Parents against forced adoptionONE of the country's leading judges has given a young mother with drink and drugs problems a chance to win back her baby.The Peterborough mother, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was on the brink of having her seven-month-old daughter taken away for adoption until Lord Justice Thorpe, who has a long background in family legal cases, stepped in at the Court of Appeal in London yesterday.He ordered Peterborough City Council to hold a two-day assessment of her parenting skills.This overturned a previous decision to allow the council to press ahead with a permanent care order.The panel of three judges felt this was not fair on the mother, who is in her 20s, after hearing that she had managed to break out of a stormy relationship with her partner and had been bonding with her child under supervision every day.It could be a vital round in the woman's legal battle to become a real mother to her child, after she had been taken from her shortly after birth.The little girl, who also cannot be named, was removed by social workers because of her mother's drug and alcohol abuse, as well as fears over the volatile relationship she had at the time with the child's father, from whom she has now separated.At a hearing, due in the summer, the city council plans to seek a permanent care order, with a view to placing the little girl for adoption.However, Lord Justice Thorpe, who is the country's Deputy Head of Family Justice, decided to overturn a decision by a lower court in which a judge had refused to allow the mother to undergo an assessment of her parenting skills before this happens.Lord Justice Thorpe said he had noted that a doctor who had reviewed the mother had concluded an assessment would be "very helpful", given her encouraging daily contact sessions with the child.He then said she should be allowed to undergo the assessment at a specialist centre, as the adoption hearing would be a "non-event" if she were not.But, he said it was almost certain that the child would be adopted if the mother failed to prove herself at the assessment.The council had argued an assessment was not necessary, as the issue was not the mother's parenting abilities but her "reluctance to address fundamental issues such as volatility and substance abuse".However, Lord Justice Thorpe, accompanied on the bench by Lord Justice Wall and Mr Justice Hedley, said the assessment should go ahead to ensure that the "essential requirement of fairness" to the mother was not jeopardised.Last Updated: 13 June 2007

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