One November afternoon at just after two o'clock, Louise Mason stood in a hospital ward and kissed her 11-week- old baby goodbye.

She had dressed the little girl with care, packing a suitcase of tiny clothes and soft toys. Inside, she had placed a handwritten letter to the foster parents who would look after her in the future.

On that day five years ago, Louise felt as though her heart would burst.

"I wrote down everything about my daughter," she told me this week.

"I said she had colicky attacks at six in the evening, and should be rocked until she slept. I said she needed to be coaxed to take her milk."

(Article continues below)

After writing that sad note, the young mother from Northampton was forced to hand over the baby girl to social workers, who carried her off to her new home.

Louise, 32, then returned to her house, with its empty cot, in the seaside city of Derry, Northern Ireland. It must have been one of the loneliest journeys of her life.

The baby girl - now aged five - has never been returned to this wholly innocent mother who, because she was wrongly accused of harming her baby, also subsequently had two other children taken away from her.

This week, though, a High Court revealed there had been a terrible miscarriage of justice, and ordered that Louise must be reunited with all her children.

Furthermore, the judge, Mr Justice Gillon - in an age where children are removed from their parents by family courts sitting in secret - took the extremely unusual step of allowing Louise to be named, and for the tragic details of her case to become public.

In a statement he said: "The workings of the family justice system in this case are matters of public interest, and do merit public discussion. Public confidence in the process is necessary, and the emergence of the changing circumstances of this case merits an open discussion."

He went on to list the extraordinary catalogue of events which began when, worried out of her mind, Louise took her sickly month- old baby daughter to her GP, begging for help.

These shocking details shed light on a family justice system normally hidden from view.

Of course, there are parents who harm their children and deserve the full punishment of the law.

Full article here.