Couple take baby home

A couple who have been fighting to stop their baby from being taken away have been told by a High Court judge they can finally take him home.

Nicky and Mark Webster are looking forward to returning to their Cromer home with five-month-old Brandon where they will be assessed by health professionals.

The couple, previously known as the Hardinghams, fled to Ireland to give birth to Brandon amid fears he would be taken for adoption, as their other three children were.

Solicitors acting for Nicola and Mark Webster said after the High Court hearing that it was an "important step and remarkable" outcome for the couple, who have spent the last few months in an assessment centre with Brandon.

Mr Justice Munby, who on Thursday made a ruling that the parents should be able to "tell their story' about what they claim is a "miscarriage of justice', today also allowed the couple's lawyers to appoint medical experts to help prove they were innocent of abuse.

Depending on the findings of the experts, the parents will apply to reopen the proceedings which led to the three older children being adopted.

The children were taken from the couple after one child suffered unexplained fractures and medical experts believed this was the cause of physical abuse.

The couple, along with their family and friends, have always maintained the injuries were consistent with brittle bone disease - which runs in four generations of Nicky's family.

The judge has allowed the media to attend future care proceedings over the child whose final future will not be decided until a main hearing in June next year.

Sarah Harman, the solicitor acting for the couple, said in a statement read on the steps of the Royal Courts of Justice in the Strand: "This is not a celebration.

"It is an important step forward for Nicola and Mark - they are being allowed to take Brandon back home pending final hearing in June.

"This is a remarkable outcome for them. They lost three children into adoption only two years ago after court findings that they abused one of their children causing fractures and neglected their children.

"It was the view of the court that the children were not safe in their care, nor with anyone in their large and close extended family.

"Nicola and Mark have always and will always deny any ill treatment.

"They love their three older children and think of them everyday.

"They don't intend to disrupt their placement. They do intend to do everything to get the evidence to clear their names.'

She said Mark, 33, and Nicola, 26, had spent four-and-a-half months under 24-hour supervision at the assessment centre and had undergone in-depth assessments by psychologists and psychiatrists.

"They have demonstrated that they are good and caring parents to Brandon and their care of him has been described as very good.

"They have shown as a couple that they have a close, loving and supportive relationship.

"They believe that had such investigations been undertaken in the previous proceedings, their three older children would still be at home.

"They regret that so much emphasis was placed on the evidence of experts and that evidence from two professionals who knew them and their children was not put before the court.'

Mr Justice Munby had approved an interim care order under which the local authority has shared responsibility for Brandon with his parents.

He said this was not necessarily a permanent position but would allow the assessment process to continue.

The judge said Brandon's long-term future would not be decided until the full hearing next year, which could take up to 10 days in court.

"If the process goes as everyone hopes and there are no problems, then it may be that it would be possible for Brandon to live at home permanently with his parents.

"I stress 'may be'. Whether that turns out to be the case is something to be decided by the judge next year.'

He said the couple had never accepted the findings made against them at the previous court hearings and they wanted to apply to reopen those proceedings as part of the current action.

He said he was allowing their application to appoint an expert who might be able to support their case "that the original findings of abuse were wrong'.

Court orders banning the naming of the older children who are already with new parents continue.

SIDE PANEL

The abuse allegations that led to the Websters being branded unfit parents have been made public.

After the hearing yesterday, Norfolk County Council released the claims of physical and psychological damage to the couple's older children, who were adopted in May and November 2004.

It said:

• Mr and Mrs Webster were found to have caused “significant harm” to their two eldest children (A and B) and C was at “risk of significant harm”;

• child B suffered six fractures - including a rib fracture caused by “forceful squeezing” and other fractures caused by “forceful twisting”;

• the injuries to B would have “caused distress, which was likely to have lasted more than an hour”;

• a child psychiatrist reported A was “a troubled girl”, suffering from “relative emotional deprivations”. B was an “intensely anxious and wary child” with a sense of “uncertainty and fearfulness” when with his parents.

The statement revealed how Mr and Mrs Webster's claims that child B's fractures were caused by brittle bone disease - which runs in the mother's family - had been dismissed by an expert working on their behalf.

It also said the care provided by them to Brandon in recent months at a residential assessment centre had been “very good”, but some relationship sessions and meetings had caused “serious concern”.