Parents win right to keep fourth child - but vow to fight for the other three

LAURA COLLINS

Norfolk couple Mark and Nicky Webster last week finally won their landmark legal fight to keep their fourth child, Brandon, after a false allegation of child abuse robbed them of their three older children.

In what has been described as a "gross miscarriage of justice", the Websters' children were taken away by Social Services and forcibly adopted after a family court hearing that lasted just one day.

Here, the shattered parents tell of their ordeal and their joy at the High Court judgment on their youngest child. But the battle is not over.

The couple have vowed to fight on to clear their names and renew contact with the children they have lost ? the siblings 13-month old Brandon has never known.

They had battled for more than a year for this moment and the emotion was almost too much to bear. Last Friday, Mark and Nicky Webster won their fight to keep their infant son, Brandon.

Standing on the steps of the Royal Courts of Justice, factory worker Mark broke down and wept for the three older children he and his wife have already lost to Social Services ? almost certainly for ever ? after they were accused of child abuse.

Mr Webster, of Cromer in Norfolk, described the judgment as 'partial vindication' but vowed to take the fight to clear their name to the Court of Appeal.

He said: "Of course, we are overjoyed to have Brandon but now let us see the children they stole from us. We've been under scrutiny from Norfolk County Council for the past year and shown we are good parents to Brandon. We were good parents to all our children.

"We've been told adoption is irreversible except under ?exceptional circumstances?. But we will apply to the Court of Appeal for permission to overturn the care order that led to us being called child abusers and our children being adopted.

"We do want contact with our children (now aged seven, five and nearly four). They're Brandon's brothers and sister and we want them to know each other and know the truth. We would like to make sure they will be told they weren't neglected or abused. They were extremely loved. We want Norfolk to apologise, to acknowledge mistakes were made."

Last night the couple's MP, Liberal Democrat Norman Lamb, said: "I am convinced now that this is a gross miscarriage of justice. We need to have a proper inquiry into how such mistakes can be made. Part of that means addressing the financial incentive that exists for councils to meet adoption targets."

Earlier, the Websters had listened as Mr Justice Holman found "no basis for considering Brandon at any risk of harm and every reason to believe that he is thriving in a caring, loving family".

Yet, in his short life, Brandon has been both the centre of a custody battle and the catalyst for a landmark legal case brought by The Mail on Sunday and the BBC last November to lift a gagging order. Had we not been successful we would not have been able to report any of last week's events.

If ever there were a story in which the danger of the family courts' closed-door justice was writ large, it is this. During the four-day hearing, the paucity of the council's original case was laid bare.

Listening to Norfolk's opening statement, Mr Justice Holman said: "The gravity of the situation is obvious. People will say, how could this have happened?"

For, though last week's case was theoretically concerned only with the care of Brandon, it had everything to do with the May 2004 hearing that branded Mark, 34, and Nicky, 27, child abusers.

Their ordeal began in October 2003 when Nicky took their second son (Child B) to hospital with a painful, swollen leg. He was found to have several metaphyseal fractures ? a type of break doctors said could be caused only by physical abuse.

A nightmare of council intervention followed. All three children were placed in foster care. Their parents were powerless. Barely six months later, in a hearing lasting just one day, the children were permanently removed and swiftly advertised for adoption.

A year ago last last May ? with Nicky heavily pregnant and the couple convinced their fourth child would be taken at birth ? the Websters fled to Ireland, where Brandon was born. They returned the following month, agreeing to care for him in a Big Brother-style assessment centre. After five exemplary months they were allowed to take him home.

In February this year, at an interim hearing for the proceedings Norfolk County Council was still pursuing, Mr Justice Holman told the council it could not simply cite the May 2004 case as proof of Brandon's risk. It would, he said, have to prove "from scratch" that Child B was abused.

New experts were instructed, the original treating doctors revisited, GP notes thoroughly investigated and witnesses who had never originally been called gave statements.

Then, just days before the hearing, scheduled to last ten days, was to begin, Norfolk dramatically withdrew its care order application. Had Justice Holman simply accepted that, none of what follows would have ever been aired. Instead he decided that would "not do justice to the situation as a whole".

What did emerge was an 'overwhelming' body of medical opinion illuminating the truth about Child B's fractures and the unforgivable extent to which the Webster family had been shattered by the failures of medical professionals, social workers and legal representatives enlisted ? at public expense ? to protect them and their children.

Tragically, the fractures that Norfolk social workers and doctors branded 'proof' of abuse were shown to be nothing of the sort.

An American expert ? known only as Prof P, for legal reasons ? was instructed by the Websters. An internationally renowned nutritionist, Prof S, was instructed by the council.

His report was forwarded to an expert radiologist, Dr L, who dramatically reversed an original finding of abuse and recommended the instruction of a further radiological expert, Prof R.

Every one of these eminent specialists was united: Child B's fractures were not evidence of abuse but of bones weakened by scurvy, caused by lack of vitamin C.

Worse, the scurvy was due to the child's "eccentric diet" ? almost nothing but soya milk ? sanctioned by the family GPs. The Websters' "crime" was to follow medical advice.

Nicky explained: "Our son was lactose-intolerant and had eczema. At a few months he was put on prescription infant soya. But he also wouldn't eat solids. On the very rare occasions he did swallow something he would vomit."

Understandably, the problem ? not experienced by her other children ? concerned Nicky. She raised it with her health visitor and GP but was told: "He'll eat when he's ready."

Crucially, in February 2003, after a year, the GP stopped the prescriptions for Child B's infant soya. Nicky was told to buy supermarket soya milk. The GP did not give advice about vitamin supplements.

In court, another GP who saw Child B claimed he "would have advised" that orange juice be added to this diet. Nicky denies this was ever said.

From then until his admission to hospital the principal source of Child B's nutrition was soya milk. "Maybe I should have known," Nicky said. "But we're not medical people. We were following advice. We felt we were doing the best for our son.

"Now I can't help holding the GP responsible."

Little wonder. Mark and Nicky were young, inexperienced parents ? no different from thousands of others. But they loved their children and the issue of Child B's diet was one Nicky raised repeatedly.

On the very day she took her son to hospital in October 2003 she mentioned it to the dietician, who recorded: "Will be deficient in kcals, iron, vits and minerals."

Later, Nicky wrote pages of questions for her solicitors to investigate. Searching for explanations to the fractures she pointed to her family history of osteogenesis imperfecta (brittle bones) and queried what effect her son's diet might have had on developing bones.

Yet Child B's extraordinary, deficient diet did not feature in the 2004 hearing before Justice Barham. Instead, Norfolk relied "heavily" on a report from a treating paediatrician which described the fractures as "highly specific" to abuse.

That report carried the note: "Not to be used in court proceedings."

Last week Justice Holman said: "It is not difficult to imagine that, later, the paediatrician might say, ?I know I put this then but, with hindsight, more information and reflection, I feel differently.? '

The key expert witness ? jointly instructed ? at the 2004 hearing was, according to Justice Holman, "not really the right man".

Positive evidence was finessed out of the picture. Why, for example, was Nicky's health visitor not asked to make a report?

Justice Holman said: "I think if a health visitor says, 'I cannot believe there is non-accidental injury going on here,' that seems evidence I would want to weigh and hear."

Instead, a written statement from the health visitor, read in court last week, revealed how her view was quashed. Asked at a Social Services meeting whether she thought the Webster children should be placed on the 'at risk' register, she said: 'No'.

She explained: "I advised I had no concerns and didn't believe either parent would deliberately harm any of their children.

"Several weeks later there was the suggestion of going for care proceedings in respect of all three children (which) I disagreed with. My superior disagreed with me although she had had no dealings with the children.

"My team leader told me the medical evidence was overwhelming. She told me I should agree with her. I was very upset but felt I had to do what I was instructed."

In the face of such determined pursuit, the Websters could only rely on their legal representation. But today Nicky says: "We were failed in a big way by our lawyers. Days before our final hearing we ended up changing our solicitor."

At that hearing the medical evidence was "all one way" and the Websters' assertion of innocence was termed "denial" ? or proof that Mark and Nicky remained incurable abusers.

But when he opened proceedings last Tuesday, Justice Holman posed two questions to Norfolk council: "If all the medical evidence now assembled had been available in May 2004 would Norfolk have sought a finding then that child B was non-accidentally injured?

"And, if they would not have sought (such) a finding, would they have pursued the removal of those children, let alone the adoption?"

The council had always insisted it was "not a single issue" case. Yet the feeble nature of their "other issues" was given short shrift by Justice Holman. Referring to the note that Child A's teeth were very bad, he said: "I don't think children get removed, never mind adopted, for that."

Ultimately, Norfolk failed to answer his opening questions. Yet ? just as lawyer George Hawks, who was instrumental in bringing the Websters' case to light, stated last week that recognising the significance of Child B's diet was 'not rocket science' ? providing a succinct answer to both questions is hardly a feat of logic.

Unless each eminent physician instructed by the Websters and Norfolk over the past five months were to be discredited or shown to be wrong, the most likely cause of Child B's injuries was scurvy.

But still the Websters await any apology. Still the health professionals who condemned them, the legal professionals who failed them and the social workers who judged them ? and ignored those in their own organisation who spoke up for them ? are protected by a cloak of anonymity.

They all continue to work within the same care services. They all continue to wield the same power they exerted over this family with such devastating consequences.

Mark and Nicky Webster are remarkable in the fortitude they have shown in the past weeks, months, years. Nicky says: "For a while we had to emotionally disconnect from what was going on or we would have just fallen apart.

"In a sense we have Brandon to thank for even getting to this day. But, without the media interest, I have no doubt that Brandon would have been taken at birth and we would have had to fight to get him back. And I don't think we would have managed it.

"Because this was happening in the public eye, we were given the opportunity we never had with the others, to show that we are good parents. The only observation we had then was at contact meetings. Each time that ended with tears."

It is impossible to articulate the impact this has had on Mark and Nicky and on their close, extended family in Cromer, Norfolk. A poignant postscript to this week's events came with the death of Nicky's grandmother, Joyce, at 4am on Friday.

Nicky said: "One of her wishes was to see the children again. I regret we couldn't fulfil that for her. We've lost years with our children, my parents have lost years with their grandchildren and she lost years with her great-grandchildren. That should have been very special."

Mr Justice Holman closed his judgment: "I wish Mr and Mrs Webster and Brandon every possible happiness and fulfilment as a family together in the years to come."

He added: "I'm sorry you've had such a ghastly week. I hope the future's very, very rosy for you." But how can a future be "rosy" when it is bound to such a past? How can a hearing during which a catalogue of errors was exposed end with the conclusion, judicially at least, that no one was to blame?

How can the anonymity of the professionals involved and the secrecy of the family courts be defended when this family's story stands as a stark and frightening example of just what can slip through the net, undetected, unscrutinised?

According to Nicky: "The judge was very fair in what he said. But there's no such thing as winning, is there? I would like at least an acknowledgement from Norfolk that mistakes were made.

"We did nothing wrong. We followed the advice we were given. We loved our children. The worst thing about the family courts is that it's all behind closed doors. At least this time has been different. Behind closed doors so much goes on that you can't fight against. You request second opinions and you're not always granted them.

"You don't always get the expert you want. You're the only one who knows the truth and it's so hard to convince anyone else that you're telling it. At least now we feel we have gone some way to doing that. But how can it ever really be over for us?

"Now we live with the possibility that, at the age of 18 or whatever, our children will find us and ask, 'Why didn't you fight for us?'

"We want them to know that we fought, that we loved them and that we still love them every bit as much as we love Brandon. They're Brandon's full-siblings and we want for him, and for us, to have some form of contact.They must know the truth. They have a right to know the truth about their history."

Lisa Christensen, Norfolk's director of Children's Service, said: "I welcome the fact that all parties involved in the care of Brandon Webster have agreed a way forward in court."

However, the Websters' requests for an apology were described by both the council and the council-appointed guardian as "inappropriate".