Judge approves seizing a baby born abroad, against EU law

[Alison J Stevens]

In a disturbing extension of social workers' powers, a child born in Spain has been deported to the UK

Babies that have never lived in Britain have been seized and brought here - contrary to EU law Photo: ALAMY

 

By Christopher Booker

7:00PM GMT 03 Nov 2012

 

There has been a very disturbing development in the case of a Welsh couple who fled to Spain in March to prevent social workers seizing their baby, which was born a month later. For months, the child lived happily with her mother, who set about building a new life, taking out a long lease on a flat and starting a business.

She took heart from the story of Marie Black, who fled to France with her partner last year to avoid their expected child being snatched. Although Norfolk social workers were authorised by one judge to bring the child back to Britain, another judge then ruled that, under an EU law known as “Brussels II”, this was illegal, because the child was never “habitually resident” anywhere but France. He ordered that the baby be returned to its parents.

For the mother in Spain there was to be no such happy ending. In September, the social workers enlisted the aid of the Spanish police in deporting her baby to Britain – as was retrospectively approved by a British judge, despite her QC arguing that this was illegal under Brussels II. The judge rejected the argument, and refused the mother leave to appeal. The QC drafted a case for leave to appeal, arguing that bringing the child to Britain was illegal under both EU law and Spanish law, since the child should not have been removed from Spanish jurisdiction without permission from a Spanish judge.

A question now arose, however, as to whether the Legal Services Commission would fund a further hearing. Ian Josephs, who runs the Forced Adoption website, contacted the mother’s solicitors offering to underwrite any funds required, but did not receive an acknowledgement – any more than I did last week when I asked the solicitors whether the case was proceeding. (They were quick to send my email on to the council, however, which contacted me because it was desperate not to be identified.)

The distraught mother has now totally disappeared so that even her partner and her own mother do not know what has happened to her. John Hemming, the only MP who campaigns on such issues, describes this case as “truly appalling. It appears to give the social workers licence to go anywhere abroad to seize children who have never lived here, in clear breach of the law as it was still being upheld by the High Court as recently as last May.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/9652763/Judge-approves-seizing-a...