How we saved our grandchild from a forced adoption
A COUPLE came within 48 hours of losing their grand- daughter forever after social workers put her up for adoption.
Lee and Katrina Parker told how social workers, operating behind the cover of the notoriously secretive family courts, were ‘ hell-bent’ on handing the baby to strangers.
In an extraordinary ruling, in which they were denied guardianship of the then three-month-old, they were also excluded from all future proceedings while the adoption went ahead.
They were granted a last- minute reprieve only after they discovered they had a 14-day window to appeal.
The Parkers claim social workers made ‘assumptions’ about their working-class family because they had seven children – six of whom lived at home – commenting that their grandchild, India, would ‘become lost’ among them.
Mrs Parker, 39, said: ‘ Social services walked into our lives with preconceptions and did not have any intention of revising those prejudices.
‘We are not a conventional family, some of our children have been home-schooled, and I don’t think they liked that.
‘But we knew we were capable of giving India a loving home.
‘They never intended to take the time to get to know us or the children.’
The couple can only now finally tell their story after the judge released his judgment, more than 13 months later.
In the ruling, made in November 2012, Judge Newton said he was ‘deeply troubled by what occurred’ and criticised the ‘manifestly unjust’ decision by Essex County Council to exclude the ‘inter-
‘Manifestly unjust’
ested and committed grandparents’. He said by denying the couple the right to a fair hearing, the council had breached their human rights.
The Parkers, who live in Colchester, were given full custody of India, now two, the daughter of their eldest child, last August.
Former retail manager Mr Parker, 40, said: ‘We nearly lost our granddaughter to strangers because social services were hell-bent on having India adopted, but we were unable to talk about it because it happened in secret.
‘There is a misconception grandparents have automatic rights, but they don’t.
‘Social services have too much power and the secret courts assist them to behave in any way they wish, because there is no recourse. There is no one to scrutinise their decisions.’
The couple’s story has emerged in the same month Lord Justice Munby, President of the Family Division of the High Court, announced that future judgments in the family courts and the Court of Protection must be made public except where there is a clear reason why not.
It follows a series of major scandals exposed by the Mail over the past year in which justice was conducted behind closed doors.
India was taken into care in February 2012 when her 19-year- old single mother suffered mental health problems. When the Parkers belatedly discovered this, they applied for guardianship.
But assessments by social workers at their home in April and July that year raised ‘ anxieties’ about the Parkers, including that their family was too large. In October 2012, social services told the court it intended to find a ‘ permanent secure placement away from the birth family’ for India. They refused the Parkers’ application, citing ‘chaotic and hectic living arrangements and the current physical limitations that the [Parkers’] house represents’.
But they went even further, dismissing the Parkers from all future proceedings after claiming there was ‘no further role for them’.
Plans were made for India’s adoption, but the Parkers discovered the 14-day window to appeal. They were, however, on day ten.
With no legal representation or legal aid, they appealed two days before the deadline. Judge Newton immediately quashed the previous ruling.
In his judgment, he said: ‘This court is dismayed by what occurred. It was manifestly unjust, not just to the grandparents but to [India] and could in no way be thought to be ECHR [ European Court of Human Rights] compliant.
‘We are dealing with interested and committed grandparents and the law could not be clearer.’
The Parkers have seven children, aged 21 to five, but say it is ‘insulting’ for social workers to suggest they received less love or attention than an only child. They take their youngest to ballet and drama classes every week and five of their children, Holly, 13, Autumn, 11, Stanley, nine, and five-year-old twins Honey and Bluebelle have appeared in adverts and even Hollywood films, including The Invisible Woman, starring Ralph Fiennes.
India has now settled into her grandparents’ four-bedroom semidetached house and sees her mother, now 21, once a month. Mrs Parker said: ‘Losing India would have been as close to a bereave- ment as you can get.’ An Essex County Council spokesman said: ‘This case involved very complex and finely balanced decisions... As the case progressed, the council was able to change its position to support the grandparents.’
The Parkers deny that Essex ever switched its support in their favour.
The council is already embroiled in another high-profile family court row, after Alessandra Pacchieri, a 35-year- old Italian, was forced to undergo a caesarean by the secretive Court of Protection, so her baby could be taken into care.