Foster row couple condemn council (From Bicester Advertiser)
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Foster row couple condemn council
5:38am Tuesday 27th November 2012 in National News © Press Association 2013
Rotherham Council leader Roger Stone says he welcomes the inquiry into why foster children were removed from a couple who are Ukip members
A couple who had three foster children removed from their care because of their membership of the UK Independence Party (Ukip) have said council leaders should consider resigning after they failed to apologise.
The South Yorkshire couple said the council had told them they can only care for white children.
They said they would not have taken on the three children - a baby girl, a boy and an older girl - from an ethnic minority background if they were racist.
The foster mother, a nursery nurse in her 50s, told The Sun, said: "These children have now gone to other white, presumable British, couples. The only difference therefore is that these other people are not linked to Ukip.
"We wouldn't have taken these children on from an ethnic minority background if we had been racist.
"In fact the council are being racist towards us by saying that, yes, we can continue fostering - but for white children only."
The couple added that the Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council leaders should consider resigning after they failed to apologise.
A statement on the controversy from the council pledged full support to an inquiry ordered by Education Secretary Michael Gove, but the message from council leader Roger Stone offered no apology.
The foster parents told the Daily Telegraph they felt "slandered and besmirched" after social workers took the children away.
"They should be considering their position," the husband told the newspaper.
