Children of childhood sex abuse victim removed from her care after ruling

A woman who was a victim of sexual abuse throughout her childhood has had her three children taken from her care after judges concluded that they were also at risk.

The woman complained that the local authority social services department which “allowed my childhood to be ripped apart” had “turned on me and removed my children”.

She said social workers had not considered what help could have been offered.

Bosses have accepted that the council had “failed” the woman when she was a child.

One judge who examined her case said it was impossible not to have a “very significant degree of sympathy”.

Detail of the case has emerged in a Court of Appeal judge’s ruling which has been published following a hearing in London.

Neither the woman nor the council involved has been identified in the ruling, published by Lord Justice McFarlane.

A judge based in the Family Division of the High Court in London had initially assessed social workers’ concerns at a private hearing in 2015.

Mrs Justice Theis had ruled that the woman’s children – aged between a few months and three – should be placed for adoption.

She concluded that the woman had been involved in relationships with men she knew were sex abusers – and those relationships put the children at risk.

The judge said the woman was a “very damaged young person, who had been the victim of serious sexual assaults from a young age” – and concluded that her “vulnerability to be drawn into such relationships again in the future remained unchecked”.

Mrs Justice Theis said she did not blame the woman, adding that she had a deal of sympathy.

The woman then asked Lord Justice McFarlane to consider her case – at a public Court of Appeal hearing.

But Lord Justice McFarlane has ruled that Mrs Justice Theis’s decision should stand.

He said the woman had no prospect of winning an appeal.

“It is impossible to approach any consideration of (her) case without a very significant degree of sympathy for her,” said Lord Justice McFarlane in his written ruling.

“(She) was herself a victim … of sexual abuse within (her) family from a young age and throughout her childhood.”

He added: “The local authority has accepted that, in the past, it has failed this family and, in particular, (the woman) when she was a child.”

But he said the woman had not come close to showing that Mrs Justice Theis had been wrong to rule that her children should be placed for adoption.

The woman had written a statement in which she told Lord Justice McFarlane: “I was robbed of my childhood and self-esteem. I did not know how to say ‘no’ or how to assess a situation.

“I feel that the same local authority that allowed my childhood to be ripped apart and taken away from me, turned on me and removed my children without considering what help could have been offered to me to enable me (to) safeguard my children.”

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