Expelled student seeks damages

A woman from Devon claims she was thrown off a social work course
in September 1999 after her local council informed her university
that her son had been put into foster care six years earlier.

Helen Maddock told the High Court in London that Devon Council
acted “unlawfully” when it “extracted excerpts from her family
social work files” and sent them to the University of the West of
England in Bristol in October 1998.

She claims that the information supplied was “unbalanced, unfair
and inaccurate” and violated her human rights.

The court heard how Maddock’s relationship with her son
deteriorated following a car crash and leg amputation in the late
1980s. Her son was placed with several foster families between 1991
and 1997. Judge James Reid reserved his judgement.