Remember Maria / by John G. Howells.

  • Howells, John G.
Date:
1974
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Remember Maria / by John G. Howells. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    17/132 (page 5)
    JOHN G. HOWELLS 5 the risk of moving a child from a known benevolent situation to an untried one of possible hazard, a longer trial period would normally have been thought prudent, indeed essential. After all, the local authority, and not the Coopers, had parental rights and thus if they feared any interference by the Coopers it could have been controlled by them. It was known that the natural mother had not given exemplary care to her children. If Mr. Kepple's parenting capacity was not known, then this lack of knowledge argued for caution. The counsel for the mother, at the Inquiry, described Mr. Kepple as 'a violent and belligerent man who drank a lot, was work shy and had a bad temper' {The Times, 8 December 1973). Surely, a close contact with the family for a few occasions, one hour at a time, would have brought out Mr. Kepple's characteristics before Maria was ever returned to the family. If the task became complex, as indeed sometimes it does, referral could have been made to the psychiatric services. For Maria to return to the care of her mother it was necessary, of course, to revoke the Court Order which six years before had given parental rights to the local authority. This necessitated the natural mother and stepfather stating to a court their case for the return of parental rights. The local authority had to decide whether or not to support the Kepples' case. Their grounds for doing so we will discuss in a moment. The court revoked the Order, but wisely retained a Super¬ vision Order. This is least allowed the local authority the right to visit and supervise. It meant, however, that the local authority, having lost parental ri^ts, would have to return to a court to re-obtain them. The court may have thoroughly gone into the matter, but it seems that scant attention was given to any view that the foster parents (who had cared for Maria for six of her six and a half years) might have held, for they were not invited to the hearing and, it is said, did not know of it. The hearing was attended only by the natural mother and the officers of the local authority, who supported the natural mother. The court did not seek an independent opinion, such as they could have obtained from a child psychiatrist. These events raise the question whether foster parenting is considered as weighty a matter as natural parenting. Should Maria have been removed from her natural parents after six years in their care, would their views not have been canvassed? Here the choice lay between a natural mother and stepfather, Mr. and Mrs. Kepple, and an aunt and uncle, Mr. and Mrs. Cooper. Had the Kepples been found to be as adequate as the Coopers, it would still seem reasonable to have left Maria in the care of the Coopers, as their parenting was known to be successful — a policy of leaving well alone. In fact there were strong doubts about the adequacy of the Kepples. Should both homes have been unsatisfactory, the local authority had