patrick.net

The parents of a five-year-old Christian girl forced to live with a fundamentalist Muslim family begged the council to allow her to stay with her grandmother as she became increasingly distressed.

The foster family, selected by the London borough of Tower Hamlets, removed the child’s crucifix necklace, wore full-face veils around her, spoken in Arabic which she did not understand, and banned her from consuming bacon, an investigation by The Times found.

Her family has spent the past six months pleading with the council – which has previously been accused of corruption and favouring Muslim interests – to allow the girl to be cared for by family or friends.

Most recently, the council resisted a call to temporarily place her in the care of her grandmother.

The child’s distress was recorded by a Tower Hamlets employee who supervised regular meetings between the girl and her family. In a written report of one meeting, the contact supervisor described the girl as “very emotional and tearful”.

“She said they don’t speak English at the home, she doesn’t understand the Arabic words where she is. [The girl] said she wants to go back home to her [mother].”

One social services supervisor for Tower Hamlets described the child sobbing and begging not to be returned to the Muslim foster family because “she doesn’t understand the Arabic”.