Nairn mum's plea: ‘Give my daughter back – I love her’
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A mum is pleading with social services for her daughter to be taken out of care and returned home to her in Nairn.
Chantelle Mackay (25) wants her six-year-old daughter – who currently lives in care after her adoptive home placement broke down – to join her, saying she will have a stable home with her siblings, where she is loved.
The mum-of-three has launched a legal bid to get her daughter, who was taken from her soon after she was born, out of care.
“I was only 19 when I had my daughter, I was very naive and I was with her dad who social services did not deem suitable for our daughter to live with,” she said.
“But since then I have turned my life around, and I have two other children. But there is something missing – my daughter.”
Ms Mackay, originally from Inverness, explains that she is not asking for her daughter back lightly, as she too knows what it is like to grow up in the care system, saying she would not wish it on anyone.
She continued: “I think I was very poorly advised when my daughter was taken from me. I lived with a partner who was very difficult, and if I had known that I could have escaped him, I would be in a different position now. I was never told that if I left him I could keep my daughter.
“Social workers made the decision to remove my daughter before she was born, no one ever discussed or consulted with me.
“I was not given independent help or advice. How on Earth can that be fair? It is not fair on my daughter, it is not fair on me.”
Ms Mackay explained that when she went to Edinburgh to the court hearing about her daughter’s adoption, three years after she was born, she was horrified when she heard the way in which she was being described.
She said: “I was made out to be a monster. I was made out to be unfit to be a mother. But nothing could be further from the truth.
“Yes, I have had my difficulties – like anyone else – but I now have two children and I am a good
mum.
“All I can think is that my daughter must feel like no one loves her. She was with an adoptive family and that broke down.
“I love her, why should she be living with strangers when I have a home with her siblings and a place she needs?”
Ms Mackay said she would not normally share her very private story with a newspaper – but hopes her daughter might read it, and she will know she is loved.
A Highland Council spokeswoman said: “We are unable to comment on individual adoption cases.”
