Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Boy taken off his mother because she didn’t take him out for an ice cream
Judge raps social worker’s statement
A MUM branded unfit to look after her son because she failed to take him out for an ice cream or get his hair cut the way he liked has been told he can return home.
A social worker had accused the woman of failing to meet her son’s “emotional needs”. But High Court judge Mr Justice Mostyn branded the criticisms “utterly insubstantial” and “obviously inconsequential”.
The boy, now eight, had been taken from his home to live with foster parents.
His mother had continued to see her son so her parenting skills could be assessed.
Carmarthenshire social services opposed her application to have him returned to her care, but at a family court hearing in Swansea, Mr Justice Mostyn ruled in her favour.
He said the boy, who cannot be identified, should return to his mother and his care be supervised by social services staff. The judge said the social Helena Bonham-carter worker’s 44-page witness statement was “extremely long”, but failed to give concrete examples of how the mother’s parenting had been “deficient”.
He said: “It was very hard to pin down within the swathes of text what exactly was being said against the mother.” The social worker was asked to give examples of the mum failing to meet her son’s “emotional needs”.
The judge said: “Her response was that, until prompted by the local authority, the mother had not spent sufficient one-to-one time with (the boy) and had failed on one occasion to take him out for an ice cream.
“A further criticism in this vein was that the mother had failed to arrange for (his) hair to be cut in the way that he liked.
“Again, this is obviously inconsequential.”