Leeds riots: Children taken into police care ‘fearful they are leaving UK’

Four children who rioted in Leeds after being taken into police care have been removed following a tip-off that they were leaving the UK.

Officials feared the brothers would be taken to Romania or Cyprus, Leeds Family Court heard. But on Tuesday, a judge said the children, aged between eight and 14, could now be released from foster care.

A court heard the children were “extremely upset” and did not settle in foster care, but have now been taken back to live at their uncle’s house while proceedings continue, the Mirror reports.

The four Romanian Roma children were in danger of being separated in foster care if an approved placement could not be found, and following the reunion, the family was asked not to go out into the streets to celebrate and to keep “calm” for the sake of the kids.

Reacting to the news that all four children were going to live with their uncle, their mother beat her heart and said, “I’m glad the children are back with their family.”

Judge Trotter Jackson, sitting at Leeds Family Court on Tuesday, told the family, who are listening to the proceedings with the help of an interpreter, that their four children can now go to live with their uncle.

But she warned: “I think it’s important that everyone is focused on the welfare of the children and getting the temperature down in this case. I was told last week that further civil unrest was threatened on Friday night. I was told on Friday that the children’s parents had threatened to go on hunger strike.

“This court will simply not entertain such threats because our primary concern is for the welfare of these children and it seems to me that if these statements were made they were not helpful.

“I would ask everyone to be mindful of their behavior and put the children first… It really is in the best interests of the children, we have to be calm going forward. We can’t let the kids be upset the way they were on Thursday…”

The judge stressed that she did not think it was “appropriate” to have the police in court, adding: “The family have always behaved during previous hearings.”

Leeds City Council councilor Iain Hutchinson told the court: “The local authority’s position today is that the children can be returned to foster care…. It is recognized that the family will be happy for the children to be returned, but we are asking no public celebration in the streets or any kind of reaction that might be of interest to the community at large.”

The social worker has now been removed from the family file, the court heard. The removal of the children from their original place in the family last Thursday caused a riot that involved about two thousand people.

During the outbreak in West Yorkshire, a disturbing video circulated on social media which appeared to show a young teenage girl being led away in handcuffs and a little boy being forced upstairs as he cried and tried to cling to the doorway front.

Leeds Family Court took part in a pilot scheme to allow their hearings to be reported and the judge allowed a reporter to attend.

The hearing revealed how social services became involved with the family in April after a child in their home suffered an unexplained skull fracture.

That child belonged to the parents’ older daughter, who lived with them. The child was taken to hospital but the family said they did not know how the injury was caused and doctors suggested it could have been caused by a “fall”.

A summary of the case said: “They did not know how he sustained the head injury. The only explanation offered was that (he) could probably have hit his head on his cot, although none of his carers noticed this.

“The medical opinion is that the injury is likely to have been caused by blunt force trauma or a fall from a height, making the family’s explanation implausible.”

The judge explained that the “confusion” over the children’s passports last week was an “unnecessary development”. The court heard their passports were finally handed in on Thursday afternoon, but there were concerns about other travel documents.

It would be illegal to remove these children from the country without permission from the local authority as they are subject to family court orders.

The court heard and the local authority apologized for not notifying the Romanian Consulate about the family case started in April. The next hearing at Leeds Family Court is expected to take place in August.

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