To be shocked and offended by this judges comments.

[ifgrandmahadawilly]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3317909/The-chilling-details-judgment-ordered-mother-hand-baby-gay-couple-gagging-order-prevented-telling-story.html

I just read this article in the daily mail about a judge who ordered immediate removal of a 15 month old breastfeeding toddler from its mother.

The judge criticised the mother for bedsharing and using a sling to carry and breastfeed the child in. She actually thinks that this level of attachent will be detrimental to the child!

Now obviously we don't have all of the details of this case and I'm not saying that the judge was wrong to move the child because we only have one side of the story. BUT the judge has made some shockingly ignorant comments which may affect precedent for future cases!

Is it too much to ask that family court judges, people who are making decisions which are supposed to be about protecting the child's best interests, actually have some idea what children need? Maybe some training in child development?

The bit about the toddler being young, so will soon get o er being suddenly seperates from her primary caregiver were bonkers too. This woman has no idea!

She posted on mn about it (thread subsequently deleted) and her post then asked would she BU to continue breastfeeding the baby for as long as possible so as to not allow the father access.

Afaik the original judgement was for supervised access, if this has now been changed then I imagine that there are reasons which are not being reported here. quell surprise.....

Babies are not removed from their parents without good reason. Nor is it general policy to give supervised access only, there are plenty of women on the relationships board who will testify to that.

I always find it amusing that many people will totally rubbish a story that appears in the DM just because they hate the newspaper, but at the same time will slavishly believe stories written on other random websites. How about a bit of balanced scepticism applied to ALL stories. Why would a site called suesspiciousminds be considered the bastion of truth?

However one looks at this story, it is extreme to have taken a baby from its mother.

of course it's extreme to take a baby from its mother, which is why an article which claims it's because she bf is sensationalist bollocks.

She posted extensively on mn a few months ago and it was easy to spot surrogacy a mile off. I and several others reported the thread at the time in the belief that the story could end up in the press and that if it did, the press would come looking on mn and would find. And look, it did.

And fwiw everyone without exception agreed that she was being totally unreasonable to act in the way she was.

The judge's decision is spot on.

Mothers are not automatically perfect. This woman seems to be manipulative and that sort of suffocating, controlling relationship is not good for the child. She clearly is just using the child as a pawn in her own self-dramatising life.

Nasty, personal comments about the judge are unpleasant and just show the ignorance of the people who make them.

jeanne you could always read the court papers and make your own mind up.

Which most of us did

jeanne16, the suesspicious minds website is very well respected. It's run by a specialist lawyer - in fact I think he is a local authority lawyer - who has a great deal of experience and knowledge of what he is talking about. Most pertinently, his article is based fairly and squarely on the published judgment, whereas the Mail one definitely isn't - if you look at the judgment, you can see that for yourself. In fact, it's interesting that they are heavily implying that the judgment itself has been kept secret, whereas it's been in the public domain ever since it was pronounced.

It's interesting that the Mail isn't allowing comments on that report. I'm sure that that is because last time they wrote about this the comments didn't go the way they wanted, and pointed out repeatedly that the facts simply didn't support the homophobic slant they were taking. They really are staggeringly dishonest.

The judgment seems right to me. Always love how many people will read ten biased articles but not the actual report when the word count is about the same.

Thanks for that Needsascarf, it is certain that surrogacy rules need tightening, as the current system is not fit fir purpose, to prevent future incidences like this from happening again. It is a big mess.

Yes she is a very maluplative and damaging woman. Surrogacy when it dies turn out right, is a do,utely winderful, unfortunates women like this put a dampner on it all.

YABU and I'm glad your offended.

Thanks for that link Giraffe. I've now actually read the whole of the judges' paper. And I still don't get why in law she made that decision.

I was looking for evidence of the harm that the mother was doing her daughter but could find no mention of any form of abuse other than an overly close relationship as evidenced by prolonged breastfeeding and cosleeping. (As my sister still breastfeeds and cosleeps with her 2.2 year old I don't consider that abuse.) M is very much loved. She's been bloody awkward about giving H and his boyfriend access but there are lots of posters on MN who don't want their DC spending time with OW - a totally unrelated adult as is B in this case.

Looking at the surrogacy laws on the gov.co.uk website it appears to say that the woman who bore the child is its legal mother unless she signs it over and the child's legal father is the mother's husband or civil partner. If she has no husband the child will have no legal father unless she actively consents. It all seems to be geared up to let a mother change her mind when she gives birth.

So it looks like a sperm donor and partner don't have any rights (gay or heterosexual). If I knew how to post a link I would but I can't. The sperm donor (H) isn't even mentioned on M's birth certificate so I don't get why he has any rights at all.

No one has a God given right to a baby. M is obviously not in any danger and has a relationship with her mum. Surrogacy laws seem to allow a mother to change her mind and those she is being surrogate for have no rights. Yet M has been taken away from everything she knows and given to a 'richer' couple who can 'give' more. That just doesn't seem right.

The case wasn't a surrogacy case.

It was treated as a straight forward custody case.

The mother was indeed harming the child. She ignored court orders and kept subjecting the the child to medical examinations that she didn't need.

She also has form for sending children out of the country so their fathers can not see them. Even though she stayed here. A case of 'if I can't have them completely, neither can you'.

She has form for stopping access to fathers. They offered 50:50 several times and she wouldn't accept.

She also tried to slander them in a homophobic manner. She put her what was best for her child.....last. Which is why she lost.

And I think the law should come down harder on absent parents and parents who try to block access just because they can.

TwoWrongs, don't you think trying to prevent your child from having a relationship with her father is in itself abusive?

I don't think the judge was saying that the prolonged breastfeeding and cosleeping were wrong in any way. What she was saying was that it was something that was happening purely for the mother's benefit, in order to obstruct contact: the judge commented on the fact that the mother claimed that she couldn't possibly express milk for the child, yet had managed to do so when it was convenient to her. And I would have thought that carrying a child around in a sling all day every day actually will be harmful in terms of the child's mobility and potentially causing injury to her spine.

The judge did not 'take the child from the mother'.

The judge gave custody of the child to one person with PR and allowed contact with the other person with PR.

The judge decided this as this was the only way the child could have a relationship with both people with PR.

Just keep thinking about how the little girl would have felt not snuggling up to her mum at night suddenly when that had been her norm.