'Brilliant' law student fails to overturn order
A brilliant law student whose two children were taken into care after allegedly threatening to murder them and kill herself has failed in a desperate Appeal Court fight to win them back.
The single mother completed her law degree and post graduate studies despite bringing up her children without support at the same time, top judges heard.
A child protection plan was put in place late last year, after concerns were expressed about her mental health and social workers were told she had "threatened to kill herself and her two children", said top family judge Lord Justice Wilson.
A series of interim care orders were made, initially with regular contact between the mother and her children. However, contact was suspended following an alleged assault on a social worker by the mother, who comes from the Plymouth area.
The tearful mother asked Lord Justice Wilson to overturn the current care order and return her children.
Refuting the claims that she threatened to murder her children and attacked the social worker as "entirely false", the mother agreed she had been "under great stress".
"The welfare of my children was and remains my paramount concern," she told the judge.
"The two children are being alienated from me because they are in care and should not be in care. They should be back with me. There was never any evidence to justify them being in care and they are suffering significant harm in care," she added.
But Lord Justice Wilson refused her permission to appeal, saying there had been "concerns about her psychological state" at an earlier stage.
"I am clear that a judge is entitled, even on the basis of a snapshot of a case, to make an interim care order, provided it is of short duration, when there is a case, as there clearly is here, for urgent intervention."
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