The Spanish authorities have made a dramatic intervention in the case of a British couple who fled to Spain to stop social services taking their son into care.

Jim and Carissa Smith had sought refuge amid the parched mountain scenery and tall palm trees of Alicante. But on Wednesday their worst fears were realised when Spanish officials, acting on information from Suffolk social services, arrived at the hospital where Mrs Smith was still breastfeeding two-week-old Jim Junior.

The baby is now in the care of Spanish foster parents. Tim Yeo, the couple’s MP, demanded that Suffolk County Council provide the legal ground on which they passed “completely unfounded allegations” to the Spanish. “It is a very questionable form of intervention by British social services,” he said. “In what I view as a vindictive way they have chased this couple a thousand miles away to try to inflict yet more distress.”

The Spanish authorities’ decision to remove the baby from the Smiths (not their real name) is a stark warning to the increasing number of British parents seeking refuge overseas in an attempt to keep their families together. Some fear that after scandals such as Baby Peter, social workers are too ready to take children into care. Others feel that the secrecy that still surrounds family court proceedings means they will never receive a fair hearing.

Megan Coote, 21, and her mother Lorraine know well the uncertainty that now grips the Smiths. The fear that Suffolk social services would take Megan’s baby in the delivery room is what drove them, too, to leave their old life in Kesgrave and relocate to Spain. They and the Smiths are now neighbours on the same bland, newly built estate of whitewashed villas outside Alicante. Olivia Coote was born on February 15, two days before Jim junior.

As Mr Smith, a lorry driver, and Mrs Coote talked over the balustrades that separate their patios on Wednesday morning, they could have been any two neighbours passing time. In fact, a tired and worried-looking Mr Smith was leaving his dog with Mrs Coote before leaving for the hospital in Torrevieja to be with his wife when his son was taken by Spanish social workers.

Suffolk social services claimed yesterday that they were simply following standard procedure and denied any prior knowledge of the action taken by the Spanish authorities. But their words offered little comfort to Mr Smith, 41, and his 32-year old wife. Poppy, their first child, was taken into care at the age of 11 weeks in October 2008 after a psychologist gave Carissa a diagnosis of Münchausen’s by proxy. This later changed to a diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder. Testimony at court hearings attended by this newspaper suggested that there was “no risk” of immediate harm to the child but she remained in care because of the possibility of emotional abuse in the future.

via Spanish social services take British couple’s son into care – Times Online.