A toddler placed with prospective adopters should be returned to her biological parents, a High Court Judge has ruled. This emotional case concerned ‘A’, who turned one in July. Sitting in the Family Court at Cardiff, Mr Justice Francis described the dispute over her future as one involving “two decent couples” who “have found themselves pitted against each other in litigation which none of them could have wished for in their worst nightmares.” “…the human misery in this court is palpable,” he noted. Before A’s birth her parents had decided to give her up for adoption. They had been experiencing…
People who commission surrogate children should able to able to pay the birth mothers, the Bar Council has claimed. Currently it is only legal in the UK to cover the expenses incurred by surrogate mothers and commercial arrangements are illegal. But the Bar Council, which represents barristers across England and Wales, now believes that: “It should be open to intended parents to compensate a surrogate for career interruption, disruption to career progression and loss of earnings or bonus or other remuneration by reason of the pregnancy, childbirth or the post-partum recovery.” The claim was made by the Council’s Law Reform…
Family court judges should proceed with caution when postponing final decisions in a case, the Court of Appeal has declared. The case of S-L (Children: Adjournment) concerned a local authority’s appeal against a ruling made earlier this year. The recorder in that case had adjourned the council’s application for care and placement orders for two young children. The parents of the three year-old girl and her seven month old baby brother were suspected of neglect and had poor parenting skills. ‘Care and placement’ orders are twin rulings made by family courts to take children into care and then place them…
Doctors treating a mentally ill woman can conduct a caesarean section against her will, the Court of Protection has ruled. The unnamed woman, in the final stages of pregnancy, has insisted she does not want a C-section. But her medical team told Mr Justice Hayden that she has bipolar affective disorder, as well as a history of both depression and psychosis and they believe there is a real risk that she could relapse while in labour and make irrational decisions if serious complications occur. The Court of Protection is a division of the High Court which makes decisions on behalf…
