UPDATE: Ian and Sarah Walton were gagged by London Courts for another 15 years on August 28, 2007! They are not to use their own daughter's name or picture on the web site of Stop Injustice Now. The London citizens are asking For (click here)

After seeing their babies' picture in a UK newspaper, advertising for adoptive parents, Ian and Sarah Walton went to the media for help.

The UK judge gagged the family and all news reporters from reporting on this story.

The UK Judge does not want anyone to speak of what the social services have done in wrongfully removing Crystal Walton from her mum and daddy.

Crystal Walton: A pawn in a shameful adoption system

Two-year-old Crystal Walton smiles at the camera, her blonde hair blowing in the wind. The photograph of the enchanting little girl looks as though it should have pride of place in a treasured family album. Yet nothing could be further from the truth.

This picture was used to advertise Crystal's availability for adoption - appearing in a tabloid national newspaper with an accompanying blurb describing her as a "clever, lively, cheerful toddler" who likes puzzles and swimming.

A phone number was printed alongside for anyone interested in becoming her new parents.

Perhaps a million people saw the heart-breaking advert which had been placed by a London council, and streams of callers offered to take care of her.

Yet that is not the whole story. The truth is that Crystal had become a pawn in an adoption system that should shame the UK Social Services.

In 2000, Tony Blair set new targets to raise the number of children being adopted by 50 per cent - to a total of 5,400 every year.

He promised millions of pounds to councils that managed to achieve the targets. Some have already received more than £20million for successfully pushing up the number of adoptions.

This sweeping shake-up in social policy was designed for all the right reasons: to get older children languishing in care homes into happy new families with parents.

But the reforms didn't work. Encouraged by the promise of extra cash, councils began to earmark those children who were most easy to place in adoptive homes - babies and cute toddlers such as Crystal.

The resulting nightmare is that thousands of children of under four have since been removed from their birth families and adopted. Seventy per cent of all adoptions are now in this age group.

These cases often involve mothers and fathers who may have been in previous contact with social services over alleged incidents such as being accused - though not convicted - of maltreating their children.

More chillingly, others have been told by social workers they must lose their children because, at some time in the future, they might abuse them.

One mother's son was adopted on the grounds that there was a chance she might shout at him when he was older. It was, said social workers, emotional abuse.

New figures revealed to the Mail this week show that 1,300 babies were taken from their families in England last year and sent to new homes - a 300 per cent rise in less than a decade.

More than 900 were newborn or less than a week old. The rest were aged under a month.

The Liberal Democrat MP John Hemming has become so concerned about the increase and the way that the adoption system is being run that he has asked the United Nations Human Rights High Commissioner to investigate the 'systematic abuses'.

He wants to know why so many tiny children are being 'snatched' needlessly from their families in what he calls a 'national scandal'.

In his formal submission to the commissioner, he said: "Children are being removed from families merely to satisfy government targets for the right numbers of children adopted."

He later explained to the Mail: "I have evidence that 1,000 children are wrongly being seized from their birth parents each year - even though they have not been harmed in any way.

"The targets are dangerous and lead to social workers being over-eager and making mistakes."

The MP's concerns have been supported by the Association for Improvements in the Maternity Services, an independent body which advises new mothers about how to care for their babies.

Its spokeswoman, Beverley Beech, said: "Babies are being removed from their mothers by social workers using any excuse whatsoever.

"We strongly suspect this is because newborns and toddlers are more easily found homes than older children. The younger ones are, in other words, a marketable commodity.

"I know of social workers making up stories about blameless mothers simply to ensure that their babies are forcibly taken and put up for adoption.

"One baby was removed in the maternity ward by social workers before the mother had even finished the birth process and produced the placenta.

"Suitable babies are even being earmarked for adoption when they are still in the womb."

Of course, everyone knows there are some parents who do terrible things to their sons and daughters - and social workers are often vilified for not intervening soon enough to protect vulnerable children.

But can so many more mothers and fathers - in such a small space of time - really be abusing their own babies?

One thing is certain: it is impossible to overstate the emotional damage done to families whose babies have been forcibly removed from them on what can be the flimsiest of grounds.

In Europe, only a handful of children every year are forcibly taken from their mothers to be adopted.

In Scotland, where there are no official targets, adoptions are a fraction of the number south of the border - even allowing for the smaller population.

Yet in England, the annual total for adoptions for children under 17 went up by nearly 40 per cent in four years - from 2,700 in 2000 to 3,700 in 2004.

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This is a story that occurs every single day in every state in the U.S.; children ripped from their parents loving arms. What makes this story any different than any other? Nothing really! Not to those of us in the United States who have had our children taken without justifiable cause!

This is happening under the great cloak of confidentiality; the only real purpose is to hide what judges are allowed to do in closed chambers. UK Media is not allowed to speak of these atrocities or they will serve six months in prison!

Gag Orders only serve to hide the injustice perpetrated on children! Sarah and Ian Walton have never been convicted of anything. Ian Walton has unsupervised visitation with both children from a previous marriage. Ten years ago, we did not have the scientific evidence that is readily available to anyone who will take the time to learn about Cerebral Palsy and Shaken Baby Syndrome. Social Services planned to remove Crystal Walton while in utero! WHY$$$$$

What are the judges hiding behind their doors and black robes? Why are they hiding?

What Does Stop Injustice Now want from the UK Government:

• Abolish the family court secrecy that gags parents who wish to complain.
• Abolish "emotional harm" and "risk" as justifications for putting children into care
• Abolish "forced adoption"if a parent opposes an adoption in court
• Abolish decisions by family court judges to take babies and young children into care.(let juries decide)
• Abolish the power of social services to regulate and control contact between parents and children , to censor their conversation or to restrict phone calls.The court must control the frequency of contacts.
• Abolish the restriction preventing a lay advisor from presenting a case for parents refused legal aid
• Abolish hearsay evidence in family courts and require witnesses to stick to facts without "speculation."
• Abolish the removal of children for non life threatening forms of neglect such as absences from school or insanitary dwellings unless a written warning has been served and the situation has not been remedied.