Judges lambast social workers in adoption case
11:26am Friday 2nd May 2008
Judges have slammed the "disgraceful" conduct of social workers who forced through the adoption of a baby just 24 hours before her natural father was due in court to fight to keep his child.
East Sussex County Council staff rushed through the adoption as the infant's father was preparing to ask for custody.
Officials blocked his application by going to court and reminding a judge he could do nothing because they had already placed the child with a family.
Yesterday judges at the Court of Appeal condemned the council's actions and accused staff of using "foul means" to get their way.
The girl was born in November 2006 to parents who had had a casual relationship.
The father, identified only as MC and who lives in the Brighton area, did not know he had a child until the council served care proceedings on him and asked for his co-operation in a DNA test.
At the time the child was in a mother and baby placement but when her mother left, leaving the baby behind, the council recommended adoption. The father was served with these proceedings and initially took no interest in his daughter but after suffering a heart attack and undergoing treatment in hospital he changed his mind.
The council had already obtained care and placement orders and the child had been moved to foster parents.
When the father learned from his mother the adoption plans were well advanced, he appointed solicitors who the following day, January 10, made an application for permission to apply to revoke the placement order at Brighton County Court.
But despite his plans to challenge the adoption, the council ratified the decision to put the baby up for adoption just four days later.
A first meeting between the child and the adopters took place on January 15 and she was placed with her new parents on January 29 - the day before the father's case was due to go before Brighton County Court.
At the hearing, the council said it was legally entitled to process the adoption and that the court had no jurisdiction to grant leave to revoke the placement.
The judge in the case agreed and the adoption was allowed.
The father made an appeal to the Court of Appeal in March.
But yesterday he was told he had lost his case by a majority of two to one.
Lord Justice Thorpe said the council should have responded "promptly and openly" to the solicitors' inquiries. He said the council had failed to answer a letter from the father's solicitors seeking reassurance that the girl would not be adopted until after the father's court case.
"The council's failure to answer that letter and the subsequent placement on the eve of the hearing give rise to the clearest inference that the council was out to gain its ends by means more foul than fair," he said.
Lord Justice Wall said the council's conduct suggested that it had "quite deliberately set out to prevent the father from being heard".
Lord Justice Thorpe wanted to allow the appeal on human rights grounds to a fair trial and give the father a chance to challenge the adoption order in court.
But he was overruled by the other judges on the panel who said that "with regret" the words of the act were clear and compatible with human rights laws.
Lord Justice Wall suggested the father take his case to judicial review at the High Court and said that court could quash the council decision.
The father's solicitors said they would be seeking legal aid to pursue that.
A spokesman for East Sussex County Council said: "We are pleased the court confirmed we were legally entitled to do what we did. We are, however, very concerned about the comments made by the court and we will carefully review how we exercised our duties in this case.
"We always have to achieve a difficult balance between considering the best interests of the child, dealing with matters in a timely way and the interests of the birth parents and prospective adoptive parents.
"In this case we regret that the father's late intervention was not acknowledged by letter which was an error on our part. It remains our view that it would not have been in the best interests of the child to delay the adoption process further and we are pleased the child is happy and thriving."