From Times Online
June 2, 2008

A member of the Fundatmentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints

Chris Ayres in San Angelo, Texas

More than 400 children taken from a polygamist sect’s Texas ranch two months ago began returning to the arms of their tearful parents last night, hours after a judge bowed to a state Supreme Court ruling that the seizure was not justified.

“It’s just great day,” said Nancy Dockstader, as she embraced her daughter, Amy, 9, outside a foster-care centre in Gonzales. “We’re so grateful.” Her daughter and four other children were among the 430 ordered released after two months in state custody, much of it spent in foster-care centres.

The children were taken from the Yearning For Zion Ranch almost two months ago, after a woman claiming to be a teenage sect-member called an abuse hotline. It is now thought the call might have been a hoax.

The ranch is located on scrubland visible from Highway 277, about three miles northeast of Eldorado, a tiny ramshackle town with main drag comprised mainly of petrol stations and white clapboard churches. The town, which has a per capital income if just $13,000, was the setting of John Wayne’s 1966 Western movie of the same name.

In exchange for regaining custody of their children, the polygamist parents belonging to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints must take parenting classes and cannot leave Texas without court permission. They have also been ordered not to interfere with any child abuse investigation — such as allowing unannounced visits by social workers — and to allow the children to undergo psychiatric or medical examination. However, no restrictions were placed on the children’s fathers. Neither were their any requirements of parents to renounce polygamy or move away from the YFZ compound.

“We’re really grateful to get the order signed,” said Willie Jessop, an FLDS elder, outside the court in San Angelo yesterday.

A spokeswoman for Texas’s Department Child Protective Services, Marleigh Meisner, said the agency was pleased with the order but added that the investigation into possible abuse will continue.

“The safety of these children remains our only goal in this case,” she said.

In defence of its raid on the YFZ comapound, the agency presented witnesses in court who alleged that underage girls were being forced into marriages and sex. Nevertheless, the Third Court of Appeals in Austin said the agency had overstepped its authority in taking the children into foster case, a ruling that was later upheld by the state Supreme Court.

The FLDS denies all child-abuse allegations. The church, whose members believe polygamy earns a reward in heaven, split from the mainstream Mormon church in the 1930s over the issue of multiple marriages. FLDS officials now argue that they are being persecuted for their religious beliefs. Andrea Sloan, an attorney representing some of the children in the case, said that most of the children including the ruling would probably be returned home today because of logistical difficulties.

“I know the parents agree that the return needs to be orderly and safe,” she said. “We don’t want parents rushing the doors of the shelter.”

Both the Third Court of Appeals and the Texas Supreme Court rejected the state’s argument that all the children were in immediate danger from what it said was a cycle of sexual abuse of teenage girls at the ranch. Half the children sent to foster care were no older than five-years-old. The CPS’s case was not helped by the fact that several supposedly underage brides taken from the ranch turned out to be much older than first thought — largely a result of sect-members having identical names.

Nevertheless, a criminal investigation into the FLDS continues. Last week, Texas authorities collected DNA from Jeffs in an effort to confirm allegation that he had underage sex with girls aged 12 to 15 at the YFZ ranchy. Jeffs was convicted in Utah as an accomplice to rape and is jail in Arizona awaiting trial on separate charges.