Sikh couple barred from adopting due to race win £120k
A WEALTHY young couple were barred from adopting children because of racial discrimination by social workers, a judge ruled yesterday.
Sandeep and Reena Mander, both British-born Sikhs in their 30s, were awarded nearly £120,000 in damages after being rejected because of their Indian ancestry.
They were told there were only white British pre-school children available and their chances would be improved if they looked to adopt from India.
The couple, from Maidenhead, Berkshire, are high earners in the IT industry with a number of homes and ‘consider themselves culturally British whilst acknowledging their Indian heritage’, Judge Melissa Clarke said.
After a number of attempts at having a child through IVF and a miscarriage, they decided to try to adopt.
But when they approached Adopt Berkshire, the agency running services for their local council, the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead, they were asked about their ethnic background. They were then told they would not be invited to fill in the ‘registration of interest’ form to start the process.
Sitting at Oxford County Court, the judge said she accepted the Manders’ account that they were told they would not be given a child of different ‘ cultural heritage’ and that they should try to adopt from India.
Judge Clarke said that in their first call to Adopt Berkshire, the Manders were told by a social worker they should not bother to apply to adopt a child after hearing they were ethnically Indian.
Mrs Mander told the court: ‘There was no doubt in my mind that she in fact made a judgment based on the colour of our skin. I was never treated like this before. I grew up in this country. My grandfather fought in the British Army. I was hurt and disappointed.’
Mr Mander said: ‘ Adopt Berkshire made me feel that the country where I grew up still saw me as different. It did not matter that I grew up here – as long as I was not white, I could not be British.
‘I found this thought very disturbing. I had trouble sleeping at night because of how angry and helpless I felt.’
The judge said the Manders were ‘particularly vulnerable’ because of their IVF failures and social workers considered them ‘desperate to adopt’. Their treatment was marred by racial discrimination from their first phone call to social workers to the decisions taken to bar them and later the way their complaints were handled, she added. She ordered the couple be paid £60,000 in compensation for money they spent adopting a child from the US in January this year, and just under £30,000 each in other damages.
The couple said in a statement yesterday ‘this decision ensures that no matter what race, religion or colour you are, you should be treated equally and assessed for adoption in the same way as any other prospective adopter’.
They added: ‘ We believe our experience with Adopt Berkshire was not just an isolated event. When we went through the intercountry adoption process we came across many couples who had similar experiences.
‘ Cultural values and beliefs should never be assumed based on an ethnic tick box, as was our experience. This is what this case has all been about for us, to ensure discrimination like this doesn’t happen to others wishing to do this wonderful thing called adoption.’
The Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead said: ‘We are very disappointed by the judgment in this case, which we will now take time to consider in full.
‘We always put the best interests of the children at the heart of any adoption decisions.’
Councils have routinely insisted adoptive parents must match the ethnic make-up of the children they adopt.
However, rules put forward by then education secretary Michael Gove in 2013 ordered councils not to stop adoption on race grounds.
‘My own country saw me as different’