Adoptions

Man's Hopeless Fight For His Child
                                    

(From Our Own Correspondent)

NEWCASTLE, Thursday.

"To arouse public opinion against this law which
gives ordinary lay magistrates the right to rend
families apart irrevocably, I shall, if necessary ,
walk to London, holding meetings of protest on the way."
These are the words of a father who was told
today that he had no hope of reversing the
magistrates' order regarding his five-year-old
son's adoption by the child's maternal grandparents.
Agreeing with a counsel's submission "this court
has no right  to entertain this appeal," the
magistrates at Northumberland Quarter Sessions
today dismissed  the father's appeal.

JUDGE SURPRISED

The order was made by Blyth magistrates on Nov.4.
The appellant was Ronald Baines of Helen Street,
Benwell, Newcastle, and the respondents the child's
grandparents, Thomas Taylor, a miner, and his wife,
Rose Anna, of South Row, New Delaval,

Northumberland, and George William Watson , a
school attendance officer and temporary joint
guardian of the child.
Mr. Harvey Robson for the respondents , submitted
that the appeal could not be entertained and asked
that it should be dismissed with costs.
Mr. E.G. Sykes, for Baines, said "I think I can only
consent to this course."
Judge Thesiger, presiding, remarked "I was surprised
when I saw this appeal down."
According to a Northern legal authority whom I
interviewed today, the result of this attempt to
appeal has great bearing on future cases of its kind.
The Adoption of Children Act of 1926 states that no
appeal can be made against such an order made by a
bench of magistrates and the decision today
confirms this.
In effect it means that any person can adopt any child,
providing he can convince a bench of lay magistrates
that the parents are not "fit and proper" persons to have
control of a child, and the parents will have no right to
appeal and no redress.

"This", said the informant, " alters the whole present
conception of the security of family life, as it means that
the word of a bench of magistrates is law."
 

OUT OF WORK

Mr. Baines, in the sitting room of his little home in Helen
Street, Benwell, said to me tonight "The law has taken
away my little boy from me and I am told by my counsel
that there is nothing more I can do about it.
I  was thrown out of work by the depression and I left
my wife and my child with her parents while I went to
London to look for work.

"While I was away my wife died, I did not learn of her
death until two weeks had elapsed.  I came straight home.

NOT MUCH HOPE

" The grandparents took out adoption papers and I was
called to court to defend myself.

" I am not going to let the matter rest here, but have not
much hope of success."