Knock on the door… and a child's world fell apart

from: scotsman.com/latestnews

For most children, tales of "the bogeyman" coming to take them away are the stuff of nightmares, but on 20 March, 1998, her worst fears were realised.

The teenager vividly recalls the knock at the door and footsteps on the stairs as four social workers, flanked by policemen, came to take her and her younger sister into local authority care.

Screaming hysterically, the two girls were prised away into the arms of strangers and watched helplessly as their mother was forcibly restrained and pinned to the ground.

Frightened and alone, it was the first of many nights when they would cry themselves to sleep, taking what little comfort they could from each other.

Now 16, Melanie says she cannot remember how many days she sobbed and pleaded with social services to take her back home.

For eight years, she was prevented from even seeing her mother, Doreen. Only in the past few months have they been reunited. "I can remember when they took us away, but I didn't understand what was happening," says Melanie.

"I was only six years old. I just remember sobbing. When they took us… we weren't even told why we were there. They said it was to give my mum a break. Others said we were at risk near our mum.

"I was really scared in case they split me and my sister up. At least we were put in the same foster home and they didn't separate us. I shared a bed with my sister. We had each other."

As the weeks turned to months, Melanie began to wonder whether she would ever be allowed home. Every birthday, every Christmas, she hoped someone would realise a mistake had been made, but it took ten agonising years before she could return home.

From the age of eight, until she was 16 this year, she was prevented from seeing her mother.

Both she and her sister, Janine, were put up for adoption after a long and unsuccessful legal battle by her mother to get her children back.

Doreen was accused of having Munchausen syndrome by proxy (MSBP), a condition in which doctors believe parents invent illnesses in their children to draw attention to themselves. Despite their mother never being convicted of any criminal offence, the sisters were placed into care on the advice of social workers.

As many as 5,000 children in England and Wales are said to have been taken into local-authority care over the past 15 years on the strength of MSBP – a theory pioneered by Professor Sir Roy Meadow. The Scotsman understands the paediatrician intervened in a number of cases north of the Border and his evidence helped to convict the solicitor Sally Clark, who was falsely accused of murdering her two sons.

The condition was also given as one explanation why the nurse Beverley Allitt killed four children and injured five others at a Lincolnshire hospital in 1991 by injecting them with insulin or potassium to induce a heart attack.

With help from friends and neighbours, Doreen always managed to track down the girls when they were moved on to a different foster home.

She would often sit at a discreet distance and watch them coming out of school or playing in the park. Barred from making contact with them, she even managed to find out their number and would ring up just to hear the sound of their voices.

"I made contact with them over the phone when they were in foster care," says Doreen. "When they heard my voice, it broke their hearts. They were crying and saying why couldn't they come home.

"The social workers said that if I admitted I had hurt them, I could have the girls back. I never harmed my daughters; I would never do that.

"Eventually, they stopped all visits. I didn't see the girls from 30 November, 2000, until last week when Melanie came home. Janine is only 15 and still with her adoptive parents. I'm still not allowed to see her."

On turning 16, Melanie took the decision to contact her mother. She said: "I kept telling them I was moving out once I was 16.

"A friend said: 'Ring your mum, you'll be safe there'. I always called her Mum. That's my real mum… I never forgot her.

"I would never want to see this happen to anyone else," she said. "But I feel it's done now and we can't change it."

Returning home was a moving experience after so many years apart from her mother, and the teenager admits she finds it difficult to trust people, with the fear of rejection uppermost in her mind.

She rang Doreen and they agreed to meet in Edinburgh. Oblivious to the ten-year battle her mother had fought to get her daughters back, she was unsure whether her mother would want to see her.

"I was really scared," says Melanie. "I thought maybe she wouldn't show up. I didn't know what to expect. I felt like turning back and my legs were like jelly.

"I was looking for her and saw someone rubbing her eyes and crying. I thought I would still recognise her.

"I brought photos of me and my sister. We just talked and talked for ages."

Melanie moved back to the family home in the south-west of Scotland – to the same flat from where she was taken by social workers a decade earlier.

As she walked through the front door, she instantly recognised her pet labrador and walked straight towards her bedroom.

Surrounded by toy prams, teddies and family photos reflecting happier times, her room had not changed since the day she left.

"It was strange coming back to my bedroom. Everything looked exactly the same as I'd left it. I just felt sad that I had missed all those years."

• Names have been changed for legal reasons to protect the identities of the mother and her two daughters.