Grandparents must never be told their daughter had twins

Judge’s ruling as mother plans to give babies away

‘Thoughtful and mature’

A couple in their sixties must never be told that they have twin grandchildren, a High court judge ruled yesterday.

The mother of the eight-month- old boy and girl wants her own parents to have nothing to do with her babies and has asked for them to be adopted, Mr Justice cobb said.

The mother – said to be ‘a thoughtful and mature professional woman’ in her forties – has strongly opposed the idea that her twins should be brought up by anyone else in her family, according to a family court ruling made public yesterday.

She has refused to tell social workers where the grandparents live or to provide their contact numbers.

As a result of the mothers’ hostility and the age of the grandparents, Mr Justice cobb said there was no prospect that they might be asked to raise the twins. It would be a breach of the mother’s human rights even to tell them The of case,the children’sheard in existence.the family court in leeds, cleared the way for the twins to be adopted. Mr Justice cobb said he was concerned about the slowness of social workers in bringing the case to court to get approval for the adoption.

But he said: ‘It is reassuring to note that there are many potential adoptive couples who would be keen to care for these twins.’

The judge said because of the mother’s reluctance to help social workers, it was not known whether her parents had even been told about the twins. He added that it was ‘clear that she does not want her sister or parents to care for the children, given respectively their commitments, and their age’. Mr Justice cobb also said of the grandparents: ‘Formally notifying the maternal grandparents or aunt of the existence of the twins would be a purposeless exercise, but one which would significantly infringe the rights of the mother to respect for her private life.’ The mother, the judge said, has an older child who lives with her. Social workers had ‘had cause’ to assess her abilities as a parent in the past, he said, but she is ‘demonstrably a good mother to her older child’. The woman, whose marriage ended in divorce in 2015, conceived her twins during a short-lived relationship in early 2016. The man thought to be their father said he had been unaware they had been born until he was contacted by social workers. He thought that the mother had had an abortion. Also in his forties, he refused to take a DNA test that would have proved he was the father. He said he did not want to bring up the children and could not do so.

The mother – whom the judge ordered must remain unnamed – hid her pregnancy and did not tell her doctor until two weeks before the birth. She had no idea she was expecting twins until shortly before their caesarian birth.

‘She made it known from the first contact with medical professionals that she wished for her babies to be adopted,’ Mr Justice cobb said. She has not seen them since the day of their birth.

Mr Justice cobb said the age of the grandparents was unknown, but were likely to be too old to be considered to bring up the twins.

‘The mother, a thoughtful and mature professional woman, has indicated clearly her intolerance to the notion of the children being raised within her own family,’ he said, adding that he was satisfied she had ‘legitimate reasons for not wishing to care for the twins’.

Mr Justice cobb declined to order legal recognition of the father’s relationship to the twins. But, he said, when they are old enough to be told their real history, they could ‘surely be advised that he was the man identified by their mother as their father’.

The judge said there was a clash between the twins’ natural family ties and the mother’s ‘right to respect in the making of discreet arrangements for their adoption to enable her to prioritise her responsibilities to her older child’.

He said that there was no realistic prospect for the twins except adoption.