Two of Britain’s most senior judges have accused social workers trying to take children away from their mothers too quickly of working as if they were in “Stalin’s Russia or Mao’s China”.

Lord Justice Wall – who today becomes the new President of the Family Division – said a mother fighting for her two children had been “quite improperly rebuffed” by social services.

In a similar case, Lord Justice Aikens drew the parallel with totalitarian states as he said social workers had no “absolutely no evidence” the mother mistreated her child.

They said social workers were increasingly being seen as the “arrogant and enthusiastic removers of children”.

The Court of Appeal has now given both women more time to demonstrate that they can care for their children properly.

The first case in the Court of Appeal involved Greenwich social services in London where Miss EH was fighting to keep her five-year-old son R and two-year-old daughter RA.

The alarm had initially been raised in January 2008 after RA was taken to hospital by her parents with an arm broken in three places.

Both children were placed in care, sent to live with their maternal grandmother and then ended up in foster care, even though Judge Hayward Smith QC, at the Principal Registry of the Family Division, concluded in November 2008 that the father was responsible for the broken arm and said it was clear Miss EH was a “warm and loving mother”.

However, he granted a permanent care order which meant the children could be put up for adoption after he agreed with Greenwich social services that Miss EH was still in contact with the father, even though they had separated.

But at the Court of Appeal, Lord Justice Wall said the conduct of the Greenwich social workers was “hard to credit”.

He said although he was aware that social workers were “damned if they do and damned if they do not”, this case had proved “quite shocking”.

“Here was a mother who needed and was asking for help to break free from an abusive relationship,” he said. “She both needed and sought help and was quite improperly rebuffed by a local authority which had plainly prejudged the issue.

“[Social workers] are perceived by many as the arrogant and enthusiastic removers of children from their parents into an unsatisfactory care system, and as trampling on the rights of parents and children in the process.

“This case will do little to dispel that perception.”

In the second case, Miss S, a teenage woman from Devon, is fighting attempts to force her to give up her son, Baby H, for adoption.

Lawyers for Devon County Council argued that Miss S had a tendency to form relationships with potentially dangerous individuals, putting both herself and her baby at risk. They said a further assessment would serve no useful purpose and that adoption was best before withdrawing their appeal.

But, at the Court of Appeal, Lord Justice Aikens said there was no evidence that the mother had maltreated her baby, or that a previously violent partner would have anything to do with H.

He said the “outside perception” might be of social workers who were effectively saying to the mother: “Whatever you may do doesn’t make any difference – we are going to take your child away.

“That is more like Stalin’s Russia or Mao’s China than the west of England – that is the impression you give.”

In their ruling, the judges made it clear they were not saying Miss S could keep her child, but that she should be entitled to a last chance to prove she was a good mother.