Adoption Act 1988

The court shall not make an adoption order in reliance on a consent given or purporting to have been given by a person if it appears to the court that – the consent was not given in accordance with this Act; or the consent was obtained by fraud, duress, or other improper means; or the consent was revoked at a time when it was lawful to do so; or the instrument of consent has been altered in a material particular without authority; or the person giving or purporting to give the consent was not, when the instrument of consent was signed, in a fit condition to give the consent or did not understand the nature of the consent; or the instrument of consent was signed before the birth of the child to whom it relates.

A court shall not make an adoption order in reliance on an instrument of consent signed by the mother of the child to whom it relates on, or within 7 days after, the day on which the child was born unless it is proved that, at the time the instrument was signed, the mother was in a fit condition to give the consent.

For the purposes of subsection (2), a certificate of a medical practitioner stating that, at the time when an instrument of consent was signed by the mother of the child to whom it relates, the mother was in a fit condition to give the consent is evidence of that fact.