Italian mother begged court to let her care for child after forced caesarean section

 
High Court: Lisa Driver, a mother of two in her 40s, suffered head injuries which left her with epilepsy
Reuters
Robin de Peyer3 December 2013

An Italian mother who had her baby taken away from her after a forced caesarean section begged a judge to allow her to care for her daughter.

A judgment, released after leading family law judge Sir James Munby demanded an explanation of the incident, showed the Italian mother's desperate pleas during hearings to determine who should care for the baby.

The document shows the woman, 35, who has two other daughters aged four and 11, suffered bipolar affective disorder.

Judge Roderick Newton, sitting at Chelmsford County Court in February, said he did not doubt the woman's affection for her children, including her new-born baby, referred to as 'P' throughout the case.

"She begs me not to make care or placement orders," the judgment says. "She believes and indeed contends that the future for P should be in Italy, she is after all at least half Italian and also it would enable her to have a relationship with her two half-sisters.

But Judge Newton said he must disregard her desire to keep P and make an order for her to be taken into care.

In his conclusion to the case, he wrote: "If in later life P reads this judgment, as she may well do, I hope that she will appreciate that her mother in particular loved her and wished for her to return to live with her and to bring her up.

"It is not her fault, nor P's that that was not possible and that a predictable home could only be secured by way of adoption. P should know that the mother very much wished to parent her and bring her up and I hope that that is some small comfort both to the mother and also to P."

Essex County Council defended the process by which it took a mother's baby away from her after a forced caesarian section, insisting it followed appropriate legal steps.

In a statement, the local authority said: "Social workers liaised extensively with the extended family before and after the birth of the baby, to establish if anyone could care for the child.

"The long term safety and wellbeing of children is always Essex County Council's priority. Adoption is never considered until we have exhausted all other options and is never pursued lightly."

The mother today told Italy's La Repubblica newspaper: “The day of the delivery I thought they were moving me from one room to another, while I was saying I wanted to return to Italy. Then I was sedated. And when I woke up she was no longer there. They had taken her.”

She said: “I want my daughter back, I am suffering like an animal. The caesarean was imposed on me. I didn’t give my consent, either verbal or written, to the adoption of my daughter.”

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