They put the Christmas decorations up a couple of days ago but no one in the Smith family feels much like celebrating. Despite the tinsel over their sons’ photographs, there are no excited children racing around the flat. Instead, Patrick, 6, and Donald, 2 – not their real names – will spend the holiday in foster care.

It started two years ago with a nosebleed. Robert Smith wiped his stepson Patrick’s nose and took him to school. A teacher spotted some dried blood, and asked Patrick what had happened. “Robert,” he said, and made a wiping motion. She went to social services, who called the police. That afternoon Mr Smith was arrested for assault and had to move out of the flat.

“We thought, it will all get sorted and go away. We knew we’d done nothing wrong,” he said. A criminal court threw out the charges after the prosecution admitted that it had no evidence. But social services would not let Mr Smith move back home. Stacks of legal paper under the Christmas tree chronicle the Smiths’ struggle in the family courts, where the case is still being heard.

Because reporters have been unable to cover such proceedings, their story would have remained untold had Mr Smith’s parents not read about The Times’s campaign and contacted the paper. Even so, The Times is unable to report details of the case against them.

For several months, Mr Smith could see Donald only twice a week under supervision. Social services did provide some help, and last spring the Smiths were reunited in an assessment centre. They thought everything was going well. But after eight weeks the children were taken into foster care because the parents showed “inconsistent emotional warmth”. The Smiths now see their sons for three supervised hour-long visits a week. The worst days are the ones in between. “You want to press fast forward on the world for the day,” Mr Smith said.

His parents have submitted a complaint about the way that social services have handled the proceedings. They also welcome greater transparency in the system: “If we were all allowed to put this in the paper from day one, social services could look more closely at what was going on in each case.”

For their family, time is running out. A preadoption hearing will take place in the spring. A tea towel pinned up on the kitchen wall spells out an encouraging “Don’t Quit”. The Smiths find it increasingly hard, however. “Life has been on hold for the last two years. The tape is paused,” Mr Smith said.

They hope that Mr Straw’s proposals will wind it on enough for them: “This is a step in the right direction, certainly. But everything starts slow. It always has to.”

Explore Law

• Columnists

• Law Panel

• Law Reports

• Student Law

Times Recommends

• The best legal yarns this Christmas
• Legal school 'earned £1m by exploiting bar course'
• Axe may fall on 5,000 more City lawyers