Bid to bar parents from their children is rejected

Judge says there is not enough evidence for permanent orders

A judge has rejected a local authority’s bid to have a mother and father sever all contact with their four children and have the youngest three put up for adoption.

Perth and Kinross Council went to court seeking orders over the two brothers and two sisters, who were placed in foster care – but were refused all of them.

Lord Brailsford said that it did not appear much consideration was given by the council to steps which might have been taken to help the parents address and solve issues they faced.

He added: “It seems to me that the difficulties the respondents (the parents) were experiencing in parenting these children may have been appropriately addressed by more intensive efforts to assist the respondents.”

He said the local authority plainly had concerns over the children but added they were based to “a significant extent” on material about which they had no direct knowledge, placed reliance on other professionals’ advice and on matters about which the evidence was “bluntly insufficient, unsubstantiated and ultimately not relied on”.

The children, of ages ranging from 12, to four, were made subjects of a child protection order on March 7 2014 and removed from their parents’ care by social workers with police in attendance.

The local authority subsequently raised petitions at the Court of Session in Edinburgh seeking permanence orders and to give them parental rights and responsibilities over the children and to extinguish those of the parents.

It also sought to ensure there was no further contact between the parents and their offspring and that the two girls, aged eight and six and the youngest boy, aged four, be put up for adoption.

The family’s direct involvement with the council social work department had begun after a paediatrician at Perth Royal Infirmary referred the oldest boy to the children’s reporter after he had attended hospital with toilet issues.

He was diagnosed with a genetic disorder and a consultant clinical geneticist, Dr Ian Ellis, said that on the balance of probabilities, the boy’s behavioural problems were either caused or contributed to by the condition from which he suffered.

The council’s case largely depended on the evidence of two social workers, Gill Bruce and Janice Contreras.

However, Lord Brailsford said the direct knowledge of the social workers on the matters of concern was derived from “a very limited number of visits” to the family home.

“Beyond this I would also point out that there was very little evidence to link any deficiencies in home conditions with actual harm occasioned to any of the children,” he added.

“I fully accept that social workers require to be watchful for inappropriate behaviour on the part of the parents or distress in the children. There was no suggestion of inappropriate physicality by parent to child.”

The children remain under the supervision of the children’s reporter, who will decide on future contact.

There was very little evidence to link any deficiencies in home conditions with actual harm occasioned. LORD BRAILSFORD