UK social workers snatch a child from France

UK social workers snatch a child from France

A baby born in France has been seized by English authorities in a landmark case.

Our 'child protection' system is tearing many families apart
English social workers seized a newborn baby from its mother in France Photo: ALAMY

7:00PM BST 31 Mar 2012

An English court recently made legal history by using EU law to authorise social workers to travel across the Channel to snatch a baby from its English parents, even though it was born in France. I have often written about pregnant mothers fleeing abroad to avoid their babies being seized as soon as they are born. But social workers have never been authorised before to track down a baby abroad to return it to a country where it has never lived. In this ground-breaking case, however, they may have overstepped the mark.

The couple emigrated to France last year when the woman became pregnant, to live with the man’s mother. They feared that if they stayed in England their child would be seized, on grounds they believed to be highly questionable. The social workers, however, were not to be deterred. After the baby’s birth, two of them arrived in France, bent on taking it back with them.

The French authorities opposed the removal of a child born in France to another country where it had no “habitual residence”. A French court agreed, though, that it should be put in local foster care until the legal issues were resolved. The social workers, insisting that they had legal authority, nevertheless took the baby back to England.

Only last week, I am told, did the distraught parents at last see the document which supposedly authorised this: a court declaration made under Article 39 of EU Regulation 2201/2003 (known in the trade as “Brussels II”). But Articles 39 and 42 of this regulation clearly lay down that such a removal from one EU country to another can only take place when “the parties” have been present in court, and that the order has been properly served on them. In this case, I gather, the parents had no knowledge of the order until after their child was taken to England.

So eager were the English social workers and courts to lay hold of this child that it seems they may have failed to follow the procedures laid down by EU law. This unhappy case could make legal history in ways they did not anticipate.

MY THOUGHTS

we have been on this case from day 1, as soon as the Mother contacted me, i passed her onto an adviser that was in Paris at the time.

I have been contacted by 5 different Parents this week, where the families have come to live in the UK,and Social Services are involved and removed all children.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/917...

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