Oldham mum losing 2 year old to adoption unfairly

[boysown]

www.oldham-chronicle.co.uk/news-features/8/news-headlines/38254/news-full#comments

Mum loses out in fight for her son
Reporter: COURT REPORTER
Date online: 16/03/2010

A 25-year-old Oldham mum was told yesterday that her efforts to change her life had come too late to ever have a chance of getting her two-year-old son back.

The woman, who can?t be named to protect the child?s identity, made an emotional plea to a top family judge.

She sobbed as she told Lord Justice Ward that she had not had a fair hearing last October, when an order taking her son into care and placing him for adoption was made.

The mother said that she had been in a psychiatric hospital prior to that court hearing, at Oldham?s Family Court, and had not been in the right frame of mind to make any decisions. But Lord Justice Ward, sitting at London?s Civil Appeal Court, said the case in favour of adoption was ?overwhelming? and the correct way to proceed.

He told the woman she had made her submissions to him ?passionately, eloquently and heartbreakingly,? but that the positive steps she had taken towards changing her ?chaotic? life had come too late.

Addressing her concerns about her state of mind at the hearing, he said: ?If she was unwell, a guardian would have been appointed for her, but her disability was never so grave as to reduce her to that state.?

He said the mother had tried to adjourn proceedings at the Oldham Family Court so that an assessment of her mental health could be carried out, but this had been refused.

A judge at Manchester County Court also refused her permission in January, this year.

Lord Justice Ward said those decisions were correct, and that both court hearings had been conducted in a ?careful and sympathetic? manner.

Describing the case as ?distressing?, the judge said: ?If I were to give permission to appeal for every litigant I feel desperately sorry for, I would be granting permission to everyone.

?The sadness for me is that this mother has demonstrated she is a loving mother and does have an ability to look after her child.

?She had lived a chaotic lifestyle, mainly due to the pernicious influence of the man who inflicted violence on her, and she has made great steps towards improving her position.

?The tragedy is that all of that has come too late for this little boy to be returned to her.

?If sympathy was the Litmus test for granting permission, I would give it.?

He refused the sobbing mother permission to appeal and told her he was ?very sorry? as he left the court.

Have Your Say

I don't think I could / would do it on a personal leve, but I think it's important to uphold a woman's right to an abortion. Whatever her reasons.

Possibly a whole different discussion, but I don't think it's at all healthy to DEMAND women have babies who are not wanted.

I'm all for considering the unborn baby, but only AFTER the needs of the expectant mother have been catered for.

Having been force fed brought up with anti abortion (Am Irish Catholic) laws, I'm more sure than ever that it should be a woman's right to choose.

Many of the mothers who have had 14-15 babies taken into care on the trot would be better looking after 1 or 2 children and having a contraceptive implant.

Often they are perfectly capable of this and the state support is massively less than the £2-3 Million that current interventions cost.

"But you will always have a bond with your mother" hopefully so (though always is sadly optimistic). But that mother won't always be the woman who gave birth to you. How much of a bond do you think DS is going to feel with the woman who left him at a hospital hours after giving birth vs the woman who raised him?

Also it a fallacy that all adoptive children having the urge to search for their birth family. Many do, many don't - it really depends on the individual.

Personally I'm not prepared to decide either way whether this should have been adopted or not based on the little information we have. However on the face of it at least I am certainly glad that SS were concerned enough to get involved, mother getting beaten unconscious by partner (whether child is present or not) would sound huge alarm bells in my mind.

Mothers may have huge rights to keep their biological children but in my mind a child's rights to be safe and secure and grow up in a loving family trumps any parents rights. If you cannot VERY CLEARLY keep your children safe you start giving your rights away.

Well john hemming if you had any doubt that this was a reasonable judgement you'd be all over it. I disagree with what you state about women prefering to terminate than have babies that will probably be removed, in my experience that is not the case. I also don't understand what you mean in your last statement. Pretty much all mothers who have 14 or 15 children taken into care on the trot have serious issues. I really don't understand your point. People choose to have many children despite knowing full well they cannot take care of them and that they are likely to be removed, in what way is the state causing that? Social services would love to get these women on larc but it's their choice. You seem to be implying that social services are responsible for inadequate parents birthing many children to enter the care system. Baffling.

I read johnhemming's last post as thinking that the State should forcibly implant contraception in women who have lots of children. Not entirely sure how that would work though, given that you say that most of them are 'perfectly capable of looking after 1 or 2 children'. As far as I know people don't start having children, look after them perfectly well and then when they have three or four, suddenly become incompetent. Generally it's a pattern that's repeated a lot of times. So do they get a chance to have several children taken into care, then are given the implant, then they get a few of those kids back?

What a loopy idea that makes no sense whatsoever

"I read johnhemming's last post as thinking that the State should forcibly implant contraception in women who have lots of children."

That, however, is not what I said.

I can cite cases where mothers who have a child in care and face removal at birth who have terminated. One of those cases is an Oldham case which was a clear miscarriage of justice where the judgment has been published.

I can find a link to his if anyone wants it.

I don't doubt that there are women who would choose termination. I have encountered at least one myself - this woman already had children removed so perhaps she was less naive about the reality of having a baby removed.
The majority IMO however continue with the pregnancy even when advised there is a very strong likelihood of CRP and care proceedings.

what did you mean by this -

'many of the mothers who have had 14-15 babies taken into care on the trot would be better looking after 1 or 2 children and having a contraceptive implant.'

by the way?

A number of the cases I have seen are ones where with some support and encouragement the mothers concerned are capable of maintaining a good environment to look after their children.

Often the reason they have large numbers of children is because of the removal of the previous children and what is in effect a bereavement response.

The concentration tends to be on the care proceedings and developing a case to substantiate the decision to remove a child and place the child for adoption rather than what is best for the child and the wider family.

Some of this has to include encouraging the mother (but not compelling) to use contraception and not end up with a chaotically large family with which she cannot cope.

You still haven't answered my point:

"As far as I know people don't start having children, look after them perfectly well and then when they have three or four, suddenly become incompetent. Generally it's a pattern that's repeated a lot of times. So do they get a chance to have several children taken into care, then are given the implant, then they get a few of those kids back?"

or are you proposing that they get to keep the next few pregnancies if they promise to have an implant?

John, the idea that the focus is just on removing a child is wrong. On serial proceedings, parents are very clear about what they need to change and support to do so. We work closely with health professionals to discuss proper contraception, but you can only lead a horse to water...it is in no-one's interests to keep having to enter into proceedings.

I find a few things that mobaldy said a bit worrying

"2. the Police and domestic violence workers pleaded with the Social Services to move mother and they refused."

Why wasn't the mother helped to move away from the problem?

"4. the Social Services even showed the violent ex details of the mothers complaints to the police, he found her and again was battered"

So the mother moves and the people supposedly helping her notify her ex about her whereabouts so she is then back at square one?

"5. the police on several occasions said to mother that the EX would not get bail, every time he went to court sadly he did."

Why would he be given bail to be free to go out and batter her again?
Wasn't this family given any protection against this man? Weren't they given any help in settling as a family away from harm?
Obviously I don't know all the facts but from what I have read on here it sounds a bit odd and more that the mother was left to find her own way out of the situation without help. And when she got away from the situation she was dropped in it again by the people you would expect to help her?

juule - however point 3 of mobaldy's post was:

1. the Chaotic life style was down on paper because of all the placements she lived in, moved from refuge to refuge.

If she was being moved from refuge to refuge, it seems to suggest they were trying to protect her from her partner doesn't it?

Points 2 and 4 contradict point 3 IMO.

So forgive me my scepticism. And she did not get to keep her older child either. So something clearly isn't right ...

wahwah I refer to the cases I see. I cannot say (and accept) that this does not apply to all cases.

I picked up on the same points as you, John, but ime it seemed really odd. if a woman was at risk, no LA would make her face danger, far from it, that's the whole basis of the proceedings...

in relation to sharing info with xp, then Iimagine this would have to happen at some point in proceedings, after all is his son. Him finding her and assaulting her is the issue, although it seems that her inability to protect herself with the support offered, was sadly the reason for proceedings in first place a sort of catch 22. Although she is not reponsible for his violence...Anyway, I don't know details, but again seems a bit 'off'.

i know this town quite well, know the LA quite well and i have every confidence that SS acted correctly. there is no way that Oldham would put itself in the limelight yet again - it just wouldn't. i have confidence that correct procedures were followed and that this woman was given many many chances.

yes it is heartbreaking that you get battered of your boyfriend, but you can't have kids around that behaviour - someone said the kid didn't see it

i bet he saw his mum after, i bet he could feel the tension in the room, i bet he saw her break down and cry.

for most people the choice is simple, you love your child - then you love the man you are with. that is the order of things.

i do not believe that social services took the childfrom the mother becuase her chaotic lifestyle involved moving from refuge to refuge. i bet there are periods of time inbetween refige to refuge where she saw her man again.

you can't bring up a kid like this

for it to get to this stage i bet social services were snigging around for bloody ages.

one whiff of ss, and most of us shit our kecks and pull our socks up.

therefore i believet hat this was the right decision for the child.

you can't leave a child to witness monumental fucked upness like this.