Ireland: Grandparents Given Rights to Raise Toddler

“A man and woman in their late 50s have won a High Court fight to stop a grandchild they had not known existed being adopted.

The couple learned of the girl’s birth more than six months after she had been placed with a family who planned to adopt her.

A judge has now ruled that the youngster, who turned two in May, should leave her adoptive home and go to live with her grandparents.

Mr Justice Bodey said case was “tragic” and suggested that a judge needed the wisdom of Solomon.

He said his heart went out to the couple who had cared for the little girl since she was seven months old and hoped to adopt her.

But he said that, after weighing pros and cons, he had concluded that adoption would not be in the toddler’s best interests.

The judge in the London case did not identify anyone involved.

“The decision required in this case will inevitably cause great pain and heartache to one or other of two families who are in no way responsible for the situation in which they find themselves,” he said.

“This is something of which I am acutely conscious but for which there is, unhappily, no solution.”

The judge added: “The case has correctly been described by one of the experts as ‘tragic’ and as ‘very distressing’. It requires, in the perhaps overused phrase, something of a judgment of Solomon.”

He went on: “A move now would, in my judgment, be in the best interests of (the little girl’s) welfare throughout her life. Put at its lowest I am unable to conclude … that the making of an adoption order would be better for (her) than not doing so.””

Toddler handed to grandparents after ‘tragic’ court adoption fight[Breaking News 10/6/16 ]

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