The Tragedy of Forced Adoption

'Forced adoption' is a hidden tragedy

There is a great tragedy unfolding, involving thousands of families across Britain.

 

By Christopher Booker

Ever more bizarre become the contradictions thrown up by the system we have evolved in the name of protecting children. I have more than once reported the case of Maureen Spalek, the loving mother forcibly separated from her three children who faces criminal charges for sending her 12-year-old son a birthday card, despite a judge's ruling allowing her to do so.

Having already been arrested and imprisoned for 24 hours for this alleged offence, she was last week again in court, to hear that she must return for a third time on July 29. Despite an earlier court agreeing that she was an "excellent mother" who had done her children no harm, social workers had taken them away for adoption, and she has several times been arrested for trying to make contact with them, even when she had done nothing of the kind.

 

Contrast this with the case of Tracey Connelly, imprisoned for her part in the death of her son "Baby P". It was recently reported that social workers had arranged for her to have contact with her surviving children at a "secret location" in London. Contrast this in turn with the case of Lianne Smith, who last month ran away to Spain to kill her two children and attempt suicide because she believed Staffordshire social workers were going to seize the children for adoption. In her suicide note, she wrote: "Social services in Staffordshire and their policy of 'forced adoption' are responsible for this."

There is a great tragedy unfolding here, involving thousands of families across Britain, set in train by politicians who, with one or two exceptions, seem to have stepped aside from the chaos, misery and mass of absurd contradictions they have set in train. Next week, I shall report another example.

 

Comments here.

If nothing else, we need to thank Mr Booker.