Stephen Roger Wildblood KC, a judge who worked in Britain’s family courts, has retired.
Wildblood came to the public’s attention in 2018, when he starred in a BBC documentary about the family courts. In the programme, he told the presenter about a case in which he removed several children from their mother after making care orders: “A mother got on her hands and knees in court and begged me… ‘please don’t take my children away.’ She said she would end her life if I made the orders.”
Parents across the country reacted angrily to Wildblood’s appearance on the show, unconvinced by his claim that he once cried after removing a child from their parents.
Speaking about the courts during another segment of the documentary he added: “I don’t think the system is broken, and the judges wouldn’t allow it to be broken. Whether the overall process is fair, that people are coming to court on their own, is not really for me to say. That’s for others to judge”.
The family courts have faced intense scrutiny for their failure to process cases properly from as early as 2008, when an investigation by The Times found the system “secret and sometimes unjust” and called for changes to be made. The report concluded: “To sever a child from its family without due cause is licensed state oppression of the worst kind. It is, in fact, child abuse.”
A former judge of the Mental Health Review Tribunal, Wildblood made a care order in 2021 for a young boy who appeared to be suffering from psychological trauma, despite the lack of a clear care plan or diagnosis for the child.
Wildblood also wrote a play about non-accidental injuries in children, which used largely discredited scientific research around Shaken Baby Syndrome.
The play was performed in 2021, and featured a sensationalist opening scene described as “graphic” by an article in Family Law Week. The baby’s parents were portrayed as the primary suspects, going through care proceedings in the family courts.
But it is perhaps his prolific use of the media to hunt down parents and children fleeing the country to avoid care proceedings — often publicly broadcasting photos of the children — for which Wildblood will be remembered.
Poor social work practice, serious failings in child protection and unjust hearings spanning decades have led to a disproportionate number of children being removed from their parents. Emerging research suggests a vast number of removals are unnecessary, and are a breach of families’ human rights.
These developments have led to a growing number of parents leaving the UK with their children after being pulled into care proceedings, in a desperate attempt not to be split apart.
Wildblood’s legacy isn’t all bad. In a judgment published in 2017, he was deeply critical about a council who removed a child illegally from her parents.
The failings were so serious that Wildblood set out nine critical concerns in his judgment and said that Gloucestershire county council had acted with ‘subterfuge and immediacy’.
At the time, Wildblood said: “In my opinion it is clear that the local authority acted in a way that was contrary to case law and in breach of the Article 8 rights of both parents and the child.”
“The very basis of the original care proceedings was that the mother is an emotionally fragile and socially vulnerable woman… Therefore, for her to have faced the issues that arose on her own is manifestly unsatisfactory,” he added.
Wildblood returned the child to her mother’s care.
The official notice about Wildblood’s retirement on the judiciary’s web page says:
“His Honour Judge Wildblood KC was called to the Bar (Inner Temple) in 1980 and took Silk in 1999. He was appointed an Assistant Recorder in 1997, a Recorder in 2000 and a Judge of the Mental Health Review Tribunal in 2007. He was authorised to sit as a High Court Judge in 2004 and appointed a Circuit Judge in 2007. He served as the Designated Family Judge for Avon, North Somerset and Gloucester since 2013. He was a Family Course Tutor at the Judicial College from 2010 to 2018 and a Faculty Tutor at the Judicial College from 2019 to 2023.”
Wildblood’s retirement took effect on 21st November, 2023.