Members of a polygamist sect in Texas were overjoyed after an appeal court ordered the state authorities to return 440 children taken from a church compound during a raid.

The children – who have found themselves at the centre of the biggest child-custody case in US history – are in foster care across the state, with some brothers and sisters separated by as much as 600 miles.

The Third Court of Appeals in Austin said on Thursday that the state had failed to show that the children were in any immediate danger – the only justification under Texas law for taking children from their parents without a court order. Child-protection officials argued that five of the girls had become pregnant under the age of 16 and that the sect was essentially a paedophile ring. Warren Jeffs, the “prophet” of the church, is serving a ten-year sentence in Utah for rape.

However, of the 31 girls seized as “underage mothers” at least 15 have since been reclassified as adults. One was aged 27. Identifying the sect members was difficult because many have the same names.

The Texas child welfare authorities appealed to the state Supreme Court to block the ruling yesterday. “This case is about . . . the need to take action under difficult, time-sensitive and unprecedented circumstances to protect children on an emergency basis,” the state agency said. The authorities agreed later to reunite 12 of the children with their parents, under state supervision, until the appeal was heard.

The decision to return the children was seen as an embarrassment for the child welfare authority and as vindication for members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS), who claim that they are being subjected to religious persecution.

The Church has staged a remarkable PR offensive, questioning why separating 440 children from their mothers could be regarded as good policy, while trying to show that they live “normal” lives. On the Larry King Live show several mothers begged the authorities to allow the seized children to tell their stories.

Every child at the Yearning for Zion ranch in Eldorado was taken into custody more than six weeks ago after someone called a helpline claiming to be a pregnant, abused, teenage wife. It remains unclear whether the call was a hoax. There were 150 law enforcement officers involved in the raid on the 1,700-acre property, which was bought by the Church in 2004 to house about 500 sect members trying to flee from media and law-enforcement attention in Utah and Arizona.

The Third Court of Appeals said that the local authorities had acted too hastily by not going to court first. “Even if one views the FLDS belief system as creating a danger of sexual abuse by grooming boys to be perpetrators of sexual abuse and raising girls to be victims of sexual abuse . . . there is no evidence that this danger is ‘immediate’,” the court said in its ruling.

“Evidence that children raised in this particular environment may some day have their physical health and safety threatened is not evidence that the danger is imminent enough to warrant invoking the extreme measure of immediate removal.”

Marriage by numbers

700 wives possessed by Solomon, according to Deuteronomy

186 number of societies, in a survey of 1231, that were wholly monogamous

50,000 estimated number of polygamists in the US

1,000 estimated number of polygamous marriages in the UK

4 limit on the number of wives any man can have according to Islam

16,108 number of wives possessed by Krishna, the eighth incarnation of Vishnu

33 number of women Joseph Smith, founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Mormon prophet, is believed to have married

Source: Times archives

Times Recommends

• The truth behind Obama's meteoric ascent
• Christians flee Iraq amid religious cleansing
• Aid agencies: 5m face starvation in Zimbabwe