Roma children at heart of Leeds troubles reunite with extended family | Leeds

Roma children who were taken into care, sparking unrest in Leeds last week, have been returned to their extended families.

Police and social services removed the four children from a home in Harehills on Thursday to prevent them being taken abroad in breach of a court order. The children, aged eight to 14, had been living with family members since they were removed from their parents in April, Leeds Family Court heard on Tuesday.

Leeds City Council said social workers had been told there were plans to take them to either Romania or Cyprus, contrary to a court order that they could not leave the UK without permission from the local authority.

After a social services assessment on Monday, Judge Helen Trotter-Jackson ruled that the children, who cannot be named for legal reasons, could be cared for by extended family a 20-minute walk from their parents.

Relatives at Leeds Family Court have been urged to avoid sharing details of the case on social media and not to attend public celebrations, due to council concerns about the profile of the case.

After the verdict, the children’s mother said through her lawyer: “I am happy that the children are back in the family.”

The court heard the children were “extremely distressed” by their emergency foster placement since Thursday and had not settled. They had been kept together but with people who were “culturally unsuitable” for them.

Trotter-Jackson urged all parties involved to put the interests of the children before anything else. “It’s important that everyone focuses on the welfare of the children and on de-escalating this matter,” she said.

She had been informed of the father’s threats to go on hunger strike and of allegations that members of the Roma community had said they would cause further unrest if the children were not returned.

“This court will simply not entertain such threats because our primary concern is the welfare of these children and it seems to me that if these statements were made they were not helpful. I would ask everyone to be mindful of their behaviour and put the children first,” she said.

She called for calm, adding: “We cannot allow children to be as upset as they were on Thursday.”

Social media posts, including those by far-right activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, also known as Tommy Robinson, suggesting that thousands of Roma would gather in Harehills to cause further unrest, have led to delays in court proceedings.

Police said 20 people had been arrested after Thursday night’s events in which a police car was flipped on its side and a double-decker bus was set on fire. Police said 17 of the arrests were directly linked to the night’s unrest and three were due to “other problems in the area.”

The court heard that the family, whose situation triggered the upheaval, had no contact with social services until April, when a seven-month-old baby in the home suffered an unexplained skull fracture.

The parents and grandparents, who lived at the same address, were arrested and later released on bail, prompting care proceedings for all the children in the home. A child in the family later came forward claiming she had accidentally dropped the baby and had not told any adults, court documents revealed.

A further hearing will be held in August to decide on a more permanent solution for the custody of the children.