A SIKH couple who claim they were stopped from adopting a white child because they are Asian is suing a council.

British-born Sandeep and Reena Mander wanted to raise a youngster from any background – and rubbed their skin in front of a social worker to show they were not worried about ethnicity.

But the business execs were told by a council’s adoption agency it might be better if they "adopted from India or Pakistan" because of their ethnic roots.

The wealthy couple, unable to have their own children, launched a discrimination case against Royal Berkshire of Windsor and Maidenhead Adoption Service.

Launching their defence, the council accused the pair in court of requesting a ‘white’ or ‘hispanic’ child so it would look like them.

Katherine Foster, defending, told Oxford country court: "In your application, you stated you wanted a child who was white or Hispanic. You wanted a child who looked more like you."

But rubbishing the suggestion Mrs Mander replied: "I do not look white and I do not look Hispanic. We were advised not to tick every box, we did not mind what ethnicity the child was, we were willing to offer any child a loving home. All the correspondence felt like it was the colour of my skin which was why we were rejected.”

The court heard Adoption Berkshire's "gatekeeper" Ms Loades single-handedly rejected the Mander's adoption application. She told the court she "deferred the application indefinitely" because the couple wanted "a young under-three years old, simple needs child".

'INDIA OR PAKISTAN'

Ms Loades claimed the council had a lot of older vulnerable children who needed placing for adoption so she told Mr and Mrs Manders to "come back another time."

The court was told social worker Shirley Popat visited the couple’s five-bed home in Maidenhead to assess them. But in a 2016 phone call she “confirmed she would not accept our application due to our cultural heritage and our only other option was to adopt from India or Pakistan," Mrs Mander said.

Recalling a phone conversation between her husband and the social worker, Mrs Mander added: "I could hear from his voice that something wasn’t right.
His tone was shocked.

"I heard something about cultural heritage,” a smartly-dressed Mrs Mander told the court. I felt that I should have the same right to enter the process as anyone else.”

Katherine Foster, defending, told the couple: “You are now determined to attribute racism to these social workers. You interpreted it as being racist when it was not.”

Ms Foster conceded Mr Mander, the Vice President of an IT company, had dismissed the issue of race in a meeting. She said: “On April 14 Shirley Popat visited your home and your husband emphasised that you both have pale skin and touched his arm to show that point."

Ms Popat was criticised for making a “number of inaccuracies” in the family report, confusing relatives and noting a late uncle's age of death as 40 instead of 73.

The Manders claim direct discrimination on the grounds of race, in breach of Section 13 of the Equality Act 2010 and the European Convention on Human Rights.

The pair say they should not have been rejected from even joining the approved adopters' register because of where their parents were born. Royal Berkshire of Windsor and Maidenhead Adoption Service deny all the claims. Case continues.

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