Yet another strange and shocking case has now emerged from the shadowy Court of Protection, the most secretive court in Britain.

Only in the past three years – thanks to the valiant efforts of Lord Justice Munby, the head of our family courts, to expose their workings to what he calls “the glare of publicity” – has it really become possible to report on the activities of this court at all.

This began in 2013 with the case of Wanda Maddocks, imprisoned for rescuing her aged father from a care home where she found he was being badly treated. In 2014 I reported the case of the pregnant Italian visitor to Britain who had been secretly subjected to a Caesarian operation so her baby could be handed over to social workers.