Woman wins six-figure payout after adoption broke down

Karen Maguire was paid an out-of-court settlement last year

A woman has been paid an out-of-court settlement from a council after her adoption of a two-year-old boy broke down.

Karen Maguire won the six-figure payout from South Lanarkshire Council last year after her lawyer argued it failed to provide her with enough background information on the child and did not support her during the placement.

Ms Maguire told BBC Scotland the child barely slept, hated being cuddled and self-harmed by banging his head. It later transpired he had a serious underlying medical condition which she was not told about.

South Lanarkshire Council said it aimed to provide full support to any prospective adoptive parents.

Ms Maguire said she was speaking out for the first time to raise awareness of the lack of support for adoptive families.

The adoption took place in 2013, and broke down after just four months, but Ms Maguire has been fighting for years to get the council to recognise its role in the failure.

'Eyes wide open'

Ms Maguire told the BBC she had applied to adopt a child as a lone parent and the approval process - which makes sure a prospective parent can provide a stable and loving home - took six months.

She said she went into the process with her "eyes wide open".

Ms Maguire knew that many children in local authority care had social and emotional difficulties and she told social workers she was fine with a child with mild additional support needs.

However, she said she would find it hard to cope on her own with a child with severe difficulties.

A two-year-old boy was identified as being suitable. The social worker who came to tell Ms Maguire the news stressed how lucky she was.

"At the time she said she didn't know a lot about him, but said that he was relatively uncomplicated,” she said.

"In fact she used the words ‘you've won a watch’."

'Something was wrong'

Later, Ms Maguire said she was told the child had a developmental delay.

She said she knew things were not going to be easy but felt she had good support from her wider family to help her cope.

Social workers told her the forms with more information on the boy had not been written yet and that they could only provide verbal information at that time.

But Ms Maguire said she “knew something was wrong” as soon as the child came to live with her.

“When he came to me, he was covered in bruises and his face was cut from self-harming,” she said.

"He came to me with a helmet that he was supposed to wear, such was the severity of the head-banging."

Charities estimate that between 2% to 25% of adoptions can break down

Ms Maguire said daily life was a struggle. "He had rages," she said.

"For hours on end he was inconsolable. It was horrific to watch.

"He would be hanging from my hair or he would hit me about the head, the nose, the mouth."

Ms Maguire said her pleas for help were dismissed and she felt let down.

"I got absolutely no support whatsoever," she said.

"They kept insisting there was absolutely nothing wrong and that it was me, imagining it. I needed immediate help."

Family and friends helped her but eventually Ms Maguire told South Lanarkshire Council she was not coping.

She said social work help was provided but she needed specialist support - a child psychologist or paediatrician - as she suspected there was more to the child’s problems than developmental delay.

She said her health visitor and a therapist wrote to the council supporting her need for extra help.

"I felt social workers could not see there were serious problems despite being advised by other professionals who had seen him," she said.

“They didn't seem to believe me until the situation was completely out of hand."

Adoption disruption

Ms Maguire said it reached crisis point with an incident when the boy threw a heavy paperweight at her head.

“If that had hit me full on it would have been catastrophic as it would have knocked me out and left him alone in the house," she said.

"At that moment I thought, 'I can't keep this child safe'.”

Social workers visited that day and seeing her bruises suggested the placement should end.

"In that moment I agreed," Ms Maguire said.

"However, I didn't think it would happen."

She said "adoption disruption", as it is called, should be a long road and efforts should be made to stop it happening.

Although the boy was in Ms Maguire's care, legally the adoption hadn't yet been approved by the courts.

After further meetings and assessments Ms Maguire said she was asked to make the "life-changing" decision about whether to keep him.

"I believe there was a fine line between my desperate cry for help and them taking him," she said.

"I was under pressure and fighting an uphill battle."

The boy returned to local authority care four months after being placed with Ms Maguire.

She said she felt misled over the adoption.

Legal advice

It was only later that Ms Maguire found out about the boy's underlying medical condition.

"Everything I had thought from the very outset was correct, and yet I was made to feel that wasn't the case throughout it all,” she said.

Ms Maguire said "adoption disruption" is not often discussed and she feels a stigma about what happened.

"I am consumed by guilt because I tried so hard to keep him," she said.

"The stigma is that you've given your child back and people don't understand the situation."

Ms Maguire said she lost friends over the decision.

"People made judgements about me," she said.

"You would walk into rooms at work and people would stop talking.

"Somebody actually said I'd given him back like a pair of trousers at Marks & Spencers".

While dealing with the devastation of the adoption breaking down, and losing what she still describes as “her little boy”, Ms Maguire sought legal advice.

Lawyer Elizabeth Rose said it was an unusual case

Elizabeth Rose, from L&M Medilaw, acknowledged that in law a council does not generally owe an adoptive parent a duty of care.

However, she felt the lack of information provided to Karen prior to the boy being placed in her care, and lack of support during the placement, meant there was scope for the law to be tested.

"It was an unusual case,” she told BBC Scotland News.

"In this certain situation there were issues with the matching and assessment period prior to placement and I think it was time that the law challenged this.

"Essentially insufficient information was given to my client and as a result she wasn't able to make an informed decision, and even when the placement started there was insufficient support given."

South Lanarkshire Council paid Ms Maguire an undisclosed sum to settle the case, understood to be more than £100,000.

Dr Polly Cowan has looked at how often adoptions break down and why

Dr Polly Cowan, from the charity Scottish Adoption, has looked at how often adoptions break down and the reasons why.

She analysed UK and international figures and estimates the rate to be between 2% and 25%, but said it is hard to get definite figures, because the way they are gathered in Scotland varies.

"There is a real need for support for families," Dr Cowan said.

"That is the real issue that needs to be talked about and thought about."

She would like to see more funded support from the Scottish government, national guidelines for adoption and better monitoring of the number of adoption breakdowns.

South Lanarkshire Council told BBC Scotland it always aims to provide adoptive parents with full support.

A spokeswoman said: "It would be inappropriate for us to comment on individual cases.

“Our policy for practice reflects national standards and regulatory requirements.

"Support is offered following adoption which we endeavour to tailor to the needs of the child."

The Scottish government said it was committed to ensuring adoptees and adoptive families could access the support they need.

A spokeswoman said: “This includes funding to Adoption UK to provide a national helpline and support for adoptive families to help minimise adoption breakdowns."

It has been almost a decade since Ms Maguire's adoption process came to an end but she said she still thinks about the child involved.

"I live every day with what happened. I miss him every day,” she said.

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