Adopting controls WHEN THE KILSHAWS BOUGHT AMERICAN TWINS KIMBERLEY AND BELINDA on THE INTERNET, THEY STEPPED INTO AN ETHICAL MINEFIELD.

STEPHEN WARD talks to adoption lawyers about the issuesWhen the newspapers and TV screens were filled with Judith and solicitor Alan Kilshaw, the couple in Wales who had apparently bought twins from their...When the newspapers and TV screens were filled with Judith and solicitor Alan Kilshaw, the couple in Wales who had apparently bought twins from their mother in the US after seeing an advertisement on the Internet, no one could fail to be moved by the image of babies Kimberley and Belinda.

The couple had not gone through procedures beforehand with their social services department to see if they were suitable parents.

Home Secretary Jack Straw described the events as appalling, and health minister John Hutton promised to stamp out Internet sites offering unauthorised adoptions.

Now, with the precise factual details of the Kilshaw case still being investigated, the adoptive parents bound to silence by court order, and the twins in care, solicitors are considering in what ways adoption law may ultimately benefit from the furore.

Family law experts welcome the urgency the case appears to have given to reforms, which were working their way slowly through the legislative process.

Politicians always tend to move cautiously before acting on emotive issues family law areas such as adoption and divorce but it seems likely some changes may now be hurried through ahead of this years anticipated general election.

According to Naomi Angell, a family law partner at London-based Goodman Ray, and a specialist in cross-border adoption, the UK government needs to ratify the international Hague Convention guaranteeing the rights of children in inter-country adoptions.

It has so far been ratified by more than 40 countries, but while Britain signed in 1993, it has still not given it the force of UK law.

The Inter Country Adoption Act, which would give the convention the force of law, was passed by Parliament in July 1999, but has mostly still not been implemented.

Specialists have been waiting since then for the draft regulations and guidance to be published.

When they are, there will be a further three-month consultation period.

Mr Hutton has now said this will be hurried along, Ms Angell says.

We need to be able to ratify the Hague Convention.Among other measures, this would provide for fines and possibly even a jail sentence for couples who adopt a baby abroad without first gaining approval as they would have to in Britain.

However, there is a risk that in tightening the regulations and procedures, the government may fail to recognise the desperation of couples who want to do things properly but find formidable financial, logistical and bureaucratic obstacles in their way.

Ms Angell, who has acted for many couples adopting from abroad, says: It ought to be more regulated, but at the same time this country has to make it easier for people to adopt properly from overseas.

One worries that it is going to become more regulated without anything being there to help families.

And at the end of the day people will try to get round a system which is more controlling than facilitating.

Tim ORegan, a partner in Suffolk firm Rudlings & Wakelam and a member of the Solicitors Family Law Associations child law committee, outlines the hurdles over which couples need to jump to adopt a baby from abroad into the UK.

You need a home study report, Department of Health approval, immigration approval, you have to travel abroad, make payments to the overseas adoption agency, there are foreign legal fees, and sometimes you have to stay abroad for a period of weeks, he explains.

There is some hope for these couples in an adoption white paper published late last year.

One of the factors driving parents abroad to adopt is when they are turned down for politically correct reasons as unsuitable.

There have been cases of parents being refused because they are the wrong colour, the wrong class, or overweight.

Mr ORegan says the white paper proposals address this to some extent.

The government is taking steps to persuade local authorities to take a less politically correct approach to race or creed or whatever.

He also welcomes proposals to introduce an appeals procedure for parents who believe they have been turned down unfairly.

Much of the outcry over the Kilshaws case came from the role of the Internet in the case, but there is scepticism among solicitors that the Internet is the problem or, if it is, that it can be dealt with effectively.Mr ORegan says: The Internet is just a vehicle.

In this country, adoption agencies are already tightly controlled, and it is illegal to pay a birth mother, so the control via the Internet has to be over agencies abroad.

Duncan Calow, an IT partner at City firm Denton Wilde Sapte, who advised the last government, the present government and the European Parliament on the control of offensive material on the Internet, says technically it would be possible but not wholly effective to try to block access in Britain to the Web sites of foreign agencies offering babies for adoption.

Mr Hutton, the health minister, says he would be able to tell Internet service providers to block any sites the Department of Health disapproves of, because under the Adoption Act 1974, it is an offence to publish an advertisement offering an adoption service by an agency that has not been approved by a local authority.

Mr Calow says there are ways to attempt to shut out a site, but as soon as it changes the address, it has to be blocked again.

In the nature of technology it is possible to get round these things, he says.

The question is whether you think that, if you are 70% or 80% effective in blocking them, you have achieved your aim.

But all agree that the appropriate way to stop unscrupulous agencies would be for domestic governments, particularly the US, to control them more tightly.

Money changing hands in adoptions always seems distasteful.

The Kilshaws revealed that they had paid 8,200.

But even the issue of money is not as black and white as it first seems.Mr ORegan says that even in Britain, local authorities charge thousands of pounds a commercial rate for home study reports into the suitability of adoptive parents for overseas children, and in Britain they sometimes pay specialist agencies to place children.

The difference, of course, is that in Britain these agencies are strictly monitored and regulated.Ms Angell and other adoption experts maintain the best way to tackle all the issues raised by adoptions overseas would be for a single full-service agency to be set up in Britain to handle it, as happens in other countries.

This single agency would be responsible for the home study report, the immigration requirements, ensuring the child was properly available for adoption, and checking that all the legal requirements were satisfied in Britain and in the foreign country.

At the moment, she says: The best adoption agencies abroad dont want to deal with Britain because theyre having to deal with individuals rather than organisations or agencies.

So the British families are more at risk of being caught out by unscrupulous agencies or individuals.

The single agency would be able to hold the hand of couples abroad, deal with officialdom, and leave them free to bond with their new baby, she argues.

But the new agency would require start-up funding from govern-ment.

Is there any sign of that money being made available? Absolutely none, she admits.Stephen Ward is a freelance journalist