Days after a young woman with autism gave birth her baby was uplifted from the maternity ward, without warning and by government social workers.
The boy was later adopted into a permanent “home for life”. Years later, the Chief Ombudsman found Oranga Tamariki acted unreasonably, and the Ministry for Children apologised to the mother.
It was too late to return her child, who is now 10 and remains with his adopted parents. His birth mother has no contact with him. In her first interview, she tells Nicholas Jones of her fear for other disabled parents, despite Oranga Tamariki telling her that “we hope your experience is not repeated”.
The scrutiny began before her baby was even born.
The agency formerly known as Child, Youth and Family was concerned Sarah, a young expectant first-time mum, wouldn’t be able to look after her baby.
She was diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum, and described in CYF records as “borderline functioning”. In 2014, when her baby was five days old, he was uplifted from the maternity ward and placed into care.
It was an action that almost destroyed Sarah but galvanised her mother Judy, who fought for years to try and get her grandson returned.
A decade on, the family has an apology and payment.
But they also have a photograph of a 9th birthday party. There is a cake and candles, a mother and grandmother, but the child they are celebrating is not there. Michael lives with another family.
Sarah is now speaking out, for the first time, about that incomprehensible loss.
The narrow reasoning and judgement that surrounded the taking of her child is revealed in hundreds of pages of documents - reports, internal records, notes and correspondence - obtained by the family after enormous effort.
They hope no one else will ever have to tell a story like theirs.
“My brain has blocked a lot of the memories out, as those days in the hospital [after his birth] are too traumatic,” Sarah says.
“I’m astounded that my physical heart survived.”
What led to the uplift
Sarah was induced at almost two weeks past her due date. A 22-hour labour ended with an emergency c-section at nearly 11pm on a Thursday night.
The next morning she and her son, whom she’d named Michael five months earlier, moved to the postnatal ward. Sarah was exhausted, nauseous and in pain (her c-section wound would later be treated for infection).
Her mother Judy had been by her side since the Wednesday induction and was alarmed when a hospital midwife asked her daughter to demonstrate a nappy change.
“Michael was 11 hours old. Sarah was white as a sheet. She’d lost a lot of blood and was laying there limp. And she said, ‘How about you get up and show us how you can do a nappy?’
“She was clearly not medically well enough, but still slowly got out of bed and did what was asked.”
The family didn’t know the stakes. A CYF social worker had asked hospital staff to notify her immediately when Michael was born, and monitor her closely.
The agency would use the observations recorded over the coming days to justify uplifting her newborn. Hospital staff noted:
- She was easily distracted and on her phone too much,
- She fussed about matters they deemed unimportant,
- She “lacked insight” into her difficulty caring for Michael,
- She asked for help with small tasks,
- She became distressed and angry at her baby’s crying, and once allegedly told a nurse to “feed him so he shuts up”.
- She struggled to settle the distressed baby.
Another black mark: he almost slipped off her knee, causing her to become stressed and defensive.
The family sensed something was off, but focussed on their newest member. On day five they prepared to go home. The social worker called a meeting and told Judy and Sarah’s midwife that CYF would be taking custody of Michael.
The two of them should tell Sarah, the social worker suggested. As they did so - in shock, and unaware they were being used as a distraction - Michael was driven away.
His crying mother waited in a corridor for a farewell cuddle that never came.
“I did not get to say goodbye, we did not get to dress him,” Sarah told the Herald.
“My body went numb. My mind and spirit went blank.”
Michael stayed with a temporary caregiver until he was later adopted into a “home for life” - a permanent care arrangement.
The family made complaints to CYF, the first of which was dismissed in November 2015. At a friend’s suggestion, Judy complained to the Ombudsman, an independent watchdog appointed by Parliament to investigate complaints about public sector agencies.
After that step, Oranga Tamariki (the Ministry for Children) - which had replaced CYF in 2017 - agreed to review the case, and in June 2019 upheld its earlier findings.
Sarah “was given every opportunity at the hospital to show that she could learn new parenting skills and bond with her baby”, the review found.
The family wasn’t satisfied, and at their request the Chief Ombudsman, Peter Boshier, began an investigation that was completed in July 2020. He was alarmed by CYF’s dismissal of their complaints.
The claim Sarah had “every opportunity” to prove she could parent Michael in their five days together in hospital immediately following a c-section, was unsustainable and entirely unreasonable, Boshier concluded in a final opinion.
There was little attempt by CYF to properly understand Sarah’s autism, stated Boshier, a former Principal Family Court Judge.
“Particularly at the beginning of CYF’s interaction with Sarah, when forming the care and protection concerns, it does not appear that there was ever clarity on Sarah’s diagnoses.
“I cannot help but question whether an undue focus on Sarah’s disability, without any insight into what her disability is, led to more critical reporting than would otherwise have been made.
“The information recorded [in the hospital] is unhelpful, and aspects of the observations could be seen as consistent with autism (focusing on particular issues, sensory issues, and distress when things go wrong, such as the baby slipping).”
Boshier recommended an in-person apology and ex-gratia payment - but it was too late for any prospect of Michael, by then aged 6, being returned.
“It is now impossible to be certain whether Sarah was in fact incapable of parenting [her son], or whether services were available to support either Sarah individually, or both Sarah and Judy as a family,” he wrote.
“I want to make clear that while I believe this particular case has been unreasonably handled by Oranga Tamariki, that does not necessitate the conclusion that the decision to remove Michael was incorrect. I have no formal opinion on this. That decision has been made by the Court.”
Sarah’s son is now 10. He remains under the permanent care of his adoptive parents. Neither she nor her family have seen him for years, and have no legal rights to do so.
Oranga Tamariki has faced intense scrutiny over where it draws the line between the desire to protect children, and the risk that radical options like an uplift cause more trauma and damage.
An anonymised summary of Sarah’s case was included in a recent, major report by the Ombudsman into children in care, and OT guidance now explicitly states that “parents and their pēpi should not be separated just because of a disability of the parent or pēpi”.
It took the Herald six months to find Sarah and Judy, including by combing through electoral rolls covering the entire country. A flight, and then a winter’s evening knock on their door has led to her story being told fully for the first time.
The documents they supplied for this article include the complete Ombudsman finding, which has not been publicly released. Names have been changed to protect Michael’s identity.
Sarah and her long-term partner want to have a family together, but not here.
“I said to him, ‘I’m worried that if we have a child together, and I go to the park, I am going to be looking around to make sure no one is watching me, or taking notes,’” she says.
“I’ve missed his first Christmas, I’ve missed his first birthday, his first walk - everything.
“I will never get that back. The best thing I can do is just leave New Zealand.”
How Sarah came to CYF’s attention
In the mid-1990s Sarah’s own childhood fractured after her baby brother was born with a condition that required long stretches in hospital.
Judy, a single mother at the time, asked church services for temporary help looking after Sarah but didn’t realise that would involve child welfare services.
Sarah’s brother died when she was still a toddler. Judy suffered a breakdown, and Sarah spent more time in care and later lived with a relative.
Judy’s life slowly got back on track and improved greatly when she married her current partner, as did Sarah’s when she lived with them from 15. She achieved NCEA Level 1 and later stayed with her grandfather and flatted on her own.
After Sarah’s pregnancy, Judy helped her into a two-bedroom flat minutes’ walk from the family home. Her daughter wanted that independence, but Judy planned on being closely involved in raising Michael, including staying over whenever needed.
A nearby church ran a support group for solo and vulnerable mothers-to-be. Sarah attended, and the family believes someone there contacted CYF with concerns, as did the relative who previously looked after her.
In December 2013 CYF social workers knocked on Sarah’s door when she was six months pregnant. They told her they needed to determine if she could care for her baby.
She acknowledged past difficulties but said she was now handling things really well, and things were stable in her life.
“Sarah said that she had taken childcare classes at school,” the social worker’s notes state. “She had been doing a lot of study. She talked about how you should never shake a baby…[and] how you should never leave a baby in the bath alone and articulated well the risks of SIDS [sudden infant death syndrome].”
The social worker pressed her on what a baby required and Sarah again spoke of a “secure, stable home where the baby will have food, comfort, warmth and clean, fresh clothes”.
“It was very well rehearsed,” the social worker wrote. “I asked her what she thought her mother’s role will be and she said that she will allow her to rest, keep the house tidy and will teach her how to identify the baby’s cries.”
Sarah eagerly showed her visitors a cot in her bedroom, a new pushchair in the dedicated baby room, a portacot, bassinet, toys and clothes.
The social worker told Sarah of her concerns, “about her lack of insight into how her childhood and her difficulties will impact on her parenting”. Sarah’s only question was if she’d get to parent her baby, the notes state.
“I told her that I couldn’t say as I did not want to make a promise I could not keep.”
CYF sought and was granted a support order from the Family Court, allowing it to provide support and monitor Sarah’s parenting after the birth. Judy was to stay with Sarah for the first three weeks.
The Family Court judge signalled stronger action could be needed.
“This is a situation where the care and protection issues arise out of the cognitive issues of the parents and not around any abuse or neglect issues,” he stated.
“I have seen…children raised by their parents who have intellectual disabilities, with those children not having any intellectual disability issues, and they rapidly outgrowing [sic] in cognitive functioning their parents and then having to be removed from the parents’ care and I have seen the trauma that causes to those children.”
Records viewed by the Herald show that on the Sunday after Michael’s Thursday evening birth, a hospital worker phoned CYF and asked for more support for Sarah (the ward was busy and short-staffed).
The next day the CYF social worker phoned a hospital social worker for an update.
“She said that there had been concerns around Sarah’s ability to tend to Michael’s needs,” her notes state. “She did say that she can do it but this requires oversight.”
The CYF social worker visited that day, received the notes made by staff, and heard Judy hadn’t been around enough. (The family dispute this, saying she stayed from Wednesday to Saturday and then left for a time to allow other visitors, and to see her own children.)
The social worker resolved to apply to the court for a section 78 interim custody order, which gives CYF immediate custody of a child. That radical step is meant to be a last resort, in only the most urgent and exceptional cases.
The order was granted, and Michael was whisked from the hospital before his family realised what was happening.
After the uplift, Sarah and Judy were given a trolley for the gifts, cards, flowers and her baby bag. As they departed a hospital staffer asked, “Do you need anything else?”
Sarah burst into tears: “My baby.”
“It was theft,” says her mother. “We just tried to leave with dignity.”
‘Unfailingly gentle’
Michael was given to a temporary caregiver, and Sarah was allowed a supervised visit for one hour a day (later reduced to three days a week).
She was given a breast pump, and expressed milk in her flat, with its empty nursery with items and toys for a child no longer hers.
Sarah took bottles of breast milk on her limited visits - time used by CYF as further evidence of why she couldn’t be a mother. Her file filled with more criticism: Sarah missed some access appointments and was fixated on the uplift rather than “any upset about missing her baby”.
She arrived wet on one visit, the notes state, had body odour and was caught without sanitary products. Surprise was recorded at her lack of intuition and competence with Michael.
“This is despite her not having had a fraction of the ‘practice’ or experience, and time for connection, that any other mother would have had in this time,” the Ombudsman’s decision would, ultimately, note.
“It seems to me a considerable ask of a parent to act as any other ‘normal parent’ with custody of their child would, in such different circumstances,” Boshier wrote.
“These comments begin to form a picture of the individual, whether justified or not. I cannot help but think that a similar picture could be drawn of anyone if we were to pay such close attention, and approach each interaction with such criticism.”
Sarah’s personal midwife visited more than 20 times during her pregnancy, the first at seven weeks gestation.
“Right from the first visit, Sarah showed commitment to the health and wellbeing of her baby. She was, and has remained, drug, alcohol and tobacco-free. She has been highly motivated to learn as much as she could about care in pregnancy, growth and development of the baby in utero and worked consistently to acquire the skills needed to care for her son,” the midwife outlined in a statement a month after Michael’s birth.
Sarah was unfailingly prompt with all appointments, including blood tests and scans, and completed antenatal and family start classes.
Judy attended most antenatal visits, the midwife wrote, “and showed total commitment to ensuring all preparations she could possibly think of were in place”.
Sarah was delighted at the anatomy scan to learn her baby, whom she often talked to, was a boy and named him soon afterwards.
She showed courage and perseverance over the long and arduous labour, the midwife wrote, attended by Judy and her sister and “always trying to make decisions that were best for Michael.”
The midwife visited on the Saturday after the Thursday night birth and found Sarah could “hardly keep her eyes open or string a sentence together”. Her abnormally low iron count indicated severe blood loss.
She didn’t visit on Sunday, “but I note she was awake through the night while the doctors initiated IV antibiotics for a suspected wound infection”.
“Sarah had significant health challenges including nausea, lightheadedness associated with significant anaemia, pain, presumed wound infection and exhaustion. It was while she was unwell and recovering that she was being assessed on her initial parenting abilities.”
Eight different midwives provided her care over the first 48 hours, her midwife noted, “so not one midwife really had the chance to observe progress or provide consistent care”.
The entire unit was overextended and short-staffed, she wrote.
“The co-ordinator who was on duty the day CYF were called said to me she contacted CYF because she wanted Sarah to have more support.”
Following the uplift Sarah’s midwife visited her when she had time with Michael, and also saw mother and baby separately.
“When I have visited Sarah at the caregiver’s house she has been attentive to Michael,” she wrote. “She has turned off her cellphone [and] has been feeding and burping Michael and snuggling him quietly. She has been unfailingly gentle.”
Sarah worked hard, but at times struggled to express milk. Her midwife assured her this was normal, especially when a mother was separated from their child, such as when an infant was in neonatal intensive care.
“When I have visited her at her flat, she is overactive in trying to come up with solutions and not able to rest or be settled, she is clearly willing to do anything she possibly can in order to parent Michael well.”
Sarah and her family continued to battle authorities for years after the uplift.
In a 2016 complaint to the hospital - Michael was by now 2 - Sarah explained that her voice is sometimes loud because of her disability, but this was taken as anger.
“Often I was misunderstood which resulted in me being told off by staff,” she wrote. “I tried to seek information and ask questions. Instead, it was documented that I was being needy…I was just eager to learn.”
In response, the hospital apologised for the distress she experienced, and said the midwives involved “convey their personal distress”.
On Sarah being asked to change a nappy soon after her c-section, the hospital said mobilising the day after the surgery was routine and reduced the risk of complications.
The observations were “part of the CYF documented plan”, and “full, honest and complete”. This included problems such as Sarah putting Michael into his cot unwrapped and crying and expecting him to settle.
“We understand that this was your coping mechanism, and this was further explained by Judy when we met with her and this is not a criticism,” the hospital letter stated.
“There is a great deal more information in your file about your caring, loving way with Michael and that you behaved most appropriately with him.
“It was acknowledged that once your nausea and pain were addressed and you felt better you showed acknowledgement of Michael’s cues.”
Was there support available?
Sarah was 2 years old when she was first placed with a caregiver, after her mother, alone at that time, reached breaking point due to her baby son’s illness, and was then overwhelmed with grief after he died.
CYF records from Sarah’s childhood reference old diagnoses including an intellectual disability, Asperger’s and reactive attachment disorder - when an infant or child doesn’t make healthy attachments, often because of neglect.
The attachment disorder link is strongly disputed by her family, who say it was put forward by the relative she temporarily lived with, and was not a diagnosis from a medical professional.
The Chief Ombudsman found no evidence that the CYF social worker had clarified what Sarah’s disabilities and needs were, or got medical or other expert advice on the nature of her disability, and how this might affect her parenting ability (including any strengths).
Instead, she had cited the past diagnosis of reactive attachment disorder (which was disputed and no longer current) to claim Sarah had attachment issues - an assumption Boshier determined she was not qualified to form.
“This information then formed the basis of the affidavits to the [Family] Court. Any disagreement with the social worker about the level or type of support required for Sarah appears to be taken and recorded by the social worker, repeatedly, as ‘lack of insight.’”
After the uplift Altogether Autism, a not-for-profit organisation funded by the government to run an advisory service, provided Judy with information about characteristics common to autistic mothers.
This included sensory issues, particularly around crying. Advice on how other mums had mitigated this was included. Autistic parents also tend to cope better as children become older, the organisation said, and can often rigidly plan routines.
Boshier saw that information as highly relevant to Sarah. For instance, when she was criticised for her distress at Michael’s crying.
“I raise this because it emphasises the lack of insight that the social worker had into Sarah’s disabilities. It also demonstrates that there could have at least been an attempt, in the many months prior to birth, to obtain specialist resource, plan and prepare for such possibilities.”
Oranga Tamariki is required to act in accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Boshier noted. That guarantees the rights of disabled people to create and maintain families.
After Michael’s birth, the Family Court commissioned a report by an independent psychologist, who interviewed people including the social worker and family.
The Herald has not seen a copy of the report, which the CYF social worker summarised in her own notes as concluding Sarah needed a great deal of support to parent Michael, which was not sustainable.
In September 2016 Judy contacted Parent to Parent, a not-for-profit organisation helping families of people with disabilities. They found multiple providers who indicated they could provide support.
“Whether suitable or not, I am concerned that this work had not been undertaken by the social worker, and that consideration was not given to whether (even if these supports for Sarah alone would be insufficient) they could assist Judy in providing family support to Sarah,” wrote Boshier, who was unable to consider the psychologist report itself, because it was outside his jurisdiction.
“It is wholly undesirable that the unavailability of community services would be the difference between a child remaining with their family, and a child being removed from their family.”
‘I didn’t want to feel anything anymore’
After Michael was placed in a “home for life” Sarah saw him for an hour, once a month. This was in a public place like a playground, and always with his new parents present. She stopped going when he was 18 months old.
“I just couldn’t take the one-hour restriction. [CYF] had completely destroyed the connection, the emotional bonding. That was the intention.
“If I hugged him, he didn’t understand. I remember playing Peekaboo with him, and he stared up at me, he obviously had no idea who I was.
“I felt sorry for Michael, one time I carried him off and he looked behind me and kept going, ‘Mum, Mum’, towards [his adopted mother].”
For years Sarah barely left her room. Her weight ballooned.
“I was eating myself to death because I didn’t want to feel anything anymore.”
Family events, birthdays and Christmases were particularly painful. Sarah’s cousin had given birth only hours earlier than her, in the same hospital. Seeing her girl grow up was a real-time reminder of her own loss.
Judy kept fighting. She requested CYF files, which she says took over 10 months to be released. They recorded concerns about Sarah being untidy, argumentative and having an “element of harshness”. One note claimed Judy, “is herself ‘limited’.”
Buried in the hundreds of pages was a document from when Michael was two weeks old, stating a “permanency goal” as “to find a home for life placement”.
CYF had denied an early intention to permanently remove Michael, and repeated this even after Judy raised the document with them. That was unreasonable, the Chief Ombudsman found.
“There seems little understanding that – having received this material – Judy and Sarah could see this early intention and interpret the ongoing records of conversation between the caregiver and the social worker, to the effect that Sarah was incapable of parenting Michael, as biased.”
Judy stood in for her daughter in the monthly, one-hour visits with Michael. She took regular photos, which fill albums – each picture beside a carefully written caption – that are brought out when the Herald visits.
“I delight in watching you grow and change with each page turned, as the album gradually fills up as you grow older, what a joy it is as your Nana to have been a special part of it,” reads a message written by Judy at the beginning of Album Number 4.
On the living room wall is a framed school photo of Michael, proudly placed alongside those of his mum, uncles and aunties.
For a time Michael was dropped to Judy’s home for visits, but this and any other contact stopped in 2022, after what Judy says was tension caused by an episode of challenging behaviour.
The family stress their criticism is only of CYF and the courts, and not Michael’s adopted parents.
The Herald has sought to contact the couple. Judy declined to provide their details, to protect their privacy, but agreed to pass on a request for comment that wasn’t responded to.
She has continued to buy her grandson Christmas and birthday presents, despite having no way to get them to him. Photos of each gift are put in his albums, along with that picture of the family, including Sarah, gathered around a cake to celebrate his 9th birthday, without the guest of honour.
On the date this year Judy made birthday cupcakes for her missing grandson. Another photo is clipped from the local paper and shows a group of school kids. Judy thinks Michael is featured, although she cannot be sure. She’s done this to show him later in life.
“He will come here and ask questions. I want to be ready to say, ‘You’ve got albums here, we’ve got wonderful moments that you’ve had, and we do love you, we did have Christmas and birthday presents. We kept them wrapped. We tried.”
The ripple effect
The pain of forced adoption ripples through generations of Judy’s family. Her own mother was one of a large but unknown number of unmarried women who had their babies adopted out to married couples during the “baby scoop” years, from the 1950s to 1980s.
“Mum was made to get on with her life. She always spoke of them, she carried that grief.”
Judy never thought her own daughter would have to do the same.
“It’s not just a physical thing when a child is removed. [CYF] were talking about Sarah not having bonded. But she named him Michael for five months. We had built his nursery. He knew my voice when he was born. He knew her voice.”
They felt alone until a documentary by Newsroom into an attempted uplift of a Māori newborn baby from Hawkes Bay Hospital’s maternity unit in 2019 helped spark four inquiries and an urgent Waitangi Tribunal hearing.
One was from the Chief Ombudsman, who examined 74 case files of babies, mostly Māori, who were uplifted by a “without notice” court order from 2017-2019.
(Michael’s ethnicity was recorded as Māori, although an ancestry test done by Judy since his birth indicates that may be wrong.)
Boshier found uplifts had become “the norm” instead of a last resort, and decisions to remove babies were often made late, without expert advice. The rights of disabled parents weren’t considered in policy or practice, he warned.
In September 2021 then Children’s Minister Kelvin Davis vowed to put “an end to uplifts as we know them”, saying, “While there will always be a need for some children to be taken into care, this should only happen after all avenues with community and whanau have been exhausted.”
Section 78 orders dropped from 197 in 2017/18, to 44 in 2020/21. Updated figures will be released in October. All uplifts are now “on notice” unless to protect a child from immediate danger. In those cases, sign-off is now needed from multiple CYF managers.
In his report on Sarah and Michael – which was accepted by Oranga Tamariki – Boshier recommended it review its policies and practices around involvement with disabled parents, and involve organisations led by disabled people.
The ministry has sent apology letters to Sarah and Judy.
“I sincerely and unreservedly apologise that our staff did not try to fully understand or respond to the disability support needs you have, nor how these could be accommodated to help you look after Michael,” a regional manager wrote in the August 2020 letters.
Staff “acted outside the benchmarks on practice and policy”, the letters admitted. Subsequent changes included hiring more “regional disability advisors”.
“We should always be mindful that a disability does not negatively impact a person’s parenting capabilities. We hope that your experience is not repeated,” the letter stated.
“I want to acknowledge your complaint was upheld, and recognise the deep distress, profound sense of loss, and trauma you and your whānau have suffered as a result of our actions.”
An ex-gratia payment of $7500 was made, and in September 2020 Sarah and Judy, supported by her pastor, received an apology in person. At that meeting with Oranga Tamariki, Judy read from a hand-written statement.
“Our situation could have had a much more positive outcome…if there had been more care around the selection of the suitable social worker to oversee such a complex case - without judgement, ignorance, misunderstandings…
“I plead today for this case never to occur again.”
Oranga Tamariki chief social worker Nicolette Dickson says a framework for auditing and analysing the case files of babies entering care has been introduced, as has a disability strategy informed by people with disabilities who have lived experience of care and protection.
A “disability lens” is now applied to its decisions and guidance for staff, she says.
“We have a continuous improvement and review approach to all policy and guidance and make changes to ensure we remain consistent with emerging best practice and the insights of the communities we work alongside.”
Sarah’s family believe Michael would never have been taken had they come from the wealthy side of town. They are deeply grateful to the Ombudsman, although to Sarah his findings and the subsequent apology, “was a bit like the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff”.
She hopes, however, that others will be spared her pain because the facts of what happened are now recognised – thanks to her own mother’s love and determination.
“I knew we wouldn’t get him back, even from a year on. But Mum did fight. My mother, I could not have done this without her – she has been my strength.”
Nicholas Jones is an investigative reporter at the Herald. He was a finalist for Reporter of the Year at the 2024 Voyager Media Awards, and has won numerous national media awards for his reporting and feature writing.