In this BBC article, David Cowan reports on the Edinburgh, Scotland based charity, Birthlink, which has been fined £18,000 for destroying adoption related records.

The charity has also “apologised for the "inexcusable" destruction of around 4,800 personal records linked to adoptions in Scotland, including irreplaceable photographs and handwritten letters from birth parents.”

Since 1984, Birthlink was operating the Adoption Contact Register for Scotland so that details could be register by adoptees and birth parents to allow for future reunification.

However, when the charity began running out of space by early 2021, they shredded “the contents of 24 filing cabinet drawers.”

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj4wn00pz48o