Vicky Haigh flees the babysnatchers

[Alison J Stevens]

Vicky Haigh flees the babysnatchers

Using parliamentary privilege, John Hemming MP has named renowned jockey and trainer Vicky Haigh as the woman threatened with imprisonment for speaking to him, writes Christopher Booker.

VIcki Haigh is well known and respected in the world of horse racing Photo: PA/GARETH COPLEY

By Christopher Booker7:00PM BST 30 Apr 2011

Last week brought two further startling developments in a story I reported a fortnight ago, concerning a heavily pregnant mother summoned at very short notice to the London High Court to show why she should not be imprisoned. Among the charges against her were that she had spoken at a meeting in Parliament convened by the All Party Group of MPs on family law related issues.

On Tuesday, the convenor of that meeting, John Hemming MP, who has been at the centre of the much-publicised campaign against excessive court secrecy and “super-injunctions”, used parliamentary privilege to name the mother on the floor of the House, which is why it can now be reported. On a point of order, he referred to “Vicky Haigh, a horse trainer and former jockey” as the subject of “an attempt by Doncaster council to imprison her for speaking at a meeting in Parliament”.

We can still say nothing about the case which led to the increasingly controversial order Miss Haigh was alleged to have breached. But it may be added that her successes as a trainer and a jockey have made her very well-known in the racing world.

The other new twist to this story, which I can also report because it is a wholly different case, not yet the subject of legal proceedings, is that last week Miss Haigh took flight from Britain to Ireland, because she had apparently been forewarned that the social services of another local authority, Nottinghamshire, were planning to seize her baby when it is born in two weeks’ time. Her new child is by a partner with whom she has lived happily for six years, as a loved stepmother to his three children. They were all much looking forward to the new addition to the family.

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