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Internet adoption isn't wrong: it's our own system that is at fault
Anyone who saw the 1960s television film Cathy Come Home will be unable to forget the scene in which the screaming heroine's babies are torn away from her by social workers. It was shown again this month, on a programme about the 100 greatest moments in television.
It was indeed an outstanding moment. Its power came not only from the terrible anguish of the mother, whose single fault was poverty, but also from the knowledge that this cruelty was absolutely unnecessary, and yet all too common in real life.
I was reminded of the horror of it again this week, by the television footage of social workers carrying away the tiny so-called internet twins in matching carry cots. The babies were seized on Thursday night from their new adoptive mother by Flintshire social services - it is not yet clear why - and taken into what is called "care".
Removing a baby from its wretched mother and father, without the most urgent necessity, is bad enough. Putting it into care can sometimes be even worse. The fate of children in care in this country is a national disgrace. A 1998 Social Services Inspectorate report about children in care found that, although children in care make up only 0.5 per cent of the country's population, they sooner or later form a staggeringly high proportion of young people in serious trouble.
Young men who have been in care make up 22 per cent of the prison population, and 39 per cent of prisoners under 21. One in three of the people sleeping rough in London has been in care. One in four children in care aged over 13 doesn't go to school regularly. And so on.
According to the report, no local authority social services department can be confident about its services for children in care. The report was truly damning about management, in every way; as Frank Dobson, the former health secretary, said at the time: "The system doesn't work."
Even the twins' biological mother in America appears to know that letting our social services have them is not a good idea. Their would-be adoptive mother now claims that she is afraid that two of her other children, her own natural sons, may be taken into care. She may be right. Flintshire social services says, rather ominously, that it plans to monitor the wellbeing of all the couple's children.
One can only gasp. This has a nasty whiff of the police state. Of course it is possible that Alan and Judith Kilshaw may somehow be unfit to be parents of their own natural children, as well as of the twins, and therefore that their boys' "wellbeing" does need "monitoring".
But, if so, how come it is only now that social services has somehow become aware of it? How come monitoring wasn't going on already? And given that the Kilshaws, whatever their personal foibles, have managed to bring up four other children, how can it be right to take away the baby twins in such a rush, and subject them to yet another move?
Such constant movement and change is very bad for babies. Apparently they have already been christened twice, as well as having travelled thousands of miles. And now another change, as well as further changes ahead during the inevitable legal battles.
So what was the urgent necessity for interfering like this? What was the justification for causing so much anguish and upset? Flintshire social services applied for an emergency protection order under the 1989 Children Act; this legislation provides that social services can do so if they believe a child is likely to suffer "significant harm" unless removed, or if inquiries into a child's welfare are being frustrated by the "unreasonable refusal" of access.
It is not clear on what ground Flintshire social services was granted an order to remove the twins, and it is not saying. It is clearly a very serious business; these orders are rare, and significant harm is supposed to mean just that: serious emotional, physical or sexual harm - not merely the ordinary risks of life with ordinary just-about-good-enough parents.
Of course, it is possible that there may be something terribly wrong with the Kilshaws as parents, but we have seen no evidence of this. And the simple point is that social services ought to have discovered that long ago, if that is the case. Equally, if they were good enough for their other children, why aren't they good enough for the twins? They are married, they are educated, they have money, and they have committed no crime.
If it weren't for the Sun and the posturings of the Prime Minister, who has let it be known that he is "horrified", in an entirely typical attempt to extract feel-good publicity out of other people's misfortune, no one would have taken the slightest interest in the Kilshaws.
It is also, I believe, absurd to object so violently to adoption adverts on the internet. We already have adverts for such children in newspapers in Britain, put in by social services; the internet is merely a more efficient form of advertising.
What is wrong is not advertising for adoption, but the adoption system, both in America and here; over there, it is much too speedy and lax: over here, it is far too intrusive and slow. This has been, from every point of view, a sickening story, and it is entirely due to the obstacles that social services have repeatedly, and perversely, put in the way of adoption in this country.
The Daily Telegraph | Saturday, January 20, 2001
