Baby girl taken from mother to live with dad and his boyfriend

[Darcey2105]

I'm horrified!! Have you seen this story this morning?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-32603514

A baby girl was taken from her mother and is now in sole custody of the dad and his boyfriend. The reason being that he said the baby was conceived to be their surrogate child. but she says he agreed to be her sperm donor so she could have the baby.

What is going on? Surely even if the mother had changed her mind about surrogacy she could still be allowed to keep her own baby. I am totally appalled. The men had a top female lawyer fighting their case. And it looks like it was a woman judge who ruled it was in the baby's best interest to live with the dad and his boyfriend - even though the baby was still breastfeding!!

how can there be so little support of mothers? Please tell me I hallucinated the whole awful story.

No, it doesn't say he did. It just says the court heard from a lactation expert who said not possible at that time and who agreed to monitor and advise as the baby grew.

Nor does it say that she brought in this point as a means to obstruct contact.

So I'm not reading anything into that one way or the other.

And it was important for him to be involved in M's life. So establishing contact, and plan to adapt this as the baby grew had to be done from the off. You can't exclude one parent for months, and it was right that he was granted contact. It is a great pity that he had to go to court for it.

in fact, the father was having several hours unsupervised visits with the child. It was just when overnights were requested that things became more difficult RE the visits.

Breastfeeding is not an excuse to cut the other parent out of a child's life. it is possible to include them and still breastfeed.

I don't think anyone is disputing that the DF should have been granted contact, are they?

It all just seems 'very sledgehammer to crack a nut'.

The ability to calm down and present a reasonable face to the court shouldn't be the determining factor in such cases.

They were being included, a lot.

Watching these opinions with interest.

My friend who had 50/50 contact with his child is currently in bits because the mum has taken the child living 100's of miles away.

She was mentally unstable, a druggie, would ring the police and state the child had been kidnapped even when it was 'his turn' to have his child, would turn up outside his house during his time with the child and demand to get her back. Wouldn't dress her properly, once shaved all the childs hair off when she had a breakdown. Missed one court appearance, was late for the next.

She got residency, so she's now moving with her new boyfriend to london. Dad must now drive down to london on a saturday morning and then return his child sunday afternoon. The drive takes about 4 hours.

This decision was based on a 'mothers bond' and how she had a partner to give a family unit (judges words), with my friend being a single dad so obviously not worthy .

The ability to calm down and present a reasonable face to the court shouldn't be the determining factor in such cases

Really?

Bux, the law does not recognise three parents. So the non-bio dad has no rights. He may have desperately wanted this child, and be utterly committed to parenting her. Non-bio parents in this situation are the most vulnerable of all, and their investment is often minimised or ignored - as it is being on this thread.

DuellingFanjo - how can you be so sure that breastfeeding was the overriding reason for her non co-operation, rather than a convenient justification for it? The judge seems to view it as the latter, and certainly the non co-operation started before the birth, at a time when the fathers were still trying to secure some kind of shared parenting arrangement.

This mother has created a rod for her own back - she even presented as evidence a video of one of the handovers to prove what unfit parent H &B were and the judge commented that actually it proved nothing of the sort and that only H (from memory) came out of it with any kind of dignity

Kew

I don't think the Judge went that far.

I believe the description was that all three adults behaved badly on the footage BUT H was the only one to show concern for the effect on the child.

Which is hardly undiluted praise.

And it suggests to me that, away from court, all three adults were capable of histrionics.

Bux, the law does not recognise three parents. So the non-bio dad has no rights. He may have desperately wanted this child, and be utterly committed to parenting her. Non-bio parents in this situation are the most vulnerable of all, and their investment is often minimised or ignored - as it is being on this thread.

He does now (have rights). He's been granted PR. The Judge specifically recognises his parental role in her explanation of her decision to grant him PR.

Clearly there WAS unsupervised contact with the father over a few months which seems to have been fine. Only when Overnights were put in motion did the mother start to obstruct the contact. People seem to think that the mother was stopping all contact all the time when that is clearly not the truth.

MARCH

"During March 2014 and as directed by the court the Applicants filed a statement each and the DNA test results confirmed that H is M's biological father. The initial welfare report was filed by Ms Ritson (as reporting officer) on the 22nd April 2014; she recommended that H be given parental responsibility and that both the Applicants should have unsupervised contact with M as regularly as possible up to 5 or 6 times each week to allow them to build a bond with her. She also recommended that once M was being bottle fed, contact should be increased to include day visits leading to overnight contact before longer term residence arrangements were settled."

and

APRIL

"On the 25th April 2014 there was a further hearing before Deputy District Judge Morris. The Applicants were again represented and S was in person. A child arrangements order was made including that the child was to live with S until further order; there was to be unsupervised contact with the Applicants 6 days per week for three hours (the Applicants to collect and return M). In addition parental responsibility was granted to H and M's birth certificate was directed to be amended to register the First Applicant as her father."

and

SEPTEMBER

"On the 9th September 2014 a hearing took place before Her Honour Judge Pearl and then before Mr Justice Baker, at which all parties were legally represented. It was ordered, by agreement, that B was given permission to apply for a child arrangement order. The was to be longer but less frequent contact arrangements which were agreed at six and a half hours 3 times each week and allowed for M to go home with her father and B. "

and then this happened...

OCTOBER

"on the 1st October 2014 (when the matter first came before me) all the parties were legally represented; S had the benefit of representation by experienced counsel pro bono. The orders were made by consent and it was directed that existing daytime contact arrangements were to continue until 10th October 2014 when overnight contact for M with her father at the Applicants' home was to start, with M staying overnight every Tuesday and Friday from 11:00am until 11:00am the following day, and additional time during the day to be spent with her father, for six and a half hours on alternate Mondays and Thursdays. Either or both the Applicants were to collect and return M at London Bridge station."

Which clearly is the point where the contact started to go wrong and the mother started to escalate her behaviour through fear that the child would be taken away over-night

I put that in those quotes Cactus because I'm concerned about this mothers bond overriding the bond a child has with their father, and it being used as the reason for that decision to be made when all other evidence clearly showed her for what she was. He's gone from 50/50, in a place where she was happy and actually begged her dad not to take her home, to having to live with her mum and her drug dealer boyfriend - sole custody with visitation rights.

He's going to fight it but I'm worried it will be for nothing :(

CactusAnnie, my dp is the non-biological mother to our child. She was centrally involved with planning for her. She has parented her for nearly a decade. Damn right, I think she has an equal claim to that of myself and her father. The law doesn't recognise it, though.

The ability to calm down and present a reasonable face to the court shouldn't be the determining factor in such cases

Really?

Yes, really Grays.

What matters to the child is how they behave in daily life, not how cunning they can be in presenting a 'game face' to authority.

Of course, one would normally say that, in a formal arena, the ability to rein yourself in is highly indicative of self-control, but in such an emotive set of circumstances (particularly where one parent felt outnumbered, outbudgeted and outmanoeuvered) I'm not sure that is as applicable as usual.

They were ALL behaving poorly at the handover captured on CCTV.

I wouldn't want to live with any of them, on the evidence.

I am lucky that I don't have to.

you seemed to miss this one

JUNE

On the 5th June 2014 the S applied for permission to leave the jurisdiction for a holiday to Romania and applied for a UK passport for M; but by the 4th July 2014 S had secured pro bono legal representation and withdrew her application for permission to leave the jurisdiction. On the 15th August 2014 contact broke down following a disagreement between the parties; and contact between M and her father did not take place.

"DuelingFanjo - how can you be so sure that breastfeeding was the overriding reason for her non co-operation"

See my previous post. The long hours of contact with the father passed without incident until the mother was given a date for overnights. Her objections were due to a fear for the baby regarding breastfeeding. This is all clear in the court papers.

In October the baby was 9 months old. There are many parents who would not leave a breastfed baby elsewhere overnight at 9 months. just because it is possible or a choice for some doesn't mean that it would be easy for the baby. personally, regardless of if the mother was breastfeeding only to keep the father away, it would still be a concern to a mother and to a baby to be separated from the breast overnight or to be ordered to do so.

In just the same way that neither of us are biologically related to our second child, but we are both fully her parents. We are both fully parents to both our children, despite the differences in legal status.

Yes, sorry I did miss that one - not deliberately.

Clearly, as I have said, there are concerns about abduction.

But has EQUAL weight been given to the trauma of removing a 15mth old from her mother?

Yes. It was ruled that if the child lived with its father it would be able to have contact with both parents. If the child stayed with the mother then it would not have contact with the father. Therefore, less damage is done in the long run to have the child with the parent that allows contact with both.

but is also shows that contacted was disrupted when it was still only days.

Sorry to rant, CactusAnnie, but I've had a lifetime of being told that my family relationships aren't 'real'.

I don't think anyone is disputing that the DF should have been granted contact, are they?

The mother has proved that she will do all she can to stop contact. Should the baby remain with her, the fathers contact will be minimal. She caused all this.

CactusAnnie, my dp is the non-biological mother to our child. She was centrally involved with planning for her. She has parented her for nearly a decade. Damn right, I think she has an equal claim to that of myself and her father. The law doesn't recognise it, though.

That's why proper legal (surrogacy or coparenting) agreements are vital in non-traditional conception scenarios, though, surely?

You are lucky (wise, clever) to have an amicable situation.

The adults in this case don't have an amicable situation and they don'thave a legal agreement. They caused these problems. But how can the Law, as a default starting point, recognise any parents other than the natural parents?

The Law CANNOT possibly run on any other basis, can it?