in our adoption system.
There is a more worrying factor involved. Look at the official figures. Why
are they so high? Is it really true that more mothers are becoming potential
killers or abusers?
Or are the financial bonuses offered to councils fuelling the astonishing
rise in forced adoptions?
John Hemming, a Liberal Democrat MP campaigning to change the adoption
system, said yesterday: "I have evidence that 1,000 children are wrongly
being seized from their birth parents each year even though they have not
been harmed in any way.
"The targets are dangerous and lead to social workers being over-eager.
"The system's secrecy hides any wrongdoing. One has to ask if a mother is
expected to have problems looking after her baby, why doesn't the State help
her instead of taking her child away?"
The MP's concerns are echoed by the Association for Improvements in the
Maternity Services (AIMS), a body which advises new mothers.
Spokeswoman Beverley Beech insists: "Babies are being removed from their
mothers by social workers using any excuse.
"We strongly suspect this is because newborns and toddlers are more easily
found homes than older children. They are a marketable commodity.
"I know of social workers making up stories about innocent mothers simply to
ensure their babies are put up for adoption.
"Suitable babies are even being earmarked when they are still in the womb.
"One baby was forcibly removed in the maternity ward by social workers
before the mother had even finished the birth process and produced the
placenta."
Her words may be emotive. But are they true? Six months ago, I wrote an
article about a young couple - who must remain anonymous because of family
court law - fighting for the return of their three-year-old daughter.
She was taken within weeks of birth and is about to be adopted.
Astonishingly, a judge has issued a Draconian order gagging them from
revealing anything, to anyone at all, which could identify their daughter
until her 18th birthday in 2022.
Immediately after the article was published, I heard from 35 families whose
children were forcibly removed.
The letters and e-mails continue to arrive - coming from a wide range of
families across the social classes (including from a castle in the heart of
England).
An e-mail from one father said: "Please, please help, NOW. We are about to
lose our son . . . in court tomorrow for final disposals hearing before he
is taken for adoption ... we have done nothing wrong."
Another father calling himself "James" rang to say his wife's baby was one
of eight seized by social workers from hospital maternity units in one small
part of North-East England during one fortnight last summer.
A Welsh man complained that his grandson of three weeks was earmarked for
forcible adoption by social workers.
The mother, a 21-year-old with a mild learning disorder, was told she might,
just might, get post-natal depression and neglect her son.
To her great distress, her baby was put in the care of Monmouthshire social
services within minutes of birth.
The grandfather said: "Our entire extended family - which includes two
nurses, a qualified nanny and a police officer - have offered to help care
for the baby.
"I believe my grandson has been targeted for adoption since he was in the
womb."
A Worcestershire woman told how her daughter's baby was snatched away by
three police officers and two social workers who came to the door of her
house.
The girl has now been adopted.
The mother's failure? She was said to be too young to cope.
Yet - a little over a year later - she had another baby, a boy, whom she was
allowed to keep, in the same home and with the same partner.
Why on earth did she have to lose her little girl?
The grandmother emotionally explained: "All the family came forward to offer
to help look after my granddaughter, and all of them were told they were not
good enough.
"The social worker told us to forget her. He said: 'She is water under the
bridge.'
"We think they wanted her for adoption from the beginning."
No wonder she, and thousands of other parents, want a shake-up of the heart-breakingly
cruel adoption system which has ripped apart so many families - and which
continues to do so.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/
