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Children's services directors have dismissed claims by John Hemming MP that social workers are removing children from their birth parents to meet adoption targets.

Joint presidents of the Association of Directors of Children's Services John Freeman and John Coughlan have described the allegations as an "odious slur that has been cast on social workers, courts and everyone who works to protect the interests of children everywhere".
  
The claims are made in an Early Day Motion by Lib Dem MP John Hemming, signed by 12 MPs. Freeman and Coughlan are calling for him to produce compelling evidence to support the claim of withdraw it.  

"Such practices do not occur. They have never occurred. The legal framework in which we operate means they cannot occur. And the moral climate within which children's services operate means they could not occur," they said.