Child care cases set to be overturned

HUNDREDS of family court cases involving children taken into care on the basis of expert evidence that they were at risk of harm could be overturned, British Children’s Minister Margaret Hodge said yesterday.

However, she gave no hope to parents and their children who might have been wrongly adopted because of flawed testimony, saying that to overthrow such cases could cause distress to adoptive families where youngsters were already “happily settled”. She told MPs her decision to ask local authorities to review their files came after the recent Court of Appeal ruling on the Angela Cannings case.

The mother won an appeal against her conviction for murder of two of her babies after expert evidence from Professor Sir Roy Meadow was discredited.