'Forced cesarean' case shows need for better information

19 December 2013

In June last year, a pregnant Italian woman came to the UK on a short visit. During her stay, she had what she describes as a panic attack and was detained under the Mental Health Act. In August 2012, the local NHS Trust applied to the Court of Protection to have the baby delivered by cesarean section, which was granted and happened the next day.

Since then, the baby has been placed with prospective adopters by the local council while the mother has pursued the return of the child in the Italian courts.

Nothing about the case was in the public domain until November this year, when the Telegraph broke aspects of the story.

Then came the headlines.

"Operate on this mother so that we can take her baby"

"Child taken from womb by social services"

"Social workers 'seize unborn baby from the WOMB' after mother has panic attack"

"Forced C-section was 'the stuff of nightmares': Social Services condemned for forcibly removing unborn child from woman"

"Social workers took baby into care after forcing her mother to have a Caesarean"

"Please don't take my baby: Agony of mother whose baby girl was put up for adoption after secret court judge forced her to have a caesarean"

John Hemming MP even said he would take up the case in parliament.

What was notably absent from the debate, however, was any statement laying down the facts of the case. Neither the council nor the family courts involved had published any details which might have informed what was being said.

Three weeks, two statements of the facts, one clarification and one correction later, we know much more about what happened.

Social workers did not force the mother to have a cesarean, the application for the procedure was made by the local NHS Trust after finding it was in her and her child's "medical best interests" given risks to her physical health from having a natural birth.

In addition, unlike some of the initial reporting, this wasn't a case of the mother 'waking up' to find her baby daughter gone and not being allowed to see her. It was made clear this week that "The mother was able to see her baby on the day of birth and the following day".

That's not to say there's no longer any story, or that there's nothing to debate. But that story and the terms of that debate look very different now than they did three weeks ago.

The judge now overseeing the case, Sir James Munby, commented this week that: "Too much of [the] reporting has been inaccurate" ... "when this story first 'broke' on 1 December 2013, none of the relevant information was in the public domain in this country".

But this isn't a predictable story about press misreporting of the facts. As Sir James continued, the dearth of good information coming from the courts themselves must bear some of the blame. Full Fact made a similar point to the Leveson Inquiry last year.

The judge went on:

"How can the family justice system blame the media for inaccuracy in the reporting of family cases if for whatever reason none of the relevant information has been put before the public?".

"This case must surely stand as final, stark and irrefutable demonstration of the pressing need for radical changes in the way in which both the family courts and the Court of Protection approach what for shorthand I will refer to as transparency ... Many more judgments must be published".

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The detailed background to the case can be read at the British and Irish Legal Information Institute.

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