Outcry Over Rise In Forced Adoptions

Record numbers of young children are being removed from their parents and adopted unjustly because of government targets and the “secrecy” of the family courts, it has been claimed. Campaigners say there are now more than 100 cases of possible miscarriages of justice where children have been forcibly adopted.

{mosimage}The figures, revealed in BBC Radio 4’s Face the Facts programme, claims the number of parents in England who have had to give up their children, despite insufficient evidence they were causing them harm, has now hit record levels. It says 1,300 babies under a month old are being adopted every year, up from 500 when the government came into power in 1997.

Social workers told the BBC programme that they were being put under immense pressure to meet the government adoption targets set back in 2000. And lawyers have claimed that parents were not being given a proper chance to challenge adoptions because of the time limit placed on appeals and the secrecy within the family courts.

Family law solicitor Sarah Harman said: “Secrecy breeds bad practice, it breeds suspicion. It feeds parents’ sense of injustice when they have their children removed that they’re not able to talk about it. They’re not able to air their grievances. Children have been removed from their families unjustly. There’s no two ways about that.”

A social work manager with 25 years’ experience in child protection said parents had little chance of getting a hearing and overturning a decision made by the authorities. The manager told the BBC: “People will find that their children have been removed and freed for adoption without them having had a proper chance to defend themselves and their families and their children.”

MPs have also spoken out against the system and are campaigning for a public inquiry. John Hemming, Lib Dem MP for Birmingham Yardley, who is also chairman of the Justice for Families group, said: “We’re seeing perhaps three to four new cases being referred to us every day.”

The programme features one mother who claims she was actually giving birth when the authorities arrived to remove her baby, and a father who had his two sons unjustly adopted. He later received a written apology from the local authority but, because his children had already been adopted, he will never get them back.

The Department for Children, Schools and Families denied there was a policy to take children from their birth parents in order to meet overall adoption targets. A spokesman said government policy had always been that children should live with their parents wherever possible and given extra support to stay together if necessary.

He said targets had been set to increase the number of looked-after children adopted and to speed up the placing of children for adoption. But he added that this was only if they had already been assessed as suitable for adoption and it had been decided that adoption was in the child’s best interests.

Local authorities might set themselves targets to place children for adoption more quickly after that course had been decided on, he said. He added: “It is for a court to decide whether or not to make a placement or an adoption order on the basis of the welfare of the child.”

The Ministry of Justice said a child’s welfare was paramount in family proceedings and that it had restricted access to family courts to safeguard children’s privacy and anonymity. Its new approach would include a pilot where more information in particular cases with a significant public interest would be provided, a spokeswoman said.

A court would decide whether to produce a summary of the decision at the end of such cases. This would then be given to the people involved and the reasons behind the decision would be made available online for public scrutiny.