No legal aid = baby adopted

[CFSKate]

I saw this on Channel 4 News yesterday, I only saw it part way through, but it went something like this, there was a couple who were accused of abusing their child, they couldn't get legal aid, the court had the child adopted, and then it went to court again and new evidence said there was a medical condition and the parents weren't guilty of abuse, but the adoption is final, they can't get their baby back.

Anyway, the parents won't get their child 'back'. All the lawyers are agreeing that the adoption will NOT be reversed. Apparently there was a similar Webster case a few years ago and that has set the presidence.
We just don't know if the parents will be allowed contact and how much.
Nightmare for adoptive parents too.
Nightmare for everyone.

I'm confused by Bobo's statement it's not a comparison too. I live in England and both personally experienced the care system as a child and worked with young people affected by the system as an adult - prison, suicide, teen pregnancies etc certainly is common with our looked after children as with Ireland's

Chucking around blanket and untrue statements

You mean like how people who disagree with you have no empathy or reason?

That our arguments are stupid?

undermining the entire (largely successful) adoption system may help a few children in the short term, but with have negative consequences on many thousands of children in the long term.

So maintain the system at the expense of the children it is hurting.

Sacrifice their interests for the good of the adoption system.

OK, but you can't make that argument and claim that you are interested in putting the child's interests first.

If helping a few children who have been wrongfully adopted is not worth it, if we have to accept those wrongful, forced adoptions as the price we pay for a mostly successful adoption system, then we are acting in the interests of the system and not the individual children within it.

It also raises some serious questions about an adoption system if making it easier to overturn wrongful adoptions would threaten it in any way.

How many children are being wrongfully adopted exactly, for overturning them to have any significant impact on the integrity of the system?

Why would it have a chilling effect on the number of adoptions unless prospective adopters thought there was a good chance a child placed with them had been taken wrongfully?

It is not a matter of getting rid of adoptions, but of making changes to current system.

I don't know much about adoption in Ireland, but to say that the adoption system in the UK is largely successful is quite simply wrong.

I think babybarrister has been right from the point of view of the current status quo, but there is every possibility that the precedent could be changed here.

For everyone who says "if the adoptive parents love the child they will return him/her", surely there is another perspective which is "if the birth parents love the child surely they will let him/her stay where s/he is settled and happy*

maryz would you honestly give your baby up? I think your bring very unsympathetic to the actual birth parents there. It's theirbaby.

I hope going forward that contact is resumed and the parents have a gradual shared access to this child at the very least

People are allowed to be pissed off at obvious injustice done to a family and its child and infuriated by the self-serving hypocrisy of a system that inflicts such damage and then uses "the best interests of the child", a child whose interests have manifestly not been served at any point, as the justification for doing nothing to rectify the harm it has done.

So don't you think that the 'best interests of the child' is what should be being considered now?

I also think that there's clearly scope to examine this case to see what went so catastrophically wrong and preventing it from happening again.

But in terms of fixing this particular instance, of course it needs to be about 'best interests of child', and not about railing against a system that screwed up.

*Chucking around blanket and untrue statements

You mean like how people who disagree with you have no empathy or reason?

That our arguments are stupid?*

Or maybe that they're untrue, like your claim about the conspiracy between the family and criminal courts.

So don't you think that the 'best interests of the child' is what should be being considered now?

I don't think it is the best interests of the child that are being considered.

I think the system is defending itself and using (easily manipulated) arguments about what is supposedly in the child's interests to justify that.

It just seems a weird coincidence that the interests of the child and the interests of the system that took the child (against its interests) always seem to line up exactly.

I made no claim about a conspiracy between the family and criminal courts.

I said that I thought it was not acceptable that the family court rushed ahead with a process it knew was irreversible while the criminal case was still ongoing, and that it refused to consider evidence presented to them moments after an order had been made.

That does not seem at all in keeping with the best interests of a child who has a right not to be taken from its family.

So don't you think that the 'best interests of the child' is what should be being considered now

Yes along side the birth mothers. She has had a child taken from her - unlawfully.

Maryz - it's a tragic situation but how anyone can possibly argue that the adoptive parents have an equal or greater claim to the child than the natural parents, or not understand that remaining as adoptive parents is totally doomed, is quite beyond me.

Miscarriages of justice occur. They need to be righted.

bathtime, I'll just leave this here.

bathtime

Earlier you said "This adoption and the conclusion of the criminal case which exonerated the rightful parents of this child took place within moments of each other."

How anyone can possibly argue that the birth parents have an equal or greater claim to the child than the adoptive parents, or not understand that the child has every possibility of thriving with the adoptive parents, is quite beyond me.

Miscarriages of justice occur. Adding another wrong to an existing wrong won't make it right.

"This adoption and the conclusion of the criminal case which exonerated the rightful parents of this child took place within moments of each other."

Yup, and if you inferred a conspiracy theory there, you inferred wrong.

My point was about lack of care towards the child's interests in making sure the adoption did not proceed without reference to what was going on in another court.

The timing of the criminal case is pretty much irrelevant. As others have pointed out (and been ignored) there is a higher level of proof needed in a criminal case.

So being acquitted (or not prosecuted) in a criminal court doesn't 'prove' that you're innocent, but that there is not enough evidence that you're guilty. There may not be enough evidence because you are innocent, or because you are guilty but there isn't sufficient evidence.

You can't expect anyone to adopt a child with the thinking "oh, if it doesn't work out, I'll give it back; if the birth parents want it, I'll give it back, if the law changes, ok, I'll give it back". That's not how it works.

Maryz you are making the SAME mistake a pp identified (Bathtime? ) of posting about rightful, legal adoption and not addressing the fact that this is a case of wrongful adoption.

The rightful parents haven't 'changed their minds' their child was taken. There has been a miscarriage of justice.

So being acquitted (or not prosecuted) in a criminal court doesn't 'prove' that you're innocent, but that there is not enough evidence that you're guilty. There may not be enough evidence because you are innocent, or because you are guilty but there isn't sufficient evidence.

Vile insinuation.

How do you know what toko is or is not insinuating Maryz?

It isn't hindsight that says they should have waited for the outcome of the criminal trial - evidence was presented and ignored.

They went ahead with this adoption despite having good reason to delay it.