Judges condemn "foul play" on adoptions

from: timesonline.co.uk

Rosemary Bennett, Social Affairs Correspondent

Two senior judges have strongly criticised a local authority that forced through the adoption of a baby girl against the wishes of her father.

Lord Justice Thorpe accused East Sussex County Council of being determined to have the child adopted “by means more foul than fair”, while Lord Justice Wall accused it of “disgraceful” conduct.

He ordered that copies of their ruling, handed down at the Court of Appeal yesterday, be sent to all family judges and every adoption agency in the country as a warning that the wishes of both parents had to be taken into account in care proceedings.

The case involved a child, known as J-L, who was adopted earlier this year. She was born in November 2006 after a casual relationship between her mother and father, known as MC. He only knew that he had a daughter after the local authority contacted him last summer to tell him care proceedings were under way and asked for a DNA test.

The mother had been living with her baby daughter in a special unit, but had abandoned the baby there. The local authority recommended adoption and placed J-L with foster parents in the meantime.

The father said that he was unable to take part in the initial care proceedings because he was in hospital after a heart attack. When he discovered that adoption plans were well advanced, he went to solicitors who immediately contacted the local authority to try to stop them. However, his intervention through a solicitor’s letter was ignored and never recorded formally at subsequent meetings. The local authority then allowed the adoptive parents to begin to look after the baby girl the day before the father’s legal case went to court.

A further attempt by him to stop the adoption was blocked by the council using the 2002 Adoption and Children Act. Yesterday’s ruling was in response to the father’s appeal on grounds of a breach to his human rights.

“The council’s failure to answer that letter and subsequent placement on the eve of the hearing give rise to the clearest inference that the council was out to gain its ends by means more foul than fair,” Lord Justice Wall said.

“There are many who assert that councils have a secret agenda to establish a high score of children that they have placed for adoption. When such suspicions are rife, a history such as this only serves to fuel public distrust in the good faith of public authority.”

However, he said, it was “with regret” that the appeal court had to conclude that the local authority had acted in accordance with the 2002 Act, which was compatible with human rights laws.

“There has been a travesty of good practice which the 2002 Act happens to permit,” Lord Justice Wall said.

“In my judgment, the answer to this case is not to allow the appeal, but for this court to ensure, insofar as it can, that the conduct of this local authority is not repeated elsewhere. The agency, I am satisfied, quite deliberately set out to prevent the father from being heard. No other inference can be drawn for its conduct.”

Government ministers and senior social workers have been forced to defend the adoption system in recent months against allegations that too many babies and young children are being taken from their parents and adopted. Local authorities have been under immense pressure to increase the number of adoptions in their area in order to qualify for hundreds of thousands of pounds of extra funding. The number of babies and young children adopted each year has trebled from 810 to 2,300 in the past decade. Those targets have just been scrapped.

The two judges said yesterday that this case would fuel suspicion that there was “a secret agenda” on adoption.

Lord Justice Wall suggested the father consider judicial review. His lawyers said last night that they would be seeking legal aid to pursue his case.

Jon Davies, of Families need Fathers, said the judgment recognised that both birth parents should be given the chance to play a role in their child’s life. “Adoption agencies can no longer ignore a father who might wish to care for his child. We hope this will also apply to grandparents,” he said. “Yet again, the secrecy of family law has led to a personal tragedy. Who will explain this to the child when they ask why their father wouldn’t look after them?”

East Sussex County Council said: “We are pleased the court confirmed that we were legally entitled to do what we did. We are, however, very concerned about the comments made by the court and we will carefully review how we exercised our duties in this case and examine our procedures in light of what the judges have said.”