Couple who fled to Ireland hope to get baby back shortly

A COUPLE who fled from social services in their native Scotland only to have their newborn baby taken into care in Ireland said they are confident of being reunited with their child this week.

Kerry Robertson (17), who has a learning disability, and her partner Mark McDougall (25) came to Ireland to have their baby, claiming Fife Council had threatened to take it away.

In September, the Scottish authorities cancelled their wedding on the grounds that Ms Robertson, then five months pregnant, did not have the mental capacity to understand marriage.

Their son Ben was born in Waterford on January 15th. Four days later, Health Service Executive (HSE) South-East childcare workers got an ex-parte emergency protection order taking Ben into foster care on foot of a request from Fife Council social services.

Last Friday they were granted an interim care order. Ben is now with foster parents. His birth parents are able to see him every day.

Mr McDougall, an artist, said he was confident the family would be together by Wednesday, and he praised the HSE for the manner in which they dealt with the case.

“We are expecting some good news by then. It looks like the Irish HSE are very keen to try everything they can for the most positive outcome, which they agree is to have us all together as a family. The Waterford HSE are so much more understanding than the UK social services,” he explained.

Mr McDougall said UK social services had become “very 1984ish” and “inhumane”.

“Not intelligent enough to raise a child, what next? Not middle class enough? Too old to raise a child etc etc.”

Liberal Democrat MP John Hemming, who has taken up the family’s case, said they had been done a “grievous wrong”. He is chairman of Justice for Families, which advises couples who perceive themselves to be victims of social services or the family courts in the UK.

He said the HSE had little alternative but to act when approached by Fife Council.

“If you are presented with a situation where somebody in Fife says this woman is totally impossible or a complete disaster, you’re going to be a little bit nervous,” he said.

“Social services in England is a real disaster, and it has infected Scotland. They take the wrong children into care. They’ve approached it from a sense of targets in what is in essence a complex question of judgment.”

He added that the couple had the help of an undisclosed charity in Ireland. They have lived in a cottage in Co Waterford since they left Scotland in November, and are hopeful of marrying here.

Mr Hemming said that Ms Robertson is not, in the opinion of most people who know her, incapable of bringing up a child.

“As a politician, I can identify significant learning difficulties, and she does not have that.”

He has dealt with eight cases of British parents fleeing to Ireland because of a broad perception that Irish society is a more family-friendly than British society.

Inclusion Ireland, which represents people with learning difficulties, said the case highlighted the difficulties which mothers with intellectual difficulties have when their children are put into care.

Inclusion Ireland CEO Deirdre Carroll said there was a lack of a “stepdown facility” where such mothers could be given the help and support they need to bring up their children, and that many go on to be very good mothers.

Head of Fife Council’s children and families department Alistair Gaw said the HSE’s actions “followed full consideration of the evidence by police, social services and health professionals. We would urge Kerry to use all the support that is being made available to her and her baby.”