British court upholds ruling in Latvian girl's adoption case

Take note – story published 8 years ago

A Britsh court has upheld a previous court ruling approving the adoption of Latvian citizen Laila Brice's daughter Kristine in the UK, Brice's legal representative Aija Osmane told BNS Wednesday.

The British court also said Brice cannot appeal the ruling, arguing that it is related to the earlier proceedings.

Osmane said that now it is necessary to receive detailed information on the court ruling, but that Brice, most probably, will lodge a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).

Latvian Foreign Ministry spokesman Raimonds Jansons said that Latvia will continue work on the issue and that Brice and her lawyer have to consider their further steps and whether their possibilities to seek justice in the UK have been exhausted.

Latvian Ambassador to the UK Andris Teikmanis said on Twitter that the embassy in London will continue dialogue with British authorities on the issue.

Latvia's position is that a Latvian court should hear the girl's adoption case. The Foreign Ministry also noted that the British authorities failed to inform Latvia about the child's removal from her family.

Latvian citizen Laila Brice and her two daughters reside in the UK.

In 2010, British social services removed the two-year old child from the family after a call from Brice's landlord that she had left the child unattended when she had to leave for work, but the babysitter had not yet arrived.

Brice has been fighting for the rights to win her daughter back since then. 

According to a court judgement in a previous 2013 appeal, the circumstances in which the child lived upon her removal from her mother's care were very repulsive. 

The police officer's description of the 2010 visit states that Brice's daughter (CB in the document) was found alone with unchanged diapers in a place clearly inadequate for children: "the nappy was so swollen with urine that the child was unable to walk properly". Furthermore, there was "a very strong and overpowering smell of urine and feces in the room".

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