Legal News

Two brothers who were moved a total of 173 foster parents and families, between them in the span of 13 years under the care system have won the right to compensation yesterday when a High Court judge ruled that the failure of social workers had caused havoc in the lives of the two boys causing irreparable harm.
While one of the boys was moved between 96 foster parents and the other was living with 77 foster families, both suffered abuse.
Each is likely to claim damages of up to £100,000 from Lancashire County Council, whose social workers left them to float repeatedly from one foster home to another as social workers failed to get the boys a secure adoption home by new families which they were supposed to have.
Mr Justice Peter Jackson said in his ruling that the way the boys’ lives were supervised amounted in reality to permanently looked-after disruption.
The brothers, known in court as A and S, now 16 and 14, were taken into care in 1998 when A was two and S six months old. Their parents had separated, their mother abandoned them, and their father committed suicide a month later.
Social workers tried to place them with an aunt, a single mother of six children, but the plan failed. In March 2001, more than three years after they were taken into care, the boys were given legal orders that freed them for adoption.
Instead of finding the boys new adoptive families the boys were left to just drift through the care system with no one responsible for them.
Mr Justice Jackson’s judgment at the High Court in Liverpool said that the boys have had major placements, emergency placements, temporary placements, respite placements and respite for respite placements.
By 2008 the boys were found to be in great distress and disturbed and found to be challenging and sometimes violent behaviour.
Their lawyer said that it was one of the most shocking cases he had come across of children being failed by the care system.
The judge called for a review to check whether others were similarly trapped in the care system.
The government had been encouraging social workers to do more for the children to get permanent adoptive homes. Out of 65,000 children living in care homes under the care system only 3,000 have been adopted last year. new rules are being brought in to remove race rules to block mixed race adoptions and other excuses like the adoptive parents smoke or are too old which hampered children from getting a new home.