Social workers were right to order a child to be taken from its mother in Sussex even though the woman had done nothing wrong, appeal judges have ruled.

The judges said the “draconian powers”

available to council staff were a cost that had to be paid to protect the vulnerable.

They were ruling on a case involving a mother who sued police and a council after her child was removed because of fears which proved groundless.

The baby boy was born in October 2008.

His mother took him to hospital two months later after she reported he had stopped breathing.

Medical staff at Eastbourne General Hospital thought the child, identified as B in court, was fit to be released after two days but were concerned the mother, identified as A, had reported two other incidents of the baby not breathing.

No one else had seen the incidents and a consultant feared it could be an example of the mother fabricating an illness – once known as Munchausen Syndrome.

The consultant was under duty to notify social services and the police were informed. The baby was taken into foster care but was later returned to the mother after health officials decided she was a capable parent.

The mother sued East Sussex County Council and Sussex Police for damages but after the case was rejected she appealed.

Yesterday Mr Justice Hedley, speaking at the Court of Appeal, ruled that social workers had acted lawfully and rejected her claim.

He said: “It is wholly unsurprising in those circumstances that the appellant should feel aggrieved at having been under suspicion of creating a fictitious illness, at having her child removed from her for two days and at having to attend a mother-and-baby unit.

“Nor, indeed, is it possible for anyone to feel anything other than sympathy for her plight. On the other hand, child protection is just that. It is protection from the consequences of perceived risk.

“This litigation demonstrates child protection only comes at a cost – to an innocent parent who is subject to it based on emergency assessment of risk and to public authorities who have had to account in a judicial setting for the exercise of power.

“It is, however, a cost that has to be exacted if the most vulnerable members of our society – dependent children – are to be protected by the state.”