Author Archives: suesspiciousminds

“You’re going to fight THAT?”

Posted on June 6, 2014 by suesspiciousminds

I have had on my mind recently the old-fashioned notion of Trial by Combat, where one could elect a champion to fight on your behalf, and if your champion won, then you would win your case. Trial by combat is no longer lawful in this country, despite the noble efforts of Mr Leon Humphreys, who sought to persuade Magistrates that rather than pay a £25 fine for a trivial motoring offence, he would instead do battle with a champion nominated by the DVLA.

 

But of course, our British legal system, given that it is adversarial, does have an element of trial by combat to it. Both sides select their champion (or advocate), they clash swords or rather words and at the end a victor is declared.

That raises a difficult philosophical issue about justice – when the Judge makes their decision are they setting aside the performance of the respective champions and just getting to the pure Truth of the case, or could the outcome stand or fall on the selection of the Champion? If one swapped over the briefs, might the outcome be different?

It seems that in a fair judicial system, it ought not to matter very much who speaks on your behalf – the Truth should out, and the Judge get to the bottom of what really happened. But very often in care proceedings we are trying to sum up years and years of the lives of several people and reduce them down to 350 pages, and then questions are asked about those pages over three or four days.  There must inevitably be a degree to which the Judge is guided by what it is they are shown by the advocates – what is drawn out and brought to life, and those aspects that are not dwindle in significance.  Of course, the Court is not a rubber stamp, and will have read into the case and picked up on details and issues that neither advocate touches on, which is why they are allowed to ask their own questions.

 

It is really difficult to tell how much of a judicial decision is that the Truth is there and is laid bare in a judgment (just as Pythagorus’ Theorum was true before he set it out and would remain true if he had never found it and someone else had), or whether the questions are more akin to those history essays that ask you to set out the causes of World War I and there’s a range of possible Truths, possible answers – some more vivid and likely than others.  Is the Truth that we find in judgments a Universal Truth, or a particular version of the Truth?

 

I had the pleasure, when I was training, to see a lot of advocacy – this was in the times when lawyers used to ‘sit behind counsel’ and watch the whole final hearing and take a note – that exposed me to a huge range of advocacy, and I can tell you, when you see someone really shine at it, it is a thing of beauty.  I have seen Silks get brain surgeons to eat out of the palms of their hand, seen confessions gently extracted from a witness who had no idea they were going anywhere near such a thing, heard questions asked that make everyone in the court room want to mouth, in the style of Dan Maskell, tennis commentator “Oh, I say”. I’ve also seen the flip side, when blind alleys were stumbled into, points not taken, the issues not grasped, witnesses pushing the advocate around.

 

It isn’t always even that there are good advocates and bad advocates (though there are such creatures) – sometimes it can be good days and bad days, sometimes even that Sir Ronald Rutt is a good match for a very forensic case with lots of fine detail and voluminous notes to pore over and draw the witness into, but not such a good match for a combative witness like Mr Albert Haddock.

 

Sometimes I have been on the wrong side of an opponent who really sang, and for whom the Court of Appeal’s delicious phrase “The purifying ordeal of cross-examination” was particularly apposite. It can be a bruising experience watching what appeared to be a good case on paper become merely confetti.

 

Those are some idle musings of mine, which serve chiefly as an excuse to crowbar in a photograph of the Red Viper of Dorne, who I think would have made rather a good barrister.

 

Oberyn Martell

 

 

 

 

 

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Succeeding in an opposed adoption

Posted on June 6, 2014 by suesspiciousminds

 

 
There are cases – you can see them in law reports, read about them in the newspapers and sometimes see them for yourself, when a Local Authority seeks a Placement Order with a plan to adopt a child and the Court says no. {Just looking at the Bailii reports of county court cases since 22nd April, I can find three of those}

You can also see cases where the first Court says yes, and the Court of Appeal say no, and the Placement Order and the plan of adoption is stymied. So parents can and do, successfully fight PLANS for adoption.

 

What about when the plan is approved and the Court makes the Placement Order that allows the child to be placed with prospective adopters?

Once the Placement Order is made, a parent can apply for leave to revoke the Placement Order – to get the child back if the application to revoke is successful.

Since the Adoption and Children Act 2002, I have not personally experienced a successful application for revocation of a placement order by a parent, nor have I ever read about one in a newspaper. Nor have I been able to find one in the law reports. I have found some cases where LEAVE was given, but not any that ultimately ended up with the child coming home.

If the child is placed with prospective adopters, and they make an application for adoption, the parent may apply for leave to oppose the adoption application. Up until Re B-S was decided last year, the only reported case where that leave had been given to a parent had been immediately appealed.

That’s because pre Re B-S, the test was that the Court should follow a “stringent approach” and that it would be only in “exceptionally rare circumstances that these applications would be granted”

[That, in practice seemed to be “exceptionally rare” in the sense that a unicorn is exceptionally rare, rather than in the sense that a Cabinet minister is sacked sense of exceptionally rare]

In Re B-S though, the Court of Appeal decided that that was not on – Parliament had set out in the Adoption and Children Act 2002 that there was a remedy allowing a parent to oppose an adoption order under s47(5) of the Act, and if that was to be a real remedy rather than a merely illusory one, there had to be cases where leave would be given. The Court of Appeal decided that the mere fact that a child was placed with adopters and would be potentially unsettled was not enough to defeat a leave to oppose application, and if the parent demonstrated some ‘solidity’ to their case, it would be right to grant them leave and let them oppose the adoption.

Since then, a higher proportion of leave to oppose applications have been successful (or successful appeals after original refusals). But have any of them actually resulted in the parent getting their child back?

Since the 2002 Act, I have not found a single law report that shows a parent successfully opposing the adoption order and getting the child back. I have seen cases that could be counted on the fingers of one hand of opposition to adoption orders that resulted in the child remaining with the prospective adopters under a different form of order.

The closest anyone had come in a reported case (up until now) was in Re W (Adoption Order :Set aside and leave to oppose) 2010 [2011] 1 FLR 2153

In which a mother had not been served with the adoption application, despite telling the social workers that she wanted to fight it, and she persuaded the Court of Appeal that it was right to set aside the adoption order But the Court of Appeal then went on to decide that she failed in her application for leave to oppose, and that there would thus be an unopposed application for adoption, which of course would succeed. That’s about as pyrrhic a victory as one can imagine.
In fact, if you want to find the answer to the question “What happens to the child if a Court refuse the adoption application?” the case that answers it is from 1960 (which is two sets of Adoption legislation ago – the answer NOW is that the Care Order comes back into force, so unless the Court discharge the care order or make the new equivalent of a Residence Order, the adoption won’t go ahead but that doesn’t automatically mean the child will come home)
This raises two big questions for me

1. Where does that leave the Court of Appeal’s statement in Re B-S that parliament intended there to be a real remedy in s47 for a parent to fight an adoption application, rather than a merely illusory one?

AND

2. How can a parent’s opposition to an adoption order be said to have solidity, if nobody has ever succeeded in opposing one?

 

If in twelve years, no parent has successfully fought an adoption application and got their child back, is the whole concept of contested adoption really just an illusion, and moreover, an illusion that causes further pain and suffering to a parent, anxiety to the prospective adopters and takes up Court time that we can ill afford?
Those questions are thrown into sharp focus by this High Court decision that I am finally getting around to.

Borough of Poole v W and Another 2014

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2014/1777.html

This judgment was delivered by Sir Mark Hedley, in the High Court in April 2014. I will say, before we begin, that if I happened to be representing a parent in the High Court, the Judge I would be praying for would have been Hedley – you cannot have a more kindly and sympathetic tribunal. It would be a dream start.

In this case, the Judge had given leave to oppose the adoption application for a child SR, and thus this is one of the rare reported contested adoption judgments.

SR was 2 ½ years old. She had been removed shortly after birth, there having been care proceedings and adoptions of her older siblings. A Care Order with a plan of adoption and Placement Order was made – the parents appealed that decision and were unsuccessful. SR was placed with prospective adopters in November 2012 and her direct contact with her parents ceased.

The adoption application was made and the parents were granted leave to oppose.

[I note in passing that the Judge refers extensively in his judgment to 2011 caselaw, but does not touch upon Re B or Re B-S – no doubt these formed a major part of his judgment to grant leave to oppose]

“Although the final legal burden on the prospective adopters remains unchanged, the parents, according to Re W have a significant evidential burden of laying solid grounds of opposition to what has already been planned and approved by the court. I mentioned at the end of the hearing that I thought, this being, I think, the first case at full trial after the bout of cases in the Court of Appeal, that it would be proper normally to provide a written judgment so that others could see how the process works out”

[There has of course been the judgment in the opposed adoption case of Re N (A Child : Adoption Order) 2014 – but in that case, the father was not seeking the return of the child but to persuade the Court to make a Special Guardianship Order instead of an adoption order https://suesspiciousminds.com/2014/05/10/special-guardianship-versus-adoption/ ]
Coming back then to the essence of this case, all parties agreed that there were probably three factual questions that the court had to ask and answer. First, would SR survive the rehabilitation process? If yes, secondly, would the parents survive the rehabilitation process? If yes, thirdly, would they produce parenting consistent with the needs of SR over the balance of her childhood? It seems to me, in a case such as this, it is always best to start by looking at things as they will appear to the child herself. All the adult analysis and debate and arcane recital of authority is wholly incomprehensible to her. The world, so far as she is concerned, looks very different. She was removed from her parents after two weeks at hospital. However, unlike the other children, she had had no adverse parental experience this being, as it were, a likelihood of harm case, rather than a harm case. From the 4th August 2011 to about the 19th November 2012 she was placed with a foster carer called Karen, to whom she clearly became securely attached over that period of time. Moreover during that time, she had what I am content to accept, was positive experience of parental contact. Her life changed dramatically on the 19th November 2012 because she had to break that secure attachment and re-form it with people who were, in effect, strangers to her. There is no doubt that she had some difficulties with that. There is no doubt they were only the kind of difficulties that anyone would have expected and there is no doubt that they were substantially overcome. As far as she is concerned, the last parental contact she had was a lifetime away and since then she has settled down and made her home and family with the prospective adopters. Her parents will perforce now be strangers to her. She has only one home and only one world and that includes, as everybody recognises it would include whatever happens to her, the extended family of those who care for her.
Looking at the change in the parents since the Placement Order had been made, these were considerable – in fact, this bit is quite remarkable – in effect their former social worker was their McKenzie Friend. That’s not something I’ve ever come across before and may never see again.
They have been assisted throughout by Mr Levers, who is a retired social worker, indeed was once social worker to this family, but that had ceased before any legal proceedings here started. He has manifestly, with his wife, been a tower of strength to the parents throughout these proceedings. He has afforded not just litigation but personal support and I am entirely satisfied that such support would continue unabated into the future, whether it is in supporting the parents in renewing their care of the child or supporting them in their grief in being deprived of the opportunity of doing that.
The changes they had made are delineated

If we come up to today’s date, everybody accepts that the parents are in a very different position indeed to the one that they were in, in July 2011 or indeed October 2012. They enrolled themselves in university courses at the Greenwich Business School at its Greenford Campus in West London. They have set up their own home in Hayes in West London, having moved up from Dorset and they have established for themselves all the appearances of a stable lifestyle in which studies are accommodated and part-time work ensures both that they have control of money and also their ability to live independently. Moreover, the mother has completed and benefitted from therapies which were designed to address the emotional dysfunction which she recognised she had. The father has clearly benefited from involvement in a domestic violence course and the very fact that he saw it through is good grounds for optimism and it has been not without its benefits to him. Both the parents are able to give an articulate and compelling account of the progress that they have made. Both parents acknowledge the need for further work if so advised, both in respect of couple counselling and in the respect of the mother for some more individual work
What then are the concerns that were raised in particular in the expert evidence about the parents? The expert evidence consisted of the clinical psychologist and an independent social worker, both of whom have provided extensive written reports and gave oral evidence at this hearing before me. Both of them acknowledge the parents have made very substantial progress since they, the experts, first dealt with them when they, the experts, were recommending the permanent removal of the older children. Both experts, in their written evidence at least, concluded that if the parents have another child, whilst an assessment may be needed, the child should not be removed from them while such an assessment took place, though it is only right to record that in this, as in pretty well every other matter of which she spoke, the psychologist became increasingly cautious as she gave oral evidence. However, said the experts, the real progress that has been made is not enough to justify attempting a rehabilitation of this child at this time. They contend that much work remains to be done. The psychologist in oral evidence, though I am not sure she had said it in her report, said that some of that work, quite a lot of it, would have to take place before a rehabilitation started. They both said that it was really impossible to assess the real risks involved in rehabilitation without there being some significant contact which could be observed and evaluated. Of course, everybody in the case accepts that contact is simply impracticable unless and until an order has been made refusing the adoption. Those of course are all matters that I must take into account. I was left with the impression, and I do not assert this because it was only an impression, that the psychologist became increasingly cautious once she realised that serious consideration was actually being given to the case that the parents were seeking to advance.

Now, there are two other matters which have been universally advanced as grounds for concern about the parents. The first of those is a failure by the parents to accept their responsibilities for what has happened in the past. Now, I am ready to accept that there is something in this concern because it is clear to me that they do not accept the full implications of Judge Bond’s judgment of the 1st July 2011. However, they have, by what they have done, shown a real awareness of deficiencies in their own parenting and personalities. They have demonstrated a serious commitment to the cause of endeavouring to improve themselves and I think I am not as troubled as others by their failure, as it were, to make unmitigated confession in respect of everything that has occurred. I am not saying there is not something in it, but the something that is in it that may be truly significant, is a failure to appreciate just how far they would have had to travel to get from the 1st July 2011 to the place where rehabilitation could begin. Secondly, it is said that they have failed to work honestly and openly with professionals. I fully accept, as I think do they, that there have been some examples of that but that needs to be qualified I think by two other observations. The first is that they have certainly not been amiss at making admissions contrary to their own interests from time to time during the course of these proceedings. How otherwise could they have, as it were, done what they have done to demonstrate a commitment to improvement? Secondly, I think they and the social worker were placed in a next to impossible position by a family placement and adoption officer being left with the responsibility for dealing with a case which was, in fact, all about a removal and rehabilitation. Adoption and placement officers have a very distinctive role to perform, which is based on the assumption that a decision has already been made that adoption is in the best interests of the child and their role is to procure that end. The social worker was being asked to do something that was completely counterintuitive and I am not surprised that she and the parents found relationships in those circumstances difficult. Nothing turns on this, in my judgment, but it was canvassed in the evidence so I think I ought to express the view that I attach no significance whatever to anything that was or was not said in the last interview between the social worker and the parents. If the purpose of an interview is to establish evidence it has to be properly noted at the time. I thought we had all learnt that by 1984 at the latest and, of course, if that is not the purpose and there are other purposes well of course nobody has to sit there poring over notebooks, but it was being used as though that were the purpose of the interview and it was wholly inadequate to achieve that end.

I recognise that there would be some risk of the parents being less than fully candid with a professional. However, it seems to me that the whole history of the case viewed in the round encourages one to the view that they would be in relation to things that really mattered and that such a risk, if all other things were equal, would be a risk worth accepting

 

That left the Court in a very difficult position

Everybody agrees that there are only two possible outcomes in this case. Either an adoption order is made with resultant devastation to the parents and their families or a rehabilitation order is made with subsequent devastation to innocent prospective adopters who took this child under a placement order without a hint, so far as they were concerned, that the thing could ever blow up on them.
Therefore, those seem to be the choices that confront the court and I must evaluate those with care, bearing in mind both the lifelong perspective required by Section 1(2), and also that this is not a choice in any real sense. This is a case in which an adoption order will only be made if only an adoption order will meet the welfare needs of this child and that the welfare needs of this child requires an adoption order be made. I evaluate it bearing in mind what Thorpe LJ said about the last hurdle being the highest, but I also bear in mind that at the end of the day, the legal burden to establish adoption lies not on the parents but on the prospective adopters.
I think, because it was clear how difficult a dilemma this was for the Judge, it would be fair to set out his conclusions in full rather than to condense them. I will simply say that if THESE parents were unable to succeed in opposing an adoption, before THIS Judge, I am not sure when (or indeed if) I will ever see a successfully opposed adoption. [I think it is something of a shame that Lady Hale’s “nothing else will do” formulation does not come into this exercise, because framed in that way, it is possible that a different conclusion might have been reached – it is almost impossible to say]

Therefore, let me start with my consideration of the merits and demerits of the rehabilitative process. I am satisfied that the parents have been committed to the concept of self-improvement. I can see the basis on which they say that they have achieved all that has been asked of them, but of course I have to remind myself that it is where you start that determines how far you have to go and doing all that you reasonably can may not in fact be to do enough. I need to remember, in the context of rehabilitation, where SR is at now, where the parents are at now and the full implications of what is involved in working out rehabilitation. Thus, if it were successful the child would grow up with the natural parents in settings in which the vast majority of children grow up and I recognise that it was always going to be the case that whichever choice the court made in this case, SR was going to grow up separate and apart from B, M and H. On the other hand, if the rehabilitation were unsuccessful, everybody agrees that would be a disaster for SR. Of course, no one can actually predict what would happen if the rehabilitation were unsuccessful but all the realistic possible outcomes merit the description ‘disaster’, so far as SR is concerned. Hence, the three questions that emerged. Would SR survive rehabilitation? Would the parents survive rehabilitation? Can the parents provide the necessary ongoing care for the next 15 and 16 years? Let us come to those questions in the context of considering rehabilitation. Would SR survive rehabilitation? Well, the short answer is nobody can give a confident answer to that because there can be no contact and because nobody would have any choice but simply to see what happened when you tried it. Secondly, it will of course be a second breaking of secure attachments and an attempt to make a third set of attachments. It would involve the burning of all boats, because the prospective adopters would not be available to her, in the light of a breakdown in rehabilitation and she would have to start all over again. It would mean a move to two people, i.e. the parents, who I think are emotionally more fragile that the prospective adopters and it would involve assessing that risk in the context of consequence. A modest risk that involves a serious consequence, should it come about, will invite much greater caution than the wider risk for which the consequences are predictable and manageable. This very firmly comes in the first of those categories. I confess to having very real fears for SR, should this process happen because, although the risk of failure is by no means certain, it is clearly real and the consequences are so serious.

The second question, would the parents survive the rehabilitative process? I have more confidence in that. Even if they underestimate the possible difficulties involved, they do appreciate that seriously troubled waters would lie ahead and they are willing to relocate and they are committed to the process, so that were SR to survive the process, then it seems to me it would be fair to conclude that the parents probably would. However, that then leaves the third question: would the parents provide ongoing care throughout this child’s childhood? The parents are confident that they could and I fully accept that that expression of confidence is genuine, in that it reflects what they feel and believe. I have to confess, however, that I do not fully share that confidence, partly because of their emotional fragility and partly because of their unknown capacity to react to what may be wholly unpredictable and quite irrational demands and responses of an upset child. This is a radically different state of affairs from dealing with a new baby, as we are dealing with a child that is attempting to make, and putting at risk, the third set of attachments in the first five years of her life. My confidence is inevitably dented by the gravity of the consequences of it all going wrong.

Now, what are the merits and demerits of adoption? Well, the demerits are clear enough. She will be deprived of being brought up, as the vast majority of children are brought up, by their own parents. That can lead, I fully recognise, to issues both in adolescent and adulthood because a child who will know what the background is will know that they are not being brought up in the way in which children are usually brought up. On the other hand, one has to recognise that a placement of a child of this age who has good attachments to the prospective adopters will, in the overwhelming number of cases, lead to at least a satisfactory outcome of family life. Now, of course, you can have both at the same time. You can have a satisfactory outcome with all the issues that adoption can raise in adolescence and adulthood and the fact that they have been brought up differently. The two are by no means exclusive and one has to consider them all together.

Having as it were, looked at the respective merits of the approaches, let me stand back and review all this through the prism of Section 1 of the Adoption and Children Act 2002. I remind myself that subsection (2) requires that the paramount consideration of the court must be the child’s welfare, throughout her life. I am anxious when I reread subsection (3) which says, ‘The court must at all times bear in mind that, in general, any delay in coming to the decision is likely to prejudice the children’s welfare.’ Well, it was once pointed out in the past that SR had been involved in litigation for the whole of her life after the first fortnight and that remains as true today as it was then. Mercifully, for one reason or another, she will not be conscious of the litigation that goes on at some distance from her own awareness, though she will be deeply conscious, if not able to articulate, the fact that she has had two moves, three homes during the course of her life, if you include the first fortnight as one of them, which I do.

So far as Section 1(4) is concerned it seems to me that the key aspects of it in this case are the child’s particular needs, in terms of security and stability, having regard to her life experiences to date and the child’s age, which has the effect of making it impossible for her to understand the adult world in which her future is caught up or to explain to that adult world the effect that that is having on her. I used the expression earlier that we are likely to see unpredictable and apparently irrational demands being made by a child who has no other capacity to communicate when distressed or confused by what is going on around her. There are two other aspects. First, one must consider the harm that she is at risk of suffering; that is entirely, in my judgment in this case, associated with the risk from a breakdown in rehabilitation and the emotional harm that will be occasioned by that. It would not however be right to part with the matter without, secondly, considering the requirements of subsection 1(4)(f) which provides as follows:

‘The relationship which the child has with relatives and with any other person in relation to whom the court considers the relationship to be relevant, including the likelihood of any such relationship continuing and the value to the child of its doing so, the ability and willingness of any of the child’s relatives or any such person to provide the child with a secure environment, in which the child can develop or otherwise meet the child’s needs and the wishes and feelings of any of the child’s relatives or any such person regarding the child.’
Now, that is drawn in very wide terms simply because adoption can arise out of a whole concatenation of circumstances which bear little or no relationship to one another, as between one case and another. However, it seems to me in the context of this case that the court, as part of the welfare and the judgment is to take account of the fact that we have parents who are willing to provide the child with a secure environment in which the child can develop or otherwise meet the child’s needs and what is in question is not their willingness but their ability to do so and that seems to me a matter on which the court should reflect. Secondly, the wishes and feelings of any of the child’s relatives regarding the child. I have only cursory evidence as to the input of the extended family but it is enough to suggest to me that the parents when they speak, speak with the support of their families and that therefore the wishes and feelings of the extended families and the parents are properly to be taken into account. The parents have demonstrated a commitment to the child which entitles them to have their wishes and feelings considered. Therefore, in my review of all this through the prism of Section 1, I have reminded myself of the need for a lifelong perspective. I have reminded myself I am dealing with a child with particular needs, in terms of stability and security. I have reminded myself that I am dealing with a child too young to understand the adult affairs that surround her and in which she is inevitably caught up. I remind myself that a breakdown in rehabilitation would, on anyone’s account, give rise to a risk of suffering harm and I have taken close account, I hope, of the ability and willingness of parents to provide for her and their wishes and feelings about that happening.

I have considered this case with the most anxious care, considering how much is at stake, both for parents and prospective adopters who happily all have a real understanding of each other’s predicaments. However, above all what is at stake for SR? There can be no blame attached to any of the four adults for why we have all ended up where we have. Nevertheless, a decision of profound significance has to be made. In the end, I have reached a clear conclusion that there is only one route which will sufficiently safeguard the welfare of SR and that is the route of adoption. My real concerns about SR’s ability to survive the process of rehabilitation and the parents’ ability to sustain her care, whatever her reactions throughout her childhood, when seen in the context of their fragility and of the consequences to SR of a failure of rehabilitation and the need to then start all over again. All those matters when drawn together, in my judgment, require that adoption be provided as the way of securing her welfare and therefore require that the court dispenses with the parents’ consent. In making the order which, in my judgment, promotes the welfare of SR, I fully recognise the grief of the parents who do not share my view and I recognise that I have no comfort to offer them, beyond letterbox contact. If ever an example was needed of how legitimate and heartfelt aspirations of parents can be trumped by the welfare needs of the child, this surely is it. That said, those are the orders that I propose to make.

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Three months imprisonment for seeing your grand-daughter

Posted on June 5, 2014 by suesspiciousminds

 

Apologies for the Tabloid-esque heading, but it is a fairly succinct way of expressing the outcome of Derbyshire County Council v Kathleen Danby 2014

 

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCOP/2014/B22.html

 

I know that for many of my regular contributors, the issue of commitals to prison for breaches of Court order are an emotive topic, and one can’t help but compare this sort of sentence with the sheets of criminal antecedents I regularly see where repeat offenders have convictions for burglary, theft, assaults, breaches of the peace, etc stretching to seven pages without spending any time at HerMajesty’s Pleasure.  On the other hand, if a Court makes an order to safeguard a vulnerable person and that order is breached, something has to happen to the person who breached the order, otherwise why bother making it.

I don’t have a solution here, but I have to wonder whether the sentences that are given for breaches of Court orders are somewhat out of kilter with sentences given for criminal  offences against children  (the grandmother in this case received a 3 month sentence for breaching a court order not to contact her granddaughter, and if she had instead been convicted of neglecting her the sentence would have been similar, when the latter would appear to most people to be the more serious issue)

 

I am mindful also that this is a sentence for an illicit contact in breach of a Court order, and the sentence is 3 months, in comparison to the six months that Mr Quasim Shah got for what seems to me to have been a much more serious (and possibly abusive) situation.  https://suesspiciousminds.com/2014/03/14/contempt-adult-breaching-a-recovery-order/    I would think that the general public, thinking about these two cases would have expected Mr Shah to have got a sentence much greater than twice what Ms Danby got for their relative transgressions.

 

Anyway, on with the case

 

The young person B, is 18 and has a learning disability. She had been the subject of care proceedings and is now the subject of Court of Protection proceedings. Within the latter set of proceedings, an order was made setting out things that her grandmother, Ms Danby, is prohibited from doing

 

“The Second Respondent Kathleen Danby is forbidden to do any of the following, either by herself or by instructing or encouraging another person to do so.

“(a) From approaching or attempting to approach B personally or through instructing and/or encouraging any other person so to do.

“(b) from communicating with B in any way whatsoever, whether in writing or by post, telephone, fax, text messaging, e-mail or any other form of telecommunication or information technology, including internet, video calling (i.e. Skype), whether directly or indirectly through another, save that she may receive a single telecommunication call from B on a loudspeaker and supervised by the local authority their servants and/or agents to take place on the first Wednesday of each calendar month between the hours seven o’clock p.m. and eight o’clock p.m. only in strict compliance with the declarations on the face and the schedule of the order of Her Honour Judge …” (it says “Taylor”) that should be “… Thomas of even date (annexed hereto).

“(c) For attending at, entering or attempting to enter or go within J town (the town in which B’s placement is situated) either personally or through instructing and/or encouraging any other person to do so.

“(d) From attending at, entering or attempting to enter or go within 100 metres of XCollege, either personally or through instructing and/or encouraging any other person to do so.

“(e) From loitering within a radius of 100 metres of Y placementeither personally or through instructing and/or encouraging any other person to do so.

“(f) From loitering within a radius of 100 metres X College, either personally or through instructing and/or encouraging any other person to do so.”

Ms Danby did not attend the committal hearing. She would have been entitled to do so, and entitled to free legal representation. I do not know why she did not attend and it would be wrong to speculate.

The Court heard evidence about three alleged breaches of that order

 

 

“In breach of paragraph 1(b) of the injunction order on or before 28th February 2014 Kathleen Danby through herself and/or instructed or encouraged another person contacted and/or communicated with B to arrange to meet her 28th February 2014 at or about 17.27 hours outside the Z public house, next door to Y Placement (the placement). 

“2. In breach of paragraph 1(a) of the injunction order on or about 28th February 2014 at or about 17.27 hours Kathleen Danby met with B at or about 17.27 hours outside the Z public house, which is adjacent to the driveway of B’s placement, and passed to B a package, who immediately concealed it about her person.

“3. In breach of paragraph 1(e) on or about 28th February 2014 at or about 17.23 hours loitered within 100 metres of Y placement with the intention of meeting of B.”

 

The Court heard, in relation to those matters, evidence that B had effectively given her carers the slip on 28th February and that CCTV footage showed her meeting with and talking to an elderly lady, identified by people who know her as being Kathleen Danby.  B returned to her carers very animated and talking about having seen her grandmother, and her behaviour was later adversely affected, including attempts to self-harm.

 

 

  • on 28th of February. On that day I am persuaded, not on a balance of probabilities but because I am certain, that B had a meeting with her grandmother. P.C. Hamilton has seized CCTV footage from the X public house which shows the road from the pub which is next to the driveway to Y Placement where B lives and he sets out what can be seen very clearly in his written evidence. He says this:

 

 

“I viewed the footage in a private office inside the pub. The footage shows a lady, who I can describe as being white, approximately sixty-five-years, approximately five foot four inches in height and had prominent white hair that is collar length. She enters the pub by the front door at 17.21 and camera 13. The footage then shows the lady walked to the rear of the pub and going to the toilets. The lady is then seen leave the pub by the front entrance at 17.23 and stand towards the edge of the camera footage close to the pub car park. At 17.27 B is then seen running towards the lady with arms open wide and immediately hugs the lady who is seen reciprocating. They then stand in the same position for a few minutes during which a car parks, pulling up, parking across the road. The lady and B then walk back up towards the pub entrance and some items are passed between the two.” [In fact I think it is one item that I saw]. “The lady is lastly seen handing something to B. The pair split up with B walking over to the car and the lady walked past the entrance to the pub, past the entrance to Y placement.”

 

  • He himself says he never had seen the original picture of Mrs. Danby, so he cannot personally identify her, but for reasons I shall come to it is clear that it is she.

 

 

 

  • What is also clear from that CCTV footage alone is that the lady concerned was loitering, as is complained of by the local authority, in the area nearby to the Y placement, so that of itself is of course partly a breach of the injunction.

 

 

 

  • I have said that this lady is the grandmother of B is absolutely clear. It is clear not just from the intimate way in which the two greeted each other and the passing of items, but because it is clear that B went on to describe the meeting to Mr A as being with her grandmother. For that night she was due to go out to another care home. She had been having difficulties with her co-resident and Mr. A was taking her to a different home for the evening to have time to cool down. He was waiting for a taxi to take them and at 5.30, approximately, he saw B speaking to an elderly woman. When the taxi came he called to her, but she did not initially come. He got in the taxi, it moved slightly along the road, then he shouted for her to come over and eventually she did and she came over to the taxi and got in.

 

 

 

  • He noted that for the rest of the evening that B was “hyper”, to use his word, but she said this to him: “I bet you’d like to know who that is.” And he said he didn’t. “No, that was my grandmother.” “Which grandmother?” “The one from Scotland.” “She’s come all that way?” “She came to see me.” It was thereafter for the rest of the night that B kept discussing both her grandmother and her father in considerable detail. Indeed, she had with her that night a DVD that her grandmother had previously supplied to her of her life going to school when she was a young girl.

 

 

 

  • So it would seem that B knew whom she was going to meet and knew precisely what was going to happen and so it is clear, in my judgment, that there had been a pre-arranged meeting. It is beyond mere coincidence that B should be in the street at the very same time as her grandmother from Scotland was in the area waiting too as if there was an appointment to meet. It must have been pre-arranged; it could not be a mere accident.

 

 

 

  • There is further corroboration for it being the grandmother in the evidence of Mr H for he says this on discussing matters with B on 4th of March.

 

 

“I then asked B about her meeting on 28th of February with her grandmother. B said her grandmother had come to see if she was okay and safe as F had told her grandmother she had previously absconded and been missing. I asked her if her grandmother had given her anything. She said she had not. I said the police had CCTV footage of the meeting and the police have stated that Mrs. Danby handed B an envelope/package which B then concealed in her top/jacket. She said the police were lying about this. She then became agitated and appears to be low in mood. She stated she did not want to talk further.”

 

  • P.C. Hamilton spoke to B on 1st of March. She denied seeing her grandmother then, though it is plain from what she said both the evening before and to Mr. H that she did. He noted that B’s behaviour has been deteriorating, even though, as the local beat bobby, he has noticed that she has become more settled generally whilst at Y Placement– in other words, it was the events of late February of this year that have made her more volatile and unpredictable.

 

 

 

  • Ms C tells me of further events on 2nd of March. B absconded again on that date and on 6th of March she absconded from a holiday in Rhyl in North Wales. She describes the recent behaviour of B as deteriorating and out of character. Evidence that is corroborated further by Mr. H and by Ms B.

 

 

 

  • So it is that in my view I can be satisfied beyond doubt, I am satisfied to the criminal standard of proof, that the breaches of injunction complained of by the local authority are all made out.

 

 

 

The Court satisfied itself to the criminal standard of proof that there had been a breach of the Court order, and went on to consider sentence

 

 

  • The evidence, as I observed at the final hearing of her future residence and care plans, pointed unequivocally for the need for her to have a period of peace from intervention in her life from her grandmother and her father, hence the final orders that I made.

 

 

 

  • I am sure, too, that the deterioration in her behaviour results from these meetings with her grandmother. Her behaviour has deteriorated; she has self-harmed; she has assaulted staff; she has threatened her co-resident and she has run away. Not in a sense that she disappears by being an hour late, which she does from time to time as is perhaps typical late teenage behaviour, but because she literally runs away and has to be found with the help of the police.

 

 

 

  • Accordingly, I take a serious view of the behaviour of Kathleen Danby and it is plain to me that unless restrained by serious punishment she will simply continue to behave the way she has.

 

 

 

  • I remind myself that the case of Hale v. Tanner sets out that punishment is not the aim of the court, but rather to express its concern at breaches of its orders and the need to effect protection. In those circumstances, in my judgment, there should be a suitable punishment.

 

 

 

  • Miss Cavanagh has reminded me of the options available to me – although of course the local authority has not had the temerity to tell me what to do. I could impose a custodial sentence and then order the case to be listed before me for review. So, I could issue a warrant and then if this lady is arrested or on the review date, as the case maybe, the sentence can be reviewed and it can be reviewed downwards if I have a wrong impression of this lady’s attitude and approach.

 

 

 

  • In the circumstances for each and every one of these breaches of the injunction I shall sentence this lady to three months’ imprisonment concurrently.

 

Ms Danby would have the opportunity to come before the Court to ‘purge her contempt’  that is, to give an apology for her behaviour and an explanation for it, in the hope of the Court ending her sentence or reducing it. That may be more likely in this case because she did not attend.

 

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Private law appeal (unsuccessful)

Posted on June 5, 2014 by suesspiciousminds

The Court of Appeal have given judgment in Re H (Children) 2014  http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2014/733.html

 

This relates to an appeal from the decision of Parker J to make an order transferring residence of three children from their mother’s care to their father’s care AT AN INTERIM STAGE – the case is not over and further steps are being taken prior to the final hearing of the private law applications.

 

The interim change of residence followed a finding of fact hearing in which the mother made very serious allegations about the father – including that he had raped her and hit the boys with a belt. The boys had made that allegation during police ABE (Achieving Best Evidence) interviews.

 

The Court of Appeal are quite right, to make sense of the appeal, one needs to look at the context of the litigation, which they set out in summary form

 

  • In order to make sense of what follows, it is necessary to set out the bare bones of the chronological history which catalogues the development of evidence with respect to each of these two core themes.

 

 

 

  • On 4th April 2013 the mother applied for an injunction against the father under the Family Law Act 1986 and made applications for residence and supervised contact orders with respect to the children. In her witness statement supporting those applications the mother did not complain that she was the victim of any physical or sexual violence from the father save for one occasion nearly twenty years earlier prior to their marriage. She did, however, allege that the father was highly controlling and threatening in his manner towards her and that he would regularly assault the children and, in particular, would take a belt to them if he considered that they had misbehaved. The father issued a counter application for contact and specific issue orders regarding the children’s schools.

 

 

 

  • The first court hearing took place on 15th April 2013 before DJ Hodges. At that hearing the mother’s position had changed from one of supporting supervised contact between the children and the father. Her case was that the elder boy, A, opposed the two younger children having direct contact with the father and the mother herself therefore opposed direct contact for any of the children. At the hearing the District Judge explicitly stated that the court would start with the presumption that children should grow up knowing both parents. Some 2 hours after the conclusion of that hearing the mother and A attended the local police station and made allegations about the father’s behaviour. The police record shows that, in addition to the allegations of violence towards the children, the mother alleged that the father had also been violent towards her, but that his abuse of her was “mostly emotional and sexual”.

 

 

 

  • On the following day, 16th April, police visited the mother and the children at the refuge. Notes of that visit indicate that C and A made allegations of physical assault by their father, but that these were not substantiated by B’s account. The mother’s complaint was of emotional and mental abuse. She made an historical allegation that he had raped her and she stated that he had physically abused her, but that this had not happened for some years. In subsequent police interviews (in April and in September) the mother came to make allegations of repeated rape and controlling behaviour.

 

 

 

  • On 23rd April A undertook a formal Achieving Best Evidence [“ABE”] interview with the police in which he made various allegations of physical assault by the father, including the use of a belt.

 

 

 

  • Matters then took a striking turn when, on 30th April, the father filed a statement exhibiting a number of notes and other documents written by the mother which described how she had herself been violent to the children, that she was unable to cope and was unable to control her consumption of alcohol.

 

 

 

  • At his subsequent police interview the father denied the allegations of rape, violence and controlling behaviour. He accepted that during one of A’s violent outbursts he had physically intervened.

 

 

 

  • The first hearing before Parker J took place on 7th May 2013 in which the judge heard oral evidence from the mother, father and paternal grandmother. The judge’s judgment on that occasion indicates that the background material produced by the father, originating as it did from the mother’s own hand, suggested that the father’s case that the mother was emotionally very troubled, was borne out. The judge said that the material that had been produced “worries me in the extreme, particularly the mother’s reference to drinking, Alcoholics Anonymous and being physically out of control with regard to the children”. The case was thus one in which allegations flowed in both directions.

 

 

 

  • Having heard the mother’s oral evidence with regard to the father’s behaviour and, in particular, his use of a belt on the children, the judge was plainly unimpressed with her credibility and stated “I thought that the mother’s evidence with regard to the belting was all over the shop to put it bluntly as to what actually she said had happened and what precisely she knew”. The judge was, however, plainly impressed with the “quite excellent” paternal grandmother who the judge described as being “true as steel, stout as oak”.

 

 

 

  • As a result of this, her first encounter with this case, the judge developed a very clear strategy as to the way forward. Whilst expressing concerns that the mother’s presentation, and the children’s allegations, might indicate that the children had become “recruited children”, in the sense that they had fallen in with their mother’s view of matters, the judge was prepared to accept, for the moment, that these matters were as a result of her troubled emotions and were not deliberate acts. The judge therefore ordered that the two younger children should be made available for contact with their father each Saturday during the day, but that all such contact should be supervised by the paternal grandmother and a paternal aunt. A was free to attend contact with his father and brothers should he desire. The judge fixed a further hearing for the end of June.

 

 

 

  • Three days later, on 10th May, the mother made a without notice application to stay the contact order. Fortunately it was possible for the father and his legal team to attend court on that hearing before Parker J, who, having heard the matter, dismissed the mother’s application. It is apparent that, again, the judge heard oral evidence from the mother on that occasion. The judge records the mother as saying that she was not relying on her serious allegations of domestic violence against herself and the children in opposing contact, but upon the need for the family to “heal” from the difficult marriage and marital circumstances and for the children to repair their relationship as siblings before contact could take place. The judge expressed great concern about what she perceived as the mother’s shifting stance in the proceedings, which did not demonstrate a solidly-founded mindset upon which the court could place any confidence. The mother’s application for a stay was founded upon A refusing point blank to attend any contact with the father and the younger children being said to be visibly upset and awake all night after being told of the proposal for contact. The judge on this second hearing expressed herself as having far more cause for concern as to the extent to which the children had been drawn into adult concerns and adult perceptions. The judge considered that the mother’s “havering and wavering about what her case actually is” supported her view that a firm grip was needed to be taken on contact before there was further opportunity for matters to deteriorate. The judge therefore repeated that she expected contact to take place in accordance with the order.

 

 

 

  • On 28th June all three children were interviewed by police and made allegations of violence against their father.

 

 

 

  • The judge had directed the local authority to provide a report pursuant to Children Act 1989, s 37. In that report, which is dated 26th July, the local authority recommended that no contact with the children’s father should take place “for the time being”.

 

 

 

  • At the end of September, and again in a revised document one week later, the mother filed a detailed schedule of allegations. That second (revised) document raised, for the first time during the court process, allegations of rape “on numerous occasions” from l992 onwards.

 

 

 

  • At this stage the father filed additional material including video, audio and photographic evidence which included a film apparently taken by A of a violent assault by C on B. It was apparent that the father was not present in the house and the children were in the care of the mother, who, apparently, can be seen ineffectually attempting to stop the assault and then leaving the room. This material was viewed by Parker J during a hearing on 29th October. That hearing, which had been intended to be a substantial fact finding process, was thwarted in two respects. Firstly, sadly, the mother’s father had died some five days earlier and she was not available to attend for all of the three or four day trial. Secondly, as a result of a failure by the police to respond to orders for disclosure, the court did not have access to key police records. The case was therefore adjourned part heard. However, at this hearing the court again heard evidence from the mother, father and paternal grandmother. In a short judgment given on 30th October the judge concluded that the risk of the children being put under pressure by the mother was very high in the light of the mother’s inability (apparently demonstrated in the witness box) to restrain herself in airing what she says about the father, including allegations of rape, in the children’s presence. The judge concluded that professionally supervised contact was not in the children’s interests, as there was a high risk that the children would understand that they should behave badly at contact so that this behaviour would be seen by the contact supervisors.

 

 

 

  • Although the judge was plain that the fact finding process was not concluded, and that she kept an open mind, she was struck by the fact that the two younger children had not made assertions of being belted by their father until after the judge herself had made her adverse comments relating to the mother’s oral evidence at the May hearing. The judge seriously entertained the view that the younger children may well have sought to provide corroboration for the allegations that were being made by picking up from the mother’s conversation, either directly with them or by overhearing what she said to A, what the issues in the case were. The judge therefore considered that contact should be reinstated to the father as soon as possible for the younger two children. The judge was clear that, because of A’s alliance with his mother, he should not attend those contact visits, but could, if he wished, have supervised contact with the father. The matter was set down to conclude the fact finding process at a two day hearing on 19th December.

 

 

 

  • Between the October and December hearings contact took place, but not without incident. It is not necessary to spell out the details, but in consequence of the difficulties on 4th December the father applied to enforce the contact order and applied for a residence order with respect to the two younger boys.

 

 

 

  • The fact finding hearing concluded on 19th and 20th December with judgment being given on Monday 23rd December. On the first day of the hearing the court ordered that B and C should stay overnight that night with the father. During their stay the two boys received a text message on their mobile phone from their elder brother A encouraging them to disrupt their time with the father. Part of the message read “fight, break stuff and argue to get out of this situation…you know what to do to get out of this situation…if you don’t act [F] will have custody of you after tomorrow. Good luck. Break, destroy and burn.”

 

 

 

  • At the conclusion of the hearing on 23rd December the judge made an immediate order transferring residence of the two younger boys to the father and making a residence order for A to the paternal grandmother. It is against those orders that the mother now seeks permission to appeal.

 

 

The appeal was centred around 3 issues

 

1. That the judge had come to conclusions prematurely about the allegations, making up her mind before hearing all of the evidence. In part because the earlier history of the litigation had set her mind against the mother’s allegations before the evidence was properly tested at a finding of fact hearing.

2. That in meeting the boys whilst the finding of fact hearing was going on, the exercise crossed from the appropriate one of familiarising the children with the Court and the process into an inappropriate one of gathering evidence  (I note, in passing that Parker J was of course the Judge who was recently criticised by the Court of Appeal for just this issue, having asked a child some 87 questions during an hour long interview http://www.familylore.co.uk/2014/05/re-kp-childs-meeting-with-judge-is-not.html )

 

3. That the Judge had decided that the case warranted an expert of particularly high calibre to assist, but then went on to decide that as the expert she had in mind was not available, no expert would be instructed.

 

[For my mind, looking at this purely from the outside, the third point is the best one, but relatively little was made of it]

 

Point 1 – the appellant claimed that the Judge had prematurely reached conclusions and as a result had curtailed mother’s ability to call witnesses and to put matters to those witnesses who had been called (regular readers will know that this is the Jones v NCB point – has the Judge ‘descended into the arena and become a participant in proceedings’ ?

 

This in part is complicated by the fact that the Judge had previously conducted a hearing in the case, and evidence had been heard during that hearing. Was the Judge entitled to rely on the impressions she formed of the evidence in the earlier hearings, thus allowing her to fairly restrict evidence and the extent of the evidence this time around? The Court of Appeal said yes, she was.

 

  • The range of detailed points about the judge’s conduct of the proceedings all, to a greater or lesser extent, come back to the central submission that the judge formed a premature conclusion on the factual material which was adverse to the mother’s case. That the judge had formed a preliminary view by, at the latest, the end of the October hearing, seems clear. In the light of that view, and conscious of the very tight timetable within which the December hearing had to be completed (given that the judgment was in fact handed down on the first day of the vacation), the judge may have been justified in excluding certain matters entirely from consideration in oral evidence, limiting the witnesses and the time available for cross-examination. On this point Mrs Crowley’s core submission is that the judge was wrong to use the early adverse view she had formed of the mother’s evidence to determine the allegations that had been made by each of the three children and to do so without a proper evaluation of the primary material that only became available to the court at the December hearing. That primary material comprised of the disclosure that was received from the police, including, importantly, the records of the various interviews undertaken by the children and the parents together with a DVD recording of A’s ABE interview. In particular, a point is made concerning the judge’s assumption that the younger boys only made allegations of physical assault by their father after Parker J had made adverse observations about the mother’s credibility at the May hearing. That assumption was shown to be erroneous with respect to C on disclosure by the police on the eve of the December hearing of a note of the interview with him undertaken by the police on 16th April. Mrs Crowley submits that the judge simply failed to engage with this new material and did not refer to it in the judgment.

 

 

 

  • In this respect Mrs Crowley is correct. At paragraph 63 of her December judgment the judge deals with the issue in this manner:

 

 

“I have thought very hard, notwithstanding the evidence that I have heard about good contact, whether there could have been incidents when the father had taken a belt to the children, whose behaviour was, as I have said, seriously out of control at this time. But as a result of the combination of the timing; the older boy’s assertions; the fact that the children were taken to the police station, as they must have been, in order to make this disclosure; the fact that I had made comments in my judgment only weeks previously about the lack of any assertion by the boys; I have come to the conclusion that I cannot place any reliance on these allegations. Also, the mother’s case about what she knew at the time has been markedly unreliable and inconsistent. She cannot possibly have not known about beatings at the time had they happened.”

 

  • It can be seen that the judge’s understanding of the timing of the boy’s allegations, coming after her adverse comments in the May judgment, is but one of the factors relied upon by the judge. It must also be borne in mind that the interview with the boys at the police station on 16th April, whilst happening prior to Parker J’s observations, took place within 24 hours of DJ Hodges indicating that the presumption would be for direct contact to take place.

 

 

 

  • In her skeleton argument in response to this application, Miss Pamela Scriven QC for the father submits that the premium now placed upon ensuring judicial continuity in these cases is partly justified by the fact that it is beneficial for a judge, over the course of successive hearings, to form a developing view of the evidence as it unfolds. I entirely agree with that submission, and Mrs Crowley does not seriously dispute it. It is, in my view, wholly artificial to regard one part of the series of hearings conducted in front of Parker J to be, in some manner, a free-standing, fact finding hearing in which the judge must ignore any previous views she had developed as a result of evidence heard on prior occasions. In a case such as this, where, fortunately, judicial continuity had been largely maintained, the proceedings before the judge, at successive hearings, should be regarded as one single process. Before the start of the December hearings this judge had heard the mother give oral evidence on three previous occasions. At the December hearing she received the material that had been disclosed by the police and watched A’s ABE interview.

 

 

 

  • In her judgment the judge rejected the allegations that were made by the mother having expressly referred, once again, to the “marked inconsistencies” in the mother’s accounts. With respect to A’s ABE interview the judge observed that his demeanour was “quite remarkably flat” with no sense at all of any emotional engagement. The judge observed that “there was every sense of giving an account which had been repeated, perhaps in his own mind, on many occasions, rather than being any form of spontaneous recall”. That description is not challenged within this appeal and we have not been invited to view the ABE interview ourselves. The judge concluded that the father may very well have been over-rough with A on one particular occasion, but she observed the difficulties in dealing with a child whose behaviour is physically very challenging.

 

 

 

  • The judge reviewed the evidence relating to allegations made by the boys more generally, and, in particular, about being hit by the father with a belt. I have already set out the judge’s conclusion on this point which is at paragraph 63 of her judgment. The reasons given by the judge, save for her misunderstanding as to the timing of the first allegations made by the younger boys, is supported by the evidence to which she refers and the conclusion to which she came was plainly open to her on that evidence.

 

 

 

  • Once it is established, as I consider it is, that the judge was entitled to form a preliminary view of the veracity of the mother’s core case following hearing her oral evidence at the two hearings in May, I consider that the criticisms of the robust case management that the judge undoubtedly deployed in December must fall away.

 

 

The nub of this is really the timing of the allegation that the father had hit the boys with a belt, which came right on the heels of  DJ Hodge telling the mother that direct contact would be in the interests of the children (no allegations of physical abuse were being made by mother at that hearing, but they emerged immediately after). At the fact finding all of the mother’s allegations were rejected, and Parker J reached a decision that the mother’s behaviour had gone beyond a misguided belief that the children were at risk or over-protectiveness and into darker areas.

 

The change of residence is interesting – the boys were expressing the view that they did not want to live with their father. The social worker did not support a move, nor did the Guardian. (note the criticisms below of the Guardian)

 

  • Neither the social worker nor the Children’s Guardian supported an immediate change of residence. In justifying her conclusion in favour of an immediate change of residence, the judge explained her reasons for disagreeing with these two professionals as follows:

 

 

“72. The social worker, JW, who is warm, caring and committed, urges me to leave the children living with the mother because that is what they say they want. Until I enforced contact she was also saying that there should be no contact, because that is what the boys say they want. The proof of that pudding has been very much in the eating, on present showing. I have more than once stressed in this case, as in others, that the word used in the Children Act about wishes and feelings is “ascertainable” and not “expressed”. “Ascertainable” often means that the Court has to look at actions rather than words. The ascertainable wishes and feelings of these boys have been demonstrated by the evidence that they are more than happy to be with their father. I suspect they may feel some relief being out of the maelstrom. Their grandmother is calm and robust.

 

73. The Children’s Guardian also urged me to do nothing and not to intervene because of what the boys say they are not willing to see their father. She has done remarkably little as a Guardian. She has not read most of the papers, she hardly knows the boys. When it was put to her that if this was a case of parental manipulation and recruitment, then this could be or would be emotionally abusive to the boys, she took that on board seemingly, or at least superficially, but then said, “But the boys say they don’t want to go.” She was reminded that they were fine when they went on contact. “Oh,” she said, “but the boys don’t want to go.”

 

  • At paragraphs 74 to 76 the judge then set out her conclusions:

 

 

“74. I regard parental manipulation of children, of which I distressingly see an enormous amount, as exceptionally harmful. It distorts the relationship of the child not only with the parent but with the outside world. Children who are suborned into flouting court orders are given extremely damaging messages about the extent to which authority can be disregarded and given the impression that compliance with adult expectations is optional. Bearing in mind the documented history of this mother’s inability to control these children, their relationship with one another and wholly inappropriate empowerment, it strikes me as highly damaging in this case. I am disappointed that the professionals in this case are unable truly to understand this message. The recent decision of the Court of Appeal, Re M (Children) [2013] EWCA Civ 1147 requires to be read by all practitioners in this field. Lady Justice Macur gave firm and clear guidance about the importance of contact. Parents who obstruct a relationship with the other parent are inflicting untold damage on their children and it is, in my view, about time that professionals truly understood this.

75. I am in no doubt that I am entitled to disagree with the view of both the Guardian and the social worker, both of whom, although expressing their own views forcefully, recognise that the decision is for me, having surveyed all the facts and depending upon the findings that I make. I disagree with them because they have not taken into account the degree of parental manipulation and the dangers presented to the younger children from the inappropriate power given to the eldest boy. I am in no doubt that the mother’s track record is such that she cannot safely have unsupervised contact to her two younger boys at the moment. Much though I would like to give these boys a Christmas as they want it, or as they believe they want it, it is unsafe for them to spend Christmas Day with their mother and her family. Quite apart from anything else, the mother accepts that the two younger children should spend Christmas with the father and his family. They should be told that that is now the parental agreed plan.

76. I am in no doubt that the boys must remain living with their father until this case can be looked at again. I see no chance of any significant change to divert me from that view. I am not inclined to bring this matter back before the circuit judge in January, when I am away, unless there is some emergency which needs to be dealt with. There does need to be some form of further investigation. I am not at the moment persuaded, particularly because an expert of proper calibre has not been identified, that there needs to be any form of psychological assessment. That simply detracts from the judicial role and, after all, it is not experts who make findings and decisions; it is the Court. I would like to see how things settle down.”

 

 

Point 2 – the Judge meeting with the boys

 

 

  • On the morning of the second day of the December hearing the judge conducted two judicial meetings with the children, firstly with the younger two and secondly with A. Depending on the circumstances of any given case, a judge may see a child for a variety of purposes. Such purposes are, however, likely to fall under one or both of two heads, namely providing an opportunity for the young person to say anything that they wish to say to the judge and, secondly, providing an opportunity for the judge to explain the process being undertaken by the court and to otherwise enhance the young person’s understanding of, and feeling of engagement with, the court proceedings. Judges are encouraged to adhere to the guidelines issued under the authority of the President of the Family Division by the Family Justice Council (Guidelines for Judges Meeting Children who are Subject to Family Proceedings (April 2010) [2010] 2 FLR 1872). The guidelines make it plain that a judicial meeting is not for the purposes of gathering evidence:

 

 

“It cannot be stressed too often that the child’s meeting with the judge is not for the purpose of gathering evidence. That is the responsibility of the CAFCASS officer. The purpose is to enable the child to gain some understanding of what is going on, and to be reassured that the judge has understood him/her”

 

  • It is clear that the meeting with the judge occurred in consequence of the judge’s conclusion that such a meeting was likely to be beneficial, rather than arising out of any request from any of the children. The judge indicated both at the October hearing and on the first day of the December hearing that she considered a meeting with the children was likely to be useful. Mrs Crowley submits, and the transcript supports her, that the meeting arose from a desire on the part of the judge to inform the children of the process and of the orders that might be made, rather than to ascertain their wishes and feelings, which were well recorded. On 19th December the judge told the parties that she perceived a need to be open with the children and to “put her cards on the table” at that stage of the process.

 

 

 

  • The judicial interviews were conducted entirely in accordance with the guidelines. The judge saw the boys in the court room, albeit no doubt in an informal configuration, so that the encounters were recorded and have been transcribed. She was accompanied by her usher, her clerk and the Children’s Guardian. First of all the judge saw the two younger boys together. In addition to hearing the boys give a short account of their wishes and feelings, and their reaction to spending the previous night in the father’s home, the judge used the encounter to describe the possibility that the court might order a change of residence and her expectation that the young people, as would be the case with the adult parties, would co-operate with her decision and abide by it. The boys were plain in stating that they did not want to go to live with their father. During the second interview with A the judge adopted an approach which was commensurate with his age and sought to explain to him that he was not “the man of the family” and that it was the grown ups who had to take responsibility for the arrangement of the affairs of the children.

 

Point 3 – the instruction of an expert

 

 

  • Given the extreme behaviour displayed on occasions by A and given the striking content of the mother’s own handwritten notes reflecting on her own behaviour and emotional stability, the question of whether or not the assistance of a child and adolescent psychiatrist or psychologist inevitably arose for consideration. On the first day of the hearing in December the judge indicated that an expert of a particularly high calibre was required. She indicated that she had a particular expert in mind, but, on the second day of the hearing the judge reported that she had made enquiries which had ascertained that that particular expert was not available to take this case on. The judge therefore concluded that no other expert should be considered and the case would proceed without additional expert involvement.

 

 

 

  • That sequence of events had initially been one of the grounds of appeal   [The Judge went on to grant an application in February 2014 for the instruction of a different expert, so that bit of the appeal falls away]  Although any appeal on the question of whether or not an expert should be instructed therefore falls away, Mrs Crowley criticises the judge’s approach to this matter, on the one hand considering that only an expert of high calibre should be instructed but, on the other, taking it upon herself to assess the situation. She submits that as indicating that the judge went outside the boundary of her judicial role in developing an analysis of the family dynamics which, wrongly it is submitted, supported the decision to make an immediate change of residence.

Even though that point did not have to be determined, since it had fallen away by that stage, the Court of Appeal still say that Parker J was entitled to make that decision and did not need to have expert evidence in order to make her decision that in the interim, the children should move from mother’s care to father’s care.

Although I understand the argument as is so clearly put by Mrs Crowley, I do not consider that the judge’s approach to this matter is open to that criticism. The residence arrangements that are currently in place are plainly interim arrangements pending the further assessment by Dr Asen and the further consideration of the court. Given that the judge was required to make findings of fact in December, and given that those findings were so adverse to the mother, the question naturally arose as to whether the children could be emotionally “safe” if they continued in their mother’s care after those adverse findings had been made. The judge having concluded that the allegations made by the boys were not grounded in reality, it was necessary to consider other explanations to explain the fact that the boys had nevertheless said what they had said to the police. Of the limited range of alternative explanations available, the judge’s conclusion, at that stage of this ongoing process, that the allegations in some manner arose out of a dysfunctional relationship with the mother is not, in my view, seriously open to challenge.

 

Any hearing where the allegations are as strong and vivid as this carries risk for both parents – if the Court finds mother’s allegations proven, then father will have difficulty in establishing any relationship with his children. If the Court finds that mother, as they did here, has made them up and drawn the children into a web of deceit, then a change of residence is a distinct possibility – by that time, the children having taken sides so manifestly are going to find a change of residence very difficult. And of course, worst-case scenario is that a Court eventually concludes that the children are so damaged and the parents so culpable that the children can live with neither parent.  Great care has to be taken over making allegations for tactical reasons, rather than raising  a genuine concern. If the concern is genuine, then it is vital to raise it early on in evidence, rather than filing statements that make no mention of something so serious.

 

 

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An answer to an important question you didn’t know you had

Posted on June 4, 2014 by suesspiciousminds

 

 

 

The High Court in Re A Father v SBC 2014 have answered a very important question, albeit one that probably hadn’t fluttered across most people’s consciousness

If a child is at home under a Care Order, and the Local Authority want to use their powers to remove, can the parents obtain a s8 Human Rights Act injunction to stop them?

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWFC/HCJ/2014/6.html

 

[All underlining, as ever, as mine for emphasis]
As the High Court points out, the remedy ordinarily for a parent if the LA want to remove a child once a Care Order has been made is either an application to Discharge the Care Order or a judicial review, neither of which are that easy to get off the ground. And an application to discharge the care order won’t stop the LA removing in the interim.

The parents in this case made their application to discharge the care order, but knowing that the Local Authority proposed to remove the child before the case would be heard also made an application for an injunction under s8 of the Human Rights Act that would have prevented the removal.

They referred to the decision of the Court of Appeal in Re H (Children) 2011, in which a Judge granted an interim care order but ruled that removal of the child under that order would be a breach of the child’s article 8 right to private and family life. The Court of Appeal upheld that and said further that if the Judge had gone on to make the section 8 HRA injunction prohibiting removal there would have been jurisdiction for her to do so. This was, a very short judgment and the s8 HRA issue is dealt with very briefly, and in of course the context in that case that the Judge had already decided that it would be a breach of the child’s human rights to remove the child.

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2011/1009.html
The Court in this case at first instance refused to make the injunction and did not consider that it had jurisdiction to do so, given that the LA were exercising a lawful power.
In his judgment, DJ Goddard recorded that the local authority had confirmed that the situation was not an emergency, although the problems were escalating. The judge continued:

“Father applied to discharge the order of 7th November 2012 and he is entitled to make an application and be heard on it. I do not feel that it is improper of me to give my view on the likelihood of success of this application as it plays on my decision. In my view, it is extremely unlikely that he will succeed to discharge the order.”
The judge then recorded that he had suggested that an injunction was the appropriate remedy and referred to the case or Re H. He then continued

“I am being asked to glean the arguments from Re H and apply them to this situation, to import injunctive relief rights into this case to prevent D being removed tomorrow. I have tremendous sympathy for the parents. D has lived with them since birth, they both have difficulties, and they have received lots of support. They were both properly represented and both have consented to the order of 7th November 2012. They never appealed this order. What I am being asked to do by the father’s solicitor, who argued very strongly for the parents, is to, in effect, go behind that order.
In the absence of the local authority agreeing to give some breathing space and time, I cannot go behind that order. In some ways I wish I had the power to do so. I wish I could persuade the local authority to grant further breathing space as there is no emergency event which has precipitated the local authority wanting to take D tomorrow. They say that the progress they hoped for 15 months ago has just not happened. In the absence of me being able to persuade the local authority to agree to such a window, I cannot grant injunctive relief. There will still be a hearing to deal with the application to discharge. My present view is the father’s application will not be successful.

With a lot of reluctance, I have to dismiss the application for an injunction. I cannot see that I can do anything else. In practice, in accordance with the order of 7th November 2012, and in line with the care plan, D will be removed tomorrow.”

He therefore refused the application for an injunction and also refused an application for permission to appeal. He granted the application for a recovery order under s.50.

On appeal, the High Court, in the form of Baker J, took a different view on the Court’s jurisdiction to make a s8 injunction in these circumstances, and went back to remarks that the House of Lords had made in the notorious ‘starred care plan’ case

It follows therefore, as confirmed by Lord Nicholls of Birkenhead in Re S (Minors) (Care Order: Implementation of Care Plan): Re W (Minors) (Care Order: Adequacy of Care Plan).[2002] UKHL 10 [2002] 1 FLR 815 paragraph 49, that

“if a local authority conducts itself in a manner which infringes the article 8 rights of a parent or child, the court may grant appropriate relief on the application of a victim of the unlawful act.”
It is true that Lord Nicholls added, at paragraph 62:

“one would not expect proceedings to be launched under s.7 of the HRA 1998 until any other appropriate remedial routes have first been explored.”

 

Baker J made it plain that jurisdiction to make a s8 HRA injunction existed and could have been used in this case (pointing out that the other remedial routes theoretically available weren’t appropriate)

 

 

 

In this case I have sympathy for the district judge. It was he, not any of the parties, who first suggested that injunctive relief might be the appropriate remedy. He was then referred to only one case – Re H, supra – which is a brief report of an appeal against a circuit judge’s decision that she did not have jurisdiction to grant an injunction under s.8 HRA to restrain the local authority from removing a child under an interim care order. Before the Court of Appeal, the local authority conceded that the judge had misdirected herself. As a result of that concession, the court did not consider the jurisdiction in any detail. I do not think that the district judge in this case would have derived much assistance from that authority. He was then told that the parties had agreed that there was jurisdiction in the case before him to grant an injunction. Immediately afterwards, however, counsel for the local authority asserted that no injunction should be granted because removing the child would not be unlawful as human rights had been considered at the time the care order was made and upon the making of that order the responsibility for the child was removed from court and placed with the local authority. With respect to counsel then instructed for the local authority, that is not an accurate summary of the law. In fairness, I should record that she too was at a disadvantage having had no notice of an application for an injunction prior to the hearing.

In the circumstances, it was perhaps not surprising that the district judge concluded that he did not have the power to stop the local authority removing D. But in reaching that conclusion, he was in my judgment plainly wrong. He did have the power to grant an injunction, as has been clear since the House of Lords decision in Re S: Re W, supra.

It is extremely unfortunate that he was led into this error because it seems clear that, had he realised that he had the power to grant an injunction, he would have done so. Up to that point, D had always lived with his parents. The local authority had conceded that the circumstances did not amount to an emergency, and the judge said that he wished that he had the power to order the local authority to “give some breathing space and time”.

Baker J also drew together some observations of other Courts on the onerous decision-making process for a Local Authority in this type of situation (see particularly his reference to Re G below)

At paragraph 45 of Re G, Munby J spelt out the local authority’s obligations in clear terms:

“In a case such as this, a local authority, before it can properly arrive at a decision to remove children from their parents, must tell the parents (preferably in writing) precisely what it is proposing to do. It must spell out (again in writing) the reasons why it is proposing to do so. It must spell out precisely (in writing) the factual matters it is relying on. It must give the parents a proper opportunity to answer (either orally and/or in writing as the parents wish) the allegations being made against them. And it must give the parents a proper opportunity (orally and/or in writing as they wish) to make representations as to why the local authority should not take the threatened steps. In short, the local authority must involve the parents properly in the decision-making process. In particular the parents (together with their representatives if they wish to be assisted) should normally be given the opportunity to attend at, and address, any critical meeting at which crucial decisions are to be made.”

 

 

and also brought Re B-S et al to bear on the process – which is something that none of the previous authorities about LA exercising powers under a Care Order had been able to consider, as it hadn’t existed at the time.

 

To my mind, where a care order has been granted on the basis of a care plan providing that the child should remain at home, a local authority considering changing the plan and removing the child permanently from the family is obliged in law to follow the same approach. It must have regard to the fact that permanent placement outside the family is to be preferred only as a last resort where nothing else will do. Before making its decision, it must rigorously analyse all the realistic options, considering the arguments for and against each option. This is an essential process, not only as a matter of good practice, but also because the local authority will inevitably have to demonstrate its analysis in any court proceedings that follow the change of care plan, either on an application for the discharge of the care order or an application for placement order under the Adoption and Children Act 2002. This process of rigorous analysis of all realistic options should be an essential feature of all long-term planning for children. And, as indicated by Munby J in Re G, the local authority must fully involve the parents in its decision-making process.

While this process is being carried out, the child should remain at home under the care order, unless his safety and welfare requires that he be removed immediately. This is the appropriate test when deciding whether the child should be removed under an interim care order, pending determination of an application under s.31 of the Children Act: Re L-A (Children) [2009] EWCA Civ 822. The same test should also apply when a local authority’s decision to remove a child placed at home under a care order has led to an application by the parents to discharge the order and the court has to decide whether the child should be removed pending determination of the discharge application. As set out above, under s.33(4) of the 1989, the local authority may not exercise its powers under a care order to determine how a parent may exercise his or her parental responsibility for the child unless satisfied it is necessary to do so to safeguard or promote the child’s welfare. For a local authority to remove a child in circumstances where its welfare did not require it would be manifestly unlawful and an unjustifiable interference with the family’s Article 8 rights.
In submissions before the district judge, and before this court, it was argued on behalf of the local authority that its removal of D from the family home was lawful simply by reason of the care order. That submission is fundamentally misconceived. The local authority’s removal of the child would only be lawful if necessary to safeguard or promote his welfare. Any other removal, or threatened removal, of the child is prima facie unlawful and an interference of the Article 8 rights of the parents and child. In such circumstances, the parents are entitled to seek an injunction under s.8 of the HRA.

 

A lot of very important stuff there (as you can probably tell, because I’ve underlined nearly all of it)

1. The same threshold that applies to removing a child under an Interim Care Order (that the child’s safety requires immediate separation) applies to removal from home under a Care Order (unless you go through the process below)
2. The LA have to conduct the full-blown Re B-S analysis of the pros and cons of each option
3. The child should stay at home whilst that exercise is carried out – unless his safety requires immediate removal
4. The parents must be fully involved in the assessment and analysis process and their views taken into account – it almost reaches the point, pace Re G, of the LA holding something akin to a Meeting Before Action (how the funding would be triggered to get the parents legal representatives able to attend is a bit tricky)
5. A Court can make a s8 HRA injunction to prevent the removal if the parents challenge the removal and want the status quo to remain pending litigation of a discharge of care order application.

6. We don’t get to this bit just yet, but it is vital – unless the removal is because the child’s safety requires immediate separation, if an injunction is what it will take to make the LA desist from their plan of removal, an injunction SHOULD be made

 

As was pointed out to Baker J, care orders with children at home had been a fairly rare and unusual circumstance, but with these two factors :-

(a) The 26 week deadline meaning that cases are finished at an earlier stage and with residual doubts; and
(b) The Court of Appeal’s decision in Neath Port Talbot

The number of such cases has gone up and is likely to continue to go up. As the number of children at home under Care Orders go up, the number of children whom the Local Authority seek to remove under a Care Order goes up too. So this issue affects more and more children as time passes.

With that in mind then, the High Court gave guidance on how Courts should address such care plans in future (this stuff is HUGE)
To avoid the problems that have arisen in this case, the following measures should be taken in future cases.
(1) In every case where a care order is made on the basis of a care plan providing that a child should live at home with his or her parents, it should be a term of the care plan, and a recital in the care order, that the local authority agrees to give not less than fourteen days notice of a removal of the child, save in an emergency. I consider that fourteen days is an appropriate period, on the one hand to avoid unnecessary delay but, on the other hand, to allow the parents an opportunity to obtain legal advice.

(2) Where a care order has been granted on the basis of a care plan providing that the child should remain at home, a local authority considering changing the plan and removing the child permanently from the family must have regard to the fact that permanent placement outside the family is to be preferred only as a last resort where nothing else will do and must rigorously analyse all the realistic options, considering the arguments for and against each option. Furthermore, it must involve the parents properly in the decision-making process.

(3) In every case where a parent decides to apply to discharge a care order in circumstances where the local authority has given notice of intention to remove a child placed at home under a care order, the parent should consider whether to apply in addition for an injunction under s.8 of the HRA to prevent the local authority from removing the child pending the determination of the discharge application. If the parent decides to apply for an injunction, that application should be issued at the same time as the discharge application.

(4) When a local authority, having given notice of its intention to remove a child placed at home under a care order, is given notice of an application for discharge of the care, the local authority must consider whether the child’s welfare requires his immediate removal. Furthermore, the authority must keep a written record demonstrating that it has considered this question and recording the reasons for its decision. In reaching its decision on this point, the local authority must again inter alia consult with the parents. Any removal of a child in circumstances where the child’s welfare does not require immediate removal, or without proper consideration and consultation, is likely to be an unlawful interference with the Article 8 rights of the parent and child.

(5) On receipt of an application to discharge a care order, where the child has been living at home, the allocation gatekeeper at the designated family centre should check whether it is accompanied by an application under s.8 of HRA and, if not, whether the circumstances might give rise to such an application. This check is needed because, as discussed below, automatic legal aid is not at present available for such applications to discharge a care order, and it is therefore likely that such applications may be made by parents acting in person. In cases where the discharge application is accompanied by an application for an order under s.8 HRA, or the allocation gatekeeper considers that the circumstances might give rise to such an application, he or she should allocate the case as soon as possible to a circuit judge for case management. Any application for an injunction in these circumstances must be listed for an early hearing.

(6) On hearing an application for an injunction under s.8 HRA to restrain a local authority removing a child living at home under a care order pending determination of an application to discharge the care order, the court should normally grant the injunction unless the child’s welfare requires his immediate removal from the family home.

 

(Read the last bit again – the presumption is that the injunction should be granted UNLESS the LA are able to show that circumstances that would justify an immediate removal are made out)

I think that there is an argument that current Care Orders at home ought to be read as though that 14 day notice period save for emergencies is implicit in the care plan, given this authority. In all future cases, it needs to be explicit, and this is an issue that all professionals need to be alive to.
Funding is an issue for parents (compounded in this case because the father had been represented through the Official Solicitor in care proceedings, and thus making a HRA application on his own was clearly something that was beyond him, and he had been fortunate in having lawyers who were prepared to assist him pro-bono whilst waiting for the O/S to pick the case up.

this case has highlighted a further major problem. These parents face the prospect of losing their son permanently. If this prospect had arisen in the context of care proceedings, they would be entitled as of right to non-means tested legal aid. It is difficult to see why similar automatic public funding should not be available where the local authority proposes the removal of a child living at home under a care order and the parents apply to discharge that order and for an interim injunction under s.8 HRA. The justification for automatic public funding in care proceedings is the draconian nature of the order being claimed by the local authority. Where a local authority seeks to remove a child placed at home under a care order, the outcome of the discharge application may be equally draconian. Because this father is working, and earns a very low wage from which he has contributed to the support of his family, he, and possibly the mother, are disqualified from legal aid. Miss Fottrell and Miss Sprinz and their solicitors are at present acting pro bono. It is unfair that legal representation in these vital cases is only available if the lawyers agree to work for nothing.

This problem is compounded in this case because of the learning difficulties of the parties and in particular the father. I have made observations in other cases about the obligation on all professionals in the family justice system to address the particular difficulties experienced by parents suffering from learning difficulties – see Kent CC v A Mother and others [2011] EWHC 402 (Fam) and Wiltshire Council v N [2013] EWHC 3502 (Fam). A parent with learning difficulties who is not entitled to legal aid is at a very great disadvantage when seeking to stop a local authority removing his child.

On the basis of evidence at present available, it seems plain that the father lacks capacity to conduct litigation and therefore needs to be represented by a litigation friend. Such are the demands on the Official Solicitor’s time and resources that there is inevitably a delay in his deciding whether or not to accept instructions, and the fact that the father is not entitled to public funding adds to the complications. In this case, I hope that the Official Solicitor will give urgent consideration to accepting the invitation to act as litigation friend. The current system in which so much of the responsibility for representing parents who lack capacity falls on the shoulders and inadequate resources of the Official Solicitor is nearing breaking point.

I have drawn these concerns to the attention of the President of the Family Division. It may be that he considers that they are of sufficient importance to bring to the attention of the Family Justice Board and others responsible for the family justice system.

 

(As we know, the exceptional circumstances in which funding might be given under LASPO involve cases where failure to provide funding would result in a person’s human rights being breached – the High Court here have set up a situation in which the child’s article 8 rights would be breached, and given illustrations of how vital it is that parents are represented to fight those – as we know from Airey v Ireland, it is not sufficient for the State simply to say that the State has given a person rights, if the person can’t actually access them or exercise them. This is setting up a judicial review for the future, I suspect)

 

A key question here is, where does this leave Neath Port Talbot? If the major feature of a Care Order over a Supervision Order is the power for the LA to remove the child (or that implicit threat) and the power/threat is neutered, what on earth is the value of having a Care Order at home (other than duration – a Care Order can last until the child is 18, whereas a Supervision Order is limited to one year at a time, up to a maximum of three years)

For any Local Authority, they might as well have a Supervision Order and issue fresh care proceedings if they want to remove, as opposed to having a neutered Care Order.

 

An important case – I expect it to feature in the next view from the President.

 

 

 

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You know what a pig IS, don’t you? If not, I’m afraid there is a great deal of tedious spadework ahead of us

Posted on June 4, 2014 by suesspiciousminds

 

Not much juicy law about this week, so a diversion to America, courtesy of Lowering the Bar.

 

This is an extract from some genuine cross-examination, which ends up being so good that the New York Times actually made a video re-enacting it  (by way of context, the person being cross-examined here has made use of a law allowing the State to charge 2 cents a page for PHOTOCOPYING to charge 2 cents a page for material copied onto a computer disc, which can be done in 5 seconds with the push of a single button, and is, some might say, rather a different action to the act of photocopying, so the plaintiff’s lawyer is trying to get the deponent to admit that he understands what the nature of photocopying IS, and the deponent (witness) is trying to avoid saying anything to that effect)

 

What Is a Photocopier?

 

This is my favourite exchange

 

Plaintiffs’ Lawyer: During your tenure in the computer department at the Recorder’s office, has the Recorder’s office had photocopying machines?

Deponent’s Lawyer: Objection.

PL: Any photocopying machine?

Deponent: When you say “photocopying machine,” what do you mean?

PL: Let me be — let me make sure I understand your question. You don’t have an understanding of what a photocopying machine is?

D: No. I want to make sure that I answer your question correctly….When you say “photocopying machine,” what do you mean?

PL: Let me be clear. The term “photocopying machine” is so ambiguous that you can’t picture in your mind what a photocopying machine is in an office setting?

D: I just want to make sure I answer your question correctly.

PL: Well, we’ll find out. If you can say yes or no, I can do follow-ups, but it seems — if you really don’t know in an office setting what a photocopying machine is, I’d like the Ohio Supreme Court to hear you say so.

D: I just want to make sure I answer your question correctly.

DL: There’s different types of photocopiers, Dave.

 

….

D: I’m sorry. I didn’t know what that meant. I understand that there are photocopying machines, and there are different types of them just like –

PL: Are there any in the Recorder’s office?

D: — there are different cars. Some of them run under gas power, some of them under electric power, and I’m asking if you could help me out by explaining what you mean by “photocopying machines” –-

PL: That’s a great point.

D: — instead of trying to make me feel stupid.

PL: If you feel stupid, it’s not because I’m making you feel that way.

DL: Objection

 

 

 

 

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Getting an expert report in private law proceedings

Posted on May 28, 2014 by suesspiciousminds

 

The Court of Appeal (almost a year after the High Court ruled otherwise) have decided in JG v the Lord Chancellor and Others 2014, that a Court can lawfully decide that the costs of an expert report be bourne by one party (the one who is receiving public funding) rather than split between everyone.

 

I wrote about the original decision here https://suesspiciousminds.com/2013/04/11/not-with-a-bang-but-a-whimper/  with quite a bit of disappointment in my heart, so I am pleased that the Court of Appeal have taken a different view.

 

Quick bit of context first – up until LASPO  (Legal Aid, Sentencing and Prosecution of Offenders Act) came into force, most private law proceedings (i.e mum and dad arguing about where a child should live, or how much time the child should spend with each parent) had at least one of the parents, sometimes both, receiving legal aid (free legal advice). That legal aid could be used to pay for expert reports  – for example, if there was a dispute over paternity, a DNA test, if one person alleged the other had an alcohol or drug problem, testing, if the child was displaying unusual behaviour an expert to help understand that.

After LASPO, people now only get legal aid in exceptional circumstances  – it doesn’t matter if they are on benefits, or have learning difficulties, they won’t get legal aid unless they fit some very narrow prescribed criteria.

Next bit of context – in particularly tricky cases, the Court appoint a Guardian (which we call a Rule 16.4 Guardian, after the bit in the Family Procedure Rules that governs it) to assist the Court in reaching decisions. The Rule 16.4 Guardian GETS legal aid.

That led to a situation in which if an expert report was needed and the parents could not afford it, the Court would order that the costs be met entirely by the Rule 16.4 Guardian (and hence legal aid).  The Legal Aid Agency cottoned on to that, and started refusing to pay (even after the expert had done the report and the Guardian’s lawyers had written the expert the cheque, leaving the lawyers out of pocket and thus reluctant to take on such cases in the future).   One such refusal was judicially reviewed, and Ryder J (as he then was, he is now Ryder LJ) refused the judicial review and said that the Legal Aid Agency was entitled to take a position that any expert costs should be divided equally between all of the parties and that the costs should not all be loaded on to the Guardian’s public funding.   [It is a little like three people going out to dinner, and putting the bill on the person who has an Expense Account, if that makes sense, and then the firm paying the Expense Account saying  “Hey, we don’t mind paying for YOUR dinner, but not for the other two”]

Ryder J did say that in an exceptional case where the parent could not possibly pay anything towards the cost of the report, and the Court considered it was vital, things might have to be looked at differently.

So, the Court of Appeal disagreed with Ryder J’s decision – but not in a way that gives carte blanche for all reports to be loaded on to the Guardian’s public funding certificate (actually the Child’s) and the parents to pay nothing. It is a bit more nuanced than that.

http://www.familylaw.co.uk/articles/jg-v-the-lord-chancellor-and-others-2014-ewca-civ-656

 

There were basically two sides to this (because it had now become an issue about principle, rather than the parents own case) – the Law Society, arguing that the Court should have the power to decide how costs should be apportioned and particularly where failure to have the report would breach article 6 (right to fair trial) or article 8 (right to family life),  and the Lord Chancellor – arguing that this should only be in a situation where the Legal Aid Agency deemed itself that it was appropriate. It’s a fundamental question of who is in charge, the Court or the Legal Aid Agency.

 

Law Society to throw first

a) The appellant’s and the Law Society’s case on the general question
67. The appellant adopted the Law Society’s submissions on the general question. The Law Society submitted that where expert evidence was necessary in the circumstances set out in the question, the court should direct the child, through her guardian, to obtain the evidence and give the child permission to adduce it, although in instructing the expert, the guardian should normally seek to agree with the other parties, if possible, which expert is to be instructed and the instructions to be given to him. The court’s direction should be subject to any prior authorisation or increase in costs limitation that may be required for the purpose. The Law Society submitted that those responsible for administering legal aid could not refuse to give such approval as refusal would be incompatible with articles 6 and 8 of the ECHR and would deprive the court of the assistance it needs to enable it to determine what the welfare of the child requires, thus being “incompatible with the object and purpose of the legislation for the protection of children involved in private law family proceedings”. There is no point, submitted the Law Society, in funding the representation necessary to protect a child’s interests in the private law proceedings yet denying the funding required to enable the evidence to be provided that is necessary to establish what the child’s welfare requires.
68. It was submitted that a requirement, such as that favoured by Ryder J (see §§75 et seq of the judgment), for a “robust scrutiny of … means” with reference to a party’s financial eligibility for legal aid prior to the instruction of the expert would present the courts with a task for which, unlike the Legal Aid Agency, they are not equipped and which would import harmful delay whilst investigations were carried out. The Law Society’s proposal was therefore said to be a better alternative because the expert could be instructed without delay on the basis that the cost of the report could be met as a disbursement on the child’s certificate, leaving the parties’ respective liability for the fees to be dealt with by means of a costs order, if appropriate.

 

Lord Chancellor, you require forty  (sorry, to go next)

b) The Lord Chancellor’s case
69. The Lord Chancellor accepted that “if there were a case in which a report was genuinely sought by the publicly funded party alone, for reasons affecting that party, and the other parties did not agree with or seek to make use of the report, then the court might direct that the cost[s] were borne by that party alone and it would be legitimate for the legally aided party to bear the full costs of that report” (§61 of the Lord Chancellor’s skeleton argument). In those circumstances, he said, the legally aided party would have to formulate the instructions without the involvement of the other parties. That set of circumstances was not what he was addressing in his main submissions.
70. In cases where expert evidence was necessary but the report was not genuinely sought by the publicly funded party alone, the Lord Chancellor submitted that the judge’s solution, which had of course largely been put forward by him, was correct. Only in “very exceptional cases” could the court depart from the norm of a single joint expert whose fees would be apportioned equally between the parties, it was submitted. Two conditions had to be satisfied:
i) “a party’s means, assessed following a robust process, are such that he or she cannot afford to pay for his or her share of the report”
and
ii) “an order for equal apportionment would involve a breach of a party’s Convention rights in the family proceedings because it would prevent an expert report which the court considered necessary to the proper resolution of the case from being adduced”.
If the two conditions were satisfied, the Lord Chancellor’s case was that the court should still order a single joint expert but could visit a greater share of the costs on the legally aided party than normal, although whether the legally aided party would have to pay all the costs would depend on the circumstances.

 

The Court of Appeal then distil the arguments down to common ground and areas of difference

c) Points in common and points of difference
71. It can be seen that all parties agreed that there may be situations in which an order can be made which does not apportion the cost of an expert equally between the parties in a case. It was common ground that where this was a departure from the apportionment that would normally have been ordered, the justification for this would be that otherwise there would be a breach of a party’s Convention rights. It was also common ground that in these circumstances, section 22(4) would not present an obstacle to the order being made. The absolutist position which I think was adopted by the LSC in front of Ryder J, namely that there were no circumstances in which the LSC could be ordered to pay experts’ fees “beyond a proportion that represents the proportion of legally aided parties” (see §79 of Ryder J’s judgment), was not advanced before us.
72. Underlying matters of detail were not agreed. There was debate as to whether it was necessary to impose a requirement of exceptionality, as to when and how a party’s inability to pay should be established and, an allied question, as to whether the proper way in which to regulate the parties’ share of the fees was by regulating their contractual liability to the expert or by means of conventional costs orders. Another major difference between the parties was that the Lord Chancellor was wedded to the idea of a single joint expert (and utilised that as a significant part of the foundation for his arguments) whereas the other parties contemplated that the expert could be instructed by the child/guardian alone, albeit with input from the other parties to the instructions.

 

 

A major part of the argument was whether the report being commissioned was really one being commissioned solely on behalf of the Child, or whether it was really one for the benefit of all parties and just pretending to be a sole instruction to get the free funding   (To go back to the dinner analogy – was this really a business meeting that the Expense account could pay for legitimately, or were two people getting a free lunch?)

The Court of Appeal consider some hypothetical situations but eventually come down to this

 

84. Doing the best I can to forecast the sort of situations that may arise, it seems to me that it may not be all that infrequent that an application by a child/guardian for permission to instruct an expert will genuinely be for an expert on behalf of the child, as opposed to a single joint expert, notwithstanding that the other parties have some input into the process of approval by the court and into the format of the expert’s instruction. Section 22(4) will then present no obstacle to the cost of the expert being met by the child’s public funding.

 

But going on to say that even if it is really a joint report, and the parents can’t pay, the Court still have to consider what is right and fair

 

When the expert is not solely the child’s expert
85. If the expert is not in fact the child’s expert but is a single joint expert, and the other parties are unable to contribute to the cost of the expert, it is necessary to consider in what circumstances public funds can be required to meet the whole cost. Once again, I will confine myself in this discussion to the current provisions of the 2010 Rules.

 

The Court then looked, in a lot of detail, about whether there was a presumption in law that any report would have the costs split equally –  there is a provision in the Family Procedure Rules that says that this is what will happen in the absence of the Court saying otherwise.  Does that mean that the Court have to have reasons for deviating from an equal split, or does it just mean that if the Court is silent, that’s what happens?

92. This provision received quite a lot of attention in argument in front of us. It is perhaps rather an odd provision to find in procedural rules, appearing to concern itself with the contractual relationship between the parties and the expert. It needs to be read with Rule 25.12(4)(a) which provides that the court may give directions about the expert’s fees and expenses. It is quite clear from that, and from its own terms, that Rule 25.12(6) is not intended to be prescriptive and merely establishes a default position as to liability to the expert in the event that the court does not direct otherwise. I do not see it as setting up a “normal rule” that the cost is to be apportioned equally, any more than the Calderdale case did.
93. None of the authorities which I have just cited turned on the impecuniosity of the parties. Although they differ from the present case in that they were care cases, they are capable of providing assistance as to “the principles on which the discretion of [the] court is normally exercised” in relation to the cost of expert evidence. As I have explained, to my mind, they do not reveal the existence of a normal rule that costs be apportioned equally any more than Rule 25.12(6) does. Accordingly, in so far as the Lord Chancellor’s submissions proceed upon the basis that equal apportionment is the norm, I would question the premise. In order to decide whether a court order has fallen foul of section 22(4), a more sophisticated exercise is required. It is necessary to ask what order the court would make in its discretion on the particular facts of that case, leaving aside any resources problems. The answer may not uncommonly be an order for equal apportionment of the costs but that cannot be assumed. It may be that a full consideration of the circumstances of the case produces the result that the publicly funded party should be paying a greater share of the costs in any event, quite irrespective of any financial difficulties that the other parties may have in sharing the cost of the expert. In such circumstances, section 22(4) does not prevent the court from making an order accordingly, because the order is in no way affected by the fact of public funding.

 

That’s quite dense, but basically, what the Court of Appeal say there is that there may be circumstances (even if there is no issue over the parties ABILITY to pay) where the costs of the report might be met by one party exclusively or where one party may make a larger share, and the Court has the legitimate power to do that.

[That, to make it explicit, is the Lord Chancellor losing an argument]

 

Next – what about a situation where the Court thinks that it is FAIR to split the costs equally, but one or more parties has resource issues (impecuniosity – or in layman’s terms, they are skint)

95. In the light of what I have said in the preceding section, I would reformulate the Lord Chancellor’s submission so that, rather than focussing upon whether the court can depart from equal apportionment of the expert’s fees, it focusses upon whether the court can depart from the order that it would have made but for the resources problem (to which I will refer in shorthand as “the normal order”). The Lord Chancellor sought to impose what, for the purposes of the discussion that follows, I will treat as three conditions for such a departure from the normal order although I accept that he may well not have intended the third one to be a condition as such. The three “conditions” are that it must be established that the other party could not pay his share of the cost; the normal order would involve a breach of a party’s Convention rights; and the case must be a “very exceptional” one.

 

Condition 1  (remember these are the conditions proposed by the Lord Chancellor) – an equal split would involve a breach of the party’s convention rights  – there’s a lot of this, so I have skipped to the conclusion

108. The Lord Chancellor’s argument seems to me to risk prejudicing the child in order to prevent a parent who is not otherwise entitled to legal aid deriving a benefit from a report which has been paid for by public funding. I have already emphasised that FPR 2010 acknowledge that a party may benefit from a report produced by another party’s expert without that expert becoming a joint expert. Anyone who has ever conducted or watched a successful cross-examination of an expert knows this perfectly well. The fact that a party who is not publicly funded will or may benefit from the expert’s input is likely to be a material factor in the court’s discretion as to the cost of the expert but it is not a reason to conclude, as I think is the conclusion to which the Lord Chancellor’s submissions would logically lead, that even though the child’s Convention rights would be violated by the inability to obtain the expert advice that the court had concluded was necessary to assist it, the expert could not be paid for on the child’s public funding certificate because that would benefit one or both of the parents as well.
109. It is as well to remember that cases in which the child is joined as a party are far from commonplace, as can be seen from the various provisions which I outlined earlier in this judgment starting at §39. They will be cases in which there are particular challenges in determining what is in the best interests of the child or in actually achieving the right solution in practice. The role of the child’s guardian is directed very firmly at achieving a resolution that is in the best interests of the child. His or her duties are defined and circumscribed as I have described earlier. His or her decisions must be made for the benefit of the child and he or she must make such investigations as are necessary to carry out his or her duties including obtaining such professional assistance as he or she thinks appropriate. By the time the guardian has endorsed the instruction of an expert as appropriate and the court itself has approved it as necessary, there will be the beginnings of a strong foundation for an argument that the child’s Article 8/Article 6 rights will be violated if the court cannot be provided with that expert assistance. Whether the argument will ultimately succeed will depend, of course, upon the precise nature of the decision to be taken in relation to the child.

 

It will be necessary for the parties to persuade the Court that an equal split (if that means the report can’t be obtained) would result in an article 6 or article 8 breach, but that’s not as much of an uphill struggle as the Lord Chancellor would have hoped – the parties start partway up that hill.

I reckon the Lord Chancellor   (apologies for not continually putting that title in quotation marks, since he isn’t a Lord Chancellor in the way that any lawyer or historian would recognise the role) lost that one as well

 

b) A very exceptional case
110. It is understandable that the Lord Chancellor should seek to confine the cases in which the cost of the expert would be apportioned unequally to avoid a breach of Convention rights by stressing that this could apply only in “very exceptional cases”. This approach ties in with the language of section 10 of LASPO 2012. However, whatever the immediate impact on the reader of the reference in section 10 to an “exceptional case determination”, the definition in section 10(3) makes it clear that “exceptionality” is not in fact an extra requirement and that what lies beneath the label is simply that if the services are not made available to an individual, there would (or sometimes might) be a breach of his Convention rights. I see no more justification for introducing a specific exceptionality requirement in the context we are considering here than the draftsman appears to have seen in relation to section 10 and it seems to me that it would distract attention from the central question. Granted, we are concerned with a departure from the way in which the court would otherwise have catered for the costs of the expert, so to that extent the order would be exceptional. That is a description, however, not a test or an additional hurdle.

 

That’s an indisputable loss for the Lord Chancellor.

 

c) Impecuniosity
111. It was common ground that the court would not be considering departing from the normal order unless the parties who would normally have to share the cost of the expert were unable to do so. There was debate, however, as to when and how impecuniosity would be determined.

 

There’s a risk of course, that the Court spends so long gathering information about whether or not someone is genuinely impecunious (as opposed to not keen on paying £2000 for a share of a report, which would apply to pretty much everyone) that the child’s welfare is prejudiced by delay.  There’s a difficult balance to be struck here.

112. Ryder J held, accepting the Lord Chancellor’s submissions, that “a robust scrutiny” was required of the party’s means, and said that what was a robust scrutiny would depend on the circumstances of the case but “an important consideration …. should be the party’s eligibility for legal aid where that still exists” (§76). He considered that if the party would not qualify for legal aid on the basis of their means, that was a factor that should point very strongly in favour of that party having to pay their full share of the cost of an expert’s report whereas, in contrast, if the party would qualify for legal aid, it may suggest that they should pay less than a full share, although paying nothing at all should be exceptional, bearing in mind that legally aided parties often have to pay a contribution (§77).
113. A particular concern of the Law Society was that the assessment of impecuniosity should not delay the proceedings. They were right to be concerned about that. Section 1(2) CA 1989 (see above) requires the court to have regard to the general principle that any delay in determining a question with respect to the upbringing of a child is likely to prejudice the child’s welfare. Furthermore, delay in resolving matters is capable, itself, of giving rise to breaches of Convention rights. What has happened in this case amply demonstrates that wrangles over the extent to which an expert’s costs should be met from public funds can introduce huge delay. The proceedings relating to this child were commenced in 2006, the guardian first sought a report in 2008 and the question of the payment of the expert remained unresolved in 2012 when we can see that the debate was impeding a final hearing of the case. It is quite possible that there were other problems as well as the expert’s fees but this is quite an indictment of the system. It leads me to the view that whatever system is operated must be one which is practical and not over technical and which avoids delay wherever possible.
114. The Law Society’s proposal that the child should be directed to obtain the expert evidence in the first instance with the ultimate liability for the expert’s fees being distributed between the parties by means of a costs order later in the proceedings therefore has considerable appeal.
115. The Lord Chancellor challenged it on a number of bases. Some of the arguments raised against the proposal amalgamated the issues of a breach of Convention rights and impecuniosity whereas I have dealt with these separately. Some covered the ground which I have examined when considering whether or not an expert is properly the child’s sole expert. I only reach the question of impecuniosity on the basis that the Lord Chancellor’s condition that the normal order would involve a breach of a party’s Convention rights is satisfied and, as I have explained, in my view there is no third condition of “exceptionality”
116. I sensed that an understandable concern of the Lord Chancellor was that joining the child as a party and using the child’s public funding to pay for an expert would become a widely used device – a back door to public funding for parents who would not otherwise have it – and I think he saw the Law Society’s proposed scheme as a way in which to have all the benefits of a single joint expert without the non-legally aided parties having to bear the cost. He did not, however, go so far as to suggest that only those who would in fact satisfy the financial criteria for legal aid should be treated as impecunious for the present purposes but submitted that eligibility might be a useful starting point and yardstick.
117. Ryder J also saw financial eligibility for legal aid as a relevant factor and I do not disagree. In my view, the Lord Chancellor was right not to argue that satisfying the financial eligibility criteria is a necessary qualification, not least because it may well place the family courts in considerable difficulty if they had to carry out the sort of detailed and technical assessment that the LSC would use to determine financial eligibility. The challenges facing the courts in private law cases in the new post-legal aid regime are evident and they are also working hard to process care cases with expedition. It is difficult to envisage them having the resources to assess a party’s eligibility for legal aid as the LSC would do, without seriously holding up the individual case or prejudicing the rest of their work or both. But in so far as financial eligibility can be ascertained, it must be relevant. If the party in question would not qualify for legal aid, that may count heavily against an argument that they could not pay their full share of the cost of the report whereas, conversely, if they would qualify, then that may suggest that they cannot pay a full share. As Ryder J rightly pointed out, it is not all or nothing. It may be that a party could not pay a full share but could pay something towards the expert’s costs, just as they could be required to pay a contribution towards their legal aid.
118. It is difficult to forecast what financial information will be available to the court and at what stage in the proceedings. There may be cases in which a party has already been assessed for financial eligibility for legal aid and no doubt it would be appropriate to have regard to the outcome of such an assessment in those cases. In some cases, as in the present case, financial information is available because there are or have been ancillary relief proceedings. In other cases, directions will have to be given to secure the necessary information from the parties.
119. The stage at which the court can reach a final determination as to whether a departure from the normal order is required for Convention reasons is likely therefore to vary, depending on the facts. There may be cases in which the decision can be taken before the expert is even instructed, with the parties’ shares of the cost being settled from the outset. There may be others in which that would or may import harmful delay into the proceedings and in which there is no option but to adopt the Law Society’s solution of requiring the guardian to instruct the expert in the first instance, but with the intent of revisiting the question of cost, on proper financial information, later by means of a conventional costs order. The court would, not, of course, embark on that route without some cogent evidence that the other parties would not be able to pay their way in the instruction.

 

I wouldn’t call that an outright victory for either side – it seems that before a Court decides that a party is impecunious (and thus couldn’t pay an equal share, and thus the report wouldn’t be obtained) it has to decide what information about finances is reasonable to inspect – if they can be obtained swiftly then it would be considered before the expert report is comissioned, if not, then the Court may make an order that the report be paid out of the Child’s public funding, and then remedy that with a later order once the financial information is available.

 

In the individual case, the Court of Appeal decided that it was right that the costs should have been met through the Child’s public funding /legal aid, and that they differed from Ryder J’s decision.

 

For broader cases, the Court of Appeal say this

 

132. I would simply add that when judges are called upon to deal with the sort of difficult issues that have arisen here, it would be prudent for them to explain their reasons for each decision that they take in a short judgment and for their orders to be precisely spelled out.

 

[All of this boils down to a Britney Spears type exhortation –  You want an expert? You want a 16.4 guardian? You want the costs of the expert to be paid by the child’s legal aid? You want the court to say you’re impecunious?   You better work bitch]

 

 

 

 

 

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All a matter of interpretation

Posted on May 23, 2014 by suesspiciousminds

The President’s decision in Re J and S (children) 2014

 

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWFC/HCJ/2014/4.html

 

This was an application by parents for leave to oppose the making of adoption orders. The care order and placement order had been made in May 2013 by Theis J   http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2013/2308.html

 

The President refused the application, the parents change of circumstances being put in these three ways

 

 

  1. That they had lodged an application with the European Court of Human Rights
  2. That the placement with a homosexual couple was contrary to the parents Slovak Roma heritage and their Catholic religious beliefs
  3. That there had been changes to the home conditions

 

 There is reference within the judgment to a Slovak organisation which provides assistance to Slovak citizens who become involved in English care proceedings – it might well be worth following this up if you are a Slovak citizen or are providing advice to someone who is.

31 In the present case Ms Sparrow relies upon three matters as constituting a change in circumstances.

32 The first is the pending applications before the European Court of Human Rights. As I have already noted, the parents’ applications for Article 39 measures have been rejected on three occasions. The present position is that the substantive applications remain pending before the European Court of Human Rights and, as letters from the Court state, will be considered “as soon as possible” though due to the Court’s heavy workload “it is not possible to indicate when this will be.” I say nothing as to what the position might be in a case where the Court has made interim measures under Rule 39. This is not that case. I fail to see how the mere fact that there is an application pending before the European Court of Human Rights can possibly amount to a “change in circumstances” for the purpose of section 47(5). I agree with what Moor J said in The Prospective Adopters v IA and Another [2014] EWHC 331 (Fam), para 39:

“The third alleged change of circumstances is the application to the ECHR. I cannot see how this can be a change of circumstances, particularly where the ECHR has not accepted the case.”

33 The second alleged change in circumstances arises out of the fact that J and S have been placed with prospective adopters who are a same sex couple. The parents put the point very simply and very eloquently in their witness statement:

“Our family is a Slovak Roma family and we are practising Catholics and a homosexual couple as potential adopters is very different from what Mrs Justice Theis had in mind in her judgment as this will not promote the children’s Roma heritage or their Catholic faith … Whilst we have no doubt that the prospective adopters have been properly assessed by the Local Authority, they are a homosexual couple and as such their lifestyle goes against our Roma culture and lifestyle

The children will not be able to be brought up in the Catholic faith because of the conflicts between Catholicism and homosexuality. They would not be able to maintain their Catholic faith if they are adopted by this couple and even if it was promised that they would attend church the children would at some stage be taught or learn of the attitude of the church to same sex couples. This would undoubtedly be upsetting to them and cause them to be in conflict between their religion and home life.

Slovakia still does not recognise same sex couples and so their Slovak roots and values will not be maintained. In 2013 the Catholic Bishops in Slovakia condemned same sex marriage.”

They go on to say:

“If, as expected, our children will try to find us and their siblings and roots, then they will discover the huge differences between our culture and the couple with whom they have been brought up. This is likely to cause them great upset and to suffer a conflict within themselves such as to set them against their adoptive parents. This would therefore cause the children great psychological harm as homosexuality is not recognised in the world wide Roma community. Having Roma children live with homosexuals or being adopted by them would be found to be humiliating … Ethnic, cultural and religious identity is an important part of identity and this aspect of a child’s needs in an adoptive placement should be considered very carefully. We do not accept that this has been properly considered by Kent County Council.”

They add:

“By proceeding with the adoption process and supporting adoption by a homosexual couple the Local Authority are continuing to act in such a way that will change our children who are of Slovak Roma heritage into white middle class English children which is contrary to the human rights of us and of the children. This is social engineering and is a conscious and deliberate effort by Kent County Council to transform our children from Slovak Roma children to English middle class children.”

34 Put very shortly, what Ms Sparrow says is that J and S have been put in a placement of a kind that was not contemplated by Theis J and which is wholly unsuitable having regard to the children’s Slovak Roma origins and Catholic roots.

35 I do not see how this can be described as a change in circumstances. There is nothing in all the material I have seen to suggest that the children’s placement with the prospective adopters was inappropriate or wrong, let alone irrational or unlawful, having regard to the principles that the local authority had to apply. Everything I have seen indicates that the process was conscientiously and properly undertaken having regard, as the paramount consideration, and as section 1(2) of the 2002 Act requires, to the children’s welfare throughout their lives. Nor, despite Ms Sparrow’s characterisation, has it been demonstrated that the placement was of a kind not contemplated by Theis J. On the contrary, Theis J expressly held, as we have seen, that the children’s welfare needs “outweigh” the impact that adoption would have on their Roma identity.

36 Of course, any judge should have a decent respect to the opinions of those who come here from a foreign land, particularly if they have come from another country within the European Union. As I said in Re K; A Local Authority v N and Others [2005] EWHC 2956 (Fam), [2007] 1 FLR 399, para 26, “the court must always be sensitive to the cultural, social and religious circumstances of the particular child and family.” But the fact is, the law is, that, at the end of the day, I have to judge matters according to the law of England and by reference to the standards of reasonable men and women in contemporary English society. The parents’ views, whether religious, cultural, secular or social, are entitled to respect but cannot be determinative. They have made their life in this country and cannot impose their own views either on the local authority or on the court. Thus far I agree with the local authority. I have to say, however, that it was, in my view, unfortunate that the local authority should have referred at one stage in the proceedings to the parents’ views on homosexuality in such a way as to suggest that they are bigoted. The label is unnecessary and hurtful.

37 The third alleged change in circumstances (not canvassed either in the parents’ statement or in Ms Sparrow’s written submissions) relates to what are said to be improvements in the parents’ domestic and family circumstances. I am prepared to assume for the sake of argument that there have indeed been improvements of the kind Ms Sparrow refers to, but it does not, in my judgment, take the parents anywhere. The short fact is that nothing Ms Sparrow has said begins to suggest any change which bears in any way on Theis J’s findings in relation to the parents’ non-acceptance of other peoples concerns and their inability to change.

38 In my judgment, none of the matters relied upon by Ms Sparrow, whether taken separately or together, amount to a change in circumstances sufficient to take the parents beyond the first stage. They fall at the first hurdle. That being so, there is no need for me to go on to consider the second stage of the inquiry. I make clear, however, that even if the parents had been able to overcome the first hurdle, they would, in my judgment, have fallen at the second. Their ultimate prospects of success if leave to oppose was given are threadbare. They are entirely lacking in solidity. In truth, I have to say, they are little more than fanciful.

 

 

 

The part of the application which has wider implications than just for this unfortunate family relates to the initial hearing of this application on 7th May, which had to be adjourned because the interpreters that had been booked did not attend.

 

8. The hearing on 7 May 2014

9. The hearing before me on 7 May 2014 was unable to proceed. Despite the order made by Judge Murdoch, and although HMCTS had, as was subsequently conceded by it, gone through the appropriate procedures with Capita Translation and Interpreting Limited (Capita) to book two interpreters, no interpreter was present at court. I had no choice but to adjourn the hearing. How could I do otherwise? It would have been unjust, indeed inhumane, to continue with the final hearing of applications as significant as those before me – this, after all, was their final opportunity to prevent the adoption of their children – if the parents were unable to understand what was being said. Anyone tempted to suggest that an adjournment was not necessary might care to consider what our reaction would be if an English parent before a foreign court in similar circumstances was not provided with an interpreter.

10. I accordingly adjourned the hearing until 15 May 2014. I directed that HMCTS was to provide two interpreters for that hearing. I directed that Capita’s Relationship Director, Sonia Facchini, file a written statement (with statement of truth) explaining the circumstances in which and the reasons why no interpreters had been provided by Capita for the hearing on 7 May 2014. I gave Capita permission to apply to vary or discharge this order. It chose not to. I reserved the costs of the hearing on 7 May 2014 to the hearing on 15 May 2014 “for consideration of, inter alia, whether Capita should pay such costs.”

 

 

Capita did produce that statement, which raises more concerns than it resolved.

 

It indicated three matters of concern

 

  1. Capita, although being paid to perform the Government contract of providing interpreters for Court eschews all liability if the interpreters they book don’t attend Court.
  2. Capita don’t tell the Court until 2pm the day before the hearing that no interpreter will be coming, giving no time for alternative arrangements to be made
  3. Capita say that on they have 29 Slovak interpreters, and on the day in question there were 39 separate court hearings that required them. Thus raising huge issues about provision of interpreters.

 

Anyone who does family law will have had experiences of interpreters being booked and not attending, or a wholly unsuitable interpreter attending, and trying to deal with the fallout from this. Capita’s explanation here provides some context for just how bad things have become

 

Capita

11  Ms Facchini’s statement is dated 14 May 2014. I need not go into the full details. That is a matter for a future occasion. For immediate purposes there are three points demanding notice. The first is that, according to Ms Facchini, the contractual arrangements between Capita and the interpreters it provides do not give Capita the ability to require that any particular interpreter accepts any particular assignment, or even to honour any engagement which the interpreter has accepted. The consequence, apparently, was that in this case the two interpreters who had accepted the assignment (one on 14 and the other on 17 April 2014) later cancelled (on 5 and 1 May 2014 respectively). The second is that it is only at 2pm on the day before the hearing that Capita notifies the court that there is no interpreter assigned. The third is the revelation that on 7 May 2014 Capita had only 29 suitably qualified Slovak language interpreters on its books (only 13 within a 100 miles radius of the Royal Courts of Justice) whereas it was requested to provide 39 such interpreters for court hearings that day. This is on any view a concerning state of affairs. If the consequence is that a hearing such as that before me on 7 May 2014 has to be abandoned then that is an unacceptable state of affairs. It might be thought that something needs to be done.

12 Whether the underlying causes are to be found in the nature of the contract between the Ministry of Justice and HMCTS or whoever and Capita, or in the nature of the contract between Capita and the interpreters it retains, or in the sums paid respectively to Capita and its interpreters, or in an inadequate supply of interpreters (unlikely one might have thought in a language such as Slovak), I do not know. We need to find out.

 

 

I don’t think we will have heard the last of this issue.

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Divided we stand

Posted on May 19, 2014 by suesspiciousminds

 

The High Court have just reached a determination in a case involving seven children – Re S  (Children : Care proceedings) 2014

 

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWFC/HCJ/2014/2.html

 

Part of the circumstances in this case were that the parents, who had seven children, had a difficult relationship with one of the children, RD.  They felt that RD had not bonded with them, that he did not get on with his siblings and would take their toys and steal their food. The parents came up with an exceedingly unusual solution to this. The father and RD spent all of their time in one room, and slept there, and the mother and the other six children spent all of their time in another room. There was a barrier that stopped RD moving between the rooms.

 

  • The following is based largely on the evidence of Mr and Mrs S themselves. Both Mr and Mrs S told me that when RD was returned to their care, as a toddler, from foster care where he had been from 3 days after he was born Mrs S found it hard to bond with him and both parents said that he seemed to reject them and his siblings. According to Mr and Mrs S RD annoyed his brothers and sisters by taking their toys and taking food from their plates. They felt that he did not fit into the family. More than that they felt he was not like their other children. As a result they decided to live as a divided family with Mrs S and the six other children occupying one room downstairs and Mr S and RD occupying the other. RD was, on their own evidence, largely confined to that room with a gate placed across the doorway. Mr S ate his meals in this front room off a plate which RD shared. Mr S and RD slept in this room while the other children and their mother all slept in one room upstairs.

 

 

 

  • Mr and Mrs S both gave evidence that RD would scream and cry for hours at a time. Mrs S emphasised that RD was screaming not just crying and that it was not like her other children. It is their case that they were worried that he was developmentally delayed and that he had something organically wrong with him. They were so concerned that his crying would cause the neighbours or a passer-by to complain particularly at night that they took him to see their GP, in Burnley, and then to a specialist.

 

 

 

  • There was, apparently, no diagnosis but a recommendation that they change his diet in case he was lactose-intolerant. RD continued to have periods of screaming during which he must have been very distressed. Mr S described him as disaffected, disruptive and violent to the other children; he said RD’s behaviour was classic attention seeking and that he would not bond with the other children. His speech was delayed and he was referred to a speech therapist. Both Mr and Mrs S say they do not blame RD but both saw the faults as lying with him and not with them. RD is put forward by his parents as the cause of what happened next which led to social services intervention. At the time he had been back living with his family for more than two years. He was just four years old.

 

 

 

  • Mr and Mrs S disagreed about what should be done; Mrs S was concerned that if social services became involved the children would once more be taken into care. Mr S says he wanted to ask for help. The family had become more dysfunctional and there existed a kind of apartheid within the home

 

 

That reminded me, although it must have been utterly ghastly for everyone involved, of the classic episode of Steptoe and Son.  Harold falls out with his “dirty old man” father, Albert, and decides that if they are going to carry on living together, they will have to divide the house in half – Harold builds a Berlin Wall style contraption, including a turnstile for access to the bathroom. They only have one television, so there is a hole cut in the wall between the two living rooms, with half of the screen on each side. Harold has devised a very far division of viewing hours, which Albert does not adhere to when Harold wants to watch the ballet.

 

Leading to this classic exchange

Harold : I have the law of contract on my side

Albert : I have the knobs on my side…

 

It’s a long clip, but every minute is worth it.

 

It appears that in this case, the father was convinced that what lay behind the proceedings was that he had (aged 48) married the mother on her sixteenth birthday, and that the Local Authority hoped to break them up so that mother would make complaints to the police about what might have happened BEFORE her 16th birthday.

The case has a lengthy history, but I am concerned principally with the period between the judgement of Mr Justice Hedley in 2011 and now April 2014. Mr S and Mrs S, who appear in person and present as a united front, believe that their family has attracted some notoriety and that what has happened in the past particularly prior to their marriage has prejudiced the authorities against them, leading to these proceedings. I make clear from the outset that the circumstances surrounding the marriage do not form part of this trial and I am not concerned with them. Mr and Mrs S have been married for 14 years and it is the circumstances leading to their seven children being taken into the care of the local authority in the autumn of 2013 and the welfare of the children at that time, and now, with which I am concerned and whether the children have suffered or are likely to suffer significant harm attributable to their parents’ care or lack of it.

 

and later

Mr and Mrs S have put an extraordinary case before the court which is that there is a conspiracy to implicate Mr S in charges of child abuse and that in order to do so E will be persuaded to make such allegations about her father. It is simply not a credible case and there is no evidence to support it. Moreover such a scenario is largely centred on Mr S and his own obsessions. To suggest that his daughter would become involved in such a conspiracy begs more questions than it answers; particularly regarding his attitude towards his own child, her well-being and the difficulties that she is encountering as a result of these proceedings and her father’s allegations about her lying. When coupled with his evidence that RD’s behaviour and difficulties at home were to be laid at the child’s door and not at that of his parents, Mr S’s inability to even start to accept his own responsibilities as a parent are starkly illustrated

Ignoring the circumstances of the parents marriage there were plenty of threshold concerns in the case

 

 

  • LCC seek finding that the physical well-being of the children was compromised by their living conditions both in Burnley and in Blackpool. It is the local authority’s case that the pictures taken of the two homes which both parents accepted in their oral evidence as unfit for the children to live in could not have deteriorated to that extent in the short time between the children being taken into care and when the pictures were taken. The pictures show rooms that are so covered in clutter that they are either unusable or virtually uninhabitable. I make two observations at this point that the description of rooms above mirrors that of Hedley J in 2011 where he spoke of “endless clutter making the rooms almost uninhabitable”, and secondly, that Mr and Mrs S accept that the house in Blackpool was in no better state on the 31st March 2014 despite the fact that they were shortly to come to court and ask for the children to be returned to their care in that house. It was foreshadowed in the evidence of the health visitor, to which I referred above, and upon which they relied.

 

 

 

  • The outside of the properties were no better. In Blackpool there was a sea of bags, black bin bags, detritus and other objects which meant that the children could not go outside to play. There was glass on the ground of the side alley which allowed access and egress to the house at the time the children were removed which was still there months later. The front door in Blackpool was entirely inaccessible from inside the house. I find that the physical surrounding in which the children lived would have caused them significant harm by removing any opportunity to play outside and by limiting even further the space in which they could live, study, play and interact. As they lived their lives in these two houses and did not have the opportunity to be educated elsewhere this has caused them significant harm in terms of their education, as well as emotional harm by severely restricting their ability to become socialised and learn how to function in the wider community. The physical effects on JL are visible in his awkward gait and difficulties in running around; something any little boy, who can, should be able to do freely and with ease.

 

 

 

  • I find there is evidence of significant physical neglect and harm to the children including of their personal hygiene; the older children do not know how to keep themselves intimately clean; the youngest ones were not toilet-trained. Both of these neglected aspects of the children’s physical health were largely accepted by Mrs S in her evidence. JL had some difficulties with his mobility. E and AS showed signs of neglect to their teeth and dental health. AS’s ophthalmic needs were ignored. None of this was caused by anything other than the parents’ care and is directly attributable to them.

 

 

 

  • The very significant harm to RD caused by his neglect and isolation within the family is obvious from the evidence of his parents and siblings and from the descriptions of his behaviour and improvement in his behaviour and development since he was placed with foster-carers. The depth of the emotional harm he has suffered may not become apparent until he is older, but it would be facile to suggest anything other than that he must have suffered significant emotional harm based on the evidence of his parents alone. He was seen as the problem and he and the other children must have known it; indeed the older children have said so. The emotional harm that this has caused his siblings is significant. The oldest three have expressed guilt and remorse at the way he was treated; they should not have been put in that position.

 

 

 

  • The lack of emotional engagement and the unpredictable behaviour of their father, of whom they were scared and frightened; which in turn caused them to feel insecure has caused significant emotional harm. The almost total lack of consistent boundaries added to their feelings of insecurity. The local authority does not seek findings of physical abuse as such but say they can prove that there was a harsh and frightening environment. I find that there was such an environment which caused significant emotional harm to each of the children.
  • I find that it is more likely than not that the children were physically chastised but I cannot make findings as to the extent and nature of the chastisement. I find that the unpredictability of their father’s behaviour towards them which, more likely than not included some physical chastisement caused significant emotional harm.
  •  
  • The emotional harm suffered by the children along with the social isolation and cramped, cluttered and restricting conditions of the homes must have combined to detrimentally affect their emotional and social development and I find it more likely than not that they have suffered significant and long lasting harm as a result of the care of their parents. It is hoped that the younger children will be able to recover and catch up more readily in education (as can be seen with JK), and in their emotional and social development but the outcome of their upbringing for them all will be evident for years to come.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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optimistic litigation

Posted on May 19, 2014 by suesspiciousminds

You might, by now, have heard of Mr Purisma, an unfortunate fellow who got bitten by a dog on a bus, and sued as a result.  He included a variety of other grievances in his lawsuit, including that he was routinely overcharged for his coffee at an airport and that Chinese tourists took photographs of him.

What makes it newsworthy is the value he sets on his claim. Two thousand undecillion dollars.  If, like me, you are thinking that this is the sort of number that some six year old invented “A gabillion-zillion-million-bajillion” then you are wrong.  The amount, in dollars of his claim is $2,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

I didn’t come across this claim on the legal blogs, though it has hit a few now (damn you, other people writing on something I’d hoped to write about), but on the uber geek site xkcd.  And I’ve been wanting to have a chance to plug xkcd for ages now, and this seemed like a good opportunity.

 

One thing that Randall Munro, the creator of xkcd, does every week, is take a ludicrously out there question and apply real life science and maths to it – in the past he has explained what would happen if a baseball pitcher could throw a ball at the speed of light (which is mind-boggling), whether you could make something take off and fly by firing sufficient machine guns down at the ground, how many people a T-Rex would have to eat a day to survive, and dozens of others.

 

On this one, Randall ignores whether the lawsuit is plausible and whether the quantum is reasonable, in favour of just working out if there is currently that much money in the world (no), and if there would ever be (no) and if it could ever be produced before all the stars in the universe go out (no), or whether if you melted down the world and sold it to aliens for scrap that would pay for the compensation (no) but he does this in a beautiful and stylish way that I can only commend to you all

By weight, the single most valuable thing that’s been bought and sold on an open market is probably the Treskilling Yellow postage stamp. There’s only one known copy of it, and in 2010 it sold for $2,300,000. That works out to about $30 billion per kilogram of stamps. If the Earth’s weight were entirely postage stamps, it would still not be enough to pay off Au Bon Pain’s potential debt.[7]

 

Culminating in working out that if the respondent hired the most expensive lawyer on earth [who charges apparently $1,800 per hour], and every single planet so far discovered in the universe was populated entirely by clones of that lawyer, and the respondent employed them ALL, the costs would still be dwarfed by the lawsuit, and it would be worth fighting the case.

 

http://what-if.xkcd.com/96/

 

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