'Loving parents' being forced to give up children

Canterbury - 29 July 1998;The Guardian

RULES designed to 'stop paedophiles fostering children are forcing loving and experienced foster parents to quit because they have previous convictions, the High Court was told yesterday.

The rules, introduced last year, are being challenged on grounds that they bar all foster carers who have been convicted of a serious offence against a child, however long ago and however good they are at fostering.

In one case a Kent couple faced losing the grandchildren they had fostered because the man had been convicted 36 years ago for having sex with a girl under 16.

In a second case, a couple in Bexley, south London, faced being prevented from fostering a teenage boy because the 32-year-old woman had been convicted at age 16 of assault.

She had bitten a younger child on the arm in a school fight.

Granting leave for an urgent judicial review of the rules, expected in September, Mr Justice Scott Baker said the cases revealed "a pretty disturbing state of affairs".

The rules were enacted in statutory regulations by the Government in response to fears that paedophiles were moving into the fostering sector.

The National Foster Care Association has welcomed the intent of the regulations, but warned ministers that their blanket application is catching existing and potential fosterers otherwise considered excellent at the job.

The association has found cases of children being moved from foster homes after as long as 12 years. There is a severe shortage offosterers in most areas.

Paul Boateng, junior health minister responsible for social services, has told the association: "Local authorities must be in no doubt that the regulations should be strictly enforced, although where this results in the removal of a child from a long lasting, successful placement, careful handling will obviously need to be ensured."

The judicial review is being sought by Sarah Harman, a solictor in Canterbury, Kent, who is collecting evidence of other cases.

She is challenging the regulations on the basis that they conflict with the Children Act, which stipulates that decisions on care placements must be in the child's best interests.

In the Kent case, the grandfather's conviction had been known to all agencies involved and his two granddaughters, aged six and seven, had lived with him and his wife for 18 months.

In the Bexley case, the woman had for five years cared for an adult with learning disabilities. She had been assessed as "admirably suited" to foster children.

The judge said there was "at the very least an arguable case" that the regulations were unlawful because they appeared to leave no possibility of looking at the child's interests.

Rejecting a Department of Health contention that the regulations were no different to other mandatory rules on fostering, the judge said the issue was "a matter of considerable public importance which it is critical is resolved as early as possible".

The foster care association has urged the Government to allow discretion in application of the rules.