Take more children away from addict parents, says Labour leader

Published on Thursday 25 June 2009 23:04

MORE children should be taken away from their drug-addicted parents in case they come to any harm, Scottish Labour leader Iain Gray claimed yesterday.

He said it was time to "change the balance" which, he claimed, was weighted towards leaving children with their parents.

The dangers were highlighted earlier this year in the case of Robert Cunningham, a Dundee heroin addict who killed Brandon Muir, his girlfriend's 23-month-old son.

A report earlier this week listed a litany of failures by the city council and other agencies in Dundee to protect vulnerable children from "significant harm" in the homes of drug addicts and alcoholics.

Mr Gray said the Brandon Muir case was the latest in a series of incidents where children had been put in danger because of their drug-addicted parents.

In December 2005, Derek Doran, two, was found dead in his bed at home in Elphinstone, East Lothian, after swallowing the heroin substitute methadone.

After his death, some experts warned that too few children of drug addicts were being removed from their family homes.

Mr Gray reopened the argument at First Minister's Questions yesterday.

He said: "I think we need to change the balance between leaving these children with their family and keeping them safe. I think the time has come to challenge and change the orthodoxy which underpins our system and to be quicker to remove and protect.

"That does need a national debate and it needs leadership to start it – does the First Minister agree?"

Alex Salmond said an independent inquiry had been set up to look into the Brandon Muir case, and the lessons learned would be implemented, either at local or national level.

He added: "Systematically, council by council, mistakes and deficiencies are being identified and… rectified."