Huge review on 'abused' children in care

The Government today ordered urgent action to reopen hundreds of cases of children taken into care on dubious medical evidence.

Local councils will be given 12 weeks to look at cases of alleged abuse where the decision to remove a child from its parents involved "a serious dispute between medical experts".

It follows last month's ruling by the Court of Appeal which cleared Wiltshire mother Angela Cannings of killing her two baby sons. The court found her conviction was based on discredited evidence from an expert witness, Professor Sir Roy Meadow.

The Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, immediately announced a review of 258 criminal cases where parents were convicted of killing their babies on expert evidence alone.

Today, in a Commons statement, Children's Minister Margaret Hodge announced potentially farreaching investigations of children-taken into care on similar grounds. But she stressed the decisions, which will be made by family courts in each case referred to them for review, will be difficult.

She warned that in many cases, particularly where children had been adopted, the preferred option is likely to be no change.

It was initially thought thousands of cases might have to be reopened. But today Mrs Hodge said: "Our best estimate is that it is likely to number no more than a few hundreds rather than thousands."

She warned that since, in many cases, years had passed since the original decision "it is extremely hard to put right past wrongs".

It was also important to accept there were cases where children had properly been separated from parents who had harmed them or their brothers and sisters. However, "where such wrongs are identified we must do what we can".

Mrs Hodge said she was giving council social services departments four weeks to look at current cases where a child was being considered for care but no final decision had been made.