A two-year-old boy has had his adoption overturned at the Court of Appeal after his adoptive mother failed to disclose that she was in a relationship with a prisoner. In a ruling on Monday, Lord Justice Peter Jackson said the boy, known only as T, was placed for adoption with a married couple in Northumberland in May 2025 and was formally adopted last November.
Details of the Case
T's former social workers were informed earlier this year that the adoptive father had moved out of the family home last October, and that the adoptive mother had since started a relationship with a prisoner serving a sentence at the prison where she worked. They also learned that the woman was caring for the prisoner's XL bully dog and had twice taken the child to visit the prisoner, who had referred to T as his 'stepson' since October 2025.
Prisoner's Criminal Record
Lord Justice Peter Jackson said on Monday that the prisoner was in custody for drug offences at the time and had previous convictions for battery and possession of weapons, and had also been accused of sexual offences involving a child, which led to no further action. He was released in March, but then returned to prison later that month for breaching his licence conditions after being arrested over allegations of threatening behaviour and criminal damage at the adoptive mother's home.
Legal Proceedings
T was removed from the mother's care in March and was placed with the adoptive father, with Gateshead Metropolitan Borough Council then seeking to have the adoption overturned at the Court of Appeal. Its barristers told a hearing on Thursday that the fact that the mother's relationship with the prisoner had not been disclosed was a 'serious irregularity' and meant the adoption was 'founded on a materially mistaken factual basis', describing it as 'unfair to the child'. None of T's adoptive or birth parents attended the hearing, with the adoptive mother previously telling the council that she did not want to have 'any further involvement' with him.
Court's Ruling
In his ruling, Lord Justice Peter Jackson, sitting with Lord Justice Warby and Lord Justice Cobb, said that T had received a 'high standard of care' from the adoptive parents, who social workers said loved him 'unconditionally'. But he continued that the 'misinformation' about their relationship meant that the original adoption decision was 'fundamentally undermined'. He said: 'The consequence of each of these errors was that the court acted on a fundamentally mistaken basis. There was, of course, no fault on the part of the judge: on the basis of the information before her, every judge in the family court would have made an adoption order, while on the basis of the true facts, no judge could have done so.' The case will return to the family court to be dealt with at a later date.
