THE couple who have been denied the chance to look after grandaughter have criticised the judgement calling it misleading.

In the courts final judgement, the couple are accused of physically abusing their own daughter, but this has been strongly denied by the couple who couldn’t afford legal representation in court.

The documents also reveal the couple’s unhappy relationship with their own daughter and suggest this would impact on their care of the grandchild.

However, the couple from Shoebury claim they would never harm a child.

The grandfather said: “The way this reads its as if we beat our daughter, but we never did anything like that. It was just an occasional slap on the back of the legs.

“This was in the Eighties when this was a normal thing to do. We didn’t have a lawyer in court and I was up against a sharp-tongued solicitor that grilled me and shouted me down over the slightest things.”

The 70-year-old grandfather said it was unthinkable they should turn their backs on their troubled daughter, whom they had tried to support through some very difficult times.

He said: “It was mentioned by paediatricians that she might have mental health problems as a child. Her problems really started when she was 15 and was badly bullied at school. She was difficult to deal with. We had a hole in a door where she’d thrown an ornament at it and she smashed a mirror. It wasn’t easy.

“We will always continue to see her, but if the judge allowed our grandaughter to come to us he could have made an order limiting her visits to her mother to four times a year under supervision.

"We wouldn’t allow her to influence the way we looked after our grandaughter. If there was an order we would have stuck to it or risk losing her."

The grandfather added: “My wife’s occasional bouts of depression which began with a bout of post natal depression wouldn’t affect her ability to care for a child. She is fine. She goes to work and hasn’t had it for a long time. She is down to half a pill a day.

“I don’t believe my daughter is in the right frame of mind to understand that her daughter is better off with us than being adopted.”

Southend Council have declined to comment further on the case.