Britain - A couple who went into hiding rather than return two foster children to care have adopted them, a judge ruled yesterday.
Mrs Justice Hogg made an adoption order making half-sisters Jade and Hannah Bennett the daughters of Jeffrey and Jennifer Bramley. The couple fled to Ireland in 1998 for 17 weeks after Cambridgeshire social services decided that they were unfit to adopt the two girls, who had been placed with them as foster children.