Lawyer says old records branded children and families idiots
Wednesday 11th November 2026 on 20:16 in
Iceland
Old records described children and families as “idiots” and dismissed their accounts, according to lawyer Snorri Steinn Vidal, who spoke to mbl.is about files concerning children placed outside their homes by the authorities.
Vidal and fellow Solidum lawyer Bjarki Heiðar Bjarnason represent dozens of people who say they suffered serious abuse as children in care, including at Bakkakot, a farm in Rangárvellir. The lawyers have been reviewing extensive records about their clients.
Vidal said he was appalled by how the children and their families were portrayed. He said respected paediatricians and psychologists had written about them, and that some individuals and even entire families were labelled “idiots” or described as people whose word could not be trusted.
He questioned whether those who wrote the records had anticipated that later information-access laws would allow the individuals to obtain the documents and read what had been written about them.
Vidal said the descriptions could help explain why complaints from children and their parents were not taken seriously. Earlier reporting on Bakkakot said children had complained of abuse at the farm without adequate action being taken.
The comments came as the lawyers criticised draft legislation from the Prime Minister’s Office proposing general compensation payments on grounds of fairness. The draft was published in the government’s consultation portal on November 3. Vidal and Bjarnason submitted a 12-page response on November 10, welcoming the move while proposing substantial changes.
Vidal has called the proposed five-million-krona cap on compensation “shameful.” The lawyers also object that the bill would not guarantee victims publicly funded legal assistance. Vidal said such help was important because it could be difficult to obtain records of placements from decades ago, and said authorities had not always been willing to provide documents they held.
He added that many of his clients have little trust in public institutions after their experiences in childhood.