Judge dismisses legal bill of mother-of-two who social workers linked to terror group

Council bosses who took legal action against a mother-of-two because social workers feared she had links to Islamic State extremists should not have to pick up her lawyers’ bills, a High Court judge has ruled.

Bosses had persuaded a judge to bar the children from travelling abroad – and to order the seizure of passports belonging to the woman and the children – but they had not asked for the youngsters to be taken into care.

The woman argued that taxpayers should foot the legal bills she had run up putting her side of the case.

She said rules meant that she would have been entitled to non-means tested legal aid to pay for lawyers if council bosses had asked a judge to place her children into care.

But she said because bosses had taken a different legal route, in a bid to protect the children and prevent them travelling to areas controlled by the Islamic State, rules did not allow her non-means tested legal aid.

She argued that said in such circumstances, the taxpayer should pick up her tab.

Mr Justice MacDonald dismissed her claim.

The judge said Parliament had decided in what circumstances taxpayers’ money should be used to pay for lawyers.

He said a judge could not “simply” decide to force a council to pick up a litigant’s legal bills.

Mr Justice MacDonald had analysed the issue at a private hearing in the Family Division of the High Court in London in February.

He has revealed detail in a written ruling.

The judge said no one involved could be identified.

He said the children’s father was known to have been in Syria since late 2013 – and was now thought to be dead.

Council bosses had taken legal action after evidence showed that the woman had taken the children, now six and three, to a Turkish town near the Syrian border.

They said she had also twice been stopped from leaving Britain with large sums of money.

Social workers said there was evidence that she held extremist views and had placed the children at risk.

The woman said there were “entirely innocent” explanations for her conduct.

Mr Justice MacDonald said barristers Charles Hale QC and Christopher Barnes had represented the woman for free when mounting arguments that about who should pay for lawyers.

_{Copyright (c) Press Association Ltd. 2017, All Rights Reserved.}