6 Apr 2018
Oranga Tamariki under fire for defying court order
A Family Court judge has heavily criticised Oranga Tamariki, the Ministry for Children, for taking a child from her home in defiance of a court order, and for refusing to remove the adoptive mother from its database of child abusers. The girl was the subject of a tug-of-love custody battle between her whangai adoptive parents and her birth mother, who made numerous allegations of physical and sexual abuse that turned out to be unsubstantiated. The head of the Association of Social Workers, Lucy Sandford-Reed, speaks to Susie Ferguson.