Primary school teacher and barrister win right to anonymity despite teacher 'strangling and abusing' one of their adopted sons

Daily Mail​

21-05-2025

A primary school teacher and a barrister who specialises in children's cases 'routinely neglected' their adopted sons, with the teacher strangling and racially abusing one of the boys, a judge has found.
The High Court heard how the couple's two youngest children, aged 10 and 15, were subject to multiple instances of abuse.
The teacher, X, called the 15-year-old, who is of mixed ethnic heritage, a 'black b*****d', the judge found.
On one occasion in January last year, X 'strangled the teenager', and on another, forced one of the older siblings to 'eat soap' for using inappropriate language.
X also subjected the two children to emotional abuse by swearing at them and using threatening language.
The parents also used food as a form of control, padlocking the pantry so the children did not have unsupervised access and punishing the boys by keeping them hungry.
The brothers were also regularly left alone overnight, which caused 'significant emotional harm and was likely to subject significant physical harm', the judge said.
The couple successfully made a bid at the High Court in London to be anonymised, meaning details including their names, genders, pronouns, and other details, which might identify them or their children, cannot be published.
In a judgment issued on Wednesday, Mrs Justice Theis said: 'The parents have been together for over 30 years. They have both worked in professions for many years that involve them having frequent and regular direct and indirect contact with children.'
She added: 'What the evidence demonstrates is the disconnect between the professional backgrounds of both X and Y and the lived reality in the family home.'
X is a primary school teacher and Y a barrister specialising in children's cases, who also sits as a deputy district judge with authority to sit and hear private family cases.
In total, the couple have adopted five children, two of whom are now over 18-years-old.
Mrs Justice Theis said in one of five rulings published on Wednesday that the local authority in the case asked her to make findings that the two youngest children were subject to 'physical and emotional abuse by X, and a failure to protect by Y', at a hearing in December.
The judge found that X 'has exercised a level of control over the children which goes beyond that of a reasonable parent'.
This included putting a padlock on the pantry to prevent the children from being able to make their food.
The teacher also subjected the children to a litany of emotional abuse by swearing at them, using threatening language, and racial abuse, the judge found.
Mrs Justice Theis said that after the boys ran away from home in January last year to a foster home where an older sibling was staying, they told the police that X had also called the teenager the 'n word'.
The teenager also told police that X 'hits him', giving details of an occasion when X put him on the bottom bunk bed and 'banged him up and down so his head banged on the top bunk'.
The boys further reported that the teenager had to shower with the door open because X wanted to see that he had 'soaped up' sufficiently, because, as he is black, he 'has body odour'.
One of the older siblings was able to detail some of the incidents described by the boys, and the court found X had also been aggressive towards him, on one occasion throwing a clothes airer across the kitchen and shouting 'I'm going to f*****g kill this kid', the judgment said.
The allegations of physical and verbal abuse were investigated by police, who informed the parents in July 2024 that there would be no charges.
She continued that on one occasion in January last year, X 'strangled the teenager', and on another, forced one of the older siblings to 'eat soap' for using inappropriate language.
The judge also agreed with the local authority responsible for the care of the children that Y knew or ought to have known of X's conduct but failed to intervene or take any other action to protect the children from harm.
She found that the parents' behaviour had led to the children choosing to leave their care, causing the children emotional harm.
The parents do not agree with the court's findings in relation to the children, but did not challenge them, the judge said.
Mrs Justice Theis further said in the ruling that in July 2024, the parents did not want the children, who are in foster care, returned to them, and supported an order that was made regarding care arrangements for the boys.
In a ruling about their anonymity at the start of May, the judge said the parents 'present themselves as victims, yet have then displayed behaviour that demonstrates their position and way of operating has barely changed and shows they can behave in an aggressive and threatening way, similar to the behaviour described by the children'.
But she concluded 'not without some considerable hesitation' that they should not be identified in these 'very unusual and complex set of circumstances'.
Mrs Justice Theis said there was a public interest in the parents' professions being published and the 'public knowing that the parents hold positions of professional responsibility in respect of children'.
In a statement written in January, the parents said they had struggled mentally since the start of proceedings, had had to sell their family home, and had no intention of returning to their professions.
They also said: 'We are not monsters. We did everything that we could over the last 20 years to give our sons the best possible experiences and outcomes in their lives.
'There are times now when we both feel like we have failed completely as parents because of the final outcome that we knew at the start of the proceedings was inevitable.'
Mrs Justice Theis said Y's regulatory body had determined that Y had failed to report to their leadership judge that they had been involved in proceedings 'that could have affected their position or the reputation and standing of the judiciary at large, even though those proceedings were discontinued'.