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Ombudsman could investigate ‘child snatching’ by courts

Tim Loughton, the children's minister, is considering the landmark step after he grew concerned over a number of cases where children have been wrongly taken and placed for adoption.

Tim Loughton, the children's minister, is considering the landmark step after he grew concerned over a number of cases where children have been wrongly taken and placed for adoption.

He says he has become aware of a minority of "very questionable judgments" made by the courts in a number of "highly contentious" cases.

Mr Loughton said: "There is work needed to make sure that the small number of cases which go horribly wrong, and are difficult to justify, are tackled as well, so that people feel the adoption system is doing the right thing for children.

"I am working hard with judges, local authorities, voluntary organisations and parents to find workable solutions – which could include some sort of Ombudsman-type role."

Parents whose children are removed by the family courts can already appeal to higher courts against the decision. Any move to introduce an Ombudsman would need to include a clear guidelines on the circumstances in which he or she could overrule judges' decisions.

A Department for Education spokesman said: "The minister knows there's a problem with a small number of cases and he is looking at how the system can be made to work better. One of the options that he has suggested is an Ombudsman type figure or mechanism."

The move follows claims by campaigners that social workers are too eager to take children into care in cases where there is little clear-cut evidence they have been abused by their parents. They also claim that secretive family courts too readily endorse the actions of social workers at the expense of children's best interests.

Mr Loughton has appointed Professor Eileen Munro to examine child protection and the way social workers operate. He has also set in motion the Norgrove review into the workings of the family courts, which is due to publish its interim report later this month.

One of the most controversial cases in the family courts involved a couple, whose three children were taken into care in 2004 after doctors claimed that leg fractures on the middle child had been inflicted deliberately.

They were adopted before new scientific evidence came to light suggesting that the boy could have been suffering from scurvy.

Yet in 2009 the Court of Appeal ruled that even though the decision to remove the children had been wrong, the adoptions were final. The couple were allowed to keep their fourth child.

Read more about this story at the Telegraph website.