Australian officials denied yesterday that a bureaucratic mistake was responsible for two children being taken away from their mother for the past 15 months.
The children, aged 8 and 11, were taken from their school by police in May 2004 and sent to live with the former partner of their 35-year-old mother on orders of the Queensland state Family Court.
The Australian newspaper reported yesterday that the children were taken from their mother due to a mix-up between the woman's file and that of a second woman who was a mentally-ill, drug dependent child abuser.
The Queensland minister for Child Safety, Mike Reynolds, subsequently issued an apology and said the government was trying to help the woman, identified only as Ms T, regain custody of her children.
But in a later statement to the Queensland parliament, Reynolds said the file mix-up was unrelated to the Family Court ruling granting custody over the two children to Ms T's ex-partner, who is the father of one of the youngsters.
He said the children were sent to live with the man "by mutual agreement" under a Family Court order made in December 2003.
The mother disputed the ruling and took the children, leading authorities to intervene and return the pair to the man.
"The [Child Safety] Department played no role in this event," Reynolds said.
"It is wrong to link the filing error with the custody decision and subsequent actions taken by the Family Court," he said.
Officials did acknowledge that the incorrect information inserted into Ms T's file in 2001 had led Legal Aid officers to refuse to help her fight the custody battle, considering her case unwinnable.
Reynolds said his department acted swiftly when it uncovered the file mix-up early this month and has passed this information to the Family Court for consideration in the custody hearing.
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