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Margaret Hodge MP:

"If a miscarriage of justice was made 10 or 15 years ago, what is in the child's interest now? If they were taken as babies the only parent they know is the adopted one. It is incredibly difficult."


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Adoption dilemma as expert discredited
Society



Published: 20-Jan-2004
By: Victoria Macdonald



It started with the cases of three women found to have been wrongly accused of killing their babies.


Monday's Appeal Court ruling over the release of Angela Cannings triggered a review of the conviction of more than 250 parents.



Now the Government has announced the review could extend to as many as 5,000 families who claim their children have been wrongly taken into care and even adopted.



And the complexity of trying to untangle so many civil cases - some involving children put out to adoption years ago - will add hugely to the task of the inquiry ahead.



Protesting last summer, families whose children were taken away from them because the paediatrician Professor Sir Roy Meadow claimed they had harmed them.



But yesterday's decision to review the cases of women convicted of killing their babies has given these families the first sign of hope in their battle to win back their children and their reputations.



One couple had their four children taken away on the 12th of February 1999 - two are in care and two have been permanently adopted. The mother was accused of poisoning the youngest. Professor Meadow was the only expert witness.



Yesterday's judgement in the Angela Cannings case said when experts disagree prosecution should not continue. And that even a high probability of guilt is not enough. The families say this must affect their cases.



And again at the heart of the controversy is Professor Meadow. Apart from using discredited statistics in cot death cases, he also devised Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, in which mothers harm their children for attention. Some believe as many as 5,000 families have lost their children because of this theory.



In 1999 I asked Professor Meadow to justify his use of the syndrome which had led, even at that time, to at least 100 children a year being removed from their parents. He has subsequently declined all our requests for an interview but he is not believed to have changed his views.



At the weekend, the Children's Minister Margaret Hodge, questioned whether children taken away from their families and adopted could ever be successfully reunited with their birth parents. She has refused to comment further.



Margaret Hodge MP:

"If a miscarriage of justice was made 10 or 15 years ago, what is in the child's interest now? If they were taken as babies the only parent they know is the adopted one. It is incredibly difficult."



In their hallway still hang the jackets of their four children. Waiting for them to come home - but the two youngest have been adopted - they do not know where they are or whether they will ever be allowed them back again.


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