Court takes Dutch teenage girl from parents to block her solo voyage
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Laura Dekker
Laura Dekker, a 13-year-old Dutch girl, has been taken into the custody of child protection officers after a court blocked her bid to make a solo sailing voyage around the world.
The world record-breaking journey, which had her parents' approval, would have taken Laura Dekker out of the classroom next week and through some of the world's most dangerous waters for the next two years.
But judges in Utrecht ordered the state child care authorities to take responsibility for the teenager over the next two months while an independent child psychologist assesses her capacity to undertake the risky voyage.
The girl was not in court but her father listened to the decision. Neither he nor the family's lawyer made any immediate comment.
Social workers argued that Miss Dekker was too young to be aware of the dangers of a solo journey and psychologists suggested that two years of isolation on the high seas would damage the young girl's development.
It emerged during the legal proceedings that the teenage girl had been placed in foster care by British police after she sailed single-handed from Holland to Britain in May.