btw - could I just clarify a couple of other details in the case that prompted this thread.....

The girl was born in November 2006 to parents who had had a casual relationship.

At the time the child was in a mother and baby placement but when her mother left, leaving the baby behind, the council recommended adoption. The father WAS served with these proceedings and initially took no interest in his daughter.
However, after suffering a heart attack and undergoing treatment in hospital he changed his mind.

The council had already obtained care and placement orders and the child had been moved to foster parents.

When the father learned from his mother the adoption plans were well advanced, he appointed solicitors who the following day, January 10, made an application for permission to apply to revoke the placement order at Brighton County Court.

At the hearing, the council said it was legally entitled to process the adoption and that the court had no jurisdiction to grant leave to revoke the placement.

The judge in the case agreed and the adoption was allowed.

The father made an appeal to the Court of Appeal in March.

But yesterday he was told he had lost his case by a majority of two to one.

Lord Justice Thorpe - the dissenting voice - wanted to allow the appeal on human rights grounds to a fair trial and give the father a chance to challenge the adoption order in court.

But he was overruled by the other judges on the panel who said that "with regret" the words of the act were clear and compatible with human rights laws.


N.B.
This is the same Lord Justice Thorpe who is such a staunch supporter of an uncommited father's 'rights'

'Thorpe finds that it is in the best interests of the children if their mother permanently ends contact between a father's children and their father by emigrating with his children to another country and living with a man resident in that country who is married to another woman.

He said: "Often there will be a price to be paid in welfare terms by the diminution of the children's contact with their father and his extended family." '

London, July 31, 2003, Court of Appeal

source Fathercare.org