Essex challenges adoption compensation ruling

Essex Council has launched an appeal against last year’s
landmark high court ruling that it was responsible to pay
compensation for failing to give a couple full details of a child
it placed with them for adoption, writes Derren
Hayes.

The council argues that it has no “duty of care” to
adopted parents. At the appeal court this week, the council’s
barrister Edward Faulks QC said the decision was neither
“fair, just or reasonable” for Essex to be ruled liable
to compensate the couple. He called for three top judges to
overturn the original ruling.

The adoptive parents are also appealing against part of the
original ruling because it limited their potential damages to the
period leading up to the placement and not the four years
afterwards.

The boy, who was placed with the couple in the mid-1990s, aged
five, suffered from severe behavioural problems and had been
assessed as needing constant supervision. But Mr Justice Buckley
ruled that social workers failed to give the adopter a “full
and fair picture” of the boy.

The case continues.