‘We love our adopted children… but after years of violent attacks we had no choice but to put them back in care’: Shattered parents reveal why so many adoptions fail to HELEN CARROLL
‘We love our adopted children… but after years of violent attacks we had no choice but to put them back in care’: Shattered parents reveal why so many adoptions fail to HELEN CARROLL
By HELEN CARROLL FOR THE DAILY MAIL
Published: 01:58, 29 November 2024 | Updated: 16:13, 29 November 2024
Having met while working at a children’s charity, Naomi and Martin were aware of the challenges of adopting children who have had a difficult start in life.
They also believed that, given their experience, if any couple had the skills needed to provide the right mix of love, nurturing and guidance required, it was them. However, 12 years after adopting two young children – years in which the parents were beaten and abused so violently they regularly had to call the police, and both suffered nervous breakdowns – the children, now aged 15 and 16, are back in care.
They lay the blame for this heartbreaking situation squarely on their local authority which, they say – due to a lack of funding and a ‘pass the buck’ culture – totally abandoned them to their fate.
Says Naomi, 45: ‘We did our best, but the children desperately needed professional help which, once they were officially adopted by us, was almost impossible to access.
‘I’m not saying that I thought we’d ‘save’ them, but I, naively, believed that with love, stability and permanence we were providing an environment in which any difficulties that arose could be worked through.
‘We never bargained for being kicked, hit, spat at and verbally abused – Martin is deaf in one ear after one particularly vicious punch from our son – and certainly not for the relationship with our children to completely break down.’
It’s notable, and poignantly sad, that this couple still refer to the brother and sister, whom they welcomed into their home aged two and three, as ‘theirs’. They love them and feel guilty about what happened.
They’d gone into the adoption process longing for a forever happy family, after learning they were unable to have children themselves.
Adoptive parents have been left traumatised, their marriages wrecked – and even driven to taking their own lives – by a system incapable of supporting them, writes Helen Carroll
It’s a tragedy shared by hundreds of adoptive parents across the UK, who’ve been left traumatised, their marriages wrecked – and even, in extreme cases, driven to taking their own lives – by a system woefully incapable of supporting them.
One support group, PATCH (Passionate Adopters Targeting Change with Hope), which has 700 members, is campaigning for systemic change to address this ‘crisis’. Most members share the same grievance: that children are almost always removed from their birth parents due to significant abuse or neglect, which often begins during pregnancy, where they are exposed to drugs and alcohol. This leaves the children with symptoms of extreme trauma.
However, when behavioural issues manifest post-adoption – some of which can be genetic – the adoptive parents are left to fend alone and, ultimately, blamed when the situation becomes unmanageable.
According to figures from Adoption UK, 65 per cent of adoptive parents experience violence or aggression at the hands of their children. And, based on responses to the charity’s annual survey, the number of adopted children leaving the family home ‘prematurely’ is rising, from three per cent in 2021, to seven per cent in 2023.
‘There’s a common, but false, belief that trauma is healed through love, and therefore adoption is the happy ever after, which any psychologist or psychotherapist will attest, it is not,’ says Fiona Wells, who runs PATCH and is herself a social worker, working in fostering, and also both an adopter and adoptee.
According to figures from Adoption UK, 65 per cent of adoptive parents experience violence or aggression at the hands of their children
‘Social workers are not experts in trauma, they’re experts in risk and family life. What these families need is trauma-informed therapeutic, as well as practical, support, but once an adoption is finalised the children, and any issues they have, seem to be considered the responsibility of the adoptive parents.
‘Support is, technically, available, through regional adoption agencies, but there are often lengthy delays and misdirected guidance towards inappropriate solutions which perpetuate the problems.’ Naomi and Martin’s experience was sadly typical. The children, Tamsin and Joseph, had been taken into foster care aged one and two having suffered extreme neglect. Their mother abused drugs and alcohol, and they were not fed or washed. Their biological father was in prison for domestic violence.
Joseph was still a toddler when he started lashing out at them. Naturally, the couple turned to their social worker for guidance.
The only advice was to use ‘non-violent restraint’, such as changing the subject and distracting the child in a confrontational situation, and ‘natural consequences’ tactics i.e. leaving it to the child to work out the results of their actions themselves.
Blunt instruments indeed when you are being punched in the head or attacked with a baseball bat.
As one specialist adoption solicitor put it, with highly damaged children the approaches are like ‘applying an Elastoplast to an arterial wound’.
Unsurprisingly, things got worse. Their daughter’s violent outbursts began after she started secondary school.
Naomi believes this was due to her being dyslexic and on the autism spectrum – although she was never diagnosed. Again, the social workers were of little use.
Tamsin was 14 when, after a fall out over something Naomi struggles to recall, she attacked Martin so viciously, biting him and hitting him with a bat, that Naomi had no alternative but to call the police for help.
‘They arrested her, keeping her in a cell overnight, which was horrific, but they thought it would teach her a lesson,’ says Naomi. ‘Sadly, it didn’t, and it happened again, two weeks later.’
Then, one day she returned from a brief dog walk to find Joseph and Tamsin brutally attacking one another, close to the top of the staircase, ‘biting, scratching, kicking, hair pulling and spraying deodorant into each other’s faces’.
After trying, in vain, to separate them, in desperation Naomi called the police again. By the time officers arrived, the siblings had fled and Joseph was later found, sitting on a railway bridge, threatening to jump.
When behavioural issues manifest post-adoption – some of which can be genetic – parents are left to fend alone and blamed when the situation becomes unmanageable (file image)
Police managed to pull him to safety, and he was referred to CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services). The couple were told Joseph needed ‘dyadic developmental psychotherapy’, a specialist treatment for children who have been hurt or neglected in their early years, which would require both Naomi and Martin to attend weekly sessions.
This proved very difficult for Martin. As the family breadwinner, who now works in finance, he was unable to take time off work in the middle of the day. Though evening sessions were available, the couple’s request for these was ignored. Social workers were unsympathetic, and highly critical of him in reports.
Both children developed serious mental health problems, and would regularly self-harm, shutting themselves in the bathroom. At their wits’ end, the couple took the lock off the bathroom door – only to be told by social workers to replace it to ‘protect the children’s privacy’.
‘I was terrified one of them might die and begged social workers to get them urgent appointments with CAMHS, which still felt like our only hope, yet there seemed to be no urgency back then – though I understand they’ve had referrals now, after the adoption has broken down,’ recalls Naomi.
Everything came to a head at the beginning of the year when Tamsin had gone missing. Martin was out with Joseph in the car, scouring the streets, when he had what can only be described as a nervous breakdown. He later described how he’d started driving very quickly, feeling like he wanted to die.
‘Martin was full of remorse,’ says Naomi. ‘But we realised we were both so broken we could no longer cope and asked that the children be taken back into care.’
Initially the siblings were taken into care under a Section 20 order, a voluntary agreement between the adoptive parents and the local authority for them to provide temporary care, but now have a ‘full care order’, which means they will remain in local authority homes until they are 18.
The couple still see the children – last week Naomi met Tamsin to go shopping and took Joseph for tea and cake. On another occasion, Martin took Joseph to play pool. The last time the children visited the family home, for Sunday lunch, they stole £100 from a safe. ‘We miss them and still consider them our children,’ says Naomi.
‘And we don’t put any of the blame for what’s happened on them. They’ve developed a fight or flight response as a result of their early trauma and haven’t had the professional support they need. However, as much as we still love them both, it’s a relief they don’t live with us any more.’
One explanation for the rise in cases of children having to leave their adoptive home is the effects of widespread cuts in funding to local authorities and CAMHS, says Alison Woodhead, of Adoption UK. ‘Adopters often feel quite abandoned, not knowing what they’re entitled to or what support is out there.’
This was certainly the case for Stephan, a little boy who, together with his older sister Juliet, was adopted by Sophie Greenwood and her wife, Susie, a schoolteacher, in 2012, when they were aged two and three.
Both children were malnourished, covered in sores and fleas and so terrified of water that Sophie and Susie were unable to bath them, unless they climbed in too.
While Juliet developed normally, Stephan had abnormal brain development that could have been caused by exposure to toxins in the womb, as well as suspected foetal alcohol syndrome. He was diagnosed with autism, ADHD and oppositional defiant disorder (ODD).
‘We wanted them to stay together, so we could all be a forever family,’ says Sophie. ‘However, we had no idea what a fight we had on our hands to get our son the support he needed.’ As a toddler, he was easy to pick up and distract, but as he grew bigger he grew increasingly violent – biting and kicking his parents and his sister.
Warned not to physically restrain him, Susie and Sophie would hold a kickboxing pad in front of them to soften the blows.
Eventually, when he was eight, they couldn’t cope any more.
‘A therapist, assigned by the local authority, agreed that our son needed a specialist residential school, but said the only way we’d secure one was to report any significant physically aggressive incidents to the council and the police, so there was a log.
‘We did this, and the local authority pushed back, placing both children on the child protection register under suspicion of ’emotional abuse’.’
Stephan moved to the residential school aged ten, leaving Juliet at home. In theory, this meant Susie was able to return to work as a teacher. However, she was now on record as being the mother of children ‘at risk’.
‘The fight for support and the shame just broke her,’ says Sophie. ‘She was so tired and constantly ruminating over the injustice of it all.’
One evening, in late 2022, Susie took her own life.
Sophie sobs as she recalls breaking the terrible news to their children — Susie’s death heaping further trauma on top of what they had already endured.
Juliet, 15, is developing normally, while Stephan still comes home regularly – but remains prone to lashing out. Although she cannot bear to imagine her life without her two children, Sophie admits that, had she and Susie known what lay ahead, they would have been unlikely to proceed with adoption.
Adoption specialist solicitor Nigel Priestley says the legal firm where he is a senior partner, Ridley & Hall in Yorkshire, is contacted by about 150 adoptive families in crisis a year.
‘Long gone are the days when most babies adopted came from teenagers, in mother and baby homes,’ says Nigel. ‘We have a whole host of children coming through who carry significant issues with them. Specialist support for these children costs local authorities a fortune and, over the last ten years, the services that provide support have been cut to the bone.’
Alison from Adoption UK stresses that this lack of funding is the issue, and that the devastating impact of adoption breakdown on the child should not be forgotten. ‘When adopted children and young people leave the adoptive family home prematurely it is devastating for all concerned, particularly the young person.
‘It’s almost always because they are let down – by adoption services, by mental health services and by the education system. Most adoptive families describe a constant battle to get the support their children and young people need. When children and young people do leave their adoptive family home prematurely, many return there. And many adopters with children and young people living away from home are still intimately involved in their lives and their care.’
As one mother, whose marriage didn’t survive after she and her husband adopted three traumatised, and later violent, siblings who had suffered terrible neglect and abuse, says: ‘I don’t blame the boys for how they behave – if I’d had their start in life, I’d no doubt struggle to control my emotions too. I blame the system for not giving them the help they needed. There should have been ongoing support in place from the get-go.’
Hundreds of devastated parents up and down the country, whose adoptions have been similarly disrupted, agree wholeheartedly.
- For support, visit the PATCH website at ourpatch.org.uk
- Names of children and parents have been changed.
Uncertainty for families as China ends foreign adoptions
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crmwrpe3m3do
Uncertainty for families as China ends foreign adoptions
Nathan Williams
BBC News
- Published6 September 2024
China has announced that it is ending the practice of allowing children to be adopted overseas, bringing uncertainty to families currently going through the process.
A spokeswoman said that the rule change was in line with the spirit of international agreements.
At least 150,000 Chinese children have been adopted abroad in the last three decades.
More than 82,000 have gone to the US, a greater number than anywhere else in the world.
At a daily briefing Thursday, foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said in the future Beijing would only allow foreign nationals who are relatives to adopt Chinese children.
She did not explain the reason for the decision, other than saying it was in line with international agreements.
Ms Mao thanked families “for their desire and love in adopting children from China”.
The ban on foreign adoptions has created uncertainty for hundreds of families in the US currently going through the process of adopting children from China.
In a call with US diplomats in China, Beijing said it would “not continue to process cases at any stage” other than those cases covered by an exception clause. This position was confirmed by spokeswoman Ms Mao.
Washington is seeking clarification from China’s civic ministry.
China’s controversial one-child policy, introduced in 1979 when the country was worried about a surging population, forced many families to abandon their children.
Families that violated the rules were fined and, in some cases, lost jobs. In a culture that historically favours boys over girls, it often meant that female babies were given up.
International adoption was formalised in the 1990s, and since then tens of thousands of children have been adopted, with about half going to parents in the US – including celebrities like Meg Ryan and Woody Allen.
However, the international adoption programme has at various times come under criticism. In 2013, Chinese police rescued 92 abducted children and arrested suspected members of a trafficking network.
Critics at the time pointed to China’s one-child policy and adoption laws, which they said had created a thriving underground market for buying children.
A number of countries have expressed concerns about international adoptions.
Denmark has closed its only overseas adoption agency, over concerns about fabricated documents. The Netherlands has also said it will no longer allow its citizens to adopt children from abroad.
But Beijing has also altered the way it views children. In stark contrast to the position taken by officials at end of the 1970s, the country’s leaders now worry there are not enough babies being born to sustain the population.
In 2016 China scrapped the one-child policy and in 2021 Beijing formally revised its laws to allow married couples to have up to three children.
In recent years, the Chinese government also offered tax breaks and better maternal healthcare, among other incentives, in an attempt to reverse, or at least slow, the falling birth rate.
But these polices have not lead to a sustained increase in births, and in 2023 the country’s total population fell for the first time in 60 years.
Adopted children to have closer contact with birth families
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3vl5w3zy2eo
Adopted children to have closer contact with birth families
Sanchia Berg and Katie Inman
BBC News
- Published 7 November 2024
Adopted children are likely to be allowed much closer contact with their birth families in the future as part of “seismic” changes recommended in a report published today. Some families say the changes are long overdue but others worry they may deter people from adopting. Angela Frazer-Wicks’ two sons were removed from her care and adopted in 2004, when they were aged five and one. She was in an abusive relationship and had problems with addiction and her mental health. By 2011 Angela had recovered, she was in a new relationship, and had a baby daughter. The local authority was not involved in her daughter’s care. Angela’s sons and their adoptive parents had stayed in touch with her writing letters and sending photos once or twice a year. But when the older of the two boys became a teenager, he told his adoptive mother he no longer wanted to write to his birth mother. Angela carried on sending cards, but heard nothing back for years. Then out of the blue, in 2020, Angela received an email from her eldest son. It turned out he had been trying to contact her, but the local authority had told him that wasn’t possible. Last month, Angela met her eldest son in person – it was the first time she had seen him for 20 years. “It was amazing for me,” Angela says, “even more so for my daughter – she’s waited her entire life to meet her brother.”
Adoption is the state’s most powerful intervention in family life. It is a permanent break between a child and their birth family, and alters the child’s identity forever. In law they are no longer the child of their birth parents, and most adopted children grow up without seeing or knowing any of their birth family. Around 3,000 children are adopted in England each year. It’s a process that must be authorised by judges in family courts, who set out the level of contact the child will have with their birth parents usually just letters, sent twice a year, via an intermediary. While adoption law has evolved over the years allowing children to know more about their history than they once did, in some ways, families say, adoption is still very much stuck in the past. Now a new report from a group set up by the most senior judge in the family court, external says wholesale reform of the system is needed. “Letterbox” contact between adopted children and birth families is outdated, the report says, instead recommending face-to-face contact where that is safe. The extremely detailed report is strongly supported by Sir Andrew McFarlane who says there is no need to change the law for this to happen. The report is likely to influence family court adoption hearings throughout England and Wales. Angela Frazer-Wicks describes her experience of adoption as a “life sentence without any right to appeal”.
As chair of trustees of the charity Family Rights Group, she is pleased mothers like her will have more chance to continue seeing their children after they have been adopted. “It’s a seismic shift,” Angela says. “It’s been such a long time coming. My hope is that we start to see just a bit more compassion towards birth families – they are so often seen as the problem.”
While meeting birth family can be very positive for some adopted children, face-to-face meetings aren’t good for all children in this position. When Cassie was adopted aged three, she constantly worried about the mother she’d been take away from. Out shopping with her adoptive parents Dee and John, Cassie would even ask if she could buy groceries for her birth mum. Dee was advised it would be reassuring for Cassie to meet her birth mother face-to-face. Their reunion, in a noisy contact centre, went well but the following day Cassie was very tired, pale and limp. Dee decided to take Cassie to the doctor, and by the time they arrived at the surgery Cassie was trembling and vomiting uncontrollably. But there was nothing physically wrong the doctor said Cassie was in shock. For nearly two years Cassie and Dee went to specialist therapy. Cassie still seemed to worry about her birth mother, and would try to call her on a toy telephone. Another meeting was arranged, in a quieter environment, with support. After that, Cassie, who is now aged 30, says she didn’t want to see her birth mother again. “I never felt a strong urge,” she says. “I had all the information about her.”
More reporting from family courts
With more recent adoptions, there is a new kind of risk. Children can trace their birth family online and some will go and meet them. That can lead to conflict with adoptive parents, even adoption breakdown. “The children become very emotionally mixed up,” says Sir Andrew McFarlane, the head of the Family Court in England and Wales.
“If you’re trying to work out who you are you in the world, and you have some memory of the family you lived with until you were four or five it’s almost natural to try and trace them and be in touch with them.”
Without expert help, this can have disastrous consequences. In 2021 one couple told the BBC it was “devastating” to see their two adopted sons turn against them and get drawn into crime, after they had been reunited with their birth family. There is no accurate data on how many adoptions break down. The charity Adoption UK has said it varies between 3% and 9%. Following a four-year review and consultation, the 170-page report published today says greater consideration should be given to whether adopted children “should have face-to-face contact with those who were significant to them before they were adopted”.
The report is intended as a review of the adoption process and a “catalyst for positive changes”.
Among the dozens of other recommendations are reforming the law on international adoption, and setting up a national register for court adoption records to make it easier for people to find their own files. The report also recommends dropping the term “celebration” for parents’ last visit to court with the child they are adopting. Many adoptive parents agree the current “letterbox” system of contact is not effective. In a 2022 survey, Adoption UK found that most prospective adopters believed that standardising direct contact would deter people from adopting, at a time when the number of people coming forward to adopt is in decline. But at the same time, it found that 70% of those looking to adopt believed that direct contact should be standard practice, if considered safe. Others think it could create further problems. Nigel Priestley is a specialist adoption solicitor and an adopter himself. He has seen the issues this contact can cause. “I think it’s enormously risky,” he says. “In my view there is a grave danger that if you once open Pandora’s Box shutting it will be impossible.”
A Department for Education spokesperson said the value of children growing up in a loving family “cannot be underestimated”. And for many children in care, “adoption makes this happen”.
“We know that adoption has a profound impact on everyone involved, and it’s vital that the child’s best interests are protected and remain at the heart of the process.”
Clarification 8 November 2024: This story has been amended following updated information supplied by Adoption UK
‘They just took the baby away’: Family speaks out in church-run homes scandal
‘They just took the baby away’: Family speaks out in church-run homes scandal
- Wednesday 16 October 2024 at 10:27pm
A family has come forward following an ITV News investigation into cruelty and abuse at ex church run mother and baby homes, Social Affairs Correspondent Sarah Corker reports
Further allegations of abuse and neglect at a former church-run mother and baby home in Cumbria have emerged, following an ITV News investigation. Earlier this year we revealed that 45 babies who had died at St Monica’s home – in Kendal were buried in an unmarked grave in the town’s cemetery.
St Monica’s was one of hundreds of homes for unmarried mothers across England.
Between 1949 and the mid-1970s, an estimated 200,000 women were sent away to homes run by churches and the state where they were pressured and coerced in to give up their babies for adoption. Other infants died through poor care.
Since our first report aired in July, the family of one of those children has come forward and told ITV News that their mother was lied to about the fate of her baby daughter, Faith, and was never told where she was buried.
Norah Everard was in her 80s, and dying from cancer, when she told her family for the first time about the trauma she’d endured decades earlier as a teenager in 1941.
Pregnant and unmarried, she was sent away to St Monica’s, which was run by the Diocese of Carlisle, to have her baby.
Norah’s son Bob Chubb recounted the details that his late mother shared with him and his wife Carole about the “cruel” home.
“We were all round the table one Christmas, and she said ‘I’ve got something important to tell you both. Bob you weren’t my first born’, and then she told me about being raped as a young school girl, going to St Monica’s in Kendal to have the baby, and the baby was stillborn, called Faith,” Bob told ITV News.
Burial records seen by ITV News suggest that Norah was lied to, they show that Faith wasn’t stillborn and that she had lived for 12 hours and was later buried in an unmarked grave at Parkside Cemetery in Kendal – one of the 45 babies who were buried in secrecy.
If you’d like to share your story please get in touch with Sarah on the following email: Investigations@itv.com
“I don’t think she was told the truth. I think some terrible things went on,” Mr Chubb said. Carole Chubb, Bob’s wife, said: “It really really disgusts me. They just took the baby away and said the baby’s dead and that’s it. Did they even given her any milk? Would she have survived? “Norah told me it was cruel place, they made the women scrub floors when they were heavily pregnant and they were refused pain relief in labour as a punishment.”
Bob and Carole share their family’s story and concerns about how babies were treated
Concerns have been raised by other families about the poor care of sick and premature babies at the home in the decades after the war, while official documents from the archives paint a disturbing picture of neglect, cruelty and suffering inside St Monica’s. Bob revealed that he too was born prematurely at the same home in the late 1940s, and feels ‘lucky’ that he survived.
The acting Bishop of Carlisle Rt Rev Rob Saner-Haigh described what had happened to Norah and her daughter as ‘wrong’ and said he was ‘really sorry’ for the way women and children had been treated.
The acting Bishop of Carlisle Rt Rev Rob Saner-Haigh answers questions from ITV News
Since allegations of abuse first emerged, 20 people with a connection to St Monica’s have contacted the Diocese requesting access to their family records. “The Church of England should do all it can to support people who have lived with the trauma. We need to listen and give them a choice in decision making so they can tell us what they need and as an organisation we show them the love and dignity that they weren’t shown before,” he said.
The family of another baby, Stephen Holt, who died aged 3 months old at the home in 1964, are now campaigning for a permanent memorial to the 45 babies.
It was years later when baby Stephen’s mother Judith Hindley first told her husband, also called Stephen, of the abuse she endured at the ‘draconian’ home in the late 1960s. “Judith was 17 at the time and told me how she was forced to clean floors and kitchens while heavily pregnant. They were being punished,” he said. “Her son Stephen was born with disabilities and needed to go to hospital, but he was cruelly denied proper medical care and died 11 weeks later.” She never recovered from that trauma and in 2006, Judith took her own life close to the cemetery where her baby is buried.
Stephen Hindley explains what happened to his wife Judith at St Monica’s and why he is campaigning for a memorial
Cumbria Police has confirmed it is still investigating allegations of historic abuse at St Monica’s and said it “would welcome any new information which would assist officers…following concerns raised in relation to these premises”. Westmorland and Furness District Council which owns the cemetery where the graves are located said: “We are currently exploring options and reaching out to others who may wish to be involved or consulted on the possibility of marking the unmarked graves at Parkside Road cemetery, Kendal relating to the former St Monica’s Maternity home.”
Department for Education spokesperson said: “We have the deepest sympathy with all of those who are affected, the practice was abhorrent and should never have taken place.
“While we will not be able to quickly make every change we would like, we will look at whether there is any more we could do to support those affected.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-gloucestershire-68629466
Couple adopted vulnerable children to abuse
- Published
22 March
Abuse
poisoned generations of a family after children’s allegations and
sexualised behaviour were not acted upon, a report has revealed.
The
abuse began with Couple A in Gloucestershire, who specifically asked to
adopt an “emotionally disturbed” child – so they could assault them.
The couple, eventually jailed in 2018, went on to adopt four siblings, beginning a cycle of sexual abuse that lasted for years.
The report said agencies “fell short”.
If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this article, help and advice can be found on the BBC Action Line
Couple
A, who cannot be named for legal reasons, adopted the four young
siblings, who had been abused by their birth parents, in the 1990s.
Police
describe Couple A as “wealthy” and “people you wouldn’t suspect”, with
the woman “a pillar of the community and a church-goer with a very
successful job”.
An
adoption form written by a social worker in the area they had been
living at the time outside of Gloucestershire shows they asked for a
child who was “emotionally disturbed”.
Gloucestershire
Constabulary’s Det Sgt Grace Craddock, who led the police
investigation, said they “sought out children that were traumatised”.
“I believe it was so they could have access to children who wouldn’t be believed if they were to talk out,” she said.
Couple A were jailed for a total of 23 years between them for abusing two of their adopted children.
But
one of the other siblings, along with her husband, later abused two of
their own children. In 2023, Couple B were jailed for a total of 17
years.
Det Sgt Grace Craddock said the mother in Couple A “pulled the wool over the eyes of every professional that became involved”
Det
Sgt Craddock said the dominating factor over the entire family was the
mother of Couple A, who she described as “one of the most manipulative
people I have ever met”.
The mother sat in on meetings with social services and schools, making sure nothing was said that could implicate them.
“It’s
clear from the material that we’ve reviewed in the last seven years
that she pulled the wool over the eyes of every professional that became
involved,” Det Sgt Craddock said.
“There
were certain points, over the years, social care would get involved,
they’d look over allegations but she was always considered the safe
factor and that allowed her access to the children.”
Police said the victims of the family were undergoing therapy and “living with trauma every day”.
“It’s taken years for them to feel ready to talk about what’s happened,” Det Sgt Craddock said.
“Going through a court case for any child is extremely difficult.
“They’ve
got closure thankfully but those offences have happened to them and
they have to process that going into adulthood. We don’t just finish the
investigation and close that door, the support is ongoing.”
‘More and more evidence’
In 2010, Gloucestershire Constabulary did not prosecute Couple A after one of the children said she had been abused.
The
CPS was not consulted and no legal advice was taken, despite evidence
the father had been downloading indecent images of children, for which
he was later cautioned.
When Couple B’s children started going to primary school, teachers noticed a pattern of worrying behaviour.
“Pete”,
a member of staff, told the BBC that the school began to notice “more
and more evidence of quite significant sexualised behaviour” as each
sibling joined.
Despite
referrals to children’s services, and concerns also shown from staff in
probation, social services and at a children’s centre, Pete and his
colleagues felt they were pushed back by the local authority.
“Pete” told BBC reporter Steve Knibbs, pictured here, he was pleased the children finally had justice
“It
was very much ‘this will not get past legal’ and I found that
frustrating because I said ‘I’m not here to try and get a legal outcome
I’m here to try and get these children protected’,” Pete said.
“And
it would be ‘well, they haven’t said anything’ and I would go on saying
‘they don’t have to have said anything’ – their behaviour was screaming
at us and that wasn’t being taken account of.
“That
was quite disturbing because these children would have been coached,
threatened, you know, and scripted ‘if you’re asked this, this is what
you say’.”
‘Apologise unreservedly’
A report by Gloucestershire Safeguarding Partnership was published on Friday, external
into the background of the failings that led to the creation of
Operation Acorne, an investigation involving a number of local agencies
in July 2017.
Eleven
children connected to four families were taken into police protection
and local authority care. Two other families had convictions for
neglect, but the victims of Couples A and B finally saw their abusers
brought to justice and jailed.
The
failings in the system were against a backdrop of a deterioration in
children’s services in Gloucestershire revealed in 2017.
In June of that year, the same month that Operation Acorne was set up, Ofsted announced it had found “serious and widespread failures” in children’s services in Gloucestershire.
It
said that “too many children were being left in situations at risk of
significant harm for too long” because dangers were not recognised.
The
county council’s director of children’s services, Ann James, apologised
“unreservedly” for the authority’s “not joined up or adequate” initial
response.
“Whilst these
circumstances are thankfully very rare, our focus during the years
since this abuse was uncovered has been to, along with our partners, act
in response to mistakes that were made and to strengthen how we work
together to effectively safeguard children in the county,” she said.
“Although
these events occurred up to 15 years ago, the findings and the
recommendations serve as a reminder to us all that we must all remain
vigilant and unwavering in our protection of children.”
Earlier this week the council apologised over the failures which led to a child being abused by her carer.
Police said they were “sorry for the consequences of not taking action at an earlier stage” (stock image)
The
report highlighted that in 2016 police did not look into the
allegations of sexualised behaviour because the children involved were
under the age of criminal responsibility.
It
said: “This deflected the professional child protection network from a
more fundamental question: ‘Where had the children involved learnt this
behaviour?’.”
Addressing
the missed opportunity to prosecute Couple A, Assistant Chief Constable
Arman Mathieson said Gloucestershire police was “sorry for the
consequences of not taking action at an earlier stage”.
“In
relation to the police failing identified in the report, specifically
that we did not refer the allegations made by a victim in 2009 to the
Crown Prosecution Service, this was not the right decision and I have
apologised to those involved,” he said.
“While
this decision was made in good faith by the investigating officer,
based on a perception the evidential threshold had not been met, this is
not what we do now.
“When
the case was referred again in 2017, it was taken forward with the
utmost professionalism via a multi-agency investigation spanning over
six years, resulting in extensive safeguarding and significant
convictions that totalled over 40 years.
“The
report’s findings have been embedded within our organisations and we
continue to work closely together, every day, to safeguard children and
bring offenders to justice.”
Det
Sgt Craddock added: “We’re unable to name the parents involved for
legal reasons and to protect the victims but this offending is very
distinct and if anyone’s got concerns that it’s familiar or they think
that they might have been involved in anything of this nature then have
the confidence to come forward and speak to police.”
Delay and frustration in adoption law’s first year
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp3dx01v8x8o
Delay and frustration in adoption law’s first year
At a glance
- More than 10,000 requests for adoptees’ birth records have been submitted during the first year of a new Irish law
- The authorities struggled to meet demand and missed legal deadlines
- A total of 5,500 requests were made to use a new family tracing service
- More than half (53%) of tracing requests are yet to be allocated to staff
Eimear Flanagan
BBC News NI
- Published3 October 2023
An Irish law that gave adopted people the right to access their birth records has led to more than 10,000 applications during its first year of operation.
The Birth Information and Tracing Act, external was designed to end much of the secrecy embedded in Ireland’s 70-year-old adoption system.
But for many adoptees waiting decades for answers about their early lives, the new procedures meant delays and frustration.
The legislation created a new family tracing service and throughout the year 5,500 requests to find relatives were submitted.
However, due to the complexity of some searches, 53% of tracing requests are yet to be allocated to staff.
“I am relying on a system that is working at a snail’s pace,” said Linda Southern, who is searching for her birth parents.
The 48-year-old Dubliner was adopted in 1975 at six weeks of age.
She spent her first 47 years not knowing her birth name nor the names of her mother and father.
That is because until 3 October 2022, Irish adoptees had no automatic right to see their own birth certificates, nor to know their biological parents’ identities.
The new law was supposed to give adoptees access to birth records within 30 days, or 90 days in complex cases.
Two organisations tasked with releasing records struggled to handle an early surge of applications.
The Adoption Authority of Ireland (AAI) and child and family agency Tusla both missed statutory deadlines.
“The initial surge led to wait times which would be frustrating and which we regret,” said AAI interim chief executive Colm O’Leary.
“When you’re starting off a process and you’re learning that records are held across various sources, it takes time to become familiar with all of the record types,” he explained.
A Tusla spokeswoman said “a significant portion of the applications are classified as complex which means they require more time”.
But adoptees argue authorities should have been better prepared.
“Surely, state bodies would have had a basic idea of the number of adoptees who would want to at least get their birth information,” said Ms Southern.
After initial delays, she received her own documents which – for the first time – revealed her original name and parents’ names.
However, she still needs help finding her biological family and spent the past year waiting for news.
“I don’t know if they will ever trace my birth mother or not.
“If they can’t, I should be told,” she said.
“They should have presumed the majority would want to trace – better to presume that too many people would wish to trace birth families than too few.”
‘Belfast baby’
Loraine Jackson had hoped her birth files might shed some light on her cross-border adoption.
She grew up in Dublin, with barely any information about her birth.
But in her early 40s, she found out she was actually a native of the United Kingdom, having been born to a single mother in Belfast in 1948.
Her parents died years before she could trace them.
When she spoke to BBC News NI last year, she expressed hope her files might reveal how or why she was taken across the border for adoption.
After months of waiting, a “fat package” arrived in the post which included an unredacted version of her adoption agreement.
For the first time, she saw her relatives’ signatures and finally found out who authorised her adoption.
“My birth mother had not been present at the signing. Her sister signed for her,” Ms Jackson explained.
She also expected her files would contain information about the standard of care she received in Bethany children’s home in Dublin.
But apart from a photocopy of her name in Bethany’s admission book, she was disappointed.
“The information just didn’t seem to be there. Whether records were not kept as well in those days, I don’t know.”
Although left with many unanswered questions, her maternal aunt’s role in her adoption was new information to her.
“It was definitely worthwhile doing, and I’d advise anyone who hasn’t applied yet to go for it.”
AAI staff received a wide range of feedback from adoptees about their birth files – from delight to disappointment to disbelief.
“A lot of people have said: ‘Is that it? Is there nothing else?'” Mr O’Leary said.
He acknowledged some adoptees were dismayed to learn that nothing more exists on file than details they already knew.
Others have received heavily censored documents.
“Sometimes the authority gets records that are already redacted prior to us getting them… we cannot unredact it,” Mr O’Leary explained.
He also said AAI staff can apply redactions themselves, in cases where personal information refers to a third party.
However, he added applicants can request a review if they believe files were “inappropriately redacted”.
The interim chief executive acknowledged the AAI’s 12 social workers have “significant” tracing workloads.
But he said tracing “is not a linear process” and adoptees often pause the search themselves to digest new information.
“You’re dealing with a very emotive situation,” Mr O’Leary said.
“People may initiate a trace, thinking that their birth mother would want to hear from them, and they have to take on board that the birth mother does not want contact.”
But the new law produced positive outcomes too – the AAI’s tracing service has facilitated 44 family reunions.
“Sometimes I’ll go to the kitchen and I’ll see a social worker taking out the fancy crockery and making tea” Mr O’Leary said.
“They’re bringing it into a room where a family is being reunited.”
He added that when staff help connect families “there is a sense of success, and of delivering on the legislation”.
The AAI’s backlog of birth record applications is almost cleared and by last week, just 56 were outstanding.
Tusla has a much larger backlog which it expects to clear by June 2024.
It said from1 September, all new applications are being processed “within statutory timelines”.
If you are affected by the issues raised in this story, help and support can be found at BBC Action Line.
Mother and baby homes: NI-born survivor ‘abandoned again’
Mother and baby homes: NI-born survivor ‘abandoned again’
Published 18 March
By Eimear Flanagan BBC News NI
A woman from Dublin, born into a mother and baby home in Northern Ireland, has said she feels “abandoned again” because she is excluded from a new compensation scheme. Sinead Buckley was born in 1972 to an unmarried woman from the Republic of Ireland. At that time her mother, Eileen, was living in Marianvale in Newry. A midwife in Dublin, Eileen came north because of the fear and stigma associated with being a single mother. Marianvale was one of a network of institutions across the island of Ireland which housed unmarried women and their babies at a time when pregnancy outside marriage was viewed as scandalous. After the birth in Newry’s Daisy Hill Hospital, an adoption agency in the Republic arranged for Eileen’s baby to be adopted by a family in Dublin. Ms Buckley grew up and still lives in Dublin, but never got to meet her birth mother. Eileen died during a Covid lockdown which meant she endured the heartbreak of watching her mother’s funeral over the internet. This week, the Republic of Ireland will open an €800m (£684m) redress scheme, external for survivors of its own mother and baby homes. Ms Buckley is one of thousands of Irish adoptees who will not qualify, despite her decades-long battle with the Irish state to access her birth identity and family medical history. “I grew up with a sense of rejection and abandonment and I feel like I’ve just been completely abandoned again,” she told BBC News NI.
“I used to be proud to be Irish, I’m not anymore. I’m not Irish what I am?”
Ireland’s Department of Children said that Marianvale was outside the Republic’s jurisdiction, adding there were “processes ongoing in Northern Ireland to respond to these legacy issues”.
But as a Dubliner, born to parents from the Republic, Ms Buckley said she cannot understand why she is excluded from the Irish redress scheme “because I was born a few miles over the border and adopted back here”.
Who qualifies for compensation?
Under the rules, mothers who spent even one night in an eligible institution in the Republic will receive compensation. Payments start at €5,000 (£4,275) and rise incrementally based on length of stay, external. But former child residents only qualify if they spent six months or more in homes. Marianvale is not on the list of eligible institutions, but even if it was, Ms Buckley would still not be entitled to compensation because it appears she was resident for less than six months. “I wish someone would explain the six-month thing to me because we’ve suffered through life,” she said.
“There’s absolutely no humanity in this decision.”
She added she paid Irish taxes all her life and now the Irish state “isn’t recognising me”. “For me it’s not about the money, it’s about the principle,” she said. “I want to be vindicated.”
‘Where do I belong?’
Adoption records show her mother was engaged to a Tipperary man when she became pregnant, but Eileen’s family opposed her relationship. When she entered Marianvale, her fiancé was not even told he was about to become a father. The adoption was arranged by Cunamh, formerly known as the Catholic Protection and Rescue Society of Ireland. “If the adoption was arranged from counties in the south and agencies in the south run by convents and nuns in the south and women from the south were in there and the children were adopted back into the south it’s just a loophole to get out of paying anybody money,” Ms Buckley said.
Border babies
Her cross-border journey was not unique. A recent report into Northern Ireland’s mother and baby homes, external calculated that more than 550 babies were moved to the Republic between 1930 and 1990. “Here in the north, the campaigners have been calling for their public inquiry and redress for more than a decade,” said solicitor Claire McKeegan, who acts on behalf of survivors of institutional abuse in Northern Ireland.
In 2021, Stormont’s leaders agreed to hold a public inquiry into mother and baby homes, Magdalene laundries and workhouses north of the border. But two and a half years on, that inquiry is still to be legally established. “Obviously with the collapse of Stormont, the legislation hasn’t happened for them and many survivors and victims are no longer with us,” Ms McKeegan said.
The solicitor is due to meet First Minister Michelle O’Neill about the issue next month and said the message from survivors will be: “It must be done and it must be done now.”
For Ms Buckley though, it was the Republic’s secretive adoption system which she had to fight all her life. As a teenager she suffered serious health issues and baffled doctors ran lots of tests because they could not access her family medical records. “My mother told me that at one stage they thought it was leukaemia and that the doctors had been trying to ring the adoption agency just to try and get some history. They were like: ‘This girl is really sick, we need to know.’ And they were just met with closed doors.”
Aged 43, Ms Buckley was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS), a condition she later found out runs in her birth family. She believes she missed out on earlier diagnosis and treatment due to her lack of rights to birth information when she was a teenager. A new Irish law came into force in 2022 which gave all adoptees rights to access their original birth certificate and family medical history, but adoptees complain of long delays with the new system. How many survivors get compensation?
It has been estimated there are about 58,200 people still alive who spent time in the Republic’s mother and baby homes and county homes (institutions which succeeded workhouses). The Department of Children confirmed its redress scheme will “provide financial payments to an estimated 34,000 people”.
But that means just over 40% of survivors some 24,000 people cannot apply because of the six-month rule. Awarding payments and medical benefits to all surviving residents would have doubled the cost of the scheme. “The exclusions are vast and it really is extremely unfair,” said Dr Maeve O’Rourke.
The human rights lecturer recently helped design the framework for investigating homes in Northern Ireland. Dr O’Rourke argued the Republic’s 2015-2021 mother and baby homes investigation, external was too narrowly focused and has resulted in a restricted redress scheme. She said there should have been a wider investigation into adoption across all of society, including the role of adoption agencies, maternity hospitals, “forced family separations” and illegal birth registrations. “Unfortunately, and perhaps to limit its ultimate financial liability, the Irish government insisted that it would be limited to mother and baby institutions and a sample of county homes,” she added.
Ms Buckley took part in a 2021 public consultation, external in which survivors and interested parties gave views on the design of the redress scheme. Most survivors stressed loss of the mother/child bond was the most important factor that required redress, not the time spent in homes. Ms Buckley shared her own experience during the consultation but was shocked when she realised Marianvale residents would not be part of the settlement. “I couldn’t stop crying. We bared our souls at that thing, you know? We told them how this has affected us mentally,” she said.
“For saving a few quid, we’re just collateral damage.”
Bessborough mother and baby home should have been bought by the State, Tánaiste says
Bessborough mother and baby home should have been bought by the State, Tánaiste says
ireland
20/09/2024 | 14:48 PM
Olivia Kelleher
Tánaiste Micheál Martin has indicated that he has always been of the view that the State should have purchased Bessborough, the former mother and baby home in Cork, for conversion into a memorial or amenity site.
This week a decision made by Cork City Council to refuse planning permission for a proposed 92 unit residential development at Bessborough in Blackrock in the city was upheld by An Bord Pleanála.
The planning authority backed the decision of the local authority because of the historical landscape and potential human remains at the grounds.
Speaking in Cork, Mr Martin said that options should be explored in relation to the use of the site.
“I was always of a view that the local authority with the State should have purchased that site and have a proper memorialisation but also see if we could do things on a planned basis. It is a beautiful area. It can potentially be a very strong amenity area for the area as well, but that was always my view on it.
“I felt at the time that maybe the local authority should have got involved earlier and pre-empted what happened and bought it because there are medical facilities, or HSE facilities on the site,” he said.
“There are a variety of facilities on the site, and it is a natural area and a green area as well, and we need to look at that as well.”
Meanwhile, Bessborough became notorious for the cruelty and neglect of mothers and their babies.
Of the more than 900 babies who died at Bessborough or in Cork hospitals having been transferred from the mother and baby home over the course of seven decades, less than 70 have known burial sites.
Survivors of the home have broadly welcomed the decision by An Bord Pleanála to deny planning for building on the site.
Carmel, whose mother gave birth to a boy who died in Bessborough, told Red FM News of her delight at the decision by the planning authority.
“I’m delighted it is being refused. All the grounds potentially have burials in them. It is not just one particular area.
There hasn’t been an investigation to establish whether there is a mass grave or where the children are but what we do know is that there is witnesses that have witnessed burials take place.”
Babies have grown up not knowing they were adopted after forced practice
Babies have grown up not knowing they were adopted after forced practice
‘It is vital that people living in Gloucestershire who are affected by historic forced adoption practices feel supported’
By Kim Horton Senior Reporter
- 06:00, 18 SEP 2024
A support plan has been put in place to helped those affected by forced adoption practices which spanned for almost 30 years. Between 1949 and 1976 an estimated 185,000 babies in England and Wales were taken from unmarried mothers and placed for adoption due to pressure from their families and society.
Evidence from across the UK suggests that many of the adoptions during this time were ‘closed’, meaning that children were given new names, identities, and birth certificates, were not informed that they were an adoptee and had no ongoing contact with their families. Gloucestershire County Council is working in partnership with Adoption West to ensure any mothers, or children who are now adults, impacted by forced adoption practices have access to readily available support.
The impact of this on women and children should not be underestimated, having lifelong and significantly distressing effects. The county council has commissioned Adoption West, a Regional Adoption Agency who amongst other adoption related activity provide support to adults who were adopted and families affected by forced adoption practices.
Leader of Gloucestershire County Council, Councillor Stephen Davies, said: “It is vital that people living in Gloucestershire who are affected by historic forced adoption practices feel supported. At times, they may need help and advice from professionals who understand adoption, which is why I would encourage anyone who has been affected by these practices to get in touch with Adoption West so that they can receive the help they need.”
Adoption West can support adopted adults, birth parents and birth relatives affected by historic adoptions in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.
The Adoption West Birth Links Service works with adopted adults and birth parents to provide:
- Support to apply to the Registrar General for the information needed to obtain a certified copy of their birth certificate
- Access to birth record services
- Up to six sessions of emotional support for birth family and adopted adults
- Advice about intermediary services
- Birth parent support groups
- To access support please visit the Adoption West website:
- Adopted Adults – Adoption West or telephone 03303 550 333