Couple win damages after adopting a 'vicious' child
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A couple who adopted an "uncontrollable and vicious" five-year-old boy have won a landmark battle for damages against a council which had failed to warn them of his destructive behaviour.
Mr Justice Buckley heard the boy, who is now 12 and cannot be named, had attacked his mother during a Greek holiday and threatened to kill her unborn child. In the first case of its kind, the High Court ruled yesterday that the couple be compensated for the negligence of the Essex Adoption Agency, which had not exercised proper care in placing the boy with the family. Since the adoption, he was diagnosed as suffering from attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.
"The boy," said Mr Justice Buckley, "has proved impossible to control to such an extent that he has damaged the parents' home, health and family life." The adoptive parents claimed that if Essex County Council had told them everything they knew about the boy they would never have agreed to take him.
But the judge said that even now the couple "will never give up on the boy", saying: "They love him despite everything." He ruled that their love and acceptance for the boy reduced their entitlement to damages.
"The conclusion I have come to is that, although they would probably have rejected the child before the placement, they would not have done so afterwards and would have gone on to adopt him even if they had been successful in extracting the outstanding information about the boy," he said.
The judgment only awards the couple damages sustained through the placement process and not for alleged damages after the adoption. The amount of compensation the couple will receive from the council will be decided at another hearing when lawyers said the final figure could be as much as £100,000.
At an earlier hearing, the High Court had been told that the boy's appalling behaviour would be "beyond the wildest imagination" of inexperienced adopters. When the adoptive mother became pregnant, the boy threatened several times to kill the unborn child and attacked her during a Greek island holiday, putting her in hospital for several days.
The boy, who was aged five at the time of his initial placement with the couple in 1996, and is now 12, was later diagnosed as suffering from attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. Since 1999 he has been under medication in special needs care.
After the judgment, the couple's solicitor, Christopher Yemm, said they were delighted with the decision. They also wished to express their thanks to their friends and relatives and to the staff at their son's present school for their support in the past six years and for their continued support in the day-to-day business of coping with the symptoms of his behavioural disorder.
But he said: "The only disappointment for my clients is the judge's view that their damages should be limited because of their decision to go ahead with the adoption, thereby failing to 'mitigate their loss' in the eyes of the law. This view overlooks the emotional ties that had by then been forged with their son and may well be the subject of an appeal."
While Mr Yemm said the case would not open the floodgates to similar claims, he added: "It does reinforce the statutory requirement for the fullest possible background information to be made available to prospective adopters."
It is usual for 20 per cent of all placements made with a view to adoption to eventually break down. "If that figure is to be reduced," said Mr Yemm, "all adoption agencies in this country will have to take note of this decision and review their procedures to ensure that prospective adopters go into the process under no illusions about what they are being asked to take on."