A Local Authority v M (by her guardian J) and another
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 2003 |
| Date | 2003 |
| Year | 2003 |
| Court | Family Division |
Children – Adoption – Freeing order – Parental consent – Inter-country adoption – Guidance – Whether freeing order in child’s best interests.
M was born in Texas in January 2000. Her birth mother had moved to Texas immediately before M’s birth, and specifically for the purpose of M’s birth and subsequent adoption. Following M’s birth, the birth mother signed an affidavit relinquishing her parental rights, as did the birth father some time later. Prior to M’s birth, arrangements had been made via a body licensed by the Texas Department of Human Services under the Humans Resources Code as a child placing agency providing foster care placements and adoption services for M’s adoption by C and D, who were citizens of the United Kingdom. JC, an ‘independent social worker’, provided to the Texan court two reports in support of C and D’s adoption application, one of which was an illegal ‘home study report’. In December, a decree of adoption was made, following a finding that M had no living parent whose parental rights had not been terminated by final judicial decree and that the adoption was in the best interests of M. It was further ordered and decreed that her adoption by D and C be granted. In May 2001, the Home Office granted M indefinite leave to remain in the United Kingdom, however shortly afterwards C and D separated. In August, C committed suicide and D informed the authorities that he did not wish to have M returned to him. In September, M was voluntarily accommodated by the local authority where she was placed with foster-carers. In November, D returned signed consent forms permitting the local authority to proceed with long-term planning for M and her placement for adoption. In February 2002, the local authority issued an originating summons seeking an order that M be freed for adoption.
Held – In the instant case, the two reports by JC were deeply flawed and grossly inadequate documents. They were positively and dangerously misleading, not merely by what they did not address but also by both the tone and the content of what they did say. The court did not need the advantage of hindsight to be able to see that the instant adoption was one that should never have been allowed to have taken place. No court in the United Kingdom, armed with the information which was available at the time of the adoption order was made, would have contemplated allowing C and D to adopt M or indeed any child. Moreover, the judge in Texas would probably have been equally concerned had he not been misled by the seriously
deficient reports on the basis of which he made his orders. The vital thing was that any local authority faced with a similar problem in the future had to inform the foreign court and any other agencies involved, and in the clearest possible terms, (a) that the provision of ‘home study reports’ other than by an adoption agency or its agent was a criminal offence and (b) of matters within its knowledge suggesting that the prospective adoptive parents were not suitable either to adopt at all or (as the case might be) to adopt the particular child involved. There was no obstacle to the court making the freeing order. D had consented. It was, in all the circumstances, plainly in M’s best interests that the court make a freeing order and that it did so without any further delay. The application would, accordingly, be granted; Re C (a minor) (adoption: legality) [1998] 2 FCR 641, Re JS (private international adoption) [2000] 2 FLR 638 and Flintshire CC v K[2001] 2 FCR 724 considered.
Cases referred to in judgmentBarbour’s Settlement, Re, National Westminster Bank Ltd v Barbour [1974] 1 All ER 1188, [1974] 1 WLR 1198.
C (a minor) (adoption: legality), Re[1998] 2 FCR 641, [1999] Fam 128, [1999] 2 WLR 202, [1999] 1 FLR 370.
Flintshire CC v K[2001] 2 FCR 724, [2001] 2 FLR 476.
GD (adoption application), Re[1992] 1 FCR 433; sub nom Re an adoption application [1992] 1 WLR 596, [1992] 1 FLR 341.
JS (private international adoption), Re [2000] 2 FLR 638.
R (a minor) (no 2) (inter-country adoption: practice and procedure), Re[1999] 1 FCR 418, [1999] 4 All ER 1015n, [1999] 1 WLR 1324, [1999] 1 FLR 1042.
ApplicationThe local authority issued an originating summons seeking that the child, M, be freed for adoption. The facts are set out in the judgment.
Nick Goodwin (instructed by Authority Legal Services) for the applicant (the local authority).
Michael Sternberg (instructed by White & Sherwin) for the first respondent (the child’s guardian).
The second respondent (the child’s adoptive father) was neither present nor represented.
16 December 2002. Munby J announced his decision for reasons to be given later.
7 March 2003. The following judgment was delivered.
MUNBY J.[1] These are adoption proceedings. I am giving this judgment in public because there is, I am satisfied, a pressing need for the events I am about to
describe to be brought to the attention of the appropriate public authorities and, indeed, of the public at large.
[2] This is merely the latest, though I fear it will not be the last, of a number of cases of inter-country adoptions where not merely has the process ended in disaster for the child but where that process has been facilitated by the criminal misconduct of so-called professional persons operating commercially in this country.
[3] Similar problems have been highlighted in the past in reported judgments of judges of the Family Division: see the decisions of Johnson J in Re C (a minor) (adoption: legality) [1998] 2 FCR 641, [1999] Fam 128 and Re JS (private international adoption) [2000] 2 FLR 638 and of Kirkwood J in Flintshire CC v K[2001] 2 FCR 724. In each of those cases the judges commented in stringent—indeed damning—terms about the inadequacies of so called ‘home study reports’ prepared by so-called ‘independent social workers’ in support of applications by citizens of this country to adopt children in foreign jurisdictions. It is my melancholy duty to have to make similar complaints about the home study reports prepared in the present case.
[4] It is high time that this evil and exploitative trade was stamped out. It is a trade because, however it is dressed up, it involves the buying and selling of babies by intermediaries who pocket most of the large sums of money which change hands during the course of the transaction. It is evil and exploitative because it battens on would-be adopters who, unable to adopt through more conventional channels, are induced in their desperation to part with large sums of money to intermediaries whose motives are purely mercenary; because it battens on the emotional turmoil of disadvantaged and desperately vulnerable birth mothers who are induced to part with their babies within days of birth, who see little of the large sums of money paid to the intermediaries by the adopters and who too often, as in the present case, soon come to regret their hasty and ill-considered decision; and because it can cause untold harm to children, untold misery to their birth mothers and untold heartache to adopters.
[5] To that end I am directing that copies of this judgment are to be sent to a number of public officials so that what I hope will be effective steps can be taken at least to put a stop once and for all to the shameful and indeed criminal activities of the so-called independent social worker involved in this case.
THE FACTS IN OUTLINE[6] M was born in January 2000 in Houston in the state of Texas in the United States of America. Both her birth mother A, born in 1980, and her birth father B, born in 1976, are black African Americans who were born in and appear to have been normally resident at the time in Chicago in the state of Illinois. They were not married at the time: a fact confirmed by B personally to the guardian in July 2002. It is apparent that A moved to Texas
immediately before, and specifically for the purpose of, the birth and subsequent adoption.
[7] Prior to her birth arrangements had been made for M’s adoption by C, born in 1957, and C’s husband D, born in 1956. C and D were white citizens of this country, resident at that time within the area of a local authority which I shall refer to as ‘Authority X’. They had met in 1993 and married in 1999.
[8] The arrangements had been made on their behalf in the United States of America by Blessed Trinity Adoptions Inc, a body licensed by the Texas Department of Human Services on 14 June 1991 under the Human Resources Code, Ch 42, as a child-placing agency providing foster care placements and adoption services. As can be seen from the published report of Johnson J’s judgment, it was the agency involved in Re JS. I understand that it is no longer operating, its moving spirit, a Ms Winnell Byrd, having died in July 2000.
[9] In this country the arrangements were made by Jay Carter who, describing herself on her notepaper as an ‘independent social worker’ and ‘counsellor’, operates from an address in the north-east of England. Although he was not identified by Johnson J in his published judgment, I am told by the guardian’s solicitor that Jay Carter’s husband was the author of the home study report which was excoriated by Johnson J in Re C. And although Johnson J likewise chose not to disclose her identity in his published judgment, it is apparent from papers I have seen that Jay Carter was the independent social worker whose home study report was similarly condemned by Johnson J in Re JS. Jay Carter was also the worker whose home study report was condemned by Kirkwood J in the Flintshire CC case. She provided a number of home study reports in the present case. They are lamentable documents.
[10] As I have said, A moved to Texas immediately before, and specifically for the purpose of, the birth and subsequent adoption. It seems that she was told by Blessed Trinity Adoptions Inc that she must come to Texas for the birth. They sent a taxi to her home in Chicago to take her to the airport and provided a flight. Her...
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