Court criticises Kilshaws over treatment of twins

The couple at the centre of the bitter transatlantic custody battle for the "internet twins" have been strongly criticised by a judge for the way they cared for the two babies.

In a ruling released for the first time yesterday, Mr Justice Kirkwood said the year-old babies had suffered while being cared for by Judith and Alan Kilshaw. He said they were likely to come to further harm if the couple had kept them.

The judge, who heard the Kilshaws' plea to keep the twins, Belinda and Kimberley, sent the babies back to Missouri in April where a court will decide their future.

Their separated parents, Tranda and Aaron Wecker, are each claiming custody. Another adoption attempt by a Californian couple, Richard and Vickie Allen, was withdrawn after charges that Mr Allen sexually abused two babysitters.

The hearing at London's High Court was carried out behind closed doors and the judgment was delivered in private.

The judge pointed to the couple's "overriding preoccupation with the media", Mrs Kilshaw's volatility and her perception that she was a "victim of injustice" as reasons for their failure to win custody.

The couple stayed in a hotel for two days, courting journalists, telling how they paid £8,000 to an online agency to adopt the twins and bring them to Britain.

The Allens had already paid for the children but were tricked into handing them back to the Kilshaws. The babies were later taken away by social services after the Kilshaws returned home to Buckley, north Wales.

It became clear yesterday that the Kilshaws were already known to Flintshire Social Services because of concerns over the way they had brought up Mrs Kilshaw's teenage daughter and their two young sons.

The court papers show that a social worker gave evidence to the hearing saying that Mrs Kilshaw was "volatile, repeatedly agitated, angry and irrational".

Social workers were concerned the US twins appeared to have problems forming attachments. When they were removed from the Kilshaws, they showed no signs of distress.

The judge said the couple had harmed the babies by pushing them into the media spotlight. They were labelled the "internet twins" and the judge said the couple failed to make their welfare the priority it should have been.

The judge said: "I am fully satisfied of the likelihood of future harm to the twins in terms of impairment of their intellectual, emotional, social, and behavioural development".

The Kilshaws have said they intend continuing to try to adopt abroad but publication of the judge's comments are likely to hamper their attempts.