Judges thwart mother's plan to name her daughter Cyanide after drug that killed Hitler
A mother who wanted to call her baby daughter Cyanide – because that was the poison that killed Hitler – has been thwarted by top judges in a landmark case brought by Powys County Council.
The mum – who also chose the name Preacher for the girl's twin brother – insisted that she had a human right to name her own children.
Cyanide, she said, was a "lovely, pretty name" and had positive connotations as the poison which ended the lives of both Hitler and Goebbels.
When Powys County Council social workers learned of the names the mother had chosen for the twins, they took the case to court in an unprecedented step.
And, in June last year, judges issued an injunction against the mother, forbidding her from formally registering the twins' unorthodox forenames.
Yesterday judges in the Appeal Court ruled against the mother and said it was an "extreme" case and that her "unusual" choices might harm her children.
The mum has a chaotic history of mental illness, drug and alcohol abuse and relationships with abusive men, said Lady Justice King.
The twins, as well as the mother's three older children, had all been taken from her care. The twins are now living with foster parents.
The mother's lawyers insisted that the refusal to let her name her own children violated her right to respect for family life.
But Lady Justice King, sitting with Lady Justice Gloster and Lord Justice David Richards, said that naming a little girl after a "notorious poison" was simply unacceptable.
Although there was nothing seriously objectionable about the name Preacher, she ruled that both twins' names should be chosen by their older half-siblings
