A couple whose baby was taken from them and adopted after they were wrongly accused of child abuse have described their agonizing fight to reunite their family. This week, a court finally cleared them of the charges as new evidence showed that there were no signs of abuse. The baby, whose gender can not be revealed due to the restrictions imposed by the court, is the couple’s first and only child.
Advertisement
A young English couple cleared of child-abuse charges is unlikely to ever see their child again regardless, the Independent reports.
“We just want our child back”, Cox told ITV news.
“These innocent parents have been spared a criminal conviction and a prison sentence for a crime they never committed”, said Michael Turner, the parents” defense attorney.
Despite the case against them having collapsed, Karrissa and Richard face the very real prospect of never seeing their child again after the Family Court approved its adoption past year. “[The child] said mummy and daddy quite a lot and used to get upset when it was time for contact to finish”, she said. “We’d love to have our child back home with us where [the child] belongs”.
She added: “It’s a weight lifted that the criminal proceedings are not going any further, but now it’s a fight to try to win our child back”. “I can not expect that”, Ms Cox said.
The couple were exonerated at Guildford Crown Court on Wednesday after defence experts discovered the child was suffering from a blood disorder called Von Willebrands II, which causes a person to bruise easily, as well as a vitamin D deficiency and infantile rickets.
The prosecution dropped their case against Cox and Carter when one of their own medical experts concluded that he doubted there were any fractures at all.
Ms Cox said she felt it would do “more damage” to leave the child with adoptive parents, only for it to be told when it was older why it had been taken away.
She said it is highly unusual in cases of alleged abuse for an adoption to go through before the criminal case has been resolved.
Advertisement
In a statement, Surrey County Council said: “Any case like this is really hard and we’re always sensitive to the distress it will cause all involved, but our main concern has to be the welfare of the child”.
