British social workers called dictators

A leading British judge accused social workers of behaving like "Stalin's Russia or Mao's China" for the way they went about permanently removing children from their mothers.

Lord Justice Wall, who was to be sworn in today as president of the Family Division of the High Court in London, was referring to two specific cases.

One involved Devon County Council, which did not give a mother a last chance to prove her baby was safe with her.

The other was in the London borough of Greenwich, whose social workers did not support a woman in her fight to regain custody of her two children, who were in care.