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.

In no other kind of miscarriage of justice would we just say "sorry, it was a mistake and we can't correct it"
Or say "sorry, you must stay in jail, or it would damage confidence in the system. The police would all resign if we freed you"

Staying with this wrong decision would create potential additional victims:
the future biological siblings of this child and their right to be with their sibling.
Or are the parents required to not only lose this baby, but not to have any future ones ?

The mother who gave birth, the natural parents who had contact until last year, are not strangers returning after several years.
A child is more likely to later explode in fury at being kept from biological parents and siblings, rather than at being returned to them as a toddler.

Posters are saying "it is probable the adoptive parents would allow contact"
Or maybe they won't.
The family court need to at least enforce frequent contact, immediately, without requiring the biological parents to give up on appeals, or suing for damages.
Then work towards a gradual transition.
The system shouldn't be allowed to delay this for years, to let their mistake stand.

There must be punitive damages, to discourage the authorities from repeating such gross incompetence and negligence.
Those who were professionally negligent should be reported to their professional bodies for censure.

maryz the barrister acting gave an interview saying that he had presented the evidence to the family court moments after the ao and that the decisions around the ao should have been revisited. no idea if tokoloshe has legal training or not but it likes like his/her opinion is at odds with that of the barrister dealing.

Russian, you have missed the fact that to the adoptive parents this is a legal adoption.

If it's wrongful, then it is wrongful. The adoptive parents cannot simply refuse to recognise that fact,

Do you really expect them to just hand their 3 year old over to people they don't know, just like that?

No, I don't. As I have posted.

There is a great difference between an accidental swap and a forced swap by the state due to a miscarriage of justice.
In the latter case, natural justice is more on the side of those damaged most by the state; in the former, both sets of parents would have suffered a similar injury

Maryz perhaps you should go back and RTFT instead of assuming what posters' positions are.

maryz, I missed your intervening post, and I agree with Russian. I think it is fine for you and for others to give robust views as this is a forum but you are giving quite blindsighting views and criticising others for not taking all the facts into consideration without reading the info people are giving - eg the parents are not strangers as they had contact with the adopters and the child for nearly 2 years, so the reports say.

Did they actually have contact with the adopters? Surely they'd have had supervised contact with child in the presence of a social worker not the adoptive parents whilst they were suspected of having abused the child

Did they actually have contact with the adopters?

Why does it matter?

If this is about the child and the child knows these people and was calling them mummy and daddy until recently and was gestated by one of them and carries the genes of both, then clearly these are not "strangers" to this child, and to characterise them as such is to see things entirely from the respective of the adults who are the more recent parents.

The barrister said he handed the information over immediately. In my view the adoption should not have gone ahead but it seems from what we all can read (none of us will know all the facts) that the social workers just went on regardless so keen were they to steal the child permanently from the birth parents.

why do we keep getting this swapped at birth false analogy - where neither set of parents or the child would have had a clue at any point that the child had other parents?

this is nothing like that.

Bathtime, you keep insisting the criminal and family court cases were being heard at the same time. They were not.

The closest historical analogies are political adoptions (Chile in the 70s or Lebensborn). I'm not sure how helpful that is, though.

In terms of current psychological expertise in managing the trauma, child psychs with experience of post baby-switch and post kidnapping reunion will be the best qualified to comment on managing the trauma.

I am sorry, I have only read first few pages, so forgive me if these issues have already been covered.

Legal aid is available on non means, non merits tested basis only for the CARE proceedings. Anything after the care proceedings - applying to appeal the care order, or the placement order or the adoption order - is subject to means and merits test so most parents won't get it.

A child gets adopted in three stages - the making of a care order, the making of a placement order then the making of an adoption order. They can ask the court's permission to challenge the final stage. But its highly unlikely they will succeed as usually this is a year or two down the line and the child is settled with the potential adoptive family.

The reasons why adoption orders won't be reversed are discussed here. BUT it is clear that the Council of Europe is very unhappy with us and thinks our system does not act in chlld's best interests. It seems like majority of public opinion agrees with them.

www.childprotectionresource.org.uk/whats-the-difference-between-adoption-and-fostering/

and anyone who thinks UKIP is going to sort this out, is frankly, insane.

the barrister acting gave an interview saying that he had presented the evidence to the family court moments after the ao and that the decisions around the ao should have been revisited. no idea if tokoloshe has legal training or not but it likes like his/her opinion is at odds with that of the barrister dealing.

If only he'd presented it moments before. But he didn't. Why's no-one shouting about that?

I am not insinuating anything.

Not looking at this particular case:

If someone is not prosecuted, or is found 'not guilty', then either they are NOT guilty, or they are but there isn't enough evidence to prove it beyond reasonable doubt. That is what it is.

Not sure what I am supposed to be insinuating

The system is set up so that guilty people go free rather than innocent people get convicted. It isn't perfect, of course, and miscarriages of justice happen. But the principle is that when someone's facing prison and a criminal record, they have the benefit of any possible doubt.

In a civil court that isn't the case. A civil court looks at what is most likely. Which is why a family court might conclude that a child has probably been abused, and act to prevent further abuse, even though there is no criminal conviction.

WRT this particular case:

I have no info on this case other than what the birth parents and their lawyers have said.

What they say may be 100% accurate, it may not. I have no idea - and neither does anyone else on this thread, despite the certainty some people seem to have...

Lorks a mercy! This is a bit of a bunfight innit? I'm not going to throw buns because wiser heads than mine have been shouted down on this this thread but I wanted to pose a question. Was the removal of the child purely down to the alleged fractures/ricketts?

Had there been no former social services involvement? Was there any suggestion other neglect/abuse? I am not implying anything btw, I genuinely don't know. It is just that criminal charges have been dropped, there could have been additional reasons in the family court which were not reported. As I say, don't all jump on me! I'm ABSOLUTELY NOT saying this is the case. I am just saying that as far as I can tell (and I may be quite wrong) we don't know what the procedures were in the family court. It is just something to be considered before calling for a reversal in an adoption order. I also wonder why, as this was a post B-S case, why other family members were not deemed as suitable for SGOs. Again, not implying anything, just wondering.

Also, I do really really believe that the family courts should be more transparent and agree with much of what the Transparency Project is attempting to achieve, so don't get all 'secret family courts' on me either. My only concern is protecting the anonymity of the children involved.

Finally, full disclosure I'm an adoptive mum, who doesn't always think adoption is the best possible outcome. Weirdly I was probably far more 'pro-adoption' pre process and placement. All that training, reading, thinking and trawling the Internet made me question everything.

Phew - massive post. Apologies.

Spero's link is interesting. And I simply don't have the answer. Seriously, how do you get atriums this?

Why are we so out of kilter with the rest of Europe? 3 out of 28 countries? Seems odd.
I do actually agree, (in my limited knowledge! I mean what do I know?)
That adoption is better than fostering. It gives the legal finality, so the child knows that's the end. I believe this helps.
However, I also have a problem if there is a total miscarriage of justice. I don't mean someone abusing or drugs that then becomes clean.
I mean a total injustice. It turns out its medical and there was nothing wrong.
So then I feel that it needs to be overturned. If it's so bad an injustice, it can't be left to stand.
But now I'm contradicting myself, with what I said in the first sentence.
So it seems impossible to reconcile.
But I can't let an injustice stand. But I can't suggest a solution.
I know not what the answer is here.

God the poor child and parents, both sets of parents. There isn't a happy ending to this whatever, this child may well have some attachment issues already and moving them again even if handled very carefully with expert advice etc may result in more issues yet not doing anything will also likely result in harm.

The adoptive parents will hopefully be getting bloody good support so they can deal with explaining this and hopefully again there can be some sort of contact with the biological parents, I guess with a view to the child returning to them but it's not going to be an easy process. Would it be in the child's best interest to have contact with both sets of parents as a long term option?

There are no easy answers to this, some kind of investigation needs to take place to try and prevent this happening again and both sets of parents and those involved with this child need to be provided with the utmost professional support as they deal with this now and in the future.

Weirdly I was probably far more 'pro-adoption' pre process and placement.

I know exactly what you mean. The more you learn, the more the ambiguities make themselves clear. As it were.

FWIW, the baby was 6 weeks old when the parents took it to hospital concerned about bleeding in the mouth. No previous concerns have been mentioned and TBH there wasn't much time for any to crop up.

The lack of extended family alive, healthy, willing, able and suitable to care for a newborn FT & on an ongoing basis could have many explanations. You can't infer anything either way from that.

Why are we so out of kilter with the rest of Europe? 3 out of 28 countries? Seems odd

Mostyn J got that wrong. EVERY country in Europe has a legal mechanism for adoption without parental consent. For some reason it has become a 'truth' that the UK is 'unique' in this regard or 1 of only 3.

BUT without a shadow of a doubt, we are far and away the most enthusiastic proponents of adoption. And I think this 'push' for adoptions, coupled with the fear post Baby P of another baby dying and another SW witch hunt starting up, has led us to the situation we are in today.

I think we do urgently need to have a look at how other countries deal with the situation of children who can't live with their parents, for whatever reason. I went to a conference in Finland in June and heard some of their social workers and parents speak - it was really interesting. Much more focus on keeping a child's relationship with the people important to him/her.

But I take Maryz's point - some parents are just so abusive and dangerous that a child deserves to be kept safe from them and deserves a right to a safe, secure home.

Adoption is the best thing for SOME children. The question is - how can we be as sure as we can be that we identify these children? Then, if we make a mistake, what do we do about it?

PS Involving UKIP or any other ill informed pressure group will not help with either.

*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*

The problem is that the family and the criminal courts have very different aims and very different standards of proof.

In the family court, the aim is to find the outcome that is in the best interests of the child and facts must be found on the balance of probabilities.

In a criminal court the aim is to punish the wrong doer and protect society from them and facts must be found beyond a reasonable doubt.

A family court CANNOT wait for a criminal trial to conclude. The Children and Families Act 2014 changed the law so that care proceedings MUST now conclude within 26 weeks or as soon as possible. Criminal proceedings can limp on for YEARS from what I have seen.

Therefore it is perfectly lawful for a family court to make a finding on the balance of probabilities that parents have hurt a child but for the parents not to be convicted in later criminal trial. That failure to secure a criminal conviction does not render the decision of the family court unlawful.