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

Four children were taken into police custody following a warning that they were leaving the UK – which led to the Leeds riots, a court heard.

The children were removed because of a tip they were to be taken to Romania or Cyprus, Leeds Family Court heard. But today (Tuesday) a judge said the youngsters, aged between eight and 14, could now be released from foster care.

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

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The four Romanian Roma children were at risk of being separated in foster care if an approved placement could not be found, the court heard.

The family was asked not to take to the streets to celebrate and to keep “calm” for the sake of the children. 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 today, 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 more civil unrest was threatened on Friday night. I was told on Friday, threats of hunger. the strike had been made by the children’s parents.

“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 watch their behavior and put the children first. It’s really in the best interest of the children, we have to be calm going forward. We can’t be angry at the children like they were on Thursday…”

The judge stressed that she did not think it was “appropriate” to bring the police to 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 wider community’.

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.

Trouble erupted after images emerged of children being forcibly removed from a relative’s home. Footage on social media appeared to show a young teenage girl being led away in handcuffs and a little boy forced outside as he cried and tried to grab onto the front door.

As social media erupted, people took to the streets, a police car overturned and a double-decker bus caught fire. Leeds Family Court took part in a pilot scheme to allow their hearings to be reported and the judge gave The Mirror permission to take part.

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.”

In the case summary, social workers complained that they had received different accounts of what happened. The child’s mother, father and grandparents were arrested and later released on bail, while all the children were sent to live with an older sibling.

But it has since been claimed that the injury was caused by this relative’s child during a visit to their home. The young man allegedly dropped the child when he pulled her hair, but kept it a secret from her family.

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 take these children out of 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.