A council at the heart of a fostering row in which it was claimed that an English-speaking child was placed with a family whose use of Arabic confused her said that the five-year-old had in fact been placed with an English-speaking family of mixed race.

Tower Hamlets council said the placement was a temporary measure and hit out at what it said were errors in the reporting of a highly sensitive fostering case.

The Times had published an article on Monday after seeing confidential local authority reports, in which a social services supervisor describes the child sobbing and begging not to be returned to one foster carer because “they don’t speak English”.



The reports state that the supervisor heard the girl, who at times was “very distressed”, claiming that the foster carer removed her necklace with a crucifix on it. The paper reported that she was a “white Christian child” who had been placed with two Muslim households in London over the past six months.

A spokesperson for Tower Hamlets council said: “While we cannot go into details of a case that would identify a child in foster care, there are inaccuracies in the reporting of it. For example, the child is in fact fostered by an English-speaking family of mixed race in this temporary placement. We would like to give more details but we are legally restricted to do so.”

They added: “We have always been working towards the child being looked after by a family member and we continue to do so.”

The Times reported in its Wednesday edition that the girl at the centre of the row had been removed from her Muslim foster parents and taken to her grandmother’s home following a hearing at a family court on Tuesday.



Reports about the fostering have been seized upon by far-right activists including the former English Defence League leader Tommy Robinson, as well as Britain First and the EDL.



Miqdaad Versi, the assistant secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, which has secured dozens of national press corrections over reporting about Islam and Muslims, criticised the Times in various tweets: “Demonisation of the foreigner (especially the Muslim foreigner) is the clear undercurrent in this entire piece. It is appalling.”

It also emerged the Daily Mail and Mail Online paired an altered image with the story after following up the Times report. The original image of a couple in Islamic dress with a child was originally captioned “happiness couple in Dubai park” but was amended to cover the woman’s face with a veil.

The stock picture was supplied by Getty Images. Getty confirmed the original image did not show a woman in a veil but added it was a creative royalty-free picture, meaning that alterations to the original were permitted.

The Mail altered the image to mask the woman’s face and ran it in both the print and online editions. The online version was later altered to pixelate the woman’s face. The publisher of the paper and website has been approached for comment.

The Children Act 1989 requires a local authority to give consideration to “religious persuasion, racial origin and cultural and linguistic background” when making decisions about a child who is in care as a result of a court order.



MPs have expressed concern over the case, including Robert Halfon, the Conservative chairman of the Commons education committee, who said it would be equally concerning if a Muslim child who did not speak English were placed with a Christian foster carer in a home where the child’s language was not spoken.

The office of the children’s commissioner for England, Anne Longfield, confirmed it would be contacting Tower Hamlets council to find out why the decision was made. The child has reportedly been in the care of a Muslim family for the past six months.

Longfield said: “I am concerned at these reports. A child’s religious, racial and cultural background should be taken into consideration when they are placed with foster carers.”

The Times has been contacted for comment.



Hannah Summers contributed to this report









