Mother fights claims she is 'too stupid' to bring up child

Sarah Knapton

Rachel Pullen, 24, claims the authorities 'kidnapped' the youngster and put her into foster care when she was just six months old.

Now a family court has ruled her daughter should be placed with adoptive parents within the next three months before all contact is severed.

Miss Pullen is fighting the decision in the European Court of Human rights.

Officials claim Miss Pullen, a single mother, from Nottingham, lacks the intelligence to cope with the complex medical needs of the child, who was born prematurely.

The child, named only as Baby K, is currently with foster parents even though a psychiatrist said Miss Pullen "good literacy and numeracy and her intellectual abilities appear to be within the normal range."

"It has been going on for three years now. She has been kidnapped," said Miss Pullen, "All I want to do is care for my daughter and she wants her mummy back. She keeps asking why she can't come home to live with me when I visit her.

"They say it's not in her best interests to live with me and continually undermine and underestimate me. But I am her mother and I am the best person to look after her. All children really need is to be loved.

"The court here has now ordered that my contact with my daughter must be reduced from every fortnight until in three months' time it will all be over and I will never see her again. If I got her back it would be better than winning the lottery."

Now Miss Pullen is appealing to the European Court of Human Rights as well as applying for a judicial review to stop the adoption.

Nottingham City Council said its priority was the future welfare of the child.

"Nottingham City Council is not able to comment on individual cases," said a spokesman.

"Such cases are decided by the courts, taking into account all the information presented by all parties and putting the future welfare of the child as the priority."

Social workers first voiced concerns after Baby K was born with breathing problems and needed operations on her bowel, eye, heart and throat.

The authorities were concerned that Rachel was not visiting her daughter enough in hospital.

A psychologist appointed to assess the mother claimed she had "significant learning disability" and would always need a high level of support in caring for her daughter.

Without support, the psychologist claimed Rachel would pose a "high level of risk" to the child.

Despite offers of help from concerned family members Rachel was unable to persuade social workers she could provide adequate care.

Miss Pullen's attempts to fight the council have been hampered after her case was taken over by a Government funded solicitor who declined to contest the adoption application despite his client's wishes.

The court claims she does have the mental capacity to keep up with the legal aspects of her situation and has refused her attempts to halt the adoption process.

The latest research from the Equality and Human Rights Commission suggested that one in four children subjected to care orders had parents with a learning difficulty.

Children taken into care are two and a half times more likely to become teenage parents and 66 times more likely to have their own children taken into care.

John Hemming, Liberal Democrat MP for Birmingham Yardley, who is campaigning on Rachel's behalf, said: "We have got experts saying she hasn't got learning difficulties and is quite capable of looking after a child. They are really abusing her."