A grandmother battling to gain access to secret files about her adoption will have to wait to learn if her fight through the High Court has been successful.

Linda Gunn-Russo's is challenging a decision by the Nugent Care Society, which was involved in her adoption more than 50 years ago, to deny her access to records, and also the Health Secretary's subsequent refusal last year to intervene in the case.

Her case, which is backed by the human rights pressure group Liberty, raises issues of general importance for adopted children and their "right to know" their past.

Mr Justice Scott Baker, sitting in London, said after a two-day hearing that he would take time to consider his judgment, which will be given at a later date.

Earlier he was told that Ms Gunn-Russo, had been allowed to see some information but it was insufficient to allow her to complete the jigsaw of her personal history.

Her counsel, Thomas de la Mare, said the adoption society had "fundamentally misunderstood the law of confidence and adopted inflexible rules" when it refused Ms Gunn-Russo, 54, of Crosby, Liverpool, access to files on her natural parents and adoptive family, Thomas and Kathleen Rogan.

She is also claiming it breached of her rights under the 1998 Human Rights Act.

But lawyers for the Nugent Care Society - previously known as the Liverpool Catholic Children's Protection Society and the Liverpool archdiocese Catholic Social Services - argued it was complying with the law.

A statement released by the society, which was founded in 1881, said: "It has not been the practice among adoption agencies hitherto to provide adoptees with copies of adoption records relating to adopters."

Files relating to the birth family were only released "to a limit extent".

The statement said: "Such information has always been regarded as confidential to the person providing the information, and it would not be disclosed without their permission.

"Even after their death, we believe that that confidence should be maintained. If there were exceptional reasons for disclosing information, the society would give them serious consideration."

Ms Gunn-Russo, a member of Trace, the Transatlantic Children's Enterprise, which helps children find their American GI fathers, was adopted in 1948 at the age of two and managed to trace her birth mother, Elizabeth Gunn, in 1976, visiting her frequently until she died in 1989.

Her mother was a nurse with the US Red Cross when she fell in love with Mid Russo, an American GI based in England just after the Second World War. He died before she could trace him. But Ms Gunn-Russo has maintained a relationship with her half-sister Joyce Russo.

See also

Grandmother's battle for the truth