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From The Times
October 18, 2006

Family 'torn apart' by claims of child abuse

By Helen Nugent
THE father of three children taken into care after false allegations of sexual abuse described yesterday the “total nightmare” of the past two years.

Tim and Gina Williams’s world was torn apart when their three young children were put in foster care because it was believed that the girls had been raped repeatedly.

Suspicion fell on Mr Williams after he found his five-year-old daughter with an 11-year-old boy on top of her in August 2004. Both were naked from the waist down. Although Mr Williams, 37, called the police, he later faced allegations that he was a paedophile.

Speaking from his home in Newport, South Wales, last night, Mr Williams said that he and his wife had missed two years of seeing their children, now aged 12, 9 and 7, grow up.

“At no stage were we told what was going on,” he said. “After I contacted the police, they spoke to social services and it all spiralled. One minute we were a family, the next thing we know social services are taking the children away.”

Mr and Mrs Williams were told that the children would be gone for three months. Before the couple knew it, they were spending Christmas without their children and missing their first days at school. “The children were in foster care for two years,” said Mr Williams, who is disabled. “We were allowed to see them twice a week for an hour and a half. It was a total nightmare.”

He said the children could not understand the situation and thought their mother and father did not want them.

While Mr and Mrs Williams were fighting for their children, doctors were brought in to ad- vise social services. It was finally agreed that there had been no sexual abuse. The children were allowed home last month.

At Cardiff Civil Court yesterday Judge Crispin Masterman ruled that the children should never have been removed. He exonerated the parents, finding there were no perpetrators.

Newport City Council said it would commission a full-scale review of its procedures.

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