Category Archives: case law

The last resort – without Jonathan Ross

Posted on December 24, 2013 by suesspiciousminds

Re LRP (Care Proceedings : Placement Order) 2013 and some labour saving remarks from the High Court

 http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2013/3974.html

You may recall the seismic shift in the jurisprudence about adoption law that happened in autumn of this year, following Baroness Hale’s judgment in Re B and the subsequent adoption of many of her thoughts by the Court of Appeal in Re B-S and many others.

One of the things that was in my list of unanswered questions was the extent to which the Court, in deciding that “nothing else than adoption will do” has to explore or exclude long-term fostering as an option.  Is it mandatory to give reasons for ruling it out, or can the Court – having established that nothing else than permanent care by the State will do, simply determine that adoption has advantages that make it the more desirable option?

Well, although this is a High Court authority rather than a Court of Appeal one, it is fair to say that the High Court judge gave the “long-term fostering” argument pretty short shrift  – the case involved a young child, indeed a baby.

In fact, it only arose as an issue at all because the social worker was obliged as a result of Re B-S to put it in as a possible placement option and outline the advantages and disadvantages

The only other possibility mentioned within Ms Gorbutt’s report, is that LRP might be placed in long term foster care. It emerged during the course of the evidence that the primary reason for raising long term foster care, which Ms Gorbutt does not support, was so as to attempt to satisfy the requirements of Re B-S (supra) and other recent Court of Appeal guidance.

 

 

The analysis, whilst making it plain that adoption was the preferred option of the LA, said this

Ms Gorbutt’s report suggests that long term foster care would be a “means by which permanency can be achieved”; and that “a long term foster home can offer … commitment, security and stability within a new family…”

 

 

And Pauffley J’s take on this was  (get your copy and paste button ready, it’s CTRL C then CTRL V)

  1. I profoundly disagree with those contentions. Long term foster care is an extraordinarily precarious legal framework for any child, particularly one a young as LRP. Foster placements, long or short term, do not provide legal security. They can and often do come to an end. Children in long term care may find themselves moved from one home to another sometimes for seemingly inexplicable reasons. Long term foster parents are not expected to be fully committed to a child in the same way as adoptive parents. Most importantly of all in the current context, a long term foster child does not have the same and enduring sense of belonging within a family as does a child who has been adopted. There is no way in which a long term foster child can count on the permanency, predictability and enduring quality of his placement as can a child who has been adopted.
  1. The realistic, as opposed to the fanciful, options are (i) a return to her parents or (ii) a placement for adoption. So whilst I am sympathetic to Ms Gorbutt, as I would be to any practitioner who is endeavouring to fulfil the requirements of the law in the way assessments are conducted and reports written, it is worth reiterating that the focus should be upon the sensible and practical possibilities rather than every potential outcome, however far-fetched

Well, I completely agree with Pauffley J, in relation to a newborn baby (these proceedings were actually concluded within 10 weeks), long-term fostering is not a proper care plan at all.

The final sentence is interesting – of course, as a High Court judge, Pauffley J doesn’t have the power to overturn Re B-S (court of appeal authority), but it is a clear marker that so far as the lower courts are concerned, a laborious exercise of setting out why adoption is better than long-term fostering is just a waste of everyone’s time and they don’t want to see it.

(I told you that you would want the cut and paste handy)

That also seems to me to mean, that until the Court of Appeal tell us otherwise, once the Court reaches the point of “nothing else but permanent placement outside the family will do”  there is not a need to RULE OUT long-term fostering.

A welcome authority – let’s save the arguments on long-term fostering versus adoption for those cases where there is a genuine issue as to what the better option for the child might be.

It is also interesting that although the Court of Appeal authority required the LA to spell out the disadvantages to the child of making a placement order, Pauffley J goes through those disadvantages like a drug-fuelled chef julienning some particularly tender vegetables. Perhaps the vegetables had been pre-tenderised by some forceful handling?

  1. Placement order – the disadvantages
  1. The disadvantage of making a placement order is that LRP will be deprived of an upbringing within her natural family. She will not be brought up by a mother who is obviously able to demonstrate pleasing emotional warmth and affection for her child or by a father who, similarly, can be appropriately tender when minded to show that side of himself. It may be, as Ms Gorbutt suggests, that in future LRP will need some professional assistance so as to deal with issues of loss and identity if she is not to be brought up within her natural family. But experience suggests that so long as the adoptive family deals openly and sensitively with those matters – and age appropriately as the child grows – the potential for problems is markedly reduced, even eliminated.
  1. Ms Gorbutt comments that “in the event a culturally matched placement is not found, LRP’s diversity needs will not be met.” She continues, “There is a risk of placement breakdown.” Those fears, it seems to me, are misplaced. They fail to recognise the realities, well known to all professionals who practice in the field. I mention the most obvious. First that the younger a child is placed within his / her permanent alternative family, the better the chance of a very successful outcome. Second that LRP is an infant child born to “White British” parents of average to good intelligence so that ‘family finding’ for her should be entirely straightforward. Third, that there should be no difficulty at all in identifying a culturally appropriate placement. Fourth, that I may safely ignore the absurd suggestion that LRP’s “diversity needs will not be met.”

Do we get the feeling that other than in the rareified air of the Court of Appeal, judges on the ground are somewhat patronised by being told how to do their job and at having to laboriously read arguments about the blindingly obvious?

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I say Port Harcourt, you say the High Court…

Posted on December 23, 2013 by suesspiciousminds

Two different takes from the High Court on pretty similar facts  (on one the ‘parents’ are believed, on the other they are found to be liars). It demonstrates that High Court judges don’t talk much amongst themselves, otherwise the two Judges would have been mangling their chops in the canteen and both gone “I’ve got exactly the same case as that!” and of course that Judges are human beings and not automatons.

I have written about the Port Harcourt “fertility clinic” before

 

https://suesspiciousminds.com/2012/10/29/one-of-these-nights-youre-gonna-get-caught-itll-give-you-a-pregnant-pause-for-thought/

 

in A Local Authority v S and O 2011 where the High Court in 2011 considered a case where a woman went to Port Harcourt for fertility treatment (this being in Nigeria) and came back to England with a child who was not theirs. One of the big issues in the case was whether the couple had known this and been part of a deception to pretend that this unrelated baby was theirs or whether they themselves had been duped.

 The High Court was helped in that case by extensive research by the parents legal team which showed that Port Harcourt fertility clinic had some previous form and been investigated for duping mothers into undertaking a fake labour and tricking them into believing that the child was theirs. Given that it was established that they had tricked other women, the incredible story this ‘mother’ was telling became slightly less fanciful.

 

(I have in my mind that there was another Port Harcourt case, not long after, but I can’t find it at this moment. I really thought that I had blogged about it…)

 

This is another High Court case, just reported (although decided back in winter 2011) on the same sort of facts – again the woman went to Port Harcourt for fertility treatment, underwent a false labour and came back with a child – the issue again was whether the couple were duped, or involved in the deception themselves

 

Re E (A Child) 2011

 

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2011/3453.html

 

 

As a result of timing, neither of the two High Court cases refer to each other. This is something of a shame, since the extensive research and investigation in S and O 2011 didn’t get done in Re E , and the Judge in Re E understandably took the view that the couple’s account of what had gone in in Port Harcourt was remarkably far-fetched.  (It might have been that she still had doubts about the couple’s complicity had she known that Port Harcourt had been found to have done exactly what was alleged here in another case, but it might have tipped the balance)

 

This is the only bit where the worries about Port Harcourt’s practice comes into the judgment in Re E

 

He also said that he had done some internet research: he believes from that that this Clinic may be suspected of being one where young girls give birth and babies are passed on to other families. I accept that some such reference was found on the net: I am not prepared to act on this but it does not take research to ask the question and to entertain such suspicions. If E is not the O’s child, then the social worker is entitled to ask the question, where does she come from, and is not the obvious answer some form of organised trafficking? I have also asked myself the same questions, and like him I have no satisfactory answer.

 

 

Given that the Court weren’t given evidence about Port Harcourt’s history of deception, the account given by the couple was felt to be incredible, and there was some doubt in the Court’s mind that the couple had even been to the fertility clinic at all

 

  1. The evidence that E is not Mr and Mrs O’s child is overwhelming; no person could rationally believe that she was their child: indeed Mr and Mrs O’s case involves an assumption that in certain circumstances normal scientific laws are suspended or are to be disregarded. Quite apart from the repeat DNA tests, the negative scans and pregnancy tests, and the absence of HIV antibodies, all the evidence points to an overwhelming conclusion.
  1. The refusal by Mrs O to be examined supports the inference that she knows that her body does not bear the marks of childbirth: I do not accept her explanation for refusing the examination by Mr Naylor: she may also have feared, for whatever reason, that he would not find that she is currently pregnant.
  1. I have found on the clearest possible evidence that she did not give birth to E at the Clinic or elsewhere. I cannot positively find, even on the balance of probabilities, that she was actually treated at the Clinic at all, or that she underwent any form of simulated or pretend labour. In fact, I am inclined to think that she did not. I found Mrs S’s evidence incredible throughout: she was plainly being ‘helped’ to give her evidence by someone, perhaps Mrs O’s relative, although, I thought at one stage that I heard a man’s voice as well as a woman’s. Her account that Mrs O had undergone labour is a frank lie. Mrs S must know that she is not telling the truth, and Mr and Mrs O must realise this.
  1. I cannot imagine a circumstance in which a trained midwife could imagine that she had delivered a baby from a woman when this had not happened. A suggestion in some of the early documents that Mrs O may have been duped because the labour suite was in darkness was not pursued: both Mrs O and Mrs S say that the lights were off briefly because of a power cut but that the generators were put on very shortly afterwards and the room was properly lit. Some parts of Mrs O’s account are consistent with a false labour process: a drink of herbs to ‘induce labour’ leading to internal pain, a midwife putting a hand inside her and a gush of fluid which she interpreted as her waters breaking, could have been created to deceive her: but the account is just as consistent with a complete fabrication. The Clinic plainly had dealings with Mrs O because they have supported her account. No motive has been given for Mrs S to lie and deceive Mrs O: this is not a case such as the Haringey case (Haringey London Borough Council v C, E and another intervening [2005] 2 FLR 47) where Ryder J. was able to find that the ministry running the clinic had a vested interest in ‘miracle’ births. I cannot find that there were significant financial arrangements (other than the £250 which Mrs O said that she had paid): but I cannot find that there are not, and there must have been some incentive. The presence of Mrs O’s relative at the clinic with Mrs S when the doctor was not there points to some family connection and influence, and Mrs S gave evidence under her supervision. All these factors tend to support the case that Mrs O is not an innocent dupe. Further than that I cannot go.
  1. Mrs O spoke lucidly and clearly if with a good deal of emotion and anger and with no sense that she was deluded. Much of her presentation is consistent with pseudocyesis: for instance her swollen abdomen, which is documented and of which there are a number of pictures, and which would probably be impossible to fake: but it is also consistent with simple weight gain. The picture from the medical records that she had presented herself as being pregnant consistently from July 2009 until November 2010 is also consistent with a pseudocyesis: but it may also be consistent with a consciously simulated pregnancy. Also, having heard Mr Naylor’s evidence Mrs O backtracked on crucial features of the case previously accepted or presented: for instance denying that in February 2010 (at just about the time of E’s conception) she had told the doctor that she had felt the baby kicking: saying that he had suggested that to her, and her change of case about the ultrasounds in Nigeria. This suggests to me that she was able to take a tactical and rational approach to the question of matters relating to pregnancy which may be inconsistent with a fixed false belief. Also, as I have said above, Mr Naylor told me that in his experience of women with pseudocyesis he had never encountered a woman who had then claimed to give birth and produced a baby: although a common presentation was that a woman would be admitted to hospital claiming to be pregnant, and then once confronted with evidence that she was not pregnant, accuse the nurses of stealing her non-existent baby. On the other hand in the Haringey case Ryder J. did accept that the wife had been deceived into believing that she had given birth to three children, in rather similar circumstances to these and where Ryder J said that of that couple’s belief… “faith is the answer to what medical science cannot or will not explain“.
  1. I got the impression that Mr O showed more signs than Mrs O of an unquestioning belief in the supernatural: he referred on several occasions to believing in the ‘natural’ by which he plainly meant beyond the scientific. Mrs O attempted to give a rational scientific answer, stating that the herbs were used to prevent her from ‘spotting’ blood, and to prevent miscarriage, rather than to assist in a miraculous pregnancy, as Mr O said he believed.
  1. I am not able to hazard a guess as to how a fixed mutual and irrational belief as to the birth of a child can develop in both a husband and wife.
  1. Against all the other evidence I am unable to find that Mrs O has been duped, misled, or is living in a fantasy world. I cannot accept that she truly believes, particularly in the light of all she knows now, that E is her child. I do not accept that she truly believed that when she brought E into this country.

 

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“Will you walk a little faster, said a whiting to a snail”

Posted on December 23, 2013 by suesspiciousminds

An application (unsuccessful) to commit Mr Whiting for alleged breaches of an injunction made in the Court of Protection. Re Whiting 2013

 

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2013/B27.html

 

This was an application made by a Local Authority for a committal of Mr Whiting for alleged breaches of an order made in the Court of Protection, which had been designed to protect a vulnerable woman who lacked capacity to consent to sexual intercourse from any unwelcome advances.

 

The Judge praised the LA for good practice and good social work generally

 

 

  1. Too often, bad practice is rebuked and good practice is unacknowledged. I am happy to have this opportunity to redress the balance at least a little. However, I emphasise this for another reason – as later in this judgment I have found myself driven to make criticisms of the way this application has been pursued. I intend those criticisms to be constructive and to restate guidance. I do not want them to eclipse my positive acknowledgment of the social work practice here and the way that, in my view, it has afforded WAJ much better protection against the many vicissitudes of life. Most importantly, I do not want anything I say to weaken that relationship.
  1. Leslie Whiting formed a relationship with WAJ. During the course of the proceedings he was made a respondent. Social Services were concerned about the dynamic of this relationship. They were worried, too, about a conviction recorded against him in 2009. The details of that conviction are not in my papers but I have been told that it is a sexual offence relating to exploitation of a vulnerable adult. Mr Whiting made it clear to the court that he did not want to play any part in the proceedings when the Court of Protection was looking at the issues that I have outlined as in its focus. He declined to attend. Nonetheless, in his absence, his role in WAJ’s life fell under scrutiny and was the subject of detailed professional evaluation. The conclusion that was reached was that his influence was essentially malign.
  1. On 21st August 2012 an injunction was made by District Judge Rogers, which was designed to protect WAJ and to extricate Leslie Whiting from her life. The terms of that order were as follows:

“(1) Leslie Whiting should be forbidden by himself or acting jointly with any other person from: (a) allowing or threatening any unlawful violence against the first respondent (WAJ); (b) coming within 100 metres of a property in which it was thought she was living at the time, or any other property that he became aware that she might be visiting; (c) communicating with the first respondent, whether by letter, telephone, text message or other means of communication; (d) threatening the first respondent; (e) instructing or encouraging any other person to do anything which is forbidden by the terms of the order.”

 

 

 

One can see perhaps why professionals would have preferred that Mr Whiting played no further part in the life of WAJ.

 

Here are the alleged breaches

 

 

  1. In this case, the breaches were pleaded as follows:

“(1) Leslie Whiting is alleged to have contacted WAJ eight times by telephone at the end of August 2012 in breach of paragraph (2)(c) of the enclosed order.

(2) Leslie Whiting is alleged to have contacted WAJ once by telephone during September 2012 – WAJ recorded the telephone call and played it back to her social worker, and the social worker has confirmed that the voice she heard on the recording was that of Leslie Whiting and that, in her opinion, the tone of his voice was aggressive. This is in breach of paragraph (2)(c) of the enclosed order above.

(3) Leslie Whiting is alleged to have contacted WAJ by telephone on or around 23rd October 2012. He is alleged to have been heard by Rachel Curl, the manager at a respite unit, making verbal threats to WAJ and also against WAJ’s mother. This is in breach of paragraphs (2)(b), (c) and (d) of the enclosed order.

(4) WAJ was found on 15th December 2012 by Cambridgeshire Constabulary at Leslie Whiting’s residence, 19 Myrtle Avenue, Peterborough. Leslie Whiting is reported to have been heavily intoxicated and aggressive towards the police officers. WAJ’s friend, Tony Armstrong: they had visited Leslie Whiting to exchange Christmas presents but when they had gone to leave his property, he became upset. Leslie Whiting is believed to have encouraged WAJ to visit him, in breach of paragraph (2)(e) of the enclosed order.”

 

 

If one were able to prove those, particularly the last, one would expect at least a suspended sentence.

 

Now, for reasons that are not plain to me, the application for committal was lodged in January 2013, and heard in November 2013, an extraordinary delay

 

In the autumn of 2012, and certainly by December, the Adult Services in Peterborough believed that they had grounds upon which to establish that Leslie Whiting had breached the terms of the district judge’s injunction. Accordingly, an application to commit was launched. The application notice is dated 11th January 2013. It is an application which has, to say the least, a very dispiriting litigation history. That I am hearing the case in November, and now December 2013, relating to alleged breaches in the autumn of 2012 tells its own story.

 

To enlarge on that a little, the Judge cited the hearing in September 2013

 

  • District Judge Eldergill heard the case on 18th September 2013. His order records the following: 

    “(2) The application was due to be heard on 15th January 2013 then on 29th July 2013 and then on 19th September 2013. On each occasion procedural irregularities have caused the hearing of the application to be postponed.”

    The district judge went on in paragraph (3) of that order to identify the relevant guidance for practitioners in order that those procedural irregularities might not dog the case further. It is, I think, helpful to set that out in this judgment. It reads:

    “(3) The applicant is referred to the Court of Protection Rules 2007, and in particular to Part 21 and Rule 9, Court of Protection Practice Direction PD21A; committal for contempt of court (practice guidance) [2013] 1 WLR 1316, 2013 EWHC B4 (COP); committal for contempt of court (supplemental practice guidance) [2013] EWCH B7 (COP); Part 81 of the CPR and the relevant case law.”

    The district judge also signalled, by way of completeness, at (4):

    “It is unlikely that any further adjournments of the application will be granted.”

 

Now, what was the evidence produced to demonstrate that those alleged breaches were proven?

 

  1. . The applicant sought to prove the breaches by the affidavit and oral evidence of a social worker. The affidavit the social worker spoke to, at the hearing of November 2013, was dated January 2013. Exhibited to it was a short chronology of similar date. There were fundamental difficulties with the affidavit, with the chronology and indeed the oral evidence. Timescales and dates were vague. There was heavy reliance on hearsay evidence from a variety of sources. There was a dearth of primary material – for example, mobile phone records – even though it appears they may have been capable of being obtained. The passage of time also meant that the social worker’s evidence was characterised by a lack of detail, but so too, it must be said, the affidavit and the chronology were decidedly sparse. I must also add that it was particularly frustrating that the photocopies of the chronology were barely legible and the original appeared to have been lost.
  1. The injunction from which the alleged breach arises is, as I have said, that of 21st August 2012. The fundamental problem with the first breach, dealing with each in turn, is that it relates to “the end of August”. Did that include the period before the injunction was made? At this stage that is simply not known. Were some of the alleged eight telephone calls made before 21st and some after? Again, the answer to that is not known. The allegation is simply not drafted tightly enough and, to my mind, fails on that basis alone.
  1. The second alleged breach fails for a similar reason. The social worker was able to tell me that she listened to a recording made by WAJ on her phone, for evidential purposes. The social worker said that she had listened to that during September. It could therefore have been any date between 1st and 30th September. Moreover, that was the date the social worker listened to the recording, not the date the call was received. When was it received? Again, that could not be ascertained. Given that the order itself was only made ten days prior to 1st September, it lets in the real possibility that the call might have been made sometime before that. The burden here is on the applicant and the standard is the criminal standard. This drafting simply lacks the degree of specificity that is required in an application of this kind, and that, too, fails.
  1. The third allegation relies entirely on second hand hearsay. The primary witness, whose evidence must be taken to be challenged, was not available, This did not begin to meet the requisite standard of proof. The fourth allegation, however, is, in my view, established. I am satisfied that the police attended Leslie Whiting’s home on 1st December 2012; I am satisfied that the social worker giving evidence was directly informed of this and; I am satisfied that Leslie Whiting was drunk and aggressive, and I am also satisfied, on the basis of WAJ’s actions throughout the previous months, that she was determined to steer clear of Leslie Whiting if at all possible. That she had attended at his home that day was, in my view, as a consequence of being lured or coerced, probably, as the social worker told me, induced by the prospect of Christmas presents.

 

 

One can obviously see that the only allegation proved to the requisite standard was the fourth. Of course, whilst the fourth was the most serious, by the time the Court actually gave judgment on it, it was nearly a year old.

 

This piece of the judgment is a salutary lesson for professionals (not least the lawyers preparing the evidence for the committal hearing)

 

  1. The commitment and sincerity of all the professionals working in this area is beyond any doubt. It has been on display in this case. What is required, however, is an intellectually rigorous relationship between the lawyers and the social workers in every aspect of the Court of Protection, of course, but particularly on an application of this kind. The lawyers preparing the case must realise that establishing breaches to the criminal standard of proof requires forensic precision and the careful identification of evidence to support each of the particulars of the breach. It seems to me that nobody has hitherto engaged directly in that exercise. It is striking that the best attempts to marshal the evidence were in fact made by WAJ herself. The process requires the lawyer and the social worker to work closely together to look at the order, to identify the breach and to marshal the material as if proving the constituent parts on a count on an indictment. Nothing less will do where the liberty of the individual is at stake.
  1. The Court of Protection is, as the title makes clear, here to protect the vulnerable. The breadth of its work is very wide; its injunctive powers may well not yet have been fully utilised, but it is important, as they develop, that they are deployed with forensic rigour and, where possible, as here, subject to public scrutiny. Collating evidence when working with those who, in certain areas of their lives, may lack capacity is inevitably challenging. Having here found the fourth breach to be proved, I propose to take no action in respect of it. A year has passed since it occurred and there are no subsequent allegations. To that extent, the injunction appears ultimately to have been successful. I do, however, intend to continue the injunction in the terms made by District Judge Rogers for a further twelve months, with liberty to Mr Whiting to apply to discharge.

 

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Section 37 reports are not a vehicle into which to pour professional angst

Posted on December 23, 2013 by suesspiciousminds

The High Court decision in Re M (Children) 2013, and the strong judicial comments about the need for section 7 and s37 reports to properly analyse the issues, AND a warning for Local Authorities who try to avoid responsibility for children in designated authority disputes. Important guidance for both LA lawyers and social workers within this.

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2013/3758.html

 

The facts of this case are quite extreme and unusual. They involve children who were living with their maternal grandparents. These grandparents had had themselves four children – the mother (who had been unable to care for the children), AM (who had been sexually abused by a man 20 years older than her during her adolescence) and twin boys. The twin boys celebrated their 18th birthday by murdering another grandparent and were convicted and imprisoned.

 

Those twins were subsequently released from prison and there was some suggestion that they might move in with the grandparents and the four children in question.

 

Somehow (it is not clear from the judgment) the case came before the Court and section 7 reports and then a s37 report was commissioned from the Local Authority.

(Non-lawyer note – a section 7 report is one the Court ask for to advise on where the child should live and what contact they should be having, and a section 37 report is one the Court ask for to advise on whether the children are suffering significant harm and if so whether the Local Authority propose to do anything about it)

 

This being a London case, there was a degree of dispute as to which Local Authority was responsible, there being three possible candidates. Anecdotally, I think whilst two warring LA’s can eventually come to terms, it is nigh on impossible for three to reach an accord. (The best you get is that Trumptonshire and Chigley both gang up and agree between themselves that this is a Camblewick Green case, and hope that poor Camblewick Green buckle under pressure) 

In this case, it seems that six months were spent quarelling about that, with in the meantime, no LA actually taking the lead in protecting these children or assessing the obvious risk. The Judge wasn’t very impressed about this, and any LA lawyer needs to be aware of the scathing remark at the end (underlining mine)

 

Against this backdrop, it is, to say the least, profoundly depressing that the Social Services’ response appears to have been, at best, minimal. For months three local authorities – Hackney, Enfield and Haringey – jostled amongst themselves as to who had responsibility to lead child protective measures. It follows that without a lead there can scarcely be focus. Quite how significant that failure was will become clear when I come to determine the disputed allegations in this case. By my calculation, at least six months were lost on this issue. I can see there are many reasons why Local Authorities in this climate might wish to avoid the burden of responsibility for a case like this. It inevitably absorbs already stretched resources, both financial and in terms of personnel. I have not permitted court time to be deflected into an investigation as to whether any particular Authority was acting unreasonably or was wrong in law. There have been too many other pressing issues in this case directly concerned with the welfare of the children now that need to be considered as a priority. I do not therefore condemn any one of those Local Authorities, but I do send this signal: that if Local Authorities seek to evade responsibility for child protection to avoid costs, they are likely to face liability in negligence, administrative law and under human rights legislation. As the family courts embrace the opportunities and advantages that greater transparency may bring, Local Authorities who behave in that way will not be able to avail themselves of the cloak of anonymity under which, in the past, they might have found refuge.

 

 

Having settled on which LA was to do the work, the reports themselves came under some scrutiny

  1. Many of the issues that I have just set out were known to the authors of these reports. They concluded, however, that the children should remain with their grandparents. Quoting from the second of the two reports, which I take to have been prepared sometime in early May or late April 2012 (for, like so many other documents presented in this case, it is undated) the author concludes as follows:

“There are some issues arising from recent interventions in both psychiatry, probation and social services in relation to how disturbed the grandparents’ own children, RM, S and SM present as. These adults have made significant allegations in relation to the treatment that they received at the hands of their parents and parents’ friends. It should also be noted, however, that these three children suffer from significant personality disorders and this fact will have a significant bearing on the reliability of the allegations. However, the allegations remain concerning and will need further assessment.”

The report continues:

It would be the Local Authority’s opinion, however, that at this juncture there is no evidence indicating that this placement should discontinue. Therefore the children should remain in the care of the grandparents.”

Earlier in the report the authors observed that the children appeared to be happy, secure and settled in the placement.

 

 

If you are thinking, that seems a bit skimpy, given the wide range of issues already outlined in this brief summary, you are not alone  (again, underlining mine)

 

 

  1. The Guardian has condemned the analysis in this report as superficial. But, in my view, the real flaw is that there is an absence of analysis altogether. The language is telling. It refers vaguely to “some issues”, “significant allegations”, the ubiquitous “concerns”. These are gateways to analysis, they are not, in and of themselves, analysis, and they are certainly not conclusions. Section 37 reports are prepared for courts in order that they can consider risk and what, if any, intervention is required under the available legal framework. They are not discussion documents or a vehicle in which to pour professional angst. Issues must not only be identified or raised, they must be thought through, evaluated and placed in the wider context as it is assessed at the time. Simple report is rarely valuable; it must be challenged, and an expressed willingness to participate must be measured against evidence of past participation. In other words, at the interim stage the full panoply of risk assessment has to be deployed. Absent these conventional tools any risk assessment is of limited value, perhaps meaningless.
  1. What does one draw in the context of these “concerns” from the observation that “the children appeared happy”, when the report itself refers to killings, sexual abuse, rape and incest? The report includes the following:

“On 23rd January 2012 a legal planning meeting was held to establish whether threshold was met to go into proceedings. We were advised that at present there was not enough evidence for threshold to be met to instigate proceedings to remove the children from the maternal grandparents’ care.”

That the threshold criteria on an interim basis were met is so obvious that it is redundant of any sensible argument. As to the proportionality of a removal, that is a wholly different question. It can hardly have helped sensible decision making that it was conflated into one test.

 

 

Given the facts of this case, the Court was clearly of the view that the threshold criteria were made out, and was unhappy that the s37 report  (and probably from the remarks in para 14 above the legal planning meeting) had blurred the issue of “is the threshold met?”  with “is an application for removal likely to succeed”

 

  1. Ms. Briggs, on behalf of the Local Authority, has spent much energy in her written closing submissions and indeed in her oral submissions addressing this point. Her essential argument is that the children remained with their grandparents until sufficient evidence emerged to establish what she referred to as the high test for interim removal. This, I am afraid, will not do. The fact is that the Local Authority failed to analyse the evidence that was already available to it. Ms. Briggs talks of the need for ‘close scrutiny of all historical facts’; the need for ‘primary material’; for a ‘definitive history from source material’. The court, she submits, must be persuaded that the child’s welfare demands immediate separation. But section 38(2) is an interim protective measure. Of course the best possible evidence is required, both to establish it and the proportionality of intervention, guided by the section 1(3) criteria. It is the two in combination that point to what the child’s best interests require, or even, to adopt Ms. Briggs’ term (itself gleaned from the authorities) ‘demand’. Evaluation of risk requires balancing the two seperate sections: the reasonable grounds for believing that the children had sustained significant harm within the definition of section 31(2) of the Children Act 1989, analysed within the welfare checklist criteria, to evaluate whether or how best a child can be protected until such point as the evidence is fully marshalled and, if necessary, put to the assay in cross-examination. Ms. Briggs put the test too high. She does so, in my belief, in a brave attempt to justify ex post facto the Local Authority’s actions.
  1. In the authority which she relies on, and cites to me, Re GR [2010] EWCA Civ 871, it is absolutely plain that Black LJ is precisely prescribing the process which I have just outlined. She says at para.41:

“The most recent case to which I would refer is Re B and KB [2009] EWCA Civ 1254 in which the appeal was against the dismissal of the local authority’s application for an interim care order. The trial judge had given himself what was described as an ‘immaculate self-direction’ in these terms:

‘whether the continued removal of KB from the care of her parents is proportionate to the risk of harm to which she will be exposed if she is allowed to return to her parents’ care.’

However, Wall LJ [as he then was] with whom Thorpe LJ agreed, was persuaded that the judge had failed to go on properly to conduct the required balancing exercise. He said:

’56. Speaking for myself, I find L-A helpful. I agree with the judge that the section 38 criteria were plainly met in relation to both children, but it is equally clear to me that KB’s welfare did demand her immediate removal from her parents’ care and that there was abundant material (not least the views of the police) which warranted that course of action. In my judgment, KB’s safety, using that word in a broad sense to include her psychological welfare, did require interim protection.'”

  1. My criticism of the Local Authority is, that they did not really evaluate the risk to the child at all, and indeed later to any of the children in the public law proceedings at the interim stage. They have, rather, focused on the forensic difficulties of establishing the case. Even if that were a relevant consideration – and, in my view, it is not – then there was, in my analysis, proper material upon which to undertake the exercise.

 

 

 

I think this is a first for me, seeing an advocate representing the LA being criticised for putting the test for removal “too high”. 

 

 Clearly this case presented some significant forensic challenges and the marshalling of all of the evidence and properly testing it would require a lot of painstaking work, but the Judge’s critique here is that the LA did not assess the risk to these children based on the information that they already had.

 

 

  1. The section 7 report to which I referred earlier is dated 11th February 2011. It is signed by Alison Skerritt, the social worker, and countersigned by her deputy team manager, Dina Sturgeon. I quote only from two passages at pp.19 and 22 of that document:

“AMN, RMN and JMM have suffered little harm in their lives, and this is because they have lived with their grandparents who have protected them and kept them safe from harm. However, it would be fair to say that the children would be at greater risk of suffering significant harm if they were removed from their grandparents’ care to reside with their mother or their mother and LM, as SM is struggling to resolve her mental health problems. Furthermore, due to LM’s conviction, the Local Authority would recommend that he only have supervised contact with the children. [Later:] In conclusion for the reasons above outlined, the children are well placed and settled at their grandparents’ home. No concerns have been identified from any of the agencies involved, and the children and reports have in fact been very positive. As all parents are in agreement with the current arrangements for the moment, Mr. and Mrs. M have applied for a residence order to secure the wellbeing of their grandchildren.”

  1. As I work through the evidence in this case, just how superficial the enquiries of the section 37 report and the 7 report were, I believe will become all too evident.

 

 

Later on in the process, the LA took a rather different view of the risks involved, and sought to remove the children and had a care plan of adoption. There was a long list of findings sought, but just looking at the findings that were AGREED is quite illuminating as to how those earlier assessments of risk were perceived by the Court.

 

  1. (1) The mother has a history of mental health problems. She has a diagnosis of emotionally unstable personality disorder which causes her to behave in a volatile and impulsive manner. She has reported hearing voices. Mother has a history of attempting suicide by taking overdoses and self-harming.

(2) Mother has a history of substance misuse problems. Mother reports having misused cannabis, LSD, meth amphetamines and cocaine.

(3) LM has a history of substance misuse problems. He continues to smoke cannabis.

(4) The relationship between mother and LM is volatile and violent. The parents have hit and punched one another.

(5) On 1st March 2012 mother telephoned the police and reported that LM had cut himself and threatened to jump out of their sixth-floor window. When police attended they found LM on the floor with two deep lacerations to his arm which were self-inflicted.

(6) On 20th March 2013 mother telephoned the police and reported that LM had threatened to self-harm following an argument about money.

(7) The maternal family came to the attention of the Local Authority in 1996 when AM was 12 years old, because she had been running away from home.

(8) Several referrals were made when AM was 14. Referrals came from AM’s school, the police and the maternal grandparents. AM was absconding from school, running away from home, and was in a sexual relationship with KH, a man 20 years her senior, who had previously been in a relationship with the maternal grandmother and who claimed to be the father of JM and RM Jnr.

(9) AM was sexually abused by KH from the age of 13. The sexual abuse included penetrative sex. AM was introduced to KH by FH, her paternal grandfather.

(10) AM was memorandum interviewed on 14th January 1999 and confirmed her allegations that KH had raped her.

(11) The maternal grandmother allowed FH to visit the home, help with the gardening and take A out, despite being highly suspicious of him.

(12) In early February 1999 AM took a knife from the kitchen and held her siblings hostage in a bedroom. She said she wanted to harm herself.

(13) AM was placed at Degra House, a specialist residential, unit on 3rd August 1998 at the age of 14. She received intensive psychotherapy for the sexual abuse she suffered. AM presented as suicidal and self-harming during her stay at Degra.

(14) JM and RM Jnr. had behavioural difficulties in adolescence. They truanted from school, were eventually expelled and were sent to a tuition centre. Both boys were referred to an education psychologist.

(15) In 2006 JM and RM Jnr. were convicted of the manslaughter and robbery of AH, AM’s paternal grandmother. It is recorded that they were sentenced to nine years’ imprisonment.

(16) At the time of the twins’ arrest in 2006, a computer was found at the family home with 68 indecent images of children on it. No action was taken by the police regarding these images in light of the charges of murder against the twins. Ms. Briggs has advised me, and it is not contested, that these images were set at Category 4 by the Crown Prosecution Service, which, as I understand it, means that they involve images of penetrative sex with under-age children.

(17) JM and RM Jnr. both have diagnoses of severe personality disorder. They have both reported hearing voices, have expressed suicidal ideation and have self-harmed. They are assessed to present a high risk in the community.

(18) Prior to the twins being released, the maternal grandparents stated that they did not consider that the twins presented a risk to children and they disagreed with the restrictions placed on the twins.

(19) Maternal grandmother provided mother’s telephone number to JM prior to his release from prison. He then sent several texts of a sexual nature to the mother.

(20) The maternal grandparents have said that they believe the mother deliberately engineered RM Jnr’s recall to prison.

(21) In 2006 F was convicted of two counts of sexual activity with a child under 16. The girl concerned was 13 years old. She disclosed that she was asleep and woke up to find F touching her, her bra undone. F [by which is meant LM] was sentenced to two years conditional discharge, and was on the sexual offenders’ register for two years.

  1. Those 21 findings are all agreed facts in this case. In my view, they tell their own story.

 

 

I won’t recount them all here, but in addition to those 21 agreed findings, a further 24 findings were made, including that at the time his daughter was being sexually abused in adolescence by an older man KH,  the grandfather was aware of this and that KH was boasting of it to him

 

  1. 34.   (1) In evidence and cross-examination both maternal grandparents acknowledge that their daughter was indeed sexually abused by KH – a man 20 years older than she was – and that he had been abusing her since she was 13 years of age.

(2) The grandfather agreed that he knew KH had claimed to be in a relationship with a 13-year-old girl when he, KH, was 19. Moreover, the grandfather emphasised that that was something that KH “boasted about” (I use his phrase) and “bragged about” (again his phrase). The grandfather referred to KH in evidence as “a paedophile”, though it was clear that he was not entirely comfortable with that term, and later withdrew from it. He withdrew on the somewhat tortuous basis that KH might merely have been bragging about this relationship or, to put it another way, pretending to be a paedophile when he was in fact not one. In my view a rather ludicrous proposition.

(3) Both grandparents knew that FH was associated with KH, and they accept that he raped their daughter, A.

(4) The grandfather knew, and spent time with, KH, whom he knew, it seems to me, beyond any doubt, to be a paedophile.

 

 

I don’t think it will terribly surprise anyone that the Court came to the conclusion that the grandparents were not safe and that the children had to live elsewhere.

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Secret decision to remove

Posted on December 21, 2013 by suesspiciousminds

(No, I’ve not asked Christopher Booker to do a guest blog, but this is a case which is worthy of attention, given how much press coverage the Italian C-Section case received. I am quite surprised that this made it through the Lord Nueberger view of article 8 and what the word necessary means in that context)

A Local Authority v C 2013

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2013/4036.html

This is unusual, because it is an application that the Local Authority made BEFORE the birth of the child. I have only ever seen one of these before, the one referred to in the judgment Re D 2009.

    1. The local authority’s application is, therefore, for a without notice order which is not to be served on the mother that:

(a) she lacks capacity to make decisions relating to the future care of her child when born;

(b) it is lawful as being in the best interests of her child when born for its Claimants, its servants or agents immediately to remove the child from the mother’s care and to maintain that separation pending a Court considering the Claimant’s application from an emergency protection order or interim care order;

(c) it is lawful for the minimum necessary force to be used, if required, in the course of effecting and maintaining such separation;

(d) it is lawful for the police to assist in the carrying out of the order by utilisation of their powers pursuant to section 46 of the Children Act 1989; and

(e) it is lawful for the Claimant to withhold from the mother its intention to remove her child from her immediately following birth and, in this regard, not to involve the mother in the planning process for her baby.

(I note that it is a shame that the order accompanying the judgment is not published, since (b) is interesting. It seems as though that might be akin to an Emergency Protection Order made before the baby is born, to take effect at birth. Edit – actually what it does is tell the police (d) that they can lawfully remove under a PPO.  That raises even more questions, since the existing law is that Police Protection ought to be behind making an EPO or ICO application in the pecking order – Liverpool v X, for example)

The mother in this case was said to have profound mental health problems and other issues

Mother has long-standing mental health problems and an IQ of 64. I have read a report from her treating psychiatrist. Her diagnosis is of paranoia and psychosis. She also abuses drugs. She is described as challenging, and she can be volatile. She has had two previous children, both of whom were removed from her very early in their lives. The elder was removed from her care in 2007 aged three weeks, when mother physically injured that child by causing twisting injuries to his arms and bruising to his chest. Both those children now live with those children’s father. She is now pregnant again, by a different father, with an estimated delivery date of 22nd September 2013.

What were the arguments for not telling her?

    1. The local authority perceives there to be a grave danger to the unborn child immediately after birth, in the light of the mother’s mental health problems and the increasingly worrying presentation which has manifested itself to her obstetrician, to social workers and to others. She is undoubtedly incapacitous in some respects, the extent to which is not clear because she has not been assessed. She is likely to have understanding in a number of respects, particularly those aspects of her own health care and her own wishes and feelings about her child which do not require sophisticated intellectual understanding.
    1. Her consultant obstetrician found a very marked deterioration in her presentation. He describes how her usually more placid demeanour has become more and more aggressive, hostile, confrontational and oppositional, during the monitoring of her pregnancy. She has had, until recently, a fairly trouble-free pregnancy and her two previous deliveries were normal. She has had some internal bleeding. It is not clear how accurate her description of the severity is of that. There is a fear there may be problems with the attachment of the baby’s placenta. She became very agitated when he needed to examine her and refused to be examined. She is not currently medicated or accepting her medication, and this cannot take place until after the birth. She showed pressure of speech; she swore, was verbally aggressive and she had what the obstetrician called “an outburst”. She was threatening. A number of minor issues were raised by her which it was impossible to “de-escalate”. He is extremely worried that the mother will not be compliant with staff during the birth process as a result of her discussions with him. I have been referred to his notes recorded in an internal meeting.
    1. If professionals attempt to hold any form of conversation with her on a topic with arouses her emotion she becomes hostile very quickly. All the professionals who have been dealing with the mother are concerned that her mental health is currently deteriorating.
    1. Her consultant psychiatrist reports that it has proved impossible to have a coherent rational conversation with her. She is “very thought disordered”. The psychiatrist anticipates a struggle if the mother is asked to hand over the baby at birth. He believes that the risk to the baby when born would be high if the mother were to be allowed to hold the baby. He also infers that the mother’s mental health was not as severely effected at the time when her older child was injured since she was not known to mental health services at that time.
    1. All those who have had dealings with her think it highly likely that the mother would inadvertently harm the baby whilst attempts are made to remove it from her.
  1. The view expressed by all the professionals is that if she is told about any plan to remove the baby at birth or after birth (under an emergency protection order or interim care order) this will exacerbate the problems with her mental health and “increase the already risky situation that is likely to occur following the birth”. She is presently in a psychiatric unit and arrangements are being made for her to undergo her delivery at a local hospital.

You should also note that the mother was not represented at THIS hearing, even through the Official Solicitor  (the agency who act on behalf of parents who lack capacity to instruct a solicitor). This was discussed, here

I raised the question with Mr Jones during the course of his carefully presented argument as to whether or not it would be appropriate for me to indeed appoint the Official Solicitor (if he so agreed) to act on behalf of this mother, and for the Official Solicitor to be informed of the nature of the application (or indeed any order), in order that representations could be made to the court. However, I perceive that the Official Solicitor, or indeed any legal representative acting on behalf of a party, incapacitous or not, cannot be bound to withhold information which comes to their notice from their client. And it seems to me that this mother probably has the capacity to understand the nature of this application and that the local authority intends to remove the child from her. In my view, the only basis upon which a legal representative can agree not to disclose information to their client is if that client consents to that course of action, and in order to obtain such consent the Official Solicitor would have to alert the mother to the nature of these proceedings. Mr Jones tells me that the authority shares that concern.

So, the order was made, using the authority of Re D, and the principles set out within that judgment

    1. I have come to the conclusion from the documents which I have read and the submissions that I have heard, that this is indeed a highly exceptional and unusual case and that the history of the mother’s mental health problems, her mistreatment of her other children (and there are other assertions of ill-treatment as well as the injury to the baby), the mother’s increasing volatility, irritability and inability to accept the concerns of others and indeed her deteriorating mental health, do give rise to an imminent, serious and present danger to the child when it is born, in particular of an inadvertent injury to the child if the child is sought to be wrested from her.
    1. It seems to me that the only way in which that risk and danger can be guarded against is by way of an order that the baby be removed immediately upon delivery. I understand and acknowledge what a drastic step this is, how deeply distressing this will be to this mother (as it would indeed be to any mother newly delivered of a child), and I am in no doubt that she will understand what is happening to her in these circumstances. But I am persuaded, and indeed now convinced, that there is sadly no other way of safeguarding the interests of this child than by making an anticipatory declaration as I am asked, in order that intervention can take place at the earliest possible opportunity.
    1. Weighing up the options (as I must do), removal is the one which safeguards the child’s interests whereas non-removal does not.
    1. This will not deprive the mother of an opportunity to be heard on an application for an emergency protection order or interim care order at the earliest possible date.
  1. I recognise that the first moments after a child’s birth are particularly precious and can never be recovered, but nonetheless the opportunity to have her case heard at the earliest possible moment will go some way to preserving the mother’s opportunity to have a relationship with her child.

It seems therefore, that what the Court did was use the inherent jurisdiction to authorise removal of the baby at birth PENDING a very fast application for an Emergency Protection Order.  The Judge makes it plain that the EPO application must be ready to be heard very swiftly

In Mr Jones’ draft order he refers to an application for an emergency protection order or an interim care order. This local authority is in no doubt as to the basis of its potential application and the application must be prepared now and must be lodged at the first possible moment during court opening hours after the child is born. If I say ‘immediately’, that means that it does not go down by courier; it means that nobody is still checking for spelling mistakes, it means that it is all sorted out and it is all ready to go and it is with the court at the drop-box or in the court office. I direct that the local authority contacts its local Court where the application is to be issued to ask that special arrangements be made for receipt of this emergency application.

I have some problems with this judgment and decision (not as a matter of law, the Judge followed Re D and balanced things but as a matter of principle and human rights).  The remedy here for the removal at birth is that the mother has the opportunity to challenge within a few hours that decision at the EPO hearing. But how realistic is that?

Firstly, she is going to be in a state of complete shock at the removal, which will be a total surprise to her.  (I know that lawyers could look at the history and say “well, an EPO application was likely” but from mother’s perspective, if social workers have been working with her and never said that the baby would be removed, she might well think that she will keep the baby)

Secondly, she is also in the immediate aftermath of childbirth, a process which is fairly stressful, painful and somewhat discombobulating  (that is a huge understatement) – not putting one in the best shape to get dressed and get on a bus to court

Thirdly, when she gets to Court, she is not entitled to instruct a solicitor to represent her, as she doesn’t have capacity

Fourthly, the Official Solicitor hasn’t been warned of the pending application so that they will be ready at court to represent her

So a vulnerable woman, with mental health problems, in the immediate aftermath of childbirth will be in Court, reeling from the shock of removal and representing herself at a contested removal hearing.

Forgive me if I don’t think that this is terribly fair.

In addition to that, the legal tests for an Emergency Protection Order are rightly very high, following Re X, and are particularly high when the Court is only hearing one side of the story (as here). Shouldn’t the Court, when making a pre-emptive EPO using the inherent jurisdiction have to meet an even higher burden on the evidence than Re X?

I don’t blame the LA here – the facts of the case make this a very tricky and difficult decision, and they did place it before a Court for consideration. Nor do I blame the Court, who applied the existing principles, had all of the evidence when I have only seen a flavour of it, and had a hard judgment call to make.  But I do think, and I suspect many of my regular readers will think the same, that this mother has not been fairly treated. Is the fact that she would react very very badly to the news of the plan for removal really sufficient to take from her her article 6 right to a fair hearing about that removal?

Do we have a proper system in place for mothers who have profound mental health problems, not least because often their drugs to control their condition aren’t conducive to being taken in pregnancy? Shouldn’t we be doing more? What are the safeguards for people like this mother?

(I don’t think this will be opening floodgates – the 2009 decision was viewed by most lawyers who read it as being something that would only be used in the most dramatic and extreme circumstances. I’m not sure these are those, however.  I do honestly think that this case probably justifies more public debate than the C-Section case – at least she had legal representation, even if one could argue that she didn’t get much of a say in it )

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B-S compliance

Posted on December 18, 2013 by suesspiciousminds

I think that this case might be useful for practitioners (and perhaps even for Courts)

Re HA (A Child) 2013

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2013/3634.html

This is a High Court case, decided by Baker J, in relation to an application for a Care Order and Placement Order.  The Judge sets out very carefully the jurisprudence, and does so with his customary style and efficiency – I don’t think many Courts would go far wrong borrowing from his approach as to summarising the relevant law.

What he also does, is set out the judicial analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of the two main options. I think that this is useful because what Re B-S et al, have done is given us some very broad directions as to what the spirit of judgments would be post the new culture, but with directions, looking at a map of how someone else got there is much more useful in a practical sense.

Baker J does that here, and it is a good one to look at, to see how a Court deal with the B-S analysis in practice. (Of course, I could be wrong and someone will appeal and the Court of Appeal will look sniffily at it, but I don’t get that sense reading this judgment)

The Judge adds this remark, and everyone who has done care proceedings will pick up the point that Re B-S will inevitably mean that in some cases where a parent has made a difficult decision and is normally spared a painful examination of their mistakes being read aloud to them by a Judge will no longer be spared that, though it can still be done with some kindness.

 I have been very conscious preparing this judgment that the requirements explained by the Court of Appeal for a fully reasoned judgment mean that this court must be frank and clear in its analysis. That involves saying things which this mother will undoubtedly have found difficult and distressing. I regret that very much. I am only too aware that this mother has herself been a victim, both as a result of her disability, and her background. It is, however, unavoidable that the court has to set out in full its reasons for making this life-changing decision for H. The reasons for my decision, however unpalatable to the mother, have to be fully recorded.

 

 

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Now you found the secret code I use

Posted on December 18, 2013 by suesspiciousminds

(Freemen of the land, and whether you can ‘jump out of the system)

When I was an impressionable teenager, computers were all the rage. I had my own computer, and through exposure to films such as “Wargames”   (would you like to play a game Y/N?   Let’s play Global Thermonuclear War”)

I and many of my peers were under the impression that we could, if only we had the right password or combination of keystrokes, seize control of computers used by corporations and get them to do our bidding.

 

[Actually, I probably would have been a lot richer, if much more nervous of sirens, had I continued in that belief and learned how to hack properly, but that’s by the by]

 

Anyway, one of the big rumours of my adolescence, was that if you went upstairs in Boots, where there were test computers set up to play about on  (99% of the time, they were used in this sophisticated code  :-  10. Print “Steven is Skill”   (or “Steven Smells”  depending on whether or not you were Steven, or an adversary of Steven)   20  Goto 10)  and typed in the right combination of numbers and letters, you would get into the program that Boots used to operate their shop. You could turn the lights on and off, make the escalators run backwards, all sorts.

 

Nobody ever managed it [because it was b***ocks], but I can quite see the appeal that it held for me, thinking that there was a passport to all sorts of joys and benefits, if only you knew exactly the right sort of word or phrase to use.  

 

[Probably part of the appeal of Harry Potter, is that we all still think even as a sensible adult that we could use magic, if only someone taught us how to do it…  perhaps that’s just me.  In case you are in any doubt, I would use my magical or superpowers for evil]

 

 

Anyway, rambling lead in over, onto the actual topic, which is the Freeman of the Land movement.  This crops up now and then in care cases – invariably amongst males of a certain age   (young enough to be able to use the internet, but too old to know that you should take 98% of what is on the internet with a scoop of salt). 

 

I have had colleagues say “This is a really unusual letter I’ve just received”, looked at it and seen that it is at right angles to reality,  and been able to explain to them that they are dealing with a Freeman of the Land.

 

So, just in case you too have come across such a thing and hadn’t recognised it, this is a guide to identification. I can’t offer you a solution, but at least you will know what you are dealing with.

The Freeman of the Land movement effectively believe that you can avoid any unpleasant consequences of the law, or the Court system, by simply deciding that you exist outside the law, that you “step outside the system” by asserting that the law does not apply to you.

 A common ‘trick’ to this is to mentally split oneself in two and to talk about yourself not as Dougal Zebedee but  “The official representative of the legal fiction known as Dougal Zebedee”  or  “Dougal of the family Zebedee”  or “The flesh and blood man Dougal of the Zebedee family” or so forth. 

 

The belief here is that the law only applies to Dougal Zebedee, but you aren’t him, he is just a legal fiction. You are someone else, and thus the consequences that would come Dougal’s way are nothing to do with you.

 

That sort of convoluted way of referring to yourself in the third person is not, in the context of legal proceedings, an indication that you’ve been watching rather too much Game of Thrones, but that you are a Freeman of the Land or that you have stumbled across a website with some ideas that you thought were awfully clever.

 There’s some clever (if misguided) stuff going on with Freemen of the Land arguments, most of it downright peculiar, but it is so different to the arguments that one normally hears about the facts of a case or different interpretations of a piece of statute that it is quite easy to be flummoxed by it.  When someone starts with Magna Carta and that we are all governed by admiralty law, that’s not the sort of stuff that lawyers or judges are accustomed to dealing with, so there tends to be something of a goldfish response.

 

It reminds me quite a lot of the people who put huge amounts of effort into designing perpetual motion machines, many of whom have provided what seems like very competent and capable science to explain how their machine works; but who lack the fundamental underpinning of physics that would have told them that the device can’t possibly work and it is a waste of time trying.

 

[Annoyingly, I can’t recall the name of the physicist who every time he received such a proposal sent in reply a stock postcard saying “your invention, in order to work would breach at least one of the three following Laws of Thermodynamics,  almost certainly the Second, and thus does not work”…  So I’ll just quote Arnold Sommerfield, who is spot on   “Thermodynamics is a funny subject. The first time you go through it, you don’t understand it at all. The second time you go through it, you think you understand it, except for one or two small points. The third time you go through it, you know you don’t understand it, but by that time you are so used to it, it doesn’t bother you any more.” ]

 

 Some of the arguments deployed by Freemen of the Land as to why the law doesn’t apply to them (or sometimes to anyone at all) include for example :-

 

 A UK law isn’t valid until it is approved by the Monarch, and the Queen did not swear the correct oath at the time of her Coronation so she is not legally the Queen, therefore no laws made under the Reign of Queen Elizabeth have any legal status.

 

Or

 

The Act of Union was unlawful and therefore any law postdating the Act of Union is also unlawful

 

Or

 

We are all legally dead and the laws don’t apply to the dead

 

Or

 

The fact that a registration document on a car refers to the ‘registered keeper’ means that there is no concept of ownership in English law

 

 

But all at their core being the concept that the law does not apply to this person in question  – other ready ways to recognise a Freeman of the Land are references to Magna Carta, demanding to see a Judge’s qualifications and certificate of office, references to maritime or admiralty law.

 

 There is not, so far as I am aware, a judgment in the family Courts which deals with Freemen of the Land or gives any guidance on how their arguments should be considered.  [There have been some cases in which there has been a flavour of it, but the reported judgments don’t get into any detail]

 

The Court of Appeal have just dealt with an appeal where the mother had been deploying these arguments  Re J (Child) 2013

 

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2013/1685.html

 

but backed off at the appeal hearing

 

 

  1. The paperwork reflected that, as had also been the case in front of Judge Bromilow, M and IM considered that they were claiming to proceed under “Common Law Jurisdiction and Authority”. They considered that this affected the proceedings in a number of ways. For example, in M’s skeleton argument for the appeal she said, speaking of the proceedings at first instance, that:

“we established Common Law Jurisdiction prior to the hearing and Mr Bromilow confirmed he was on his Oath before the hearing began. Therefore, as a Court de Jure was in effect, no consent means Mr Bromilow had no authority”

Another feature was that M treated the name by which she would normally be known as her “legal fiction” and insisted that she be addressed by a rather differently formulated version of it. Furthermore, she and IM did not consider they were bound by orders to which they did not consent.

  1. The local authority submitted to us that M’s then adherence to this notion of Common Law Jurisdiction and Authority had contributed to the case being challenging to manage. I have no difficulty in accepting that submission. The judge described the material sent to the court by M by way of evidence as “voluminous” (§19 of the judgment) and that description is corroborated by the bundles supplied to us, containing both the original material that formed part of the care proceedings and new material generated for the appeal.
  1. M freely acknowledged to us that she had been under IM’s influence and had developed misguided beliefs. She put this down to her vulnerability following an accident she had had, about which I shall say something later. She accepted that her reference to “Common Law” was wholly inappropriate and she said she could understand why objection had been taken to IM. She made a prepared oral submission in support of her appeal which was in a distinctly different tone from that adopted in her written submissions and in which her former beliefs played no part. She also abandoned some of her grounds of appeal. This was sensible given that they could not have succeeded. The effect of M’s new constructive approach was to enable us to concentrate on the issues that required determination.

 

 

That meant that the Court of Appeal didn’t need to give judgment on the mother’s previous bold submissions that a Judge has no power over her and that she is a legal fiction. That’s a shame for me, as I think a judgment about this whole concept is long overdue, but never mind.

 

 

So at the moment, the best approach will be to gently and politely explain that the magic tricks don’t actually work, that the Court will eventually find that the law does apply to them, and that it would be better to make the arguments based on the merits of their case, shedding any nonsense about Magna Carta, the Act of Union or maritime law.  The Judge will listen to those arguments, and if they are made well, may agree with them.

 

There’s a very nice retort in the Canadian authority I link to later

 

You cannot identify one instance where a court has rolled over and behaved as told. Not one. Your spells, when cast, fail.

 

 

 

I would just look at it this way :-

 

If Ian Huntley had gone to criminal trial and said in his defence “Yes, the legal fiction known as Ian Huntley murdered two children, but he is just a fictional legal construct, and the person speaking now is Ian of the family Huntley and I am not responsible and the Homicide Act does not apply to me, let me go”

 

Do you think he would now be a free man?

 

That’s a fairly decent test to how the Court is going to look upon your Freeman of the Land arguments.  Honestly, truly, there hasn’t been a case in which these arguments have been deployed and the Court has just rolled over and said  “hey, it turns out we are powerless against this guy”

 

 

[If you want chapter and verse on how the Canadian Court dealt with someone running these arguments, and provides a dissertation on the various techniques and devices and how the Canadian Courts have rejected each and every one of them, each and every time they have been deployed

 

http://www.canlii.ca/en/ab/abqb/doc/2012/2012abqb571/2012abqb571.html  ]

 I would welcome something similar in English law, for the benefit of Judges who have to tackle this on a piecemeal basis.

 

For some of the background on this piece, I am very grateful to a number of law bloggers who write in other fields, and particular to Adam Wagner’s UK Human Rights blog who pulls a lot of it together here  [His title is a quotation from the above judgment]  :-

 

http://ukhumanrightsblog.com/2012/09/30/freemen-of-the-land-are-parasites-peddling-pseudolegal-nonsense-canadian-judge-fights-back/

 

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conditions on placement order, what does the Fox say ? (By fox, i mean Court of Appeal)

Posted on December 17, 2013 by suesspiciousminds

 

The Court of Appeal in Re A (Children) 2013 grappled with an interesting issue.  In the care proceedings, the Judge was weighing up the needs of the children and reached the conclusion that adoption was in their best interests IF and only IF, the adopters that the LA would find in the future would meet a series of conditions. The Judge then reserved the case to herself for any future applications and made a Placement Order with a series of conditions – if the conditions weren’t met, the placement order couldn’t be exercised.

“2. The court has accepted the list of attributes of prospective adopters for M and K recommended by the court appointed expert psychologist, Mrs Buxton, that as a pre-requisite to placement of the children for adoption, prospective adopters to be suitable must be:

a) two in number;

b) energetic;

c) free from attachment difficulties of their own;

d) experienced carers;

e) fully appraised of the children’s background, attachment difficulties and placement needs for the duration of their minority and willing to undergo specific training so that they will be able to cope with M in particular;

f) there must be no other children within the home

g) ready, willing and able to promote direct face to face contact with their brothers, B, B and L preferably four times per year but at least a minimum of twice per year.

3. The court was satisfied on the basis of all the evidence before it and on its analysis of the welfare checklist issues that adoption of M and K was proportionate and the most appropriate care plan to promote and safeguard their welfare, save that the care plans are approved and placement orders granted on the basis that the list of attributes set out above is adhered to by the local authority.”

The LA appealed that, on the basis that this was law out of thin air (no such thing as conditional placement orders) and that this was in complete breach of the separation that Parliament had set up between Courts (decide the facts, make the decision about applications and orders) and LA’s (deliver the orders on the ground and make day to day decisions)

The Court of Appeal having forgotten / ignored that principle entirely in Neath Port Talbot, found it again down the back of the sofa.

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2013/1611.html

    1. All parties accept Mr Rowley’s description of the statutory boundary that exists between the role of a court and that of a local authority upon the making of an order authorising placement for adoption under ACA 2002, s 21. The statutory structure established in relation to placement for adoption orders is, in this respect, on all fours with that which applies to final care orders under CA 1989, s 31. The House of Lords decision, and in particular Lord Nichols description of the inability of a court to impose conditions upon a final care order, in Re: S; Re: W (Care Order: Care Plan), applies in like manner with respect to an order under ACA 2002, s 21 authorising placement for adoption. No party before this court sought to argue to the contrary and there cannot be any ground for drawing a distinction between the two statutory schemes in this respect.

 

    1. In the absence of any express statutory provision to the contrary, Parliament must be taken to have intended that the ‘cardinal principle’ identified in Re: S; Re: W would apply to the making of a placement for adoption order. The wording of the key provision in ACA 2002, s 21(1) could not be more plain:

 

‘A placement order is an order made by the court authorising a local authority to place a child for adoption with any prospective adopters who may be chosen by the authority‘ [emphasis added].

The fact that in almost all cases the court will be making a final care order under CA 1989, s 31 at the same time as making a placement for adoption order, and there is plainly no power to add conditions to a care order, only goes to underline the position.

    1. When a placement for adoption order is made, the family court retains only limited powers arising from the court’s jurisdiction to:

 

a) vary or revoke the placement order [ACA 2002, ss 23 and 24];

b) make orders for contact [ACA 2002, s 26].

The position is as described by Wilson LJ in Re A (A Child) (Adoption) [2007] EWCA Civ 1383 (set out at para 20 above); the only opportunity that a family court has to consider the merits of a particular person to adopt a child who is the subject of a placement for adoption order occurs when that person applies for an adoption order.

    1. In the present case the judge was clearly driven to take the unusual step of setting out, in express terms, the attributes that she considered to be essential if adoption were to be beneficial for each of these two boys. The judge was obviously anxious that the past performance of the local authority indicated that, if left to its own devices, the necessary mix of attributes might be watered down or compromised for the sake of achieving an adoptive placement. As a child focussed and well motivated action, the judge’s stance cannot be faulted. The question is whether her action was legally permissible, or whether it crossed the boundary that is so clearly drawn between the role of the court and that of a local authority under a placement for adoption order.

 

    1. The debate before this court has focussed upon what label might best describe the judge’s actions in seeking to maintain the local authority’s search for adopters to those who meet the attributes on the ‘shopping list’. The local authority categorise the judge’s stipulations as ‘conditions’; Miss Heaton describes them as a transparent ‘invitation’ to the local authority; and Mr Weston says that they are no more than a ‘recording’ in the court order of the shopping list of ‘requirements’. To my mind these proffered labels are matters of semantics. There is no magic in whether or not the judge’s requirements are ‘conditions’; the word ‘condition’ has no legal status in this context. What matters is the substance of the structure that the judge sought to deploy in order to achieve what she saw as necessary to meet the needs of these children. In terms of the substance of that structure I am in no doubt that the judge’s order in this case, together with the stipulations in her judgment, fall well beyond the line that divides the role of the court and the role of a local authority under a placement for adoption order. That conclusion is established by the following aspects of the judgment and court order:

 

a) the judge’s conclusions at paragraphs 7.13-7.16 and 7.18 (set out at paragraphs 10 and 11 above) hold that only an adoptive placement that meets each of the ‘shopping list’ requirements will be in the welfare interests of each of the boys;

b) the conclusion at paragraph 7.30 in terms that ‘if the right adopters cannot be found, adoption is not in the interests of these children and should not take place’;

c) in ‘recording’ number 2 in the court order the ‘shopping list’ attributes were described as a ‘pre-requisite’ to the placement which ‘must’ be met;

d) recording number 3 states that the care plans are approved and the placement orders granted ‘on the basis that the list of attributes set out above is adhered to by the local authority’.

    1. The judge’s decision to reserve all future hearings to herself is not, looked at on its own, a matter of concern. On the contrary, judges are encouraged to ensure judicial continuity in children cases if at all possible. However, when set against the other matters which, as I have held, were beyond the judge’s jurisdiction, the decision to reserve the case only goes to add to the establishment of a role for the judge in this case which amounted to overseeing the implementation of the care plan in a manner which is impermissible.

 

    1. The matters raised in this appeal are not academic. Miss Heaton has confirmed that if the mother were not satisfied with prospective adopters chosen by the local authority, she would seek to bring the matter back to court by applying for leave to revoke the placement orders (under ACA 2002, s 24) and/or issuing judicial review proceedings. Indeed, this court was told that the mother has already issued an application under s 24(2) which is now due to come before HHJ Kushner for determination.

 

  1. In all the circumstances, the local authority has made good its appeal and, if the placement orders are to survive this appeal hearing, I would allow the appeal, strike out recordings 2 and 3 from the court order and declare, through this judgment, that the placement orders are to stand as unencumbered orders in the standard terms of ACA 2002, s 21.

 

Hooray say the local authority, wiping their collective brows with a polka dot handkerchief.

But stop, mother had anticipated this, and cross-appealed on the basis that if the conditions didn’t stand, the Placement Orders should be set aside – the “nothing else will do” test not having been met

 

2. The Cross Appeal: ‘What is a judge to do?’

    1. On more than one occasion during her submissions, Miss Heaton gave voice to a question that is likely to have been at the forefront of HHJ Kushner’s mind as she contemplated how best to proceed within the formal structure of ACA 2002 to produce an outcome which met the needs of these two boys as she so plainly saw them. That question was ‘what is a judge to do?’ in circumstances where she is satisfied that the welfare of a child only requires adoption if an adoptive placement can be found which meets a number of specific attributes, but, if those attributes are not present, the child’s welfare would not be best served by adoption. The judge chose a course which, as I have held, was not, as a matter of jurisdiction, open to the court. My conclusion therefore begs a repetition of the question, ‘what, then, is a judge to do?’.

 

    1. The answer to the question is, in my view, plain and straightforward. It is to be found in ACA 2002, s 52(1):

 

‘The court cannot dispense with the consent of any parent or guardian of a child to the child being placed for adoption … unless the court is satisfied that … the welfare of the child requires the consent to be dispensed with.’ [emphasis added]

    1. The judgment of Wall LJ in Re P (Placement Orders: Parental Consent) [2008] EWCA Civ 535; [2008] 2 FLR 625 set out in clear terms how the word ‘requires’ in s 52(1) is to be applied. The passage in Re P is well known and there is no need to repeat it here. The question, after applying the life-long focus of the welfare provisions in ACA 2002, s 1, is whether what is ‘required’ is adoption, as opposed to something short of adoption. The interpretation of s 52 in Re P was expressly endorsed by the Supreme Court in Re B (A Child) [2013] UKSC 33 and given general application in the judgments of the court where the need for a proportionate justification for adoption was underlined by the use of phrases such as “nothing else will do”, “a very extreme thing” and “a last resort”.

 

    1. As I have already held, it was not open to the court to seek to limit or exert direct influence over the choice of prospective adopters under a placement for adoption order. On that basis and on the express findings of the judge it was simply not open to the court in the present case to go on to conclude that the welfare of either of these two boys required adoption as opposed to something short of adoption; it was not possible to hold that ‘nothing else will do’. The judge was expressly contemplating that long-term fostering would ‘do’ and, indeed, would only be displaced as the better option for the boys if a ‘shopping list’ compliant adoptive home could be found. In the absence of a power to influence and control the local authority’s role under a placement for adoption order, the test in ACA 2002, s 52(1), in so far as it relates to a placement order, must be read in the light of s 21(1) with the welfare requirement being evaluated on the basis that the placement is to be ‘with any prospective adopters who may be chosen by the authority’.

 

    1. A court may only make a placement for adoption order if, under ACA 2002, s 21(3), it is satisfied either that each parent or guardian is consenting, or that the parent or guardian’s consent to the child being placed for adoption should be dispensed with under the terms of ACA 2002, s 1 and s 52. Against the test in ACA 2002, s 52(1) and on the findings of the judge, the ground for dispensing with parental consent in this case was simply not established and as a result the court did not have jurisdiction to make placement for adoption orders.

 

    1. I would therefore hold that the cross appeal of the mother succeeds and that the placement for adoption orders made in this case must be set aside with the result that the two boys will now simply be subject to final care orders.

 

  1. The absence of placement for adoption orders will no doubt render more difficult the task of finding prospective adopters for these two children, but the local authority remain able, under the care order, to continue to search for adopters.

 

So, although the LA won on the principle that conditions couldn’t be attached to a Placement Order, it was the most pyhrric of victories, since that persuaded the Court to nuke the Placement Order.

 

Look at that last sentence – it is a masterpiece of understatement.

 

At the moment, we have a national crisis of adopters – far more children need places than there are places for them. Do you honestly think that anyone who is approved as an adopter, who are in high demand and sought after by multiple local authorities for multiple children, are going to commit to a process of matching with children WHEN THE CHILDREN may not be approved for adoption? No way.

Assuming that you get someone nuts enough to do that, what would the process actually involve?

1. The LA revives their application for a Placement Order

2. The mother, the father, the Guardian and Judge all say – we need to see as much detail as possible about the adopters

3. Every inch of that information is pored over, critiqued, nit-picked looking for flaws.

4. If there has been  passage of time in the search, one of the parents will revive their desire to be reconsidered or to put forward a family member

5. The parents may not get public funding (stand-alone Placement Orders aren’t non-means, non-merits public funding, you are at the whim of the Legal Aid Agency)

6. In order to get the Placement Order, the Court will want to be satisfied that these carers ticked all of their criteria

 

All of this being before the child can be placed with the carers identified. How is that sitting with no delay?

 

 

How is this not moving the assessment of adopters and the matching of children with adopters away from qualified professionals and into the Court? How does this square even for a second with the view in the Children and Families Bill on Courts backing the heck out of care planning?  (I know, the Bill isn’t law, but that hasn’t stopped us wholesale adopting the 26 week proposal and ramming that through – why is the other major limb, care planning being firmly back with LAs being utterly ignored?)

I have no problem with the Courts having jurisdiction over this stuff, if Parliament debates it and gives it to them, but not like this. An important decision for any family practitioner – it is another tool in the argument toolkit for fighting a Placement Order, and another obstacle for LA’s.

 

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The Italian Caesarean section case – Reporting Restriction Order

Posted on December 10, 2013 by suesspiciousminds

 

For background on this case see the whole of the internet for the first week in December…

[The basic facts, established from the judgments rather than doughty investigative journalism… Italian mother in this country for a short period not intending to live here, detained under mental health act, court of protection gave a declaration that surgeons could perform a ceasarean section on her, she knew nothing about it, child removed from her care immediately afterwards, placement order made in February 2013.  Readers must supply their own outrage]

This particular aspect was the application by Essex County Council for a Reporting Restriction Order. That was heard by Mr Justice Charles, a High Court judge.  At the time there was speculation that the RRO (an order which prevents the Press from publishing certain bits of information) was aimed at stopping the publication of photographs of the mother/baby, these having been linked to by various websites and on Twitter.

 

As one can see from the judgment

http://www.judiciary.gov.uk/Resources/JCO/Documents/Judgments/transcript-judgment-re-p.pdf
 
and order
http://www.judiciary.gov.uk/Resources/JCO/Documents/Judgments/reporting-restriction-order-matter-of-child-a%20.pdf
 
What is actually prohibited is naming the child, or the current address or the names or address of the carers.  
 
As you can see from the judgment, the Press actually had no interest in doing so, so there wasn’t much argument about the tension between article 8 (protection of the child’s privacy) v article 10 (freedom of the press) which these things normally turn upon.  If the RRO had been intended to restrict the public debate, I have little doubt that it would have been refused, with article 10 triumphing.
 
Whilst the Judge acknowledged within his judgment that mother’s name is widely available (and hence why he did not prohibit the reporting of that name within the RRO), I am NOT going to have it on the site or the comments. If people want to find it, I’m sure that they can.
 
Given that at this stage, we simply don’t know whether there is an application or pending application for either adoption, leave to oppose adoption or revocation of the Placement Order, it seems to me that the s97 prohibitions could bite at any time, and that would involve me having to go back and remove any such references later on. So, please don’t put the mother’s name in any comments, there’s no need.
 
Be aware that the RRO, due to some cunning wording, is binding on anyone who is aware of it.

 

9. Subject to the following paragraph, this order binds all persons and all companies or unincorporated bodies (whether acting by their directors, employees or in any other way) who know that the order has been made.

(Note that you don’t have to be aware of the exact contents, or to have been served with it to be bound by it, you just have to know that a Reporting Restriction Order was made – the onus is on you, if you want to write about the case to find out from the RRO what is okay to say and what is not)

In practice, the public debate is not stifled at all – one doesn’t need to say what the child’s name is, or the address she is living at to discuss the wider implications.  Some of my readers should also note that the RRO is potentially binding on people outside of the UK (such as Monaco) but only if the RRO was actually served upon them.  [This is the “following paragraph” referred to in para 9 above]

 

10. In respect of persons outside England and Wales:

(i) Except as provided in sub-paragraph (ii) below, the terms of this order do not affect or concern anyone outside the jurisdiction of this court.

(ii) The terms of this order will bind the following persons in a country, territory or state outside the jurisdiction of this court:-

(a) the first and second respondents or their agents;

(b) any person who is subject to the jurisdiction of this court;

(c) any person who has been given written notice of this order at his residence or place of business within the jurisdiction of this court; and

(d) any person who is able to prevent acts or omissions outside the jurisdiction of this court which constitute or assist in a breach of the terms of this order;

(e) any other person, only to the extent that this order is declared enforceable by or is enforced by a court in that country or state.

 
 
There is an interesting aspect to the RRO, which is that mother was not present or represented. The Judge took into account that her obvious views were that publicity and exposure of the case was what she wanted, and also made it plain that it was open to both her, and the Italian government if they so wished to make an application to vary or set aside the RRO.
 

 

I should also indicate that I have been told that the Italian Government or State has instructed solicitors and it may be that it would wish to take advantage of that permission to apply to vary or discharge equally any media organisation or other person affected by the injunctive relief can take advantage of that, as of course can the mother and the father, they not having been served as yet with the process

 

[The interesting thing remaining in this case, is of course, that the judgment which authorised Essex to remove the baby from the mother, which was given either on the day of birth or the next day, has not been published.

What we know about this is that there was (a) certainly a suggestion from the hospital that there was an option that might have kept mother and baby together in a hospital ward and (b) Mostyn J had originally indicated that he would hear the case but then released it to a District Judge.  There may be something sinister and suspicious and dreadful about the delay in publishing this judgment, it might just be that the District Judge is on holiday – it can’t be published until he/she approves it.   It probably isn’t too much of a stretch that there is a District Judge presently wishing that they had just let Mostyn J deal with it, as people are going to dissect every single line of that judgment when it is published]

 
I’m afraid that I won’t take any bets on what day of the week this RRO will be side-stepped by use/misuse of Parliamentary privilege.

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What IS the Court of Protection?

Posted on December 6, 2013 by suesspiciousminds

This is intended to be a beginner’s guide to the Court of Protection, not exclusively intended for lawyers. There are, in fact, some journalists who might benefit from it.  You may have been reading about the Italian woman who underwent a ceasarean section without her consent, and want to know how decisions like this are supposed to be made and what powers the Courts have.

To be fair to the national press, I’ve just had to expand 3000 words to absolutely race through even the basics of the Court of Protection, without even getting into the nuts and bolts of this case, so one can see why they end up saying “A secret Court” and leave it at that.   Perhaps in future, this piece might be a handy link or source for anyone who wants to understand the basics of  how that secret court is meant to operate.

I in no sense think that the Court of Protection is flawless or perfect, and it is perfectly possible for very bad decisions to be made, but at least understanding the nuts and bolts of the fact that decisions are made by a Judge, with a lot of tests and guidance might help people avoid some of the more dreadful factual errors that came about with some of the recent reporting. Otherwise you end up endlessly debating the rights and wrongs of a set of abhorrent things that DIDN’T actually happen, as opposed to very real and important rights and wrongs of a set of very troubling things that DID.

[It is like determining US and UK foreign policy post 9-11 based on Kay Burley’s account on Sky News on the day that “The entire Eastern Seaboard of the United States has been decimated by terrorist attacks” rather than what actually happened, which was awful and significant enough without lurid inaccuracies *]

What is the Court of Protection, and is is a secret court?

The Court of Protection is a branch of the English and Welsh court system, dealing with cases involving people who either do not have capacity to make decisions about certain things for themselves, or to determine whether in fact they do have that capacity. The Court of Protection as we now know it was set up by the Mental Capacity Act 2005, building on the Court of Protection which had previously dealt with financial matters  (Thanks to @barbararich for pointing out my original inacuracy, now fixed, and for doing so nicely).

It is not open to the public. The Press have to make an application if they want to attend the hearing. Some decisions of the Court of Protection (judgments) are made public on law sites like Bailii

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/COP/

if they contain important points of law or principles which might apply to other cases or are in the public interest, but the day to day decisions are not made public  (yet – the President of the Family Division has indicated that he intends to bring about publication as a matter of course of all decisions of the family courts and probably the Court of Protection too).  When those decisions are made public, the identity of the person concerned is usually anonymised.   (There are certain, though rare cases, where the identity is revealed, such as the Mark Nearey case http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/mark-neary-they-didnt-understand-steven-they-saw-me-as-a-fly-in-the-ointment-2295565.html )

So the Court of Protection is certainly secretive – there are arguments that this is done to protect the vulnerable people concerned, but the President of the Family Division takes the view that the counter argument that without exposing their decisions to public scrutiny there’s a risk that the public lose confidence in the work they do and that hyperbolae is taken as gospel  (he would seem, from events this week, to be right) and it is almost irresistable now that judgments from the Court of Protection will be made routinely available, and probably that the Press attendance at Court of Protection hearings will become the default position (with the Court having to given reasons why they SHOULDN’T be there)

Why did the Court of Protection come about?

It was introduced by the UK Parliament as a result of a case that went to the European Court of Human Rights, involving a man who is known as “L”  (the case is also well known as the “Bournwood” case, after the Trust involved). L had been a day patient at a centre, and lived normally with a family. He did not have capacity to make decisions for himself, but was not mentally ill or dangerous. One day he had an episode at the centre and when his family came to collect him, they were told that he had to stay at the centre. Now, if L had been detained under the Mental Health Act, his family would have had all sorts of legal safeguards and abilities to challenge his detention. Equally, if L had had the capacity to say to the unit “I want to go home” they would have had to let him, but L fell between these two situations, and there was no proper mechanism. Many commenters and professionals working with vulnerable adults felt that it was inherently wrong that someone like L could be detained for months or years with no legal safeguards, just because he wasn’t in a position to object. The ECHR agreed.

At the same time, Parliament brought into one statute, legal provisions for some decisions that the High Court had historically made under their Inherent Jurisdiction  (Inherent Jurisdiction would require a whole other beginners guide, but if you just read Inherent Jurisdiction as “High Court superpowers” you won’t go far wrong) – for example deciding whether doctors could carry out surgery on a patient who was refusing it, dealing with marriages where people had no ability to understand the marriage vows, protecting the finances of vulnerable people, and wrapped it all up into one statute.

The thinking was to give protection and safeguards for the most vulnerable people in society, those who are not able to look out for their own interests.  (Many commenters believe that the MCA began with those noble intentions but hasn’t in practice delivered on them)

Who brings cases to the Court of Protection ?

The cases are normally brought by one of these four groups (though others are possible) : –  the health trust whose doctors are treating the person, the care home who is providing care for the person, the Local Authority who are providing services for the person, or on behalf of the person or their family.

How does the Court decide whether a person has capacity?

The Mental Capacity Act sets out a test as to the REASON why the person lacks capacity

Section 2

(1)For the purposes of this Act, a person lacks capacity in relation to a matter if at the material time he is unable to make a decision for himself in relation to the matter because of an impairment of, or a disturbance in the functioning of, the mind or brain.

(2)It does not matter whether the impairment or disturbance is permanent or temporary.

And then sets out a test for deciding WHETHER  a person lacks capacity

Section 3 Inability to make decisions

(1)For the purposes of section 2, a person is unable to make a decision for himself if he is unable—

(a)to understand the information relevant to the decision,

(b)to retain that information,

(c)to use or weigh that information as part of the process of making the decision, or

(d)to communicate his decision (whether by talking, using sign language or any other means).

(2)A person is not to be regarded as unable to understand the information relevant to a decision if he is able to understand an explanation of it given to him in a way that is appropriate to his circumstances (using simple language, visual aids or any other means).

(3)The fact that a person is able to retain the information relevant to a decision for a short period only does not prevent him from being regarded as able to make the decision.

(4)The information relevant to a decision includes information about the reasonably foreseeable consequences of—

(a)deciding one way or another, or

(b)failing to make the decision.

It is VERY VERY important to note that a person is entitled in law to make a bad decision, an unwise decision, a daft decision, a decision that no other person would take; AS LONG as they understand the situation they are making the decision about.   (For example, Carla out of Corrie is entitled to marry Peter Barlow even though he is a love-rat with a history of bigamy, an alcoholic and is trying it on with Tina from the Rovers, even though many people would think she was foolish to do so. But if she does not understand that marriage is the union of one man and one woman (currently) and is intended to be for life although it can be ended through divorce, then she can’t marry him.  Just as, if he drinks and is so intoxicated that he can’t understand that, he can’t legally enter into a marriage contract  – but that is PRETTY drunk)

It is also important to note that just because a person lacks capacity to make one particular decision, it doesn’t mean that they lack capacity to make any sort of decision. Some decisions are more complicated to weigh up than others and need more capacity to understand.  Over a period of time, the Court of Protection has decided cases and set up guidelines for what sort of understanding a person has to have for certain decisions.

For example, classically, in order for a person to have the capacity to consent to sexual intercourse they have to be able to understand the following three things :-

(i) The physical mechanical act

(ii) That pregnancy can occur and what pregnancy is  (and contraception)

(iii) that you can get diseases through sex (and how to avoid that)

The person doesn’t have to understand the emotional implications (that you could get heart-broken or sad, or that the other person might) or be able to weigh up who is a good person to have sex with and who is not, just those three factors.    (For homosexual sex, the second factor is taken out)

You will see from the legal test that the person has to be helped, with explanations suitable for them, to reach the point of understanding the issues so that they can make the decision for themselves. The law WANTS people to make the decision for themselves, and it is also worth noting that the starting point is that every person HAS capacity unless evidence is provided to the contrary.

If the Court decide that a person lacks capacity, what then?

The Court then have to make what is called a “best interests” decision.  That means deciding what is in the best interests of the person. That might be what the State (the doctors or social workers) say is best, it might be what the person themselves is saying or showing that they want, or it might be something else entirely.

The legal test is set out in the Mental Capacity Act

section 4 Best interests

(1)In determining for the purposes of this Act what is in a person’s best interests, the person making the determination must not make it merely on the basis of—

(a)the person’s age or appearance, or

(b)a condition of his, or an aspect of his behaviour, which might lead others to make unjustified assumptions about what might be in his best interests.

(2)The person making the determination must consider all the relevant circumstances and, in particular, take the following steps.

(3)He must consider—

(a)whether it is likely that the person will at some time have capacity in relation to the matter in question, and

(b)if it appears likely that he will, when that is likely to be.

(4)He must, so far as reasonably practicable, permit and encourage the person to participate, or to improve his ability to participate, as fully as possible in any act done for him and any decision affecting him.

(5)Where the determination relates to life-sustaining treatment he must not, in considering whether the treatment is in the best interests of the person concerned, be motivated by a desire to bring about his death.

(6)He must consider, so far as is reasonably ascertainable—

(a)the person’s past and present wishes and feelings (and, in particular, any relevant written statement made by him when he had capacity),

(b)the beliefs and values that would be likely to influence his decision if he had capacity, and

(c)the other factors that he would be likely to consider if he were able to do so.

(7)He must take into account, if it is practicable and appropriate to consult them, the views of—

(a)anyone named by the person as someone to be consulted on the matter in question or on matters of that kind,

(b)anyone engaged in caring for the person or interested in his welfare,

(c)any donee of a lasting power of attorney granted by the person, and

(d)any deputy appointed for the person by the court,

as to what would be in the person’s best interests and, in particular, as to the matters mentioned in subsection (6).

(8)The duties imposed by subsections (1) to (7) also apply in relation to the exercise of any powers which—

(a)are exercisable under a lasting power of attorney, or

(b)are exercisable by a person under this Act where he reasonably believes that another person lacks capacity.

(9)In the case of an act done, or a decision made, by a person other than the court, there is sufficient compliance with this section if (having complied with the requirements of subsections (1) to (7)) he reasonably believes that what he does or decides is in the best interests of the person concerned.

(10)“Life-sustaining treatment” means treatment which in the view of a person providing health care for the person concerned is necessary to sustain life.

(11)“Relevant circumstances” are those—

(a)of which the person making the determination is aware, and

(b)which it would be reasonable to regard as relevant.

You can see that the Court are obliged to consider and take into account all that is known about what the person themselves wants, or would want, or has previously expressed about wanting (remember that a person might only temporarily lack capacity, so the Court have to take account of anything the person said or showed about the issue in the past), and also has to take into account the views of anyone who cares for the person or is interested in their welfare.

This is the difficult bit, and in most Court of Protection cases, the majority of the judgment is spent on the Judge deciding what is in the ‘best interests’ of the patient to do.  Sometimes that accords with what the patient is saying or showing they want, sometimes it does not.  It is the hardest part of the exercise, and to an extent, I agree with Lucy Series from The Small Places blog about capacity and mental health :-

“ A recently ratified UN treaty – the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities – poses the question: why should people with disabilities and mental illnesses face these kinds of interventions when people without do not? It looks very much as if the Mental Capacity Act itself is not compatible with this Convention, although views on this differ. It is certainly a question it would be good to see the media asking more often… Again, this is an issue that comes up a lot around the Mental Capacity Act 2005: how can we distinguish decisions which are merely irrational or unwise, which everybody is entitled to make, from those which are incapable. This is actually quite a profound philosophical problem (my own view is that it is insoluble; ‘mental incapacity’ is a conceptual device which we cling onto to mask the value judgments we are bringing to bear when justifying interventions in situations which we regard as intolerable). The disability Convention referred to above poses serious questions about how we deal with ‘capacity’, and emphasises the role of support for decision making. Even the Mental Capacity Act requires support to be provided for a person to make their own decision before it is made on their behalf, and decisions made on their behalf should involve the person as far as possible. “

How does the Court ensure that it is making the decision that is right for the person, and not the decision that “seems” the right thing to do from a paternalistic “The State knows best” approach.  The Court of Protection at essence is a referee between the tension of “the State needs to decide what is best for vulnerable people” and “people should be free of State interference and make their own decisions”.  It is not easy, and it can seem to those outside that the Court of Protection doesn’t always get things right.

It is certainly a new system (in terms of law, 8 years of operation is a baby) and it would be astonishing if mistakes weren’t being made and lessons were there to be learned. So it is important to scrutinise the decisions and for the Court of Protection to be responsive and reflective to changes both in law and attitudes in society. Twenty years ago, a man saying that he intended to marry another man would have seemed peculiar to most of society, now a Conservative Prime Minister is driving that change.

But, if a person doesn’t have capacity to make a decision, how do they fight the case?

Well, this is the million dollar question. Remember firstly that just because a person lacks capacity to make one decision doesn’t mean that they lack capacity to make all decisions. So it is possible for a person to be able to instruct his lawyers to fight the case, whilst the Court decides on the real issue in question. But very often the issue of capacity will also affect the person’s capacity to instruct a solicitor.  There is firm guidance on the legal test to be able to instruct a solicitor, and where a person doesn’t meet that test, they can’t give instructions directly to a solicitor.

[A person who HAS capacity is able to tell their solicitor to do something really foolish or unwise or downright dumb – i.e Carla can tell her solicitor to put all of her assets in Peter Barlow’s sole name and to sign a pre-nup saying that she has no claim on any of what is now his property. That’s stupid, but if she understands the nature of what she is doing, she can do it.]

What happens ordinarily then is that an agency known as the Official Solicitor is appointed by the Court   (not by the social worker or Trust, as certain national newspapers seem to think) and the Official Solicitor will decide how the case is to be run on the persons behalf  – that might be to fight the case every inch of the way, it might be to offer no resistance, it might be to be neutral and say that the doctors or social workers have to prove their case, or it might be that some parts of the case are challenged very hard and others aren’t. It is up to the Official Solicitor)

Now, one can see where that causes a problem. The person lacks capacity, say, to make an informed decision that if surgeons don’t cut off their foot they will die of gangrene, but is very vocally saying “Don’t cut off my foot, I would rather die”.   The doctors will be able to tell their lawyers to argue all the reasons why the surgery will happen. The Judge knows what the person is saying and has to take it into account. But there could very well be no lawyer who actually argues to the Court all of the reasons why the surgery SHOULDN’T happen, they will only do that if the Official Solicitor decides that it is in the person’s best interests to fight the case.

(You may see that you end up with both the Official Solicitor and the Court making decisions about what each of them CONCLUDES is in the person’s best interests to do and that can appear to be a blurring of roles.  When a lawyer acts for someone who has capacity, she gives them ADVICE about what is in their best interests, often very strong advice, but where a person says “I hear all that, but I still want to do X instead” that lawyer goes into Court and argues fearlessly and without favour for X.  You end up with, here, a situation where the most vulnerable people in society get less protection from the lawyer charged with representing them, than they would if they had capacity)

If you want to know more about the decision of the Court of Protection in ceasarean section cases, I heartily recommend this piece , which focuses on the legal side and the tests to be met

http://thesmallplaces.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/more-questions-than-answers-on-forced.html#more

and this piece

http://www.birthrights.org.uk/2013/12/views-on-the-forced-cesarean-judgment/

Which looks at it from the perspective of the pregnant mother

* She actually did say that. And what better reason do I need to crowbar in a “Who said this, Kay Burley or Ron Burgundy” quiz?

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/03/29/anchorman-2-ron-burgundy-kay-burley-quiz_n_1387332.html

Stay classy, internet

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