Judge backs council and child’s adoptive parents over birth mother
A couple who adopted a “neglected, starved little girl” have complained to a High Court judge about the behaviour of the youngster’s birth mother.
The couple told Mr Justice Peter Jackson how they had suffered as a result of Kirsty Seddon’s “demands” and requests.
They said they felt “compromised”.
Detail of the couple’s complaints has emerged in a written ruling on the latest stage of litigation involving 27-year-old Ms Seddon and Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council – which six years ago began care proceedings and asked for the little girl to be placed for adoption.
Ms Seddon had wanted to issue an application to have contact with her daughter.
She also wanted a declaration that the council had acted unlawfully by “redacting” or not forwarding correspondence she had sent to the little girl – now aged about seven.
Mr Justice Jackson, who sits in London and analysed the case at a hearing in the Family Division of the High Court, refused to give Ms Seddon permission to apply to have contact with the little girl.
The judge said all human rights to respect for private and family life which had existed between Ms Seddon and her daughter had been “extinguished” when the youngster was adopted.
He said he considered Ms Seddon’s connection to her daughter to be “entirely historic”.
And he said the council had not acted unlawfully by “redacting or not forwarding” correspondence.
Mr Justice Jackson said “one way or another” the council and Ms Seddon had been litigating for more than six years.
The judge said the little girl had been adopted in 2010 and he said Ms Seddon had subsequently made a number of human rights claims.
He said Ms Seddon had never accepted that she could not meet her daughter’s needs and had challenged the adoption through legal processes.
The girl’s adoptive parents had written to the judge outlining their concerns.
They said the family court judge who made an adoption order had “clearly” said no direct contact should take place between Ms Seddon and the little girl.
But they said the issue was “constantly being raised”.
“We did not anticipate the level of intrusion we have experienced,” the couple told Mr Justice Jackson.
“We wondered if the legal profession could afford is any protection as it seems that all the actions give credence to Kirsty’s demands, with little regard to our feelings and wishes.
“We just want to know when this will be over for us, so we can begin to function as any other family.”
They added: “We feel the ‘system’ has lost sight of the original reasons that (the girl) had been placed for adoption.
“We remember the neglected, starved little girl that (she) was when she first came to live with us.
“There has not been one year since we adopted our little girl when we have not had additional or intrusive contacts in relation to Kirsty’s requests.”
Mr Justice Jackson said he had taken the couple’s feelings into account in reaching his decision.
He said further legal proceedings could disrupt the little girl’s life to a “harmful extent”.
The judge was told Ms Seddon had been placed in care when she was six and had lived in nine foster homes in 10 years.
She had given birth to her daughter when 20 – the little girl’s father had been her sister’s partner.
Mr Justice Jackson named Ms Seddon and Oldham council in a written ruling – but he did not identify the adoptive parents and did not say where anyone involved lived.
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