Category Archives: case law

An increasing probability gradually increasing to a certainty

Posted on July 14, 2012 by suesspiciousminds

A discussion of the judgment in A CITY COUNCIL v (1) M (2) F (3) C (BY HER CHILDREN’S GUARDIAN) (2012) and how private law proceedings can go really badly wrong

I have for a long time held an informal belief that the longer a set of private law proceedings go on, the more inexorably they tend to progress towards the involvement of the State, in the form of social services.

This recent decision of the High Court deals with that very concept and is a sad case, and a salutory lesson to all of those who are involved in protracted private law proceedings. The first application was concluded in 2004, but as His Honour Judge Cleary (who I have had the pleasure of appearing before, and who is the judge who very helpfully engineered the appeal on Re LA which led to the extinguishing of the widely-claimed concept that the “imminent risk of really serious harm” was the test for removal, for which I am if not eternally grateful it would certainly be a gratitude of some longevity) points out, that was not the end of the litigation.

13. Litigation was not concluded by that Judgement. To the contrary, that ruling was to be the first of, by my calculation, no less than seven Judgements of the court, delivered by the Recorder whom I have identified, two circuit Judges, a District Judge, and finally, the Court of Appeal. Judgements by His Honour Judge Bellamy were delivered on 16 July, 2006, 4 April 2008, and 11 September 2008. District Judge Jones, again at the A County Court, delivered his Judgement on 29 May 2009, and His Honour Judge Cardinal, on appeal from District Judge Jones, delivered Judgement on 5 November 2009. On 1 March 2010, Lord Justice Ward heard, and granted, an application for permission to appeal. That appeal came before a full Court of Appeal sometime later, on a date which, like the Judgement itself, is not before me. At irregular intervals throughout that depressing journey, which accompanied that which the child was, as she grew older, taking towards her teenage years, the court instructed the local authority to prepare reports pursuant to section 37 of the children act. Again, by my calculation, and including the report which was prepared in readiness for the hearing before Mr Recorder Scott, there have been no less than four such reports.

14.Each report, and each Judgement, recorded the turmoil being suffered by this little girl. The local authority commissioned reports by a number of experts, seeking to assess the child, but those endeavours were hindered by C herself, since the child presented with great reluctance to talk about her home life. What was becoming increasingly obvious, however, was that C’s emotional state was becoming increasingly fragile. I will return to the report of Dr Gillett in due course, but I remark at this stage that it seems to be generally accepted that the child had lost her primary attachment figure (that is, her mother) and had been unable to replace it with another.

It is a reflection of our familiarity with protracted private law disputes that the figure of seven judgments in a case is merely disappointing and somewhat unusual, rather than unfathomable.

The Judge went on to say very many kind things about both parents, both of whom clearly loved the child but that the battle over where the child should live, which began with their separation in 2002 had wreaked devastation on both their family life and the child herself; to the point where the expert evidence before the Court and the Court’s own conclusion was that the child now needed not just ‘good enough’ parenting but exceptional parenting.

58.Neither parent is capable of providing exceptional parenting of the kind so desperately needed by C. In the case of the mother, she did accept at the stand that she is in fact the carer for T. He, she insisted, is stable and, given the regular medication which he is taking, the need for her care is minimal. Yet on the final day of the hearing, the day following T coming to the stand, the mother reported that she had thought it wise to call the doctor to visit him, given that he was particularly stressed by his giving evidence the day before. It is perfectly plain that she either hides from or does not understand the likely impact of her vulnerable and confused daughter on the household and upon T. If the experience of some two hours in the witness box is enough to cause T to require medical attention, one can only imagine that he would experience similar and probably worse stress if, within the house, not receiving the exceptional parenting which is now required, C behaves as one can only imagine. Mother’s attention will of necessity be diverted from one or other of her charges. She appeared, under cross-examination, not have considered that likelihood. I am satisfied that that is an indication that the mother is unable to place her daughter’s needs before her own. In the case of the father, he accepts, no doubt with regret, that he cannot provide the exceptional parenting described by Dr Gillett.

The Judge was driven inexorably to the conclusion that the only appropriate order for this child was a Care Order and for her to be cared for in foster care.

Contact was a significant issue in the case, and there was a difference not only between that sought by the parents and that recommended by professionals, but also between the level that the child herself wanted and what others considered best for her. Bear in mind, that by this stage, the child is now 13 years old.

64.Contact, both past and future, was one of the two major issues before me (the other being section 91(14) ) and took up a significant part of the examination of all the witnesses. Dr Gillett is perfectly plain in her view. That C must be allowed to identify a placement where she is given unconditional love, support, and boundaries, and a nurture which he has missed, now, for some nine years, if not longer. This witness considers it is likely that the child was already showing signs of instability when she was a toddler, having experienced the mother’s distress even when she was being carried in her womb. It is entirely likely that the child will have detected that her mother’s attention was elsewhere and that she was experiencing significant distress and anxiety over the loss of her son (and the documents confirm that the mother was a leading campaigner and participant in attempts to have greater attention paid to the plight of abducted children and their parents).
65.When, at the age of five, she was removed quite abruptly from her mother’s care into that of her father, who was, in the event, ill-equipped to nurture her as a single parent, while fighting off the depredations of the mother, her ability to form an attachment with the primary caregiver suffered damage which escalated to the present day when, as we hear her almost beg the Guardian, as will be seen in his report, to reassure her that these proceedings are concluded by ‘a final final order’, the articulation of a desperate wish by a child who can hardly believe that such a thing exists.
66.The justification for this discussion is found in the evidence of Dr Gillett and indeed in the cross-examination of mother and by counsel for the Guardian.
67.C desperately needs a placement to be permanent and to be free of the conflict to which she has been exposed over the last nine years. She is ‘ over professionalised’, not, as mother complains, by the observation of contact but by the host of different clinicians, therapists and experts to whom she has been exposed over the last nine years, and by that I mean no less than three psychologists, a play therapist, the authors of the four section 37 reports, those of the core assessment, and no less than three successive children’s guardians.
68.There has to be a transition upon the making of this order, that being a transition into the permanence of long-term foster care. It has to be acknowledged by these parents that that is a transition which must not be accompanied by mixed messages. She must not be confused by substantial contact with either parent. She must not be diverted from the path of establishing a nurturing attachment to her caregiver. Dr Gillett considers that if she is to have the kind of contact that mother promotes, and if she senses that mother is embarking, again, on a wish to remove her into her care, she will withdraw from what appears, from the evidence which I have heard, to be a budding and loving relationship with her foster carer. I extract these crucial comments from her evidence: ‘The child is on the cusp of adolescence and her anxieties and concerns are such that she shouldn’t be presented with some sort of transitional plan… It is important that she be told that the Court has made a decision on contact and the cessation of proceedings – she needs a genuine understanding that this is now how it is going to be… If C identifies a desire by Mother to seek a rapid return that will undermine any attempt by C to invest … she would withdraw from any emerging connection with the foster carer – and [this] would likely be the last time she risks that engagement. The messages from the Court must be clear and unambiguous and supported by everyone… this is a long haul and C needs to know that it is worth the effort … There needs to be a noticeable difference – which is time associated – and stability.’

The Judge made the care orders, set a relatively low level of contact and made section 91(14) orders against both parents, seeking to insulate this child against any further litigation.

As I said at the outset, a desperately sad case. Had there not been so much conflict between the parents, or if the conflict could have been resolved with finality earlier, it appears that either of them would have been capable of caring for this child appropriately, but the conflict of the case became all-consuming.

There must be a better way of resolving even long-running and fraught cases than simply continuing them from one batch of litigation to another. It cannot be right that litigation about a child continues for over 8 years, nor that it takes ten years from the separation to finally resolve where the child lives. Some cases of course, take a long time for the evidence to be gathered and tested, and sometimes the issues are complex and difficult and take time, but it ought never to take eight years for a final resolution. I commend this judgment as both an example of how a Court can finally grip a case and draw it to an end, and as a stark example of what can happen when a legitimate desire to have a Court resolve a dispute between parents as to residence and contact becomes conflict for its own sake and a fire that simply cannot be extinguished.

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Posted in case law, private law and tagged lengthy private law dispute, protracted litigation, section 91(14). Bookmark the permalink.

When is a duty not a duty ? (when it falls on CAFCASS, of course)

Posted on July 2, 2012 by suesspiciousminds

A brief analysis of the Court of Appeal decision in R & Others and CAFCASS 2012

http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/markup.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2012/853.html&query=cafcass&method=boolean

It may alarm and stagger you to learn that in some cases back in 2009, CAFCASS did not appoint a Guardian immediately to represent children in public law proceedings. (It would probably alarm and stagger you still less to learn that this was also the case in some private law proceedings, and almost certainly still is)

There were four individual cases bundled together :-

R – care proceedings began 28^th June 2009 and a Guardian was allocated by CAFCASS on 15^th September 2009 (the risks were of physical harm, and he was in voluntary foster care at the outset of proceedings)

E – care proceedings began 22^nd December 2009 – there was a finding of fact hearing relating to physical injuries alleged to have occurred when E was just an infant. There never seems to have been a Guardian appointed. This bit (a direct quote) is astonishing even to my jaded palate.

“Therefore, other than to inform E’s parents that he was the guardian he did not participate in the case at all. He forgot to inform the court that he was the allocated guardian.”

In the words of the immortal P G Wodehouse , on reading that, I inspected my mind and found it to be boggled.

J – care proceedings began 30^th October 2009 and a Guardian was appointed on 22^nd March 2010 (3 weeks after a Letter Before Claim was sent by those representing the mother)

K – care proceedings began on 25^th August 2009 – on 22^nd March 2010 a Guardian was appointed. (Once again, 3 weeks after the Letter Before Claim was sent to CAFCASS)

The case really turns on whether CAFCASS’s duty to represent children and provide Guardians to represent children extends to a duty to do so in any one individual case, or whether it is more of an aspirational global mission statement which does not ensure that any individual child gets proper representation (note, this sentence does not purport to be in any way neutral and is strictly the author’s rather than the words of any Judge either at first )

These passages from the Court of Appeal judgment (that of Lord Justice McFarlane) illustrate the sympathy that the Court had with the Claimants argument that appointment of a Guardian is pivotal to the progress of a care case and that doing so in the early stages (when the issues are separation or not, the levels of interim contact and the shape and nature of assessments) is critical.

I need absolutely no persuasion as to the essential merits of the complaint that lies behind the claims of each of the four children before this court or of the plea that is now made so forcefully and eloquently on their behalf. Whether one uses the words of the Inquiries that argued for the introduction of the guardian’s role, or the words of the Family Justice Review and the government’s response to it, or those of Charles J and the Divisional Court, the immense importance of the role of a children’s guardian both to the operation of the statutory scheme for protecting children from significant harm and to the quality of outcome for the individual child in each such case is hard to understate. Without, I hope, stretching the metaphor beyond its tolerance: in the tandem model it is the children’s guardian, rather than the child’s solicitor, who steers the course for the child’s representation in the proceedings. A guardian who is appointed promptly at the start of the proceedings can conduct an initial investigation of the circumstances, offer a preliminary analysis of the issues and, crucially, assist the court in crafting the case management directions which will, to a large extent, determine the course and timetable of the litigation.

The great value to the child, the other parties and to the court of appointing a children’s guardian very promptly after the start of proceedings under CA 1989 Part IV has been readily accepted by both sides in this appeal and has, since April 2008, been a key expectation of the PLO (and now the FPR 2010, PD12A). Although CAFCASS has, understandably, carefully chosen the word ‘undesirable’ to describe the delay in appointment in the four appellants’ cases, Mr McCarthy has not in any manner sought to justify what occurred in positive terms. All are effectively agreed that the optimal outcome is for a children’s guardian to be appointed promptly in every public law child case. The points made about the importance of representation to any party, particularly one under a disability, are well made. The question raised in this appeal does not, however, concern the desirability of prompt or immediate appointment. The question for us is not one of desirability but one of statutory duty and it is whether CAFCASS has a statutory duty, owed to each individual child, to effect the prompt or immediate appointment of a children’s guardian in every such case.

Despite the real sympathy that I have for the plea that lies behind the Appellant’s case, it is necessary to apply a legal, public law, analysis to the arguments raised and to the wording of the key statutory provisions. In doing so, where a choice of statutory construction arises, and a purposive interpretation is called for, I am plain that any purposive construction must point to the early or immediate appointment of a guardian.

But also highlight where this is going – in order to impose a duty on CAFCASS to appoint a Guardian in an individual case and do so promptly, the Court would have to find something within the statutes which creates such a duty in an individual case. If not, CAFCASS escape with the Jedi hand-wave of ‘we represent children in general, just not in this particular case, and at a time that suits us’

The Court did not find that such a statutory construction could be derived, and that the earlier decision of Mr Justice Charles in R v CAFCASS 2003

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2003/235.html remained the correct expression of the law, that there was no duty on CAFCASS in any individual case to appoint a Guardian.

There was then an attempt to argue that the failure of CAFCASS to appoint a Guardian ‘immediately’ on the commencement of proceedings or on direction from the Court led to a breach of Human Rights, variously on articles 6 or 8. This did not succeed either.

It may well be that in one or more individual cases where there has been failure by CAFCASS to appoint a children’s guardian in a timely manner, or at all, it will be possible to conclude that there has been a breach of the Art 6 and/or Art 8 rights of the individual child before the court. Such a conclusion would, in my view, only be achievable after the completion of the trial process and after it had been evaluated as a whole so as to determine whether or not a violation of these Convention rights had taken place. We are not invited in respect of the four cases before the court to conclude that in any one of them there was an actual breach of Convention rights. It is of note that in none of the four cases did the trial court hold (or was, I suspect, invited to hold) that a breach of Arts 6 or 8 had occurred.

To hold that, of itself, a failure to appoint a children’s guardian immediately upon being directed to do so amounts to a breach of Convention rights, would involve assuming that the judge, the other parties and, in particular, the solicitor for the child (who, we understand, is likely to have been appointed promptly) would have failed to act in a manner which, to some degree, accommodated the lack of guardian and protected the child’s rights. In proceedings under CA 1989, Part 4, the family court itself has a primary duty under the HRA 1998 to conduct its process in a manner which is compatible with the Convention. To hold, as Mr Geekie asks us to do, that a failure to appoint a guardian immediately is sufficient to establish that the proceedings as a whole are bound to be conducted in breach of Art 6 or 8 must involve the assumption that it will be beyond the capacity of the trial judge to ensure a fair trial in the absence of a guardian for any stages of the proceedings.

The issues involved in public child care proceedings are often of the utmost importance to the parents, to the state and above all to the subject child. No one involved in these cases should be under any misapprehension that rights under ECHR Arts 6(1) and 8 will be ‘engaged’ at every stage of the process. There is a duty upon public bodies, of which CAFCASS , the local authority and the court are three, to act at all times in a manner which is compatible with the convention (HRA 1998, s 6(1)). It is against that background that CAFCASS readily accepts the duty that Charles J found lay within s 12 of the 2000 Act to appoint a children’s guardian as soon as practicable after the request is made. Although not expressly argued before him, the ECHR arguments that we have heard support the conclusion to which Charles J arrived, just as they support the conclusion of the court below in the present case. It is, however, just not possible to hold that the Appellants’ human rights arguments support the conclusion for which Mr Geekie now argues which would involve holding that in every case a failure to appoint a guardian immediately upon request would inevitably amount to a breach of Convention rights. HRA 1998, s 3 will only give this court jurisdiction to read text into a provision where the provision is not otherwise compatible with the Convention rights. Nothing short of a finding on the level I have described would make it permissible for this court to ‘read in’ to s 12 of the 2000 Act a requirement for immediate appointment which, as Charles J has held, is not otherwise present.

Even if, contrary to the foregoing, the effect of Arts. 6 and 8 were to require the immediate appointment of a guardian in every case, it would not justify the court adopting, pursuant to HRA 1998 s.3, a different interpretation of s.12 from that which otherwise be adopted in accordance with the normal principles of statutory construction under domestic law. That is because the CJCSA 2000 contains its own mechanism for the laying down of any appropriate time limits, by means of directions under paragraph 9 of schedule 2, and any requirement as to immediate appointment of a guardian could be imposed by such directions. Compatibility with the Convention could therefore be achieved within the terms of the Act without any need to adopt a different interpretation of s.12 in order to produce such a result. The fact that the statutory mechanism would call for action by the Lord Chancellor in making the relevant directions would not be a good reason for the court to adopt a different interpretation of s.12.

Despite fully acknowledging the very real importance of achieving the appointment of a children’s guardian for a child who is the subject of care proceedings at an early stage in every case, I am entirely satisfied that the decisions of Charles J in R v CAFCASS and of the Divisional Court in the present case are sound and correctly describe the duty upon CAFCASS under CJCSA 2000, s 12.

The battle-weary amongst you may be saying, so what? These cases were all 2009 and we know that CAFCASS were having huge problems now and that these are conquered.

I, however, am feeling uncomfortable that this case is a continuation of the green light for CAFCASS should workloads increase or staff numbers decrease in the future, to run what I’ve described in the past as a homeopathic Guardian service, where the active ingredient of a Guardian actually being involved in the case talking, reading, listening and observing becomes so dilute that there is barely any of it. It imports the ability for CAFCASS to run a sort of ‘triage’ service where they determine which cases need a Guardian straight away, and which can potter along on their own until the work-load crisis ameliorates a little.

I also feel uncomfortable than in the last two months, the family Courts have decided that family Court judges have no sway, influence, or jurisdiction over :-

(a) CAFCASS if they drag their heels appointing a Guardian, or

(b) The Legal Services Commission if they decide they don’t want to pay the costs of an assessment or want to quibble over the bill to an extent where the proceedings are catastrophically delayed whilst that is resolved, and where it is apparently okay for them to tell the President of the Family Division that they don’t come to Court when they are ordered to and just ignore those orders.

And leaving the remedy for both being judicial review for Wednesbury unreasonable individual examples (ignoring the difficulties in funding, proving, litigating and timely resolution of this, and that what is needed is general principles, not individual case resolution piece by piece, and that almost certainly the judicial review courts will quickly stamp on these sorts of cases because they are already swamped in ongoing JRs)

Although we haven’t had a case about whether the Court can make the Official Solicitor move more quickly in representing the most vulnerable in our society, I have little doubt that the outcome on that would be the same; we’re already inviting them in more and more courteous terms to do the job that they are charged with.

Whilst in the same broad period of time decided that their judicial muscles can be flexed in making LA’s pay the costs of intervenors who happen to triumph in their cases.

Is the LA now the only body who can be cheerfully pushed around by the Court? It begins to look that way.

And Justice Ryder’s recent speech on modernisation points that way too (my underlining) :-

There is a place for independent social work and forensic experts to advise on discrete issues that are outside the skill and expertise of the court or to provide an overview of different professional elements in the most complex cases but regard must be had to why those who are already witnesses before the court have not provided the evidence that is necessary and who should pay for it when it is missing.

Who on earth could he mean? Are the Courts going to order CAFCASS to pay when a report needs to be commissioned because Guardians are no longer the independent active ‘Court’s eyes and ears on the ground’ that they used to be? Or are they just going to make the LA pay for everything and blame it on poor quality social work reports? I wonder.

I suggest that the Government take half the money that is currently spent on psychologists and Independent Social Workers, and put the Guardian service back the way it was, with staff given caseloads and time to actually be the independent social work check and balance and voice of the child they were intended to be. The reason for the proliferation of experts is because we no longer allow Guardians to do the job they signed up to do and that very very many of them were extremely good at doing.

As a footnote on my snarky comments about mission statements, the best advice I ever read about them is to imagine that they say the opposite. If that becomes ridiculous then the mission statement is meaningless. (i.e This Organisation wants to please its customers – the reverse is not something that would be true of any business, thus the mission statement is redundant nonsense. If nobody could possibly disagree with it, it isn’t meaningful. For example “We’re against nuclear war” is meaningless, “We’re against nuclear power” is not – there’s a degree of choice and standpoint with the latter – you could agree or disagree, whereas really nobody is in favour of nuclear war)

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Posted in cafcass, case law, costs, experts and tagged CAFCASS, Court of Appeal, delay, judicial review, representation of children, you're about as easy as a nuclear war. Bookmark the permalink.

Definition of chutzpah

Posted on July 2, 2012 by suesspiciousminds

An analysis of the High Court decision in A, S and Others v Lancashire County Council 2012, and the human rights breaches identified therein.

I remember that Chutzpah was explained to me many years ago as being the quality that enables a person on trial for murdering both of his parents to plead in mitigation that he is an orphan. And this High Court decision is very much about orphans, or at least “statutory orphans”

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2012/1689.html

This is a category of children, who the Court initially decided should be adopted, but didn’t get adopted and end up being long term fostered, but with that significant change in care plan never having been ventilated in the Court.

There have been grumblings about this group of ‘statutory orphans’ for some time, but this is the first time that a Court has ruled that it is incumbent on both LAs and Independent Reviewing Officers to take these children out of ‘statutory orphanage’ and have the case back before the Court.

It emerges from litigation involving multiple children against Lancashire County Council. I do not pick on Lancashire in this analysis, save that they were unlucky enough to be the authority who ended up with this issue before the High Court.

It deals with the not entirely unusual, though sad, situation where a child having been made the subject of a Freeing Order (or now, a Placement Order) does not go on to have the adoptive placement that the Court felt was right for them, being found. This is not necessarily as a result of a lack of effort or desire or commitment.

It is the sad reality that all of the adoption scorecards and media rhetoric ignores – there are some children who need to have adoptive families found for them who simply won’t get that family. They are the wrong age, the wrong gender, the wrong ethnicity, or the damage that they have endured has simply been too much for any adoptive carer to countenance. Sometimes children with all of these ‘anchors’ weighing them down still manage to get an adoptive family – it is impossible to say what might strike a chord on a particular day with a particular set of adopters willing to take on a child when they see a range of details of possible children. Sometimes those children you thought impossible to place just find a set of carers who just fit. Sometimes, they don’t.

This case deals with the ones who don’t. Where the care plan of adoption can’t be delivered, and the child remains subject to a Freeing Order or Placement Order, they are in a peculiar sort of limbo, which this Judge describes as being a ‘statutory orphan’. The parents PR is circumscribed far more than it would be if the child were merely subject to a Care Order, and the primary body who exercise PR is the Adoption Agency, rather than the Local Authority. Now, for all practical purposes, the Adoption Agency and the LA are the same thing, but the demands on them where a child is subject to a Placement Order and where the child is merely subject to a Care Order are different, subtly so, but significantly so.

In this case, the Judge made the following declarations that the LA and the Independent Reviewing Officer had behaved in a way that breached the children and parents human rights.

[Some of these may be purely case-specific, but there are more important general principles, which I have put in italics]

1. Lancashire County Council has acted incompatibly with the rights of A and S, as guaranteed by Articles 8, 6 and 3 of the European Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms 1950, in that it:

(1) Failed to provide A and S with a proper opportunity of securing a permanent adoptive placement and a settled and secure home life. (Art. 8)

(2) Failed to seek revocation of the orders freeing A and S for adoption, made on the 19 March 2001 pursuant to Section 18(1) Adoption Act 1976, which effectively deprived them of: (a) The protection afforded to children under the Children Act 1989; (b) Contact with their mother and/or other members of their family; (c) Access to the Court and the procedural protection of a Guardian. (Arts. 6 & 8)

(3) Permitted A and S to be subjected to degrading treatment and physical assault and failed adequately to protect their physical and sexual safety and their psychological health (Arts. 3 and 8).

(4) Failed to provide accurate information concerning A and S’s legal status to the Independent Reviewing Officers. (Art. 8)

(5) Failed to ensure that there were sufficient procedures in place to give effect to the recommendations of the Looked After Child Reviews. (Art 8.)

(6) Failed to promote the rights of A and S to independent legal advice. (Art. 6)

(7) Specifically, failed to act as the ‘responsible body’ to enable A and S to pursue any potential claims for criminal injuries compensation, tortious liability and/or breach of Human Rights arising from their treatment by their mother, or by the Hs or by Mrs B. (Art. 6)

2. Mr H, the Independent Reviewing Officer for A and S, has acted incompatibly with the rights of A and S, as guaranteed by Articles 8 and 6 of the European Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms 1950, in that he:

(1) Failed to identify that A and S’s Human Rights had been and were being infringed. (Arts. 6 & 8) (2) Failed to take effective action to ensure that LCC acted upon the recommendations of Looked After Child Reviews. (Art. 8) (3) Failed to refer the circumstances of A and S to CAFCASS Legal. (Art. 8)

It must, as a result of this case, be at the very least arguable, that any child who is the subject of a Placement Order, but for whom the adoption agency have now ceased searching for an adoptive placement, has a potential claim for breach of human rights against the LA (if they don’t act to change their legal status and revoke the Placement Order, or at the very least, ensure that the practical differences that exist between a child subject to a Placement Order and Care Order in terms of LA obligations towards them disappear in this situation) and the IRO (if the IRO does not push the LA towards remedying the situation, or failing that, notify CAFCASS of the problem)

Now, it is important to note that whilst this Judge made it plain that children remaining on Freeing Orders should have that remedied, he did draw a distinction between Freeing Orders and Placement Orders and it is at least arguable that this judgment does not go so far as to say that a Local Authority or IRO is in breach of human rights by not applying to revoke Placement Orders where it is clear that the plan is no longer adoption. But the door is at the very least, ajar on that point for a future claim.

There are relatively few Freeing Order cases now (since they stopped being made in 2002, and most of the children who were made subject to them will have been placed, or reached adulthood by now), but there are substantially more cases of children subject to Placement Orders who will never be placed. I would not be surprised if the national total was somewhere between 1,000 and 2,000 such children. Are revocation applications to be made on each?

And are each of those going to be swiftly resolved – with the parents and Guardian simply accepting that the Placement Order be revoked and the Care Order (made at the time, but simply ‘frozen’ whilst the Placement Order is in effect) revived? Or are some of them / most of them going to result in a root and branch review of placement, contact, the possibility of rehabilitation, fresh assessments etc?

Without saying too much, I suspect that most authorities will slavishly follow this judgment in exactly the same way as they slavishly follow the Supreme Court’s judgment about the provision of section 20 accommodation to teenagers. Or, as always, Shakespeare puts it best “A custom more honoured in the breach, than the observance”

*Cautious note – I in no way speak for my own or any LA here, this is just my own personal cynicism.

The IRO point is an interesting one, and I would be interested to know where (if orders for damages/costs orders are made) any costs arising from such a claim would be funded.

The Court have not yet dealt with that aspect at all, but I suspect some financial penalties will ensue. Is the IRO at any personal risk from this, or are any damages ordered against them falling on them as part of their profession and met by the LA? (This would be quite straightforward in relation to the social workers on the case, as the LA would have to fund the costs, but IROs occupy a peculiar position both being simultaneously inside and outside of the LA)

The Judge in this case helpfully recounts exactly why the IRO role was beefed up following the House of Lords (as it then was) politely thanking the Court of Appeal for their creativity in inventing ‘starred care plans’ but saying the legal equivalent of ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ and ending that ‘ill-starred’ relationship at an early stage.

I have spoken before on this blog about how rarely the IRO provision to legally whistle-blow to CAFCASS about failure of a Local Authority to implement a care plan is used, and how the power for CAFCASS to actually make an application to Court in that event has never been used. (If you want to know the numbers – 8 total referrals to CAFCASS, 0 total applications arising from them)

CAFCASS weren’t dragged into this one, but I can’t see why, in a theoretical situation where the LA hadn’t revoked, the IRO had made the referral and CAFCASS had not made an application, that CAFCASS would not be added to the list of breaches.

(Of course, Parliament could have addressed this all very simply by ensuring that a Placement Order had a “Mission Impossible” clause, where it would self-destruct after two years – unless an adoption application had been placed before a Court and not yet resolved.)

I don’t think that the Judge was asked to address whether the law itself was incompatible with Human Rights, and I think it would not be, because there is provision for the LA to make an application to revoke; but the law could easily have placed on the LA a duty to make such an application to revoke where the plan is no longer adoption and the order no longer appropriate – which is effectively the position now following this case)

I suspect the attitude of LA’s and the volume of revocation of Placement Order applications will be informed once the level of costs and damages Lancashire endured are known and more to the point, whether the principles in this case are confined to Freeing Orders or have that broader construction.

(And if I were a journalist, an FOIA request to HMCS for the numbers of revocation applications over say the last 3 years and the next 18 months would be interesting – if it isn’t spiking considerably, then statutory orphans are still in the position that the High Court felt was wholly unacceptable and causing them irreparable harm)

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Aunts aren’t gentlemen

Posted on June 20, 2012 by suesspiciousminds

New High Court decision ordering the LA to pay 50% of the aunt’s costs in care proceedings. Beware, or be happy (depending on whether you’re representing a Local Authority, or a relative putting themselves forward as a carer)

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2012/1637.html

The case was decided by Justice Peter Jackson, who I have had the fortune of observing in a very difficult case and have a very high regard for.

The very bald facts are that the child’s parents were deemed to present a very high level of risk. An aunt came forward to care for the child. The LA and Guardian considered that it would be too dangerous for the child, because of the risks from the parents, to live with any family member (and thus that whatever positive qualities the aunt may have had as a carer were outweighed by that) . The Court felt otherwise and an arrangement was struck whereby the Court effectively sanctioned the placement (in line with Mr Justice Munby – as he then was, decision in Cardiff) under an Interim Care Order.

The aunt was represented, but being ineligible for public funding, her representatives did the work pro-bono. Their costs amounted to just under £23,000. There was to be a five day trial, but it concluded much quicker than that, and the Judge recognised the valuable role in that that had been played by the aunt being represented, rather than a litigant in person. The LA had offered an ex gratia payment of £2,000 to the aunt to assist with her costs.

This hearing was then to deal with the issue of whether the Court should make a costs order against the LA, as the aunt had effectively secured what she wanted at the hearing and her solicitors had not been recompensed.

The LA manfully attempted to resist this, on the basis that the authorities are fairly plain that making costs orders in family cases is exceptional rather than the norm that it would be in say a civil case, and that making a cost order should essentially be reserved for the ‘wasted costs’ scenario, where the costs have been incurred as a result of bungling, ineptitude or bad faith of some kind. Had the aunt been funded through the LSC, there would have been no question of the Court making an order for costs against the LA, and this was arising purely as a result of the State (in the form of the LSC) having a cut-off point above which the aunt fell.

Essentially, that there are two situations in which the Court can make costs orders in family cases :-

It is unusual to order costs in children cases. This proposition was stated by Butler-Sloss LJ in Gojkovic v Gojkovic (No 2) [1992] Fam 40 at p 57C, and by Wilson J in Sutton London Borough Council v Davis [1994] 2 FLR 569. In fact, the proposition applied in neither case, the first being a financial case and the second concerning the registration of a child-minder, but the unusual nature of costs orders is well-known to those practising in public or private law children proceedings.

“The proposition applies in its fullest form to proceedings between parents and other relations; but it also applies to proceedings to which a local authority is a party. Thus, even when a local authority’s application for a care order is dismissed, it is unusual to order them to pay the costs of the other parties.” (Sutton). Wilson J is there referring to the corrosive effect of an order for costs as between family members in private law proceedings, a consideration that does not apply in care proceedings.

There are established exceptions to the general proposition. The first, as stated in Sutton is that “the proposition is not applied where, for example, the conduct of a party has been reprehensible or the party’s stance has been beyond the band of what is reasonable.” A recent example of an order being made against a local authority that had failed in its duty of disclosure is Kent County Council v A Mother, F and X, Y and Z (IR Intervener) (Costs in Care Proceedings) [2011] EWHC 1267 (Fam) [2011] 2 FLR 1088 (Fam), a decision in which Baker J emphasised the exceptional nature of such orders.

The second exception is where the costs are referable to a distinct issue that has been decided in favour of one party, such as at a fact-finding hearing. Instances are Re J (Costs of Fact-Finding Hearing) [2009] EWCA Civ 1350, [2010] 1 FLR 1893 and Kent County Council v A Mother (above).

A further instance of this kind is Re T (A child) [2010] EWCA Civ 1585. Grandparents who did not qualify for public funding applied for their costs of a fact finding hearing at which they were exonerated. The Court of Appeal, reversing the judge, made an order that the local authority should pay their costs. It said that the judge should have started with “a clean sheet” and not with the general proposition in favour of no order as to costs. That local authority has obtained permission to appeal and the matter will be heard in the Supreme Court later this year. The local authority will argue that it was bound to have pursued the fact-finding as part of its child protection duties and that it was not criticised for its decision to do so.

Until this case, that was the position in terms of the authorities. However, Mr Justice Jackson reminded himself of the broad powers within the Family Procedure Rules 2010 and the need to ensure justice,

I do not consider that the circumstances in which an order for costs may be made are limited to the two exceptions mentioned above. That would improperly hinder the court in its duty to make an order that is just. Nor do the rules speak of such a limit: on the contrary, they require the court to take account of all the circumstances, and not just the conduct of the parties. Likewise, in Sutton, Wilson J specifically refers to unreasonable conduct as an example of circumstances in which the proposition will not apply.

The present case has been a welfare inquiry into C’s future, and I therefore start from the proposition that there will normally be no order for costs. To succeed in her application, the aunt must demonstrate that there are unusual or exceptional circumstances that justify departure from that proposition

He then determined that there were such exceptional circumstances : –

I find that this is an exceptional case that justifies an order requiring the local authority to contribute towards the aunt’s costs. The combination of the following unusual features, elaborated upon above, takes the case outside the norm:

The extreme history surrounding C’s placement with her aunt (#4-5)

The importance for C of the placement succeeding (#12)

The exceptional challenge faced by the aunt in caring for C (#20)

The need for the aunt to be a party (#21) and to have legal representation (#22)

The risk to the placement from the poor relationship between the aunt and social services (#23)

The stance of the local authority, leading to uncertainty about the outcome until a very late stage (#25)

The reduction in the length of the final hearing as a result of the aunt being represented (#24)

In this case, departure from the usual outcome is warranted by the need for some degree of equality of arms between a state body and an unrepresented litigant who is of cardinal importance to the welfare of the child in question, and where the local authority has elected to put her to the test over a protracted period.

Also, while costs do not follow the event, the court is entitled to have some regard to the trajectory of the proceedings. In November 2010, the local authority strongly opposed placement with the aunt: in May 2012, she was granted an adoption order. To note this outcome is not to be critical of the local authority but to recognise how much the aunt has achieved.

This is obviously an important authority (at least until such time as the Supreme Court address Re T, which I understand will be on 25th June 2012, and might dramatically alter matters) because it establishes that (a) the need for equality of arms can be a relevant factor in making a costs order and (b) that a cost order can be made without being unduly critical of the LA but in recognition of progress that the unfunded party has made.

(*My heading by the way, is a tribute to P G Wodehouse and not any attempt to besmirch the aunt in this case, who sounds like a jolly nice person, or aunts in general. They have, as a body of people, been traditionally very kind to me what with gift tokens and scottish pound notes at birthday times and such)

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Finally – resolution on prior authority!!!! (sort of, but not really)

Posted on May 31, 2012 by suesspiciousminds

Our beloved President (and honestly, no sarcasm here, I am delighted!) has finally tackled the Prior Authority issue.

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2012/1442.html

In DS & Ors (Children) 2012. (Am a little sad that I didn’t get to be the one who got to run the case, having expended quite some time on the issue, but delighted that it is finally gripped)

Interestingly, the President takes a different view to me on whether the LSC have law on their side here.

Para 38 For present purposes, the law can be taken quite shortly. To the mind of the lawyer it remains curious that an administrative body can effectively render nugatory a judicial decision taken in what the court perceives as the best interests of a child. Where the party or parties who seek to instruct an expert are publicly funded, however, there is no doubt that the LSC has the power, given to it by Parliament, to refuse to fund the instruction or to fund the instruction in part only. Moreover, the LSC undoubtedly has the power, deriving from the same source, to cap the level of fees which may be expended by the expert at a given level. That is undoubted the law. Lawyers may complain that this is an unfair state of affairs, or that they cannot find experts who will work at the rates laid down. Their remedy, if they take the view that the decision of the LSC is Wednesbury unreasonable or can be struck down for any other public law reason, is to apply for judicial review.

If I recall correctly, both Calderdale and Lambeth (the cases I think mean that the Court takes precedence over the LSC internal policies) are both High Court, so the President is not bound by them, and distinguishes them in any event by saying that the Statutory Instrument which sets out how the LSC have capped expert fees is binding. (In my humble opinion, it would be binding, had the draftsmen remembered to put something into the SI that said that it was binding on the Courts, but such is life). A closer inspection of this authority shows that Justice Wall specifically refers to Calderdale on the issue of splitting costs, so I am certain that the argument that the Court pushes the LSC around, not vice versa, is, I’m afraid over. And we lost.

The law, as it stands then, is that the LSC DO have the power to bind the Court, and Mr Justice Wall suggests that the remedy is a judicial review if the LSC are acting in a Wednesbury unreasonable way. Presumably, the LA as a body with locus standi, could launch that JR if the LSC decision was delaying a case, because heaven knows the last thing a publicly-funded solicitor who depends on the LSC to process claims and write cheques wants to do is hack off the paymaster.

Here is some very helpful concrete guidance – as much of it places onerous tasks on the Judge/Magistrates if granting approval for an expert, expect to have a harder task over the next few weeks in getting an expert past the Court.

Guidance

In all the circumstances of this case, therefore, I feel able to offer the following general guidance:-

i) The words “the cost thereof is deemed to be a necessary and proper disbursement on [a named individual’s] public funding certificate” (or words to equivalent effect) should no longer be used when the court orders a report from an expert. The words do not bind the LSC or, for that matter anybody else. In addition, there must be doubt about the court’s power to make such an order. It is, in my judgment, far better to follow the words of the Regulations, particularly if the court is being asked to approve rates in excess of those allowed by the Funding Order. A copy of such an order is attached at the end of this judgment.

ii) The test for expert evidence will shortly import the word “necessary”. The question which the court will have to ask itself is whether or not the report of the expert is necessary for the resolution of the case. FPR rule 25.1 will shortly be amended to insert the word “necessary” for “reasonably required” and there will be a new Practice Direction.

iii) It is the court which makes the order for the instruction of an expert, and this responsibility neither can nor should be delegated to the parties. It is of the essence of good case management that the court should identify the issues on which it wants the expert to report. It would thus be helpful and important for the tribunal to be able to say – if it is the case and the hard pressed Tribunal with a long list has had the time – that it has read all the (relevant) papers.

iv) If the court takes the view that an expert’s report is necessary for the resolution of the case, it should say so, and give its reasons. This can be done by a preamble to the order, or by a short judgment, delivered at dictation speed or inserted by the parties with the judge’s approval. I have considered this point carefully, and have come to the conclusion that this does not impose an undue burden either on the court or the profession.

v) There is no substitute for reasons. A consent order is still an order of the court: it is a judicial decision and must be supported by reasons. Equally, a decision by the LSC is a decision. It too should be supported by reasons.

vi) “Reasons” in circumstances such as these need not be lengthy or elaborate. They must, however, explain to anyone reading them why the decision maker has reached the conclusion he or she has particularly if the expert is seeking to be paid at rates which are higher than those set out in the table in Schedule 6 of the Funding Order

vii) Speed is of the essence in proceedings relating to children. An application for prior authority must be made at the earliest opportunity and, once again, must be carefully drafted and supported by reasons.

viii) By like token, it behoves the LSC to deal with such applications promptly and, particularly if the application is being refused, or only granted to a limited extent, to give its reasons for its decision. Once again, the reasons can be concise. Of course the solicitor seeking prior authority can go ahead regardless, and instruct the expert at the rates the expert demands, but such a suggestion, in reality, is unreal. The expert’s contract is with the solicitor, and if he or she does not recover the expert’s costs from the LSC, it is the solicitor who is liable. Given the exiguous rates of remuneration, this is a risk no solicitor is willing to take, particularly where the client is impecunious.

ix) Similar considerations to those set out above apply to any challenge to the LSC’s ruling.

x) If a case is urgent, it should be so marked and the reasons for its urgency explained.

xi) Courts should familiarise themselves with Part 25 of the FPR and with Practice Direction 25A which supplements it. Specifically, they should be aware of paragraph 4.3(h) or its equivalent when amended which provides that the person wishing to instruct an expert must explain to the court why the expert evidence proposed cannot be given by Social Services undertaking a core assessment or by the Children’s Guardian in accordance with their respective statutory duties. The Rule and the Practice Direction are being revised to make them (it is to be hoped) more practical and “user friendly”. Practitioners should look out, in due course, for the amendments.

And then a suggested form of wording for orders (you will note that this is a LOT longer at present, and the President stresses that all of this should be prefaced by a short judgment as to why the expert is required, and at the minimum a clear preamble that sets out why the judicial decision has been made)

Coda

A suggested form of order, depending on the facts of the individual case, could be in the following terms: –

a) The proposed assessment and report by X (as set out in paragraph 2 of this order) are vital to the resolution of this case.

b) This case is exceptional on its facts.

c) The costs to be incurred in the preparation of such reports are wholly necessary, reasonable and proportionate disbursement on the funding certificates of the publicly funded parties in this case.

d) The court considers X’s hourly rate of £y and the estimated costs of the assessment report to be reasonable in the context of (his) qualifications, experience and expertise.

e) The field in which X practises, and the particular expertise which (he) brings to bear on cases involving (subject) are highly specialised. There is no realistic prospect of finding an alternative expert with the necessary expertise at lower fee.

f) (The court considers that any further delay in order to give the LSC the (further) opportunity to consider an application for prior authority to incur the costs of the proposed amendment or report would be wholly outside the child(ren’s) timescale(s).

Even such an order (which will need, of course, to be adapted to the facts of the individual case) should be buttressed by reasons as set out in the guidance which I have attempted to give.

There’s a very interesting addendum to the judgment, where the LSC submitted some data to the Court. Here are the figures on applications for prior authorities :-

Nov 2011 – 216

Dec 2011 – 492

Jan 2012 – 784

Feb 2012 – 1140

Mar 2012 – 1840

Apr 2012 1855

I wonder why the numbers spiked so – might it be because the LSC started rejecting claims left right and centre, leaving solicitors holding the baby and being out of pocket and thus deciding never to get burned like that again?

Laughably, they also claim to be processing prior authority applications in between 3 and 8 days. (Perhaps, if their definition of a Day is the time it takes Jupiter to orbit the sun)

So, where are we? I suspect, still waiting for the judicial review. The white flag has been waved by the Courts as to whether they or the LSC are in charge of assessments, so what Justice Wall has done here is set out a clear framework in advance for prior authority applications to be accompanied by chapter and verse on why the Court has decided that the assessment is necessary and the costs appropriate. That paves the way, should the LSC act capriciously (as if they ever would, quell my scepticism) for a judicial review.

If you’re an Independent Social Worker, this case is really, really bad news, I’m afraid. The Courts are not going to do battle with the LSC in any care case as to the ludicrous £30 per hour cap that was pulled out of thin air. It will have to be a judicial review based on the policy being unreasonable and having been done without an Impact assessment. (And I think the clock has chimed on the time-limit for such an application – unless the applicant (Nagalro, or BASW presumably) argues that it was unclear until this decision that the intention was to bind the courts, or that social workers doing risk assessments would not get the £63 per hour that the SI suggests)

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Posted in case law, experts, family justice modernisation and tagged but not justice..., expert, prior authority, really really long orders, resolution. Bookmark the permalink.

A County Council v M and F 2011

Posted on May 4, 2012 by suesspiciousminds

Although judgment was given in this case in 2011, following a finding of fact hearing in the summer of that year, the judgment has only recently been published. I would preface all of this by saying that the case, and this blog will deal with injuries to a young child which resulted in the child’s death, and it is quite likely that some readers might find this blog entry distressing and upsetting. I don’t want anyone to read this without having that in mind.

I am likely to want to return to this and blog on it in more detail, as the judgment is significant, and very detailed. Mr Justice Mostyn conducted the finding of fact hearing, and the structure and methodology with which the Judge deals with the judgment is exceptional. It would be worth reading in its entireity

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2011/1804.html

Much like the recent case involving subdural haematomas, which I have already blogged about, this case involved the Court being asked to make a binary choice about whether a child in question was killed by his parents, or whether there was an accidental/organic explanation. It is the most serious type of finding of fact hearing which can ever occur. The parents have either suffered the tragic loss of a child through organic reasons, or perhaps by an action which they could not have suspected would lead to harm and are safe around other children, or they have killed a child and concealed this and lied about it throughout a family court finding of fact exercise. There is either no risk at all, or a very high risk.

As indicated earlier, I think any reader who has an interest in finding of fact cases should read the entire judgment, as the entire thought processes, the analysis of the medical and other evidence and the law as it relates to each discrete point is mapped out with extreme care and skill by the Judge (notwithstanding that my gut reaction is one of some disquiet)

The child in question suffered injuries and died during attempts to resuscitate him. The parents explanation was that the father, a cyclist, had a small trailer or bike buggy which went behind his bicycle, which the child would sit in, and that whilst riding the bicycle at speed,the child may have suffered injuries as a result of going over bumps in the road, bouncing over tree roots and stones. There obviously questions about whether any of the injuries to the child could have been sustained during the resuscitative process. (There is substantially more to the parental defence than this, and obviously if I could reduce the complexity of the case down to a page, it would not have taken 20 days of High Court time, nor required 13 bundles of evidence, so I apologise for the fact that this summary is by its nature not thorough)

Here are the injuries identified on the child :-

RECENT INJURIES

Of the Head Neck

1. On the right side of the occiput, there was a scabbed abrasion 1 mm in diameter.

2. On the right forehead, 45mm above the outer angle of the right eyebrow, there was a purple bruise 4mm in diameter.

3. A similar bruise was present approximately 45mm above the outer canthus of the left eyebrow.

4. There were two purple bruises on the outer aspect of the inferior margin of the left orbit measuring 5mm and 4mm.

5. There was scabbing of the posterior margin of the right nostril.

6. There was a recent tear of the frenulum of the upper lip which was associated with a little erythema but no significant haemorrhage.

7. There was a red mark 2mm in diameter posteriorily in the midline of the hard palate.

8. Within the upper helix of the right ear, there was a purple nodule 7mm in diameter which on sectioning showed a little haemorrhage.

9. There was a fluctuant swelling 25 x 20 x 7mm with overlying purple discoloration of the skin within the left upper pinna. Sectioning revealed an organising cystic haematoma containing some liquid blood.

10. There was a well circumscribed area of superficial haemorrhage in the middle lower left lip measuring 3 x 2mm in the midline.

Of the Right Upper Limb

11. There were two purple bruises on the ventral aspect of the lower right forearm just above the wrist measuring 3mm and 5 x 3mm.

12. There were scattered blue bruises up to 7mm over the dorsum of the right hand and over the back of the index, middle and ring fingers of the right hand

13. On the centre of the right palm and the palmar aspects of the index, middle and ring fingers, there were similar blue bruises up to 7mm in diameter.

14. There were scattered abrasions on the back of the index finger 3 x 2mm and overlying the proximal interphalangeal joint of the ring finger measuring up to 2mm.

15. There was a red/purple bruise over the metacarpophalangeal joint of the middle finger of the right hand measuring 10 x 5mm.

Of the Left Upper Limb

16. At the centre of the left palm, there were similar blue bruises up to 7mm in diameter with at the base of the index finger, there was a transverse apparently post-mortem skin split.

17. On the back of the left hand and on the back of the left index, middle and ring fingers, there were similar blue bruises up to 7mm.

18. Over the metacarpophalangeal joint of the middle finger, there were small scabbed abrasions.

19. Over the proximal interphalangeal joint of the ring finger, there was an abrasion up to 2mm in diameter.

20. An abrasion 2mm in diameter was present over the proximal phalanx of the index finger.

21. There was a red mark on the proximal phalanx of the index finger.

22. There were two purple/brown bruises on the medial aspect of the left forearm measuring 12 x 9mm and 13 x 9mm separated by 10mm. The bruises showed yellowing at the edges.

Of the Lower Limbs

23. Over the 5th metatarsal of the left foot on the dorsal aspect, there was a purple bruise 5mm in diameter.

There was a great deal of consideration about the medical evidence. It appears to me that the Judicial conclusion is that speaking from a purely medical perspective, the medics are in agreement that the injuries were non-accidental in nature.

[It is worth noting Justice Mostyn’s comments about the Guardian’s stance – I believe that similar reservations have recently been expressed by Lord Justice McFarlane, though I am still waiting to read the transcript on that authority. I could not agree more with what Justice Mostyn says here]

The argument on behalf of the guardian of D and S2

Ms D QC and Ms R represent the litigation guardian of D and S2, Ms S. In her written final submissions Ms D QC wrote:

“In this hearing the Children’s Guardian takes a neutral and objective position. It is not her role to argue for or against any of the other parties.

Ms S has had the benefit of hearing most although not all of the evidence throughout the hearing. She has had the benefit of the transcripts of the experts and medical witnesses provided. She was represented throughout. She has had the benefit of reading the documentary evidence filed and she has met with and had discussions with the parties. She has met the children. If the Court makes any findings against M or F the Children’s Guardian will be in a good position to consider and formulate her recommendations to the Court for the welfare of the children.

To that end the Children’s Guardian has considered the oral evidence heard, the written evidence submitted and the expert opinion received in the context of the LA’s Schedule of Findings.”

I was surprised to read that. Given that the outcome of this hearing could have a most far-reaching effect on her clients D and S2 I would have thought that I would be offered at least a steer as to what findings I should make. But no, I was firmly told that this is not the practice, and with my slender experience of this kind of work I am not in a position to argue. That said, approaching the matter with an open mind uncluttered by years of experience of this kind of work I would have thought that at the very least the role of the Guardian and those representing her should be akin to Counsel to a Statutory Inquiry, assisting the court in exploring complex scientific evidence and making suggestions to the court as to what findings should properly and tenably be made. The practice of sitting with an assessor has fallen into disuse (notwithstanding that the procedure for appointing an assessor has recently been reiterated in FPR 2010 r25.14), and thus the role of the representative of the Guardian in a case such as this cannot be overstated.

Having heard all of the evidence, the Judge sets out how he proposes to deal with the decision, and sets out this framework

Conclusions

The business of judging in this case is peculiarly difficult.

Yet, if I accept Mr S’s submission that there is little, if any, scope for me to gainsay the histological evidence, which must lead me inexorably to find that in the early hours of the morning these parents, acting together, meted out the most extreme sadistic violence to S which involved thrashing his little hands and punching him in the face with sufficient force to snap his fraenulum.

The same point is to be made in relation to the allegations in respect of S when the photograph at Exhibit 7 was taken. Standing alone all the allegations suffer from obvious evidential weaknesses, but when viewed through the prism of the histological evidence they present an altogether different image.

But I do not believe that I should judge the histological evidence in isolation. It is part of a wider canvas. This is a recurrent theme from the authorities. I must weigh it against my assessment of the credibility of M and F and the (im)probability, judged from a non-scientific stance, that this ghastly event actually took place. So as regards the components of the evidence the court is, up to a point, in a chicken and egg situation.

What I therefore propose to do is to make judicial observations on:

i) The credibility, character and personality of M and F.

ii) The use of generalised empirical statistical paediatric evidence.

iii) The use of photographic evidence.

iv) The reliability of ageing bruises by visual observation.

v) The reliability of the lay evidence from the neighbours.

vi) The histological evidence.

I shall then stand back and pull all the threads together and make my findings applying the law as I have set it out above.

Respectfully, this appears to me to be an entirely sensible and solid approach, taking into account all of the relevant matters and not taking into account anything that is not relevant.

What really appeared to trouble the Judge was that on the binary version of events, either the medics were right and these parents had inflicted horrific injuries on their child resulting in the child dying, and had concealed it and had faked a 999 call; or the medics were not right and that the injuries were caused in a way that could not be medically explained but was not a deliberate or violent act.

In judging the truthfulness of the parents as to the events of the night one has to reflect on the implausibility of what the LA seeks to prove. Although the LA did not explicitly challenge all the elements of the parents’ account as set out by me above, it should not be taken as accepting any of it, save where it is incontrovertible. Its case is that for the crucial period only M and F can say what actually happened, and they say that they should not be believed. However, stripped to its core elements the sequence that they posit is this:

i) At about 3 a.m. one of the parents inflicted extreme injury to S’s palms by repeatedly thrashing them in some way with some weapon. S was also punched in the face with such force that his fraenulum snapped. This would have caused S to suffer extreme pain, and he would have been screaming very loudly. The other parent, if not participating in this awful act, was present and complicit.

ii) D either heard all this, but never mentioned anything to anybody, or slept through the whole thing, even though her bedroom is next to S’s in a very compact area.

iii) None of the neighbours heard anything in this compact estate.

iv) At 7 a.m., as I have found, S died. Either one or both of the parents smothered him, or, by an extraordinary coincidence, he died a cot death.

v) At 8.50 a.m. M dialled 999 and seemingly in great distress told the emergency operator that her baby was dead in his cot.

Obviously, improbable things do happen, but this sequence of events seems very unlikely. It is against this unlikelihood that I have to judge the truthfulness or falsity of the parents’ denials.

[The one element in this that I find problematic, or potentially problematic, is that of course it is very unlikely that parents would do such a thing, but one has to take into account that it becomes less unlikely when faced with a child who HAS those injuries. As the House of Lords considered in Re H and R and Re B, it may well be inherently unlikely that a parent would abuse a child and the average parent would not, but the unlikeliness of it reduces if the Court is faced with a child who has been abused. I am as certain as anyone could be, however, that Justice Mostyn gave every facet of the case a great deal of care and attention, and it is likely that it is my reading here that is at fault]

His comments on the injuries to the palms show as much

The injuries to the palms, which are the most serious of all, and which can be regarded as a touchstone, are shrouded in mystery. The surface area of the palm of a seven month old infant is very small indeed. No-one, apart from Professor H has ever seen anything like these bruises. He has only seen them twice in people with bleeding disorders. Although Dr L posited that they might have been inflicted by a ruler or cane he admitted that their appearance did not really fit with that hypothesis. In argument I pressed Mr S to advance a likely mechanism but he just fell back on “repeated application of significant blunt force trauma” and declined to be drawn into specificity. So I am being asked to conclude that the parents inflicted with some mystery weapon, which no-one can visualise, repeated beatings on these tiny palms causing bruising the like of which none of these experts, Professor H aside, has ever seen before.

In summarising the medical evidence :-

This evidence leads the four experts to conclude, as confidently as they can, that, by reference to the telos of this science as set out by me at para 40 above:

i) All of these injuries were caused in life and not after death;

ii) The injuries to the ears and knuckle were caused about 3 days before death; and

iii) The injuries to the palms and fraenulum were caused about 4 – 12 hours before death (most likely around 4 hours).

In judging these powerful conclusions, at this stage without reference to the wider body of evidence I have sought to set out and comment on above, I would make the following general observations:

i) This science is forensically untested. The reason that I have not been given any medico-legal papers detailing the results of legal cases where responsibility for injuries has been found based on this science is because there have not been any, apparently anywhere.

ii) The science is based largely on research conducted on animals. There is almost no published scientific research in this field performed on humans, and none at all on babies. While it is said that the cellular and vascular features of all mammals are identical, this is mere assertion. I do not have any scientific evidence that tells me that neutrophil and macrophage migration is the same in mice, sheep, human adults and human infants.

iii) Biological science is not nearly as certain or predictable as the science of physics or the laws of mathematics. As Dr L accepted “we have biological systems and so therefore you cannot automatically assume that every one of us in this room will have exactly the same rate of accumulation of polymorphs at the site of inflammation – it doesn’t work that way, and there are other factors that may influence that”.

iv) Science is always moving on. Scientific certainties of a past age are often proved conclusively wrong by later generations. In an address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1900 Lord Kelvin, one of the greatest of all scientists, stated that “there is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement” and in a 1902 newspaper interview he predicted that “no balloon and no aeroplane will ever be practically successful.”^[5]. Thus the warning of the President in Re U, Re B at para 23(v) that “the judge in care proceedings must never forget that today’s medical certainty may be discarded by the next generation of experts or that scientific research will throw light into corners that are at present dark”.

And the final conclusions – I recommend reading these three or four times, to really let them soak in

My very final conclusions

I conclude:

i) Based on my survey of the lay and psychological evidence it is extremely improbable that these parents have ever deliberately inflicted injury on either of these children. It is, however, possible. I do not accept the neighbours’ evidence as to observations of marks or bruises save as to the marks seen by N2 to the backs of S’s hands on the week-end before he died.

ii) However, I believe that injuries to S, were caused by F recklessly taking both children out in the buggy in disregard of plain safety warnings. M would have been complicit in this, up to a point. There was nothing malign in this. It was just stupidity born of an over-enthusiastic and over-energetic immaturity on the part of F, and, up to a point, M. Obviously, it must never happen again, and I do not believe that it ever will.

iii) Based on my survey of the scientific evidence it is extremely improbable that an innocent explanation for S’s injuries is furnished by the eventuation of those things mentioned above. It is, however, possible.

iv) The paediatric evidence from Professor S does not alter my conclusion in (i) above. Nor does the photographic evidence. It is consistent with my conclusion in (ii). The forensic evidence of FS does not alter my primary conclusion. There are perfectly innocent explanations for blood on the sheet, bib and grow-bag. We know that S suffered from nose-bleeds, that he had an erupting tooth, and had bleeding feet.

v) Although the orthodox histological evidence is powerful I am not prepared to rely on it to displace my conclusion in (i) above for the reasons set out by me above. I would venture to suggest that there needs to be consideration within the medico-legal community as to reliance on histological evidence such as this in the forensic process where there is such a dearth of research on humans, and, particularly, babies.

vi) I am not prepared to find that the parents neglected S in relation to his feet. They sought appropriate medical advice for what was certainly a fungal and possibly also a bacterial infection. It is clear to me that there had been a significant postmortem degeneration in S’s feet by the time the photographs of them were taken at the autopsy.

I am therefore left with two improbable explanations namely that S was brutalised and murdered by his parents; alternatively, that he suffered a sequence of pathologically unlikely events that gave rise to his injuries and overwhelmed him. This is a Popi M case. Just as the decision of the House of Lords left no-one knowing why the vessel plunged to the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea, so we are left here with no explanations for the injuries and death of S, other than those I believe were caused in the bike buggy. This is one of those very rare cases where the burden of proof comes (as Baroness Hale put it) to my rescue and so the parents are entitled to the return of Lord Hoffmann’s value of zero, namely that they will be treated in law as if they did not deliberately inflict violence on and to these children.

This is not to say that there is not the possibility, even the real possibility (to use the language of Lord Nicholls in Re H and R when discussing the test under the second limb of s31(2) Children Act 1989), that these parents did indeed so grossly mistreat their children. But a suspicion or a risk is not enough on a fact-finding hearing, as the House of Lords so emphatically confirmed in Re B.

I appreciate that the parents, and indeed the LA, want definite answers and I am sorry not to be able to supply them. I am only prepared to find on the 51% balance of probability test, having surveyed all the evidence holistically as the authorities mandate I must do, that I am not satisfied that these parents deliberately abused their children (as opposed to treating them recklessly in the buggy), or neglected or murdered S. Thus far I am prepared to go, but no farther.

That is as close as I think one will ever come to seeing a Judge accept that there are limitations to what even the most exhaustive consideration of the situation, with the assistance of extremely able counsel and experts drawn from a range of disciplines can achieve. This was one of those cases where the Court simply has to say that it is impossible to say what happened – whether the medics are right and a child was effectively violently assaulted and died as a result, or whether there is some other cause for the injuries which exonerates the parents. Being unable to decide, the Judge went back to first principles – the balance of proof falls on the LA, and as they could not prove that the parents HAD deliberately abused their children or neglected or murdered one of them, he had to find that they HAD NOT done so (the test being binary now – mere suspicion falls away – if it is not proved that a person did X following a finding of fact hearing, then it is proved that a person did NOT do X in the eyes of the law)

Read it again – the Judge is essentially saying that both possible versions – the deliberate harm and the accidental explanation are both highly improbable, but not impossible. He is unable, on that basis, to find that either is more likely than not to have happened, and as a consequence, has to resort to the burden of proof to resolve matters. I can’t ever recall seeing a judgment like this – we bandy around the phrase ‘finely balanced’ all the time (and often use it as a substitute for ‘arguable’ or ‘with some merit’ or ‘not utterly hopeless’, but this really is the finely balanced case.

As I hope I’ve made plain throughout, whilst this conclusion left me very uneasy, I have nothing but admiration for the careful, logical, structured, considered and exhaustive way in which the Judge tackled this exercise. But it does leave huge question marks for the future of really serious injury cases. There has been a tendency over recent years (and this may well be right considering how badly we now know that cases like Cannings were approached in terms of accepting medical assertions that have since fallen away) to question the medical opinion; not just as to the confidence of diagnosis and differential diagnosis, but that additional step of ‘what you say is consistent with what you currently believe, but it may not always be the case and in time to come, we may find that this medical opinion as to causation of injuries is wrong’

I don’t know what the answer is here – a Court choosing between two (or more) competing medical hypotheses each supported by a medical report is a tough situation and perhaps not the best way for a medical controversy to be resolved (scientific fact isn’t resolved by cross-examination but by science and testing and Poppers falsifiability principles ) but a Court being driven to speculate about the current boundaries of what science believes to be the case is even more difficult.

A fascinating case, which must have been immensely emotionally draining for all concerned.

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Is more Hedley than the Mail *

Posted on April 16, 2012 by suesspiciousminds

My ongoing and ever growing brain-crush on the Honourable Mr Justice Hedley continues apace, in K (Children) 2012 – which can be found here :-

http://www.familylawweek.co.uk/site.aspx?i=ed97030

*(apologies for the title, the story has nothing whatsoever to do with the Daily Mail)

This case is not particularly remarkable for its grappling with complex legal issues or because it resolves a matter of grave national import. The facts of the case are incredibly sad and the matters of huge importance to the family and those working with them, but the case is of interest and significance for the way that the Judge approached matters. I hope that in years from now, we will see this case as one of those times when fish climbed out of the sea with stubby fins onto the land and gulped pure clean air. (Probably not, but I am, despite eighteen years in child protection law, an incurable optimist and a hopeless romantic)

I would urge you to read these short extracts, but effectively, this is exactly what I had in mind when I wrote about an inquisitorial approach (actually well beyond, in the right direction).

The Judge was dealing with a case with three children with profound special needs as a result of their disabilities, and the dispute that the family were having with the Local Authority about services for the children; culminating in the issue of care proceedings and there being considerable conflict in the papers as to where the children should live and whether the threshold was met. It could very easily have been approached as a classic adversarial case and the parties spending two weeks in the High Court tearing one another to pieces and seeing who was limping least at the conclusion of the case.

Instead, a very different approach was adopted.

16. Because all this seemed to me both unusual and difficult, I have gone about its resolution in an unusual manner, albeit with the consent throughout of the parties. The fundamental purpose has been to see if a way forward can be found in partnership, which, as I have said, must happen indefinitely into the future, without the need for a damaging trial over the question of whether the threshold criteria have been satisfied. I regarded this approach as all the more urgent in this case because of the deeply conflictual tone of almost all the statements, not just of the parties towards each other, but of the Local Authority towards some experts and, of course, a letter from Simon suggesting, unsurprisingly no doubt, that he has been drawn up to his ears into this dispute. It is the fact that some two years have passed since a Local Authority social worker was admitted to the house and it is the fact that, until this hearing began, the parents had not spoken to the current social work team. It was a matter of relief that on one matter all parties were agreed. This could not go on and change had to occur. It is also worthy of note that, as a matter of fact, the combined work of the parents and the professionals to date has in fact succeeded in promoting and safeguarding the welfare of the children in very substantial part. Despite the ongoing conflict with the family, the Local Authority social workers have managed to negotiate substantial investment in the family, including procuring the two places at H, and there is no reason to doubt that the parents have secured the children’s emotional welfare throughout.

17. I have pursued this aim by making my provisional views about the case and my suggested possible route to solution much more readily available than would necessarily be right were I hearing an arm’s length trial. I have allowed considerable amounts of court time over the last seven days to be used outside the court room. From those discussions have emerged four agreements: one between the Local Authority and the parents, one between H and the parents, and a tri-partite agreement between them all, and a further agreement between the Local Authority, the parents and the proposed coordinator or case manager in this case. There are two issues of disagreement remaining and all agree that they can be considered in this judgment and then acted on by the parties.

18. Moreover, on the second day of the hearing we adjourned to H, who kindly made their boardroom available to us. During the course of discussions, the parents met constructively with the social work team under the aegis of the guardian, though of course this must only be the start of what needs to be a regular pattern of meetings. I had a chance to see the premises and speak informally with the general manager and the chief executive. I also had the chance to see the family together, of which more in a moment. At the request of the parties, I also went to the special school (F) attended by Alec, Alice and now Zac, and spoke informally with the headteacher and a member of the medical staff. I wish to record my gratitude both to H and F for their tolerant hospitality, and I have written personally to the general manager and the headteacher to express that. In a case in which, as I have said, context is everything, I found this second day particularly valuable. In short, this case, being unique, has received unique treatment.

And here :-

43. I greatly appreciate the effort of all – family, professionals, Local Authority, H, guardian, as well as the legal teams who have given clear advice and have been willing to adopt both an unconventional and a non-confrontational approach, all of which have served to secure this end. I want only finally to say this. Whatever the disputes of the past, this remains an intact family in which the best interests of the children are paramount. I hope this case has given the parents the confidence to continue the task that compels the admiration of all. I hope, too, that in that renewed confidence they will feel less anxious, will feel that they do not always need to be right on everything or in control of every issue, but will learn to trust others and to respect and consider contrary views; in short, that all will come to recognise that that which will unite this family, and H and the Local Authority in the future, is not the written agreements, important though they are, but their shared commitment to promoting the welfare of these children, especially Alec, Alice and Zac, who of course have nowhere else to turn.

Now, all of this may have come in the context of a unique family (I nearly said very unique, but of course that concept is a nonsense), and I note that the school provision for the children is costing £246,000 in 2012 and will increase year by year; and that in those circumstances one can understand that there is more willingness to be flexible and supple and try a different approach, but I really would like to see much more of this.

At the risk of getting into private law, which is no longer my cup of tea, I have thought for some years that an approach in private law where the Judge indicates really early on what a desirable final outcome for the children would be [that they see both parents, spend lots of time with both, know that each parent loves them very much and that whilst they don’t love each other any more, that doesn’t stop mum being mum, and dad being dad, that new relationships for mum or dad don’t change that at all] would be, and directs the parties as to how to get from this awful starting point to that desirable finishing point, is worth considering…. sorry to keep people waiting for that unexciting ending…

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Posted in case law, family justice modernisation and tagged disability, fresh approach, got my spine I've got my orange crush, inquisitorial. Bookmark the permalink.

“Whatever happened to the likely harm?”

Posted on April 6, 2012 by suesspiciousminds

The Court of Appeal gave judgment this week in an interesting case where they attempted to cut through the thicket of authorities on whether having identified a parent as one of a pool of possible perpetrators in an earlier case, the Court should approach a future case involving the parent as either a sole parent or in a new relationship. Is there a likelihood of future harm made out as a result of the first finding, or is the likelihood only applicable where the Court found that the parent HAD caused the injuries and the previous finding be completely ignored if it is a ‘pool of perpetrators’ finding, or does each case turn on its individual facts?

It has been settled law for some time that a Court faced with a non-accidental injury (or indeed sexual allegation) can find that the threshold is met even if it is not possible to identify which of the parents is the perpetrator of the abuse, and this was extended still further with the parents AND a third party being the potential perpetrators and the Court being unable to exclude the parents from being the perpetrator of the harm/abuse ( which is commonly called a “Lancashire” finding – I wonder if they call it that in Lancashire, or if like French kissing and Brussel sprouts, they have an entirely different term for it in the eponymous locale)

Indeed, there are authorities to indicate that where it is not possible for a Judge to exclude on the balance of probabilities one of the parents, the Court should not ‘dance on the head of a pin’ to try to decide, for example that the injury was 60% likely to have been committed by mum, and 40% by dad, so that dad is not ‘more likely than not’ to have caused the injury. (Re SB)

But there is a conflict between various authorities as to whether, when a parent is the subject of a “Lancashire” finding and goes on to separate from the other subject of that finding and go on to found a new family, that finding has any evidential weight in establishing the threshold with the new child, or whether it should be ignored completely.

RE J (CHILDREN) (2012)

[2012] EWCA Civ 380

All of my quotations here are taken from the lead judgment of Lord Justice McFarlane, who has again done most of the heavy lifting, in a case which has required a great deal of it.

The Court identify, with the succinctness that is their hallmark, the issues of judicial importance in the appeal here :-

16. Put shortly the point raised by this appeal is as follows:

a) Where a previous court has found that there is a ‘real possibility’ that one or other or both of two or more carers have perpetrated significant harm on a child in his/her care;

b) Is that ‘finding’ a ‘finding of fact’ that may be relied upon in subsequent proceedings relating only to one of the potential perpetrators in support of a conclusion that there is a ‘real possibility’ or likelihood of a subsequent child in a new family unit of which he/she

is part suffering significant harm or is it a ‘finding’ that must be totally ignored in the subsequent proceedings?

17. There have been authoritative statements in judgments of the Court of Appeal and the

Supreme Court which assert that the previous adverse ‘finding’ must be totally

ignored in any subsequent proceedings involving a new family unit, on the basis that a

‘finding’ that there is a ‘real possibility’ is not a ‘finding of fact’ at all as, by

definition, it falls short of a finding on the balance of probabilities. Despite these

apparently clear authoritative statements, the appellant argues that such statements

are, or may well be, at odds with the fully reasoned analysis of the approach to be

taken to the statutory threshold criteria in Children Act 1989, s 31 as set out by Lord

Nicholls of Birkenhead in a trilogy of cases in the House of Lords.

The particularly troubling authority, is the Supreme Court authority of Re SB, and this passage in Baroness Hale’s judgment :-

“49 There is a further reason to remit the case. The judge found the threshold crossed in relation to William on the basis that there was a real possibility that the mother had injured Jason.That, as already explained, is not a permissible approach to a finding of likelihood of future harm. It was established in In re

H [1996] AC 563 and confirmed in In re O [2004] 1 AC 523 , that a prediction of future harm has to be based upon findings of actual fact made on the balance of probabilities. It is only once those facts have been found that the degree of likelihood of future events becomes the “real possibility” test adopted in In re H. It might have been open to the judge to find the threshold crossed in relation to William on a different basis, but she did not do so.”

And the assertion therefore is that in allocating a pool of perpetrators, the Court has not said in relation to any particular one of them that they HAD caused the injury, but rather that an injury HAS been caused and that there is a real possibility that it was caused by A or B. That is sufficient for THAT particular child, but on moving onto another child born to A or B at a later stage, it does not satisfy the threshold criteria for the younger child.

As a Local Authority hack, it would greatly trouble me for the Court to conduct a fact-finding hearing, and decide that the injury was caused by either A or B, and neither could be excluded, but for A and B to then part company and have new families, and the finding to be completely excluded from consideration (rather than an approach where there is a historical risk to be assessed and considered by the Court and the parents change in circumstances, passage of time, any reflection or admissions etc be taken into account as to what action, if any is required in relation to the new child)

You will spot immediately, that the Court of Appeal are in difficulties, since they can’t over-rule what Baroness Hale said in Re SB (though if they consider that the interpretation of what Baroness Hale said has been misconstrued, they can provide some clarification)

The next problematic authority is Re F (Interim Care Order) 2011, and the facts of that case are set out below :-

The second recent authority which has been at the forefront of our consideration is ReF (Interim Care Order) [2011] EWCA Civ 258. Re F involved a father in respect of whom there had been a previous finding of fact relating to his eldest child who had suffered two leg fractures. In care proceedings relating to that child the finding as to the perpetrator of the fractures was that both of that child’s parents were in the pool of possible perpetrators. Time then moved on, the father separated from that child’s mother and he became a parent for a second time when a baby was born to his new partner. The local authority issued care proceedings with respect to the new baby on the basis that the previous finding of the father being a possible perpetrator was sufficient to cross the threshold criteria on the basis that the new baby was likely to suffer significant harm. The trial judge dismissed the care proceedings on the basis that the previous finding was insufficient to support a ‘likelihood’ threshold finding in relation to the new baby. The trial judge did, however, grant the local authority permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal.

The Court of Appeal, when hearing Re F, grappled with the Re SB issue here (my bolding):-

Mr Heaton contends, and Mr Hayden concedes, that the reasoning so clearly set out in In Re S-B, at [49], has caused great consternation among local authorities, among other professionals who work in the area of public law and among academic commentators. Mr Heaton’s aspiration is to persuade the Supreme Court to modify its demand for proven factual foundation in uncertain perpetrator cases. Take, says he to us this morning, a case of two parents who are consigned to a pool of possible perpetrators of non-accidental injuries to their child; and who then separate; and who each, with other partners, produce a further child, who together become the subject of conjoined care proceedings. Are both those applications for care orders required to be dismissed even though before the court is, on any view, a perpetrator of injuries to that older child? No doubt there are hard and worrying cases. But the requirement of proven factual foundation is a bulwark against the state’s removal of a child from his family, which I consider very precious. I also applaud the Supreme Court’s regular acknowledgement of the fact that, although it can depart from its previous decisions, the exercise of departure is highly unsettling for the law and should be undertaken only with great caution.

For those reasons I would not wish us to foist upon the Supreme Court a full appeal in circumstances in which it had not itself had the opportunity to consider whether to accept it.”

As luck, for good or ill, would have it, the parents in Re F made some other admissions which were capable of resolving the threshold, and therefore the issue of whether threshold was met fell by the wayside, but the problem as outlined by Mr Heaton above, remained a live one, hence the Court of Appeal revisiting it in this case of RE J.

In a nutshell, here are the counter arguments deployed by the parties :-

76. Mr Cobb’s attractive presentation of his case leads the judicial listener

through the words of Lord Nicholls endorsing, as he does, the earlier utterances of Wall J and Hale LJ. The Local Authority’s ultimate submission is that the court should adopt theapproach of Lord Nicholls in Re O and N to the determination of the “likely to suffer” threshold criteria in a later case, with the result that an uncertain perpetrator from anearlier determination is regarded as equally likely to have been the cause of past significant harm, and that that established “fact” is a sufficient vehicle to satisfy the threshold in the later case.

77. Attractive though that argument is, Mr Paul Storey QC on behalf of JJ and Miss Rowe QC on behalf of DJ argue that it is untenable. They submit that to compare the stage of proceedings being described by Lord Nicholls in Re O and N with the stage of proceedings being undertaken by HHJ Hallam in the present case is not to compare like with like. In the former the threshold was crossed and there was no strict evidential yardstick to be deployed by the court in exercising its jurisdiction in affording the child’s welfare paramount consideration in deciding what, if any, order to make in the concluding “welfare stage” of the proceedings. Judge Hallam, on the other hand, was required to operate within a strict evidential context, only relying on past facts which had been established on the balance of probabilities.

78. The opposing counsel submit that Mr Cobb’s argument falls down because a finding that someone is in the pool of perpetrators is no more than a finding on the basis that there is “a real possibility” that they perpetrated past injuries, a finding which by definition falls short of the balance of probabilities. To use that finding as the basis for holding that there is a further “a real possibility” (that is a likelihood) of that person causing significant harm in the future, is to find the threshold crossed on the basis of two successive findings of “real possibility” and no finding at all of fact on the balance of probabilities in relation to the one, now separated, parent. Mr Storey submits that such an outcome, on the present law, would be impermissible and that parents and children would risk permanent separation by the State in circumstances where absolutely nothing adverse about the parental care had been established on the balance of probabilities.

In weighing matters up, the Court of Appeal warned against the risk of artificially limiting or restricting the issues and evidence available to the Court and gave this helpful guidance (again, bolding is mine)

81. Pausing there, I would question the desirability of artificially limiting the judicial consideration to just one, albeit important, aspect of the case. A judge hearing a fresh s 31 application, some years later, about a new family unit which involves a parent about whom adverse findings have previously been made in another family context, should be exposed to the full detail of the available evidence and be permitted to come to her own overview and determination taking into account all of the material insofar as she considers it to be relevant and giving it such weight as she may see fit at the time of her determination. Artificially to limit the judicial exercise in a manner which invites the court to ignore part of the evidence in the case, might well set up the legal point for determination in a clinically clear and legally accessible manner, but it cannot, in my view, represent a proper exercise of the judicial task. In determining whether the threshold criteria are satisfied in relation to each of these three children as at 3rd March 2011 a judge must be under a duty to acquaint herself with all of the available evidence and then bring it to bear on the ultimate question of whether, in the context of this case, each or any of these three children can be said to be “likely to suffer significant harm” attributable to failures in parental care likely to be given to him as at that date.

82.I would go further and criticise the decision to tee up the preliminary issue for

determination within an otherwise entirely empty evidential context. By the relevant date seven years had passed between the death of T-L and the commencement of child protection procedures in relation to the new family unit. JJ was seventeen when T-L died and she is now twenty five. Much has no doubt happened in her life in the intervening period, some of it has continued to involve SW. On the positive side it is apparently the case that she had lived with these three children as DJ’s partner for well over two years prior to the implementation of protective measures and without apparently causing any degree of concern to child protection professionals.

83. When a local authority issues a s 31 application seeking the court’s determination that the threshold criteria is crossed at the present time in relation to a child or children, the court must be under a duty to ensure that it has before it not only evidence of what may have happened in one of the parent’s lives years before, but also some account of the events in that parent’s life during the following years and the current circumstances in the family unit which is now being brought before the court within the proceedings. The extent, quality and character of the evidence that a judge may need will of course vary from case to case. But in the present case it would seem to me that, in addition to social work evidence as to what, if any, social work and other professional contact there has been with the mother and/or the new family over the intervening period, together with a basic social work assessment of the children’s current circumstances within the home, there should be an expectation for the mother to file evidence which should include an up to date statement of what she now says with respect to her care of T-L and the matters that had been the subject of HHJ Masterman’s findings.

84. A judge in care proceedings at the threshold stage has the important responsibility of determining whether or not he or she is satisfied that, at the relevant date, that is therefore in the current period of time, the threshold criteria are or are not satisfied with respect to a particular child. Artificially to limit the judicial exercise to the consideration of facts relating to a period seven years earlier and, further, to limit consideration to only some of those facts, seems to me to fall well short of the required evaluation of the circumstances of the new child before the court in the current time period.

85. Despite making these negative observations about the process adopted in this case, I have nothing but professional sympathy for HHJ Hallam who was presented with the task of determining the preliminary issue in accordance with ground rules chosen by the parties. The Local Authority chose not to file any additional evidence. A direction for the mother to file a statement was made but produced no more than a position statement. The Local Authority expressly elected not to rely upon any of the negative findings made by HHJ Masterman other than those relating to the perpetrators of physical injury. Having been presented with the case within this restricted compass, HHJ Hallam was further handicapped by the fact that she was not HHJ Masterman, who had plainly regarded the aspects of the case that fell short of the direct physical injury of T-L as being of an equal standard of concern with the infliction of those injuries.

86. It is sometimes convenient, efficient and realistic for local authorities to make concessions as to aspects of the evidence. Indeed, such no doubt is the stuff of every day experience in courts conducting care proceedings. There is, however, a danger of such matters being elevated to the status, as would be the case in civil proceedings, of points of pleading, thereby removing from the judge’s consideration evidence which may, despite the view of the local authority, be of some importance

I think that this paragraph, during the Court of Appeal’s analysis of the authorities and the issue at hand, demonstrates the Court’s willingness to approach this with child protection being at the forefront :-

92. Standing back from these cases, there is, I would suggest, a qualitative difference, in terms of the need for child protection, between a situation where absolutely no adverse findings have been made as to past child abuse, and a situation where serious findings of child abuse have been made in relation to a child in the joint care of her parents either one or both of whom were the perpetrator(s).

I am, of course, biased, but that seems to me an entirely sensible approach. Of course there is a difference in the risks to be considered where one parent has been found to be a potential perpetrator of really serious injuries as opposed to a parent who has never come to the attention of the Local Authority, and pretending otherwise does not address the issues. (That doesn’t mean that the previous finding automatically damns the parent, but it must be right that there is a risk to be weighed and assessed in relation to whether there is a risk of future harm arising from it)

108. With respect, I do not consider the very narrow evaluation of this issue which it is said the short judicial statements in Re S-B and Re F require is supportable on the basis of the earlier authorities, the principal one in this context being the Court of Appeal judgment of Robert Walker LJ in Lancashire County Council v B which allowed the appeal in relation to the child minder’s child, B. In my view the Lancashire case can be readily distinguished from the present case. The only culpable matter that could have been established against the child minder was that she had caused the injuries to child A. The evidence was insufficient to establish, on the balance of probability, that she was the perpetrator. There was no suggestion that she would in the future be part of a group of carers with the parents (about whom, collectively, there was a finding). There was therefore no proven fact upon which the risk of future harm could be established.

110. The Lancashire case in the Court of Appeal is undoubtedly authority for the proposition that where there is absolutely no adverse finding of fact against a parent, the likelihood threshold cannot be established. It is not, however, authority for the obverse proposition that you can only establish the likelihood threshold if you can identify the perpetrator irrespective of any other adverse findings that have been made.

111. Likewise Re S-B is not authority for the proposition ‘if you cannot identify the past perpetrator, you cannot establish future likelihood’. In that case, which was of a oneoff (‘whodunit’) injury, there was no question of failure to protect and no finding of collusion. Thus when, in paragraph 49, Baroness Hale describes as it as impermissible to hold that the likelihood threshold in relation to the non-injured child, William, was established on the basis only that there was ‘a real possibility’ that the mother had caused the injury, she does so in the context of there being no other adverse findings against that mother.

And here is the conclusion:-

114. At paragraphs 79 to 87 I criticised the narrow and legalistic approach adopted before HHJ Hallam in the present case. In my view, where there are significant adverse findings made on the balance of probability against a parent in previous proceedings, irrespective of the previous court having been unable to identify a perpetrator, a court seized of an application under s 31 has a duty to look at all of the available material including those adverse findings. Each case will no doubt differ from each other both on the question of whether in the new circumstances the s 31 threshold is actually established and on the question, if it is, whether the welfare of the child requires protection under a s 31 order. These are matters for courts to evaluate on a case by case basis and are not the stuff of a blanket policy based on the single point that,irrespective of what else has been found, if the past perpetrator has not been provedthe threshold cannot be crossed.

Given that the Supreme Court in RE SB weren’t deciding this issue, but the principle has been derived from authority building on judicial decisions made within the SB case, it would seem to now be the law, unless and until the point comes before the Supreme Court, that :-

A Court is not obliged to ignore a previous finding purely because it was made on a “Lancashire” type basis (that a parent is one of a pool of perpetrators), but has to look at all of the available material to consider whether the threshold is made out.

That appears to me to be a very good compromise between the polar opposites of ‘A past finding of harm equals likelihood of future harm always’ and ‘if you were only identified as one of a pool of perpetrators rather than the actual perpetrator, that must be ignored when determining future risk to other children’

The future

130. The difficulties that have arisen in this case, in Re F and no doubt elsewhere, originate from the Lancashire case in the Court of Appeal and have been given additional focus and emphasis by Baroness Hale’s words in paragraph 49 of Re S-B. We were told, and I readily accept, that the situation is a cause for concern amongst child protection agencies.

131. Given the importance of the point in terms of its impact on the ground for families and for those charged with protecting children, there is a pressing need for the issue to be determined by the Supreme Court so that a clear and full statement of the applicable law is achieved.

I am not sure whether any of the parties to the case intend to appeal the Court of Appeal decision, but I read that sentence to mean that they might be pushing at an open door in such an application for leave to appeal.

I’m reminded that of the three most crucial case-law arguments / decisions which could be categorised as a debate between a narrow construction of the law and the Court’s ability to make the orders that they consider in the best interests of children, all three have now been ruled on and gone against the narrow legal construction.

(the previous two being the debate that certain remarks in RE H &R meant that the standard of proof with serious allegations was higher and that the difference with such serious allegations between the civil standard and the criminal standard was largely illusory, and the ‘imminent risk of really serious harm’ being the soundbite test for ICOs where the care plan was separation)

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Posted in case law and tagged Court of Appeal, lancashire, likelihood of significant harm. Bookmark the permalink.

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“Whatever happened to the likely harm?”

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