Irish court sanctions return of child taken from council care

The High Court of Ireland has given Lincolnshire County Council an order for the return of a child taken out of the UK by its parents while in the council’s care.

Ní Raifeartaigh J said the parents, who represented themselves at a hearing before her, made submissions that “were more in the nature of cries from the heart to be allowed a chance to stay in Ireland, work with the child-care authorities, and have access to their baby, rather than legal arguments framed with reference to the provisions of the Hague Convention”.

The judge said that the child’s mother Mrs C loved the child and “genuinely believes that she has been done an injustice by the English doctors, nurses, social workers, lawyers and courts.

“At a human level, I could not but feel sympathy with the pain she is clearly suffering by being separated from her baby and because of her fears for the child's future.

“However, the court is constrained to operate within the necessary legal parameters of the Hague Convention.”

She said in her judgment “there has been a wrongful removal of the child from the jurisdiction of England and Wales and that none of the doors have been opened to the exercise of the court's discretion on the facts of the present case.

“Accordingly, I will make an order for the return of the child to England and Wales.”

The child was born on November 2017 and subsequent events gave the English authorities concerns about her welfare as the mother was repeatedly reporting medical symptoms which were not borne out upon investigation.

An interim care order was made in January 2018, which said that if the child remained with her parents there would be “further instances of false reporting of conditions and symptoms which will inevitably give rise to treatment and investigation” which was likely to cause significant harm to the child.

Child E had been placed with her grandmother but was removed from her home by the parents who then took her to Ireland.