White couple’s adopted son is taken away... to live with black aunt he had never met
A ‘PERFECT’ adoptive couple had a mixed-race toddler they viewed as their own son taken away to live with a black aunt he had never met.
The pair, who are white, said they had been left frantic with worry about the boy’s future, and blamed the authorities for focusing on his ethnicity ‘rather than his best interests’.
The boy was removed after a judge ruled that he should grow up within his extended family, despite admitting his decision would cause ‘intense grief’ and praising the married gay couple as ‘perfect’ parents.
Speaking for the first time, the adopters said they were shocked and hurt by the judge’s use of the word ‘negroid’ to describe the boy, known only as C to protect his anonymity, and they claimed officials from Rotherham Council had acted as if he ‘wasn’t a person’.
One of the adoptive fathers, who is in his late twenties, told the Daily Mail: ‘I am disgusted with the way we have been treated and the disregard for us and our son’s welfare.
‘Ethnicity never affected us, but it was the only thing we couldn’t challenge. They said we were perfect parents in every other respect. We were dumbfounded by the decision – it is a little boy’s life. His best interests were overshadowed by ethnicity.’
The situation arose because C’s mother, a troubled white woman in her early twenties, initially said his father was her white partner – who claimed he was half Burmese.
Social workers accepted their story, despite C clearly having dark skin, and no DNA tests were carried out. C was taken into care at five days old as his two older siblings had both already been adopted. He was placed with the couple when he was seven months old in October 2013 and they filed for adoption in January last year.
It was only in March last year that an African asylum seeker in his thirties came forward as the real father, after initially denying it. With his backing, his sister – a single mother- of- one living in the Home Counties – said she wanted to bring up C.
The couple said that from then they felt ‘ under constant pressure’ to return him, but fought for him ‘as any parent would’.
At the High Court in November, social workers and a child psychologist praised the couple’s parenting. But Mr Justice Holman ruled that the boy should be with his birth family.
Further blunders meant the boy, now two, was not removed from the couple until March this year. Fighting back tears, the adoptive father said: ‘You realise we are not going to see his first day at school, his first big tooth, his first girlfriend. It gets to you.’
He said they were ‘a mess’ the day C was taken, adding: ‘ He saw how upset we were and he was hugging us and kissing us, wiping our tears.’ He added: ‘A DNA test would have proved straight away that he was African and prepared us that there was a father out there – but no one bothered to find out.’
He went on to say: ‘ It is a bereavement, but one that is not going to have an end because we are so worried about him.
‘From the little things like, is he brushing his teeth? To, is he going to be a good person? Will he be hardworking and loving and caring? I still say goodnight to him before I go to sleep. His grandparents kiss his photo every day. He will always be our son no matter what.’
The couple have been advised against appeal
ing. They now have serious concerns about adopting and fear their case will put off future adopters. The council said it was investigating the case, adding: ‘We are sorry for any distress experienced.’
‘He will always be our son’