The parents of an adopted girl have been banned from keeping new photographs of their child. Instead, if they want to see their three-year-old daughter's image, they must do so in the controlled conditions of a local authority office and cannot take it away with them, the nation's top civil judge ruled.
The Master of the Rolls, Lord Neuberger, emphasised the adoptive parents are the little girl's family now and said it would not be right to "saddle" them with a court order forcing them to send an annual photo of the girl to her birth parents. The local authority, Oxfordshire County Council, had expressed concerns that the natural parents might be able to track down their daughter to her new home if they were allowed to keep up-to-date photos of her, rather than viewing them at council offices.
But, at an Oxford County Court hearing last year, a judge ordered the adoptive parents to send an annual photograph of their daughter - referred to in court only as "J" - to her natural parents. Judge Corrie said that, not allowing them a photo, was a Draconian move which breached their daughter's right to know that her natural parents still care about her.
Upholding the council's challenge to that ruling at London's Civil Appeal Court, Lord Neuberger: "It is extremely unusual to impose on adoptive parents some obligation which they are unwilling voluntarily to assume. Was there a proper basis for taking that extremely unusual step? In our judgment there was not". The adoptive parents' concerns were "genuine" and the judge said there was no justification for forcing them to do "something they conscientiously and reasonably objected to"
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