02.12.13
Council’s forced C-section case to be raised in Parliament
A case in which a social services department got a court order to remove a baby from its mother’s womb will be raised in Parliament this week as an “extreme” case of human rights abuse.
In August 2012 Essex social services obtained a court order to take the baby from an Italian woman who had been taken to a psychiatric hospital and sectioned under the Mental Health Act. The woman had suffered a panic attack after failing to take medication for her bipolar disorder; five weeks later a caesarean section was performed without her consent.
Shami Chakrabarti, the director of human rights group Liberty, said: “At first blush this is dystopian science-fiction unworthy of a democracy like ours. Forced surgery and separation of mother and infant is the stuff of nightmares.”
The mother was sent back to Italy without her daughter. She returned to the UK in February 2013 to reclaim her baby, but was told that the child was to be put up for adoption in case she suffered a relapse.
The case will be raised in Parliament this week by John Hemming MP, who chairs the Public Family Law Reform Coordinating Campaign, and who is calling for greater openness in court proceedings involving family matters.
He said: “I have seen a number of cases of abuses of people’s rights in the family courts, but this has to be one of the more extreme.
“It involves the Court of Protection authorising a caesarean section without the person concerned being made aware of what was proposed. I worry about the way these decisions about a person’s mental capacity are being taken without any apparent concern as to the effect on the individual being affected.”
A council spokesperson said: “Essex County Council does not comment on the circumstances of ongoing individual cases involving vulnerable people and children.”
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