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.

Floaty you look at the case from the perspective of the biological parents and I agree, of course it's absolutely horrible that you lose your child when you have done nothing wrong.

But the question is - is it also in the best interest of the child to be removed from people this child knows as his/her parents? If someone told your 3-year old that sorry, you have to leave mummy and daddy now, because they are not your biological mummy and daddy and go live with those people you don't even remember?
I don't know what the answer here is, I'm not a specialist in this area, but I can also see this through the eyes of my toddler, not to mention the adoptive parents.

No not the same mistake. Just the same doctor reporting. She has reported on many many cases. And I think this is at least the 3rd where she has been proven wrong.

But let's not focus on her.
There are bigger issues here. A system that seems to be failing.
And the lid is being lifted.
Like Saul in the bible, the blinkers are being removed and people are starting to see the true picture.
The corruption.

The whole SS system is going to going to explode before long.

Okay, so the facts, according to the court notes and The Times.

Parents take a 6 week old baby to the hospital, who is bleeding heavily from the mouth. The doctors note that the baby's jaw is bruised, and there is bruising over the body, and fractured bones. The hospital report "non accidental harm", and the baby is taken into foster care.

There's a case at the family courts, nothing dramatic happens - parents deny abuse, but evidence suggests non-accidental harm, no new bruises have appeared on baby during time with foster parents, no new bleeding from the mouth.

Three years later, the now three-year-old is diagnosed with a blood disorder and infantile rickets. The fractures were revealed to be bone weaknesses due to the rickets, not fractures. The court concludes that; "Following new medical evidence, there is no longer a realistic prospect of conviction for any of the charges." All criminal charges are dropped.

The child, though, has been with a family from 6 weeks old to now. It knows it's birth parents but not as it's birth parents - he knows them by first name, rather than "mummy" and "daddy". Contact stopped over a year ago.

The legal battle hinges on whether it is best for the welfare of the child to be returned. The CPS' position is that the child is established. The parents want him back. I'm not sure how you call that - do you keep him with the family he knows? Try to blend them?

I absolutely think his birth parents have been screwed over, they've lost three years of their baby's life and they may well lose the rest. But as someone who has been there, I also think fast adoptions are a good thing, it's soul-destroying to be left unwanted. Is three years too fast?

'surely it is better for him to go back to his birth family than to grow up and feel he was somehow stolen'

Absolutely. When a single mother is sent to prison for not paying fines or for committing fraud etc, then her young child may be looked after by her sister or her mother etc. When she comes out of prison, the child will go back to the mother and rightly so.

Yes of course it's better for the DC to return to its birth family.

What happens if Madeleine McCann is found tomorrow safe and well and living with a couple who treat her well and whose language she has learned? Should she not be returned to the McCanns?

And now we have someone on Good Morning suggesting maybe there was more too it whilst covering her arse and saying not that Im suggesting there was.

Disgusting woman.

I thought the person on this morning was AWFUL.

What happens if Madeleine McCann is found tomorrow safe and well and living with a couple who treat her well and whose language she has learned? Should she not be returned to the McCanns?*

Totally different. Whoever has madeline, they have not legally adopted her!!!

hairbrush - why should the rights of adoptive parents trump the rights of the child and its birth parents?

There are several issues here to be unpicked and although they are related not all of them need to be considered in a causal way.

Firstly all this talk about returning the child like it is a piece of property are not giving any consideration to that child at all. Remember this child will never have really known their birth parents and has got a strong relationship and bond to their adoptive parents. Would removing that child and giving them to people who they consider to be strangers be in the best interests of the child? I would suggest it would not.

However that does not mean that I don't think a huge injustice has been done to the couple who lost their baby and to the child who has lost the opportunity of a relationship with their birth parents. Financial compensation may well be forthcoming but in the context pretty meaningless. What needs to be done is a proper review to see where things went wrong and steps taken to ensure that it never happens again to anyone else.

I wonder if it would be possible to facilitate some sort of relationship between the birth parents and child while minimising the adverse impact to the child's home life? Perhaps visitation or contact? I don't know, I'm not an expert but I do feel something proactive should be done now rather than waiting until the child grows up and whatever it is should be done in the interests of the child first and foremost, not the parents.

*And now we have someone on Good Morning suggesting maybe there was more too it whilst covering her arse and saying not that Im suggesting there was.

Disgusting woman.*

I agree. But I am wondering why no other family members were allowed to care for the child.

Not necessarily because the family wasn't suitable, but why did social services get that wrong too if there were family who could have had the child

'Would removing that child and giving them to people who they consider to be strangers be in the best interests of the child? I would suggest it would not.'

Yes, and no one seems to be thinking about the lifelong suffering of the innocent parents.

But priority has to go to the child's needs.

As a parent you put the needs of your child first in everything you do. Even if it is personally painful. That's what being a parent is, isn't it?

hairbrush - why should the rights of adoptive parents trump the rights of the child and its birth parents?

In the eyes of the child mummy and daddy ARE the adoptive parents. They have been for longer than the birth parents in the child's eyes. They are who he bonded with.

It's heartbreaking and should never have happened but I think it would cause more harm to the child to simply "give him back" as though he was lost property.

hairbrush - I think you have to be very careful. It isn't correct to assume that there isn't a special bond between biological relatives that is equivalent to the bond with adoptive parents.

'But priority has to go to the child's needs. '

The child is too young to make its own choice. The child will have to live its whole life knowing that it could not be returned to its parents because of the law. I don't think it is right and it is strange that no politicians are prepared to rectify it.

claig The rights and wellbeing of the child come before the rights of the parents. Every time.

However this case, if the facts are as presented, is utterly awful. As the child is only three years old, I would say that a period of transition and reconciliation is needed, and the child should go back to the birth parents.

Sorry I posted that before I saw your last post, claig

All the people talking about the child's best interests, just stop for a second and look over at your child.

Would you really really just let them stay with adoptive parents because it was best for them even though you had been seeing them for the first 2 years of their life? Come on! You would fight tooth and nail for your kid.

It makes my blood run cold at the thought of DS (4) being taken away from me forever for no reason and I could never get him back even knowing where he was. Awful

I think the child has to be returned to its parents.

I have experience of just such a case where the child was not returned, despite the parents' innocence.

The child tracked them down, aged 18, after getting its birth cert and finding an uncommon surname. The mother was found and contacted after a few minutes on facebook.

Long story short child now living with birth parents and full siblings and all trying to make up for lost time. All contact with adoptive parents severed because they didn't pass on cards and letters left in dropbox and lied to the child about birth parents and reasons for adoption.

Child feels its been robbed of its rightful childhood.

And how do you think your child would feel crystal if he was taken from you and sent to live with two people he hadn't had any contact with for a year? How do you think he would feel? Because to the child's mind the adoptive mum and dad are mum and dad.

There is no easy answer. It is not a black and white situation but there are a lot of people who are projecting their personal feelings in the context of their paternal relationship which are just not relevant here.

There needs to be proper work done to assess what is in the best interests of the child. Anything else would be grossly unfair to everyone.

I don't understand why they didn't get legal aid? They were entitled to it surely. Its also (I understand) now standard practice to test vitamin D levels so it would be nice to think this wouldn't happen again.

Legally the only way to terminate the adopters parental rights is by going to court (same as birth parents) for which you need just cause - which you don't have. You can't terminate someone's parental rights because you think the child might be better off somewhere else, it would set a bizarre legal precedent which would allow children to be taken away from parents who were just a bit crappy which the state can't do - the child has to be unsafe.

The only way to do it would be to have adoption as some kind second class parenting which is reversible. Which would cause untold damage to the 10's of 1000's of children who are adopted - some kind of twilight zone relationship.

You can't twist the law in two to remedy one heartbreaking case.

And yes it is about what's best for the child and please don't underestimate the huge damage caused by removing a child not once or twice but presumably in this case at least three times. The reason adopters tend to focus on this is because they have parented a child with this kind of trauma and therefore don't underestimate it.

Birth parents tend to dismiss adopters views in cases like this because they can't imagine the trauma caused to a child by removing them but they can imagine the trauma caused to them if they lost their child.

Being an adopter is not being pro-adoption in my experience. Most adopters I know are in fact anti-adoption and believe it is better for a child to stay with birth parents where this is possible - even if it's not in perfect circumstances. Because we've seen first hand the damage caused just as a result of the separation and uncertainty that adoption comes with (even without the potential damage caused by neglect or abuse). Adoption as a process is traumatic.

There is no outcome which is good in this case - the point of having a happy ending disappeared in the rear view mirror at the point the wrong decisions were made almost 3 years ago. Labelling people as "pro-adoption" with loaded terms isn't helpful and is dismissive of people who actually have more experience of this kind of situation (early life trauma caused by separation) than the majority.

I think should be possible to facilitate contact but it's such an unusual case that I think this should be done by negotiation with all the parties rather than a legal approach which sets a dubious precedent. If I discovered that my DS's birth mother had him stolen from her I would certainly want to be sure they had contact, but I'm not sure I would be strong enough to let him go permanently and I'm 100% certain he would be horrified at the idea of being removed from me - though to be fair he is older.

I think some people are confusing "best interests of the child" with doing nothing to the current status quo. While that may be the case it may well not be. More information is needed but acting in the best interests of the child is absolute and does not detract from the awful treatment of their parents or the sympathy and empathy any normal person would feel.

I would strongly argue that the child has to take priority every time.

It makes my blood run cold at the thought of DS (4) being taken away from me forever for no reason and I could never get him back even knowing where he was. Awful

I feel the same way.

About my adopted DS.

Exactly the same. Absolute terror. Do people think the adoptive parents feel any differently? It can't come down to an argument about which set of parents love the child more, or have been more unfairly treated because they are both innocent in this.

And you can't use arguments about one set of crap adoptive parents as a reason to remove a differnt child from other adoptive parents namechanged otherwise overall birthparents would be in way bigger trouble than adoptive parents.

Its almost as if the social workers were wringing their hands with glee at the prospect of getting a tiny baby on their books and out for adoption asap.

Because that would achieve what exactly? SWs don't work on commission FFS.