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Couple who fled to Ireland can keep their baby boy A
couple who fled to Ireland to stop social services in Britain taking their
child away have been told their baby boy can stay with them permanently.
Nicky and Mark Webster left their home in Norfolk last year and took a
ferry to Ireland.
Mrs Webster who was heavily pregnant at the time later gave birth to a
boy called Brandon at Wexford General Hospital.
The couple initially fled across the Irish Sea because their other three
children had been taken from them and forcibly adopted by Norfolk Country
Council in 2003 after one suffered unexplained leg fractures.
But eventually the Websters returned to England with Brandon and followed
social services’ recommendations to live in a monitorised residential
unit in Peterborough for 12 weeks.
Their efforts were rewarded this week after Norfolk County Council conceded
it was satisfied the 13-month-old baby was well looked after.
The council withdrew proceedings to take the child into care and also
told the High Court in London that it was no longer relying on evidence
suggesting the leg fractures to the couple’s second child was the
result of child abuse.
Instead it admitted the injury may have been caused by vitamin deficiency.
But it is too late to reverse the earlier decision to place the couple’s
older children with adoptive parents.
In October 2003 their second child sustained unexpected leg fractures
that the Websters always maintained was the result of a hereditary brittle
bone disease.
Neither of their other children has suffered any injury but Norfolk Social
Services stepped in and took all three youngsters into care.
Holding hands in the courtroom the Websters, from Cromer in Norfolk, were
overwhelmed by the decision.
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