The LASPO safety net is a fig leaf

Posted on March 10, 2015 by suesspiciousminds

Oh, you’re going to like this one.

This decision from Mostyn J is quite involved, but significant. Even if you aren’t that interested in the very peculiar mechanics, what he had to say about LASPO (see title of the piece) is striking.

 

MG and JG v JF 2015

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2015/564.html

 

To make it less alphabet soup, I’ll give people names (these are NOT their real names, I’ve made them up)

Jean Grey and Marie Grey were lesbian partners. They wanted to have a child and advertised for a man to provide gametes to make this happen. Jim Francis agreed to do this.

 

The child is born, and named John Fitzgerald Grey.

Jim Francis was having quite a lot of contact with little John, once or twice a month. This all changed when Marie Grey became pregnant with a second child (that donor thankfully isn’t involved in this case), and Marie and Jean stopped Jim’s contact.

 

Jim makes an application to court for contact. Jean and Marie learn that post LASPO they don’t qualify for legal aid. Jim on the other hand has some means and can pay privately.  [He could not be described as being wealthy – it is more comfortably middle class. His property is valued at £1.2 million and he earns £67,000 per year. Sufficient to pay his own legal fees – though probably not without a degree of wincing when he writes the cheques, but we are not in big money divorce territory here]

 

At some point, someone comes up with a cunning wheeze. An application can be made under Schedule 1 of the Children Act 1989 for some of Jim’s capital to be released to the child, and those funds can be used to pay for Marie and Jean’s legal costs.

That sort of thing isn’t that unusual in big money divorce cases where one person holds all of the assets – the Court order that they release some of the disputed funds to the other party to cover their legal costs and when the money is all divvied up at the end, that can be taken into account.

 

But this is a contact application – there isn’t going to be a share out of money at the end.  And as we know, the law in children cases is that each side pays their own costs, unless one party has behaved terribly badly. No suggestion of that here.

So this is in a sense, an application that Jim Francis uses his own money to pay for the other side to fight his application, even though he has done nothing wrong.  Unusual.

 

Firstly then, why shouldn’t Marie and Jean represent themselves, as envisaged by LASPO?

In this case it is my firm view that it is impossible for MG and JG to be expected to represent themselves having regard to the factual and legal issues at large. There would be a gross inequality of arms, and arguably a violation of their rights under Articles 6 and 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Article 47 of the European Charter of Fundamental Rights. So even though it cannot be said that JF has behaved reprehensibly or unreasonably he is the only realistic source of costs funding, subject to whatever contribution MG and JG should make from their own very limited resources. Some may say (and have said) that this is grossly unjust; I myself refrain from comment.

 

[I’m not quite sure it is accurate that Mostyn J refrains from comment. He doesn’t make direct comment, but I think the next section gives you a pretty clear idea of his thinking]

 

We add to the complexity that Jean and MArie split up with a degree of acrimony, and that the case also involved disputed about whether the child should be vaccinated.

Mostyn J is scathing here about the changes and the lack of foresight in seeing that cases are inevitably going to emerge where a lack of legal aid causes huge difficulties and unfairness.  This is a breathtaking and masterful dissection of the disaster that LASPO has been for individuals.

 

  1. With very few changes the government’s proposals were enacted in LASPO. A safety net was included by section 10(3)(b) which gave the Director of the Legal Aid Agency the discretion to award legal aid where “it is appropriate to do so, in the particular circumstances of the case, having regard to any risk that failure to do so would be …a breach [of Convention or EU rights].” As the President explained in Q v Q (No. 2) [2014] EWFC 31 at paras 6 – 8 the Lord Chancellor issued guidance concerning section 10(3)(b) which stated that it should be confined to “rare” cases which are of the “highest priority”. But this guidance has been quashed as legally defective by Collins J in Gudanaviciene & Ors v Director of Legal Aid Casework & Anor [2014] EWHC 1840 (Admin). That decision is under appeal.
  2. As the President explained in Q v Q the number of annual cases where the safety net has been applied can be counted on the fingers of two hands. In the year to March 2014 there were 9. Indeed between December 2013 and March 2014 one solitary case was caught by the safety net. The President stated at para 14 “if the scheme is indeed working effectively, then it might be thought that the scheme is inadequate, for the proper demand is surely at a level very significantly greater than 8 or 9 cases a year.” Thus it would be perfectly reasonable to describe this “safety net” as a fig leaf. MG and JG have not applied for exceptional funding under section 10(3)(b), no doubt taking the realistic view that any such application would be rejected summarily.
  3. Since the reforms have taken effect there have been an appreciable number of cases which have demonstrated that the blithe assumption in the consultation paper (that the parties’ emotional involvement in the case will not necessarily mean that they are unable to present it themselves, and that there is no reason to believe that such cases will be routinely legally complex) is unfounded. This was entirely predictable. The cases are Kinderis v Kineriene [2013] EWHC 4139 (Fam) (18 December 2013, Holman J); Re B (a child) (private law fact finding – unrepresented father) [2014] EWHC 700 (Fam) (27 January 2014, Judge Wildblood QC); Q v Q [2014] EWFC 7 (21 May 2014, the President); Q v Q (No. 2) [2014] EWFC 31 (6 August 2014, the President); Re H [2014] EWFC B127 (14 August 2014, Judge Hallam); Re D (A Child) [2014] EWFC 39 (31 October 2014, the President); CD v ED [2014] EWFC B153 (14 November 2014, Judge Hudson); Re D (A Child) (No. 2) [2015] EWFC 2 (7 January 2015, the President); and Re K & H (Children: Unrepresented Father: Cross-Examination of Child) [2015] EWFC 1 (5 January 2015, Judge Bellamy). This is a formidable catalogue. Each case focussed on the gross unfairness meted out to a parent in private law proceedings by the denial of legal aid. I do not think it would be right to say that these were examples of the operation of the law of unintended consequences since, as I say, the problems were so entirely predictable.
  4. Also of relevance is JG v The Lord Chancellor & Ors [2014] EWCA Civ 656 (21 May 2014) where the Court of Appeal held that the refusal of the (then) Legal Services Commission (LSC) to meet the cost of an expert report was unlawful. A district judge had ordered that the legally aided child, who was a party to the proceedings, should pay for that report. The order recorded that “the cost of the report to be funded by the child, the court considering it to be a reasonable and necessary disbursement to be incurred under the terms of her public funding certificate.” In the face of a dogged refusal to comply with this order by the LSC the district judge later ordered that:

    “The cost[s] of the expert to be funded by the child the court considering them to be a reasonable and necessary disbursement under her certificate and the purpose of the report is solely to establish what arrangements are in her best interests. Furthermore, the court has carried out a means assessment of both parents and found that they are unable to afford any part of these fees. In reaching this conclusion the court considered the provisions of section 22(4) of the Access to Justice Act 1999.”

    Notwithstanding this ruling the Legal Aid Agency (as the LSC had become) persisted in its refusal, and judicial review proceedings had to be commenced. The Legal Aid Agency actually succeeded at first instance but in the Court of Appeal, despite elaborate and trenchant argument by it and by the Lord Chancellor, who had intervened, its decision to refuse to comply with the order and to fund the report was held to be unlawful.

  5. In Lindner v Rawlins [2015] EWCA Civ 61 the Court of Appeal heard an appeal by an unrepresented husband against a refusal to order police disclosure in defended divorce proceedings. The wife was neither present nor represented. Aikens LJ observed that the appeal was technical and unusual and that the husband could not be expected to have mastered this area of the law in order to be able to present his appeal in a way that assisted the court. He bemoaned the lack of the legal assistance of counsel that the court should have.
  6. I need only cite a few of the judicial observations. In Kinderis v Kineriene Holman J described the position in which the unrepresented mother in Hague proceedings found herself as follows:

    “The present procedure operates in a way which is unjust, contrary to the welfare of particularly vulnerable children at a time of great upheaval in their lives, incompatible with the obligations of this state under Article 11(3) of the [B2R] regulation, and ultimately counter-productive in that it merely wastes taxpayers’ funds”

    In Re H Judge Hallam was dealing with an unrepresented mother with speech, hearing and learning difficulties. An official of the Legal Aid Agency stated that there would be no breach of convention rights were she to remain unfunded. Judge Hallam stated “I find that statement astounding”. In Re D the unrepresented father, who lacked capacity, had made an application to revoke a care order; the local authority had applied for a placement (for adoption) order. After heavy pressure from the President some legal aid was eventually awarded. At para 31(vi) of his first judgment the President stated:

    “Thus far the State has simply washed its hands of the problem, leaving the solution to the problem which the State itself has created – for the State has brought the proceedings but declined all responsibility for ensuring that the parents are able to participate effectively in the proceedings it has brought – to the goodwill, the charity, of the legal profession. This is, it might be thought, both unprincipled and unconscionable. Why should the State leave it to private individuals to ensure that the State is not in breach of the State’s – the United Kingdom’s – obligations under the Convention?”

    At para 21 of his second judgment he stated that “the parents can be forgiven for thinking that they are trapped in a system which is neither compassionate nor even humane.”

  7. In Lindner v Rawlins at para 34 Aikens LJ stated:

    “Yet again, the court was without any legal assistance and had to spend time researching the law for itself then attempting to apply it to the relevant facts in order to arrive at the correct legal answer. To do the latter exercise meant that the court itself had to trawl through a large amount of documents in the file. All this involves an expensive use of judicial time, which is in short supply as it is. Money may have been saved from the legal aid funds, but an equal amount of expense, if not more, has been incurred in terms of the costs of judges’ and court time. The result is that there is, in fact, no economy at all. Worse, this way of dealing with cases runs the risk that a correct result will not be reached because the court does not have the legal assistance of counsel that it should have and the court has no other legal assistance available to it.”

  8. These are powerful criticisms. The President suggested that if the Legal Aid Agency would not award legal aid to an unrepresented parent facing serious allegations then the court might have to do so from its own budget. In Re K & H that was the course proposed. The Lord Chancellor instructed leading counsel who bravely argued that the President’s analysis of the existence of this power was “plainly wrong”. Judge Bellamy disagreed and awarded representation from the court budget. The Lord Chancellor is appealing that decision. It can safely be assumed that the criticisms I have recounted have fallen on deaf ears. Based on the decisions I have cited, including no fewer than four from the President himself, it can be said that in the field of private children law the principle of individual justice has had to be sacrificed on the altar of the public debt. And based on the observation of Aikens LJ, it can reasonably be predicted that the phenomenon of the massive increase in self-representation will give rise to the serious risk of the court reaching incorrect, and therefore unjust, decisions.

 

Just in case you missed it, yes, that was a High Court judge saying that in private family law, the principle of individual justice has been sacrificed on the altar of public debt. And that LASPO is likely to lead to incorrect and unjust decisions.

That noise you can hear just to your leftmy applause echoing.

So, with legal aid not being available, and it being unfair for Jean and Marie to act in person, that was really only leaving Jim Francis as a source of funding.

How much money were we looking at?

  1. Decision
  2. In my judgment JF should pay 80% of each of the claims of MG and JG. Therefore he will pay MG £12,202 and JG £8,394. In addition he will pay 80% of all future professional costs in respect of therapeutic work and MG and JG will each pay 10% of such costs.
  3. Thus MG will have to find £3,050 and JG £2,098 and they will each have to find 10% of the future costs of therapeutic work. In my judgment they cannot reasonably or realistically be expected to find more. By contrast, I am satisfied that JF can find, without undue hardship, the share with which I have shouldered him.
  4. It could be said that it is grossly unfair that JF should have to pay now £20,596 plus 80% of the future therapeutic costs up to the IRH. But that is where the government has left him. It is a sorry state of affairs.
  5. This leaves the costs of expert evidence which will come into being between now and the IRH. The consent order provides for the educational psychologist to answer further questions and for the psychologist to file an addendum report. In my judgment these should be paid for by JFG and in my opinion such fees are a reasonable charge on his legal aid certificate, for the following reasons.
  6. In JG v The Lord Chancellor & Ors Black LJ explained at para 92 that when read with FPR rule 25.12(4)(a) (which provides that the court may give directions about the expert’s fees and expenses) rule 25.12(6) (which provides that provides that unless the court directs otherwise, the relevant parties are jointly and severally liable for the payment of the expert’s fees and expenses) is not intended to be prescriptive and merely establishes a default position for financial responsibility for the expert in the event that the court does not direct otherwise. She stated: “I do not see it as setting up a ‘normal rule’ that the cost is to be apportioned equally.”
  7. She further explained at para 93 that in order not to fall foul of section 22(4) of the Access to Justice Act 1999 that:

    “It is necessary to ask what order the court would make in its discretion on the particular facts of that case, leaving aside any resources problems. The answer may not uncommonly be an order for equal apportionment of the costs but that cannot be assumed. It may be that a full consideration of the circumstances of the case produces the result that the publicly funded party should be paying a greater share of the costs in any event, quite irrespective of any financial difficulties that the other parties may have in sharing the cost of the expert. In such circumstances, section 22(4) does not prevent the court from making an order accordingly, because the order is in no way affected by the fact of public funding.”

  8. I do not think that the imaginary scenario that I have to address assumes that everyone is of means. Rather, it assumes the facts as they are with the sole exception that the child is not legally aided but is funded from another source, such as his own means or the means of a relative of substance. Were that the position I would have no hesitation in making an order that JFG bear the costs of these further reports given that MG and JG do not, on my findings, have the means to do so, and given the burdens that I have already imposed on JF. Further, and in any event, it is just and reasonable that JFG bears these costs whether or not he is legally aided because at the end of the day these fees are being incurred primarily for his benefit.

 

 

And again, you read that right, that is a High Court Judge making a decision and saying that some could describe that decision as being grossly unfair but that this is the position that the Government have put this man in.

I partially wondered whether Mostyn J made this decision with a view to it being appealed and having the Court of Appeal rule that it would instead be right for the public authority (the Court) to fund the costs – at the moment, we only have the President’s hints that this is a route and His Honour Judge Bellamy doing it.  A Court of Appeal authority would be much more powerful. I’m not so sure though – an appeal (particularly paying the other sides costs) would run to more than this sum of money, and I think it is unlikely that Jim Francis would be tempted into appealing.

It is, as Mostyn J has said, a sorry state of affairs.

 

It makes uncomfortable reading for donors, or in fact any party in private law proceedings who is earning that sort of money (£67,000 is a lot, but it is not the riches of Croesus; it could easily bite on people who would much rather not spend half of their gross annual income on one court case)

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Wasted costs

Posted on March 10, 2015 by suesspiciousminds

 

I think most practitioners are aware that this has been coming, and one has now hit.

 

HU v SU 2015

 

This was in private law proceedings, and the father was paying privately, so there actually were costs that were incurred. It relates to the inability of the mother’s team to get police disclosure (caused in part because the Legal Aid Agency had dallied in processing the extension to her certificate)

 

The mother’s solicitors had written to the Court and the father, but what they had not done was applied to vary the existing order about timetabling and to thus obtain an extension from the Court.

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWFC/HCJ/2015/535.html

 

Here is the  law on costs, as set out in Ridehalgh v Horsefield 1994 http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/1994/40.html

 

“a) Had the legal representative of whom complain was made acted improperly, unreasonably or negligently?

b) If so, did such conduct cause the applicant to incur unnecessary costs?

c)If so, was it, in all the circumstances, just to order the legal representative to compensate the applicant for the whole or part of the relevant costs?”

 

That has always been considered quite a high test, because of the wording in (a).  What HU v SU does is confirm the High Court’s view that post the cascaded authorities of the President in Re W (adoption order leave to oppose) 2013 (remember the contumelious attitude case?) http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2013/1177.html

 

that :-

 

It must now be clear and plain to any competent family practitioners that:

i) court orders must be obeyed;

ii) a timetable or deadline set by the court cannot be amended by agreement between the parties; it must be sanctioned by the court; and

iii) any application to extend the time for compliance must be made before the time for compliance has expired.

 

And thus that failure to do so amounts to improper or unreasonable conduct for part (a) of the Ridehalgh test.

 

In this particular case

  1. He  [Mother’s counsel]referred me to a chronology of relevant events. On 16.12.14 the mother’s solicitors sought a further extension to the mother’s public funding certificate. It was not granted until 13.1.15 and as a result of the delay in granting the same a letter of complaint was sent to the Legal Aid Agency.
  2. On 7.1.15 they sent a letter to the father’s solicitors setting out that an extension of public funding was still awaited and requesting a one week extension for the filing of the mother’s statement (orders to be filed and served by 10.1.15). Crucially this letter did not set out that police disclosure had not yet been formally sought and no communication was sent to the court.
  3. On 16.1.15 the mother’s solicitors wrote to the father’s solicitors and to the court notifying them that the mother’s public funding certificate had been extended, police disclosure had been requested and that the mother’s statement and schedule of findings would be filed and serve after police disclosure had been received.
  4. I have a number of observations: i) the letter to the court was not noted to be for the attention of me or my clerk and it was incorrectly addressed. I did not receive it;

    ii) the solicitors had decided that the statement and schedule would be filed after police disclosure had been received. No such linkage or sequential process was made or set out in the order of 15.12.14; and

    iii) no application was made for an extension of time to file the police disclosure and/or the mother’s statement and schedule.

  5. A further letter is sent to the father’s solicitors and the court dated 23.1.15. Once again the letter is incorrectly addressed and was not received by the court. Furthermore it merely apologised for the further delay in obtaining police disclosure and nothing else.
  6. On 29.1.15 yet another letter is sent to the father’s solicitor but not to the court) setting out that the mother would not be able to complete her statement or a schedule until police disclosure had been received. No time for receipt of the police disclosure was given, however, on the same day the mother’s solicitors chased the Metropolitan police in respect of the disclosure sought.
  7. By an email sent on 30.1.15 to the court, the father’s solicitors sought an urgent directions hearing. On the same day the mother’s solicitors sent a letter to the court and to the father’s solicitors. It once more asserted that the mother could not file a statement or a schedule without sight of the police disclosure. The letter did not: i) set out what steps had been taken to secure disclosure from the police;

    ii) it did not set out any date or likely timeframe by which disclosure would be made by the police;

    iii) seek an extension of time in which to file the police disclosure and/or the mother’s statement and schedule; and

    iv) a revision of the timetable set by the court on 15.12.14.

  8. At the directions hearing on 4.2.15 I directed the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police to provide the disclosure sought by noon the following day. The mother was to file and serve her statement and schedule by 6.2.15 and the father his statement and schedule by 9.2.15. Those orders were complied with and it was possible for the fact finding hearing to proceed but at considerable cost to the father, who is privately funded, of legal fees incurred by attendance at the urgent directions hearing.
  9. Mr Newton QC recognises the faults of his instructing solicitors. He characterises them as errors and oversights for which his solicitors profusely apologise, but which he submits did not pass the high hurdle of egregious conduct which merits being condemned by the making of a wasted costs order. He rightly reminds me of the considerable professional embarrassment which can result from the making of such an order.
  10. In my judgment however the serial failures of the mother’s solicitors were elementary. The failure to seek the leave of the court to extend the time for compliance with the directions order of 15.12.14 is to be characterised as incompetence, the result of which could have been the adjournment of this fact finding hearing. Their actions, as set out above, are redolent of past poor practices which should no longer feature in private or public law family proceedings.

 

In this case, a hearing took place that was ineffective, because the police disclosure had not been obtained and thus the statement and schedule of allegations weren’t filed. That hearing did cost the father money, and he was entitled to recover that from the mother’s solicitors (not mother)

  1. I am satisfied that the conduct of the mother’s solicitors is so serious and so inexcusable that I find that they acted improperly and unreasonably. Further the conduct caused the father to incur unnecessary costs. Finally in all of the circumstances I consider it just to order the mother’s solicitors to compensate the father for the whole of the costs he incurred by reason of the directions hearing on 4.2.15.
  2. I shall make a wasted costs order against the mother’s solicitors. The father’s costs of the February directions hearing will be subject to a detailed assessment.

 

I hope that Court staff up and down the country are ready for a barrage of applications, because it is plain now that not making an application to extend a timetable (whether in private law OR public law) exposes the lawyer to a risk of a wasted costs order.

Even where, as in this case, that the delay was a result of external agencies (the police and the Legal Aid Agency), the fault still lies with the lawyer for not applying for an extension of time.

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Diplomatic immunity – it’s just been revoked

Posted on March 6, 2015 by suesspiciousminds

 

 

Well, it hasn’t been revoked, but who wouldn’t want the chance to see the classic Lethal Weapon 2 exchange?

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwC_IaY3BmY

 

 

[If any ancillary relief Judge wants to quip in a case involving a millionaire farmer – “You want to be a farmer? Well here’s a couple of acres” then you’d be doing me a solid. Failing that, I’d settle for a “Get to the chopper” line for a case involving a TV chef]

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9-Te-DPbSE

 

This case involves a child whose father has taken one of two twins (I know, that seems redundant, twins do tend to come in twos, but ‘one child of twins’ doesn’t seem great either) to another unnamed country, whilst the other remains with his mother in England.

 

The mother obtained an order for the return of that child. The father asserted diplomatic immunity.

 

I would love to be able to assert diplomatic immunity. If there’s a country out there who wants a diplomat, a country that is prepared to accept that I would almost certainly abuse that privilege, then give me a call. I would be prepared to learn another language (at least to the extent of “sorry sucker, I’m afraid I’ve got diplomatic immunity” in said language)

 

Re MA and Another 2015

 

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2014/4730.html

 

There was some debate about whether diplomatic immunity only extended to things which occurred during the carrying out of professional duties or all things, but it is settled as being complete immunity from arrest or detention.

 

A feature of the case is that the father has asserted diplomatic immunity, pursuant to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Immunity, incorporated by the Diplomatic Privileges Act of 1964. It appeared, following the father’s arrest on 14 October 2014, that whilst the diplomatic protection the father enjoys is in effect full immunity from the criminal jurisdiction and in the civil and administrative jurisdiction, it was limited to acts performed only within the course of his duties. As matters have evolved it seems the scope of his protection is more extensive and he remains, it is asserted, inviolable at all time to any form of arrest or detention.

 

 

 

The High Court may retain some powers under the inherent jurisdiction to ask him to think very carefully about what he’s done and why he should say sorry, but that’s about it. Also, I’m adding ‘inviolable’ to a growing list of words I don’t want to try to pronounce for the first time in Court.

 

The father didn’t attend the hearing. He did produce a statement, which the Court wasn’t very impressed with. It wasn’t in a recognisable format and they did not think that a lawyer had been involved in its preparation.

 

[my personal speculation was that his statement was just “sorry suckers, I’m afraid I’ve got diplomatic immunity” in Guarani. Or alternatively, just a CD with a loop of Billy Bragg singing the “your laws do not apply to me” bit from Sexuality]

 

and the Court decided to proceed in his absence and hear evidence from the mother. They repeated the order that he should return the child to the jurisdiction and that the child was wrongfully removed from the mother’s care and out of the jurisdiction.

 

That’s an order that is somewhat toothless, since there is no punishment that the Court can levy against him if he decides not to comply. It is still the right thing to make the order.

 

Enforcement of it is going to be very difficult indeed. Let’s hope that these twins are reunited without any further litigation.

 

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I can tell you rock, I can tell by your charm

Posted on March 5, 2015 by suesspiciousminds

Memo from Shirley Crabtree to Mr Micklewhite, matrimonial partner at Morris, Micklewhite &Co

 

Mr Micklewhite

 

I wonder if you could cast your eye over this draft pre-nuptial agreement I have prepared on Mr West’s very specific instructions (very very specific). It is somewhat unorthodox, and I remember that you dealt with Tammy Wynette on her divorce and that you had to spell everything out for her, so I think your view would be helpful

 

Pre-nuptial agreement between Mr West and (unnamed woman)

 

In this document Mr West shall be referred to as Mr West  (or Jee-zus) and (unnamed woman) shall be referred to as GD (short for Girlfriend Delightful)

 

WHEREAS

 

Mr West acknowledges that whilst no one man should have all that power, he in fact does

He acknowledges that he is not saying that GD is a gold digger

He acknowledges that when he met GD she had assets of her own (to whit a baby Louis Vitton under her underarm)

GD acknowledges that she aint’s messing with a broke gentleman of African American ethnicity

GD acknowledges that if she ever sees Mr West on TV, on any given sunday, if he wins the superbowl he will not be driving home in a Hyundai

GD acknowledges that she is NOT a hobbit and that should any later assessment demonstrate that the GD is a hobbit, this agreement shall be void, and the “You stole Fizzing Lifting Lemonade, you get Nothing” clause shall take effect

 

This agreement shall commence when each party declares that they aren’t a punk and holler the words “We want pre-nup”

It shall last until Mr West decides that the relationship is over, unless a baby has been concieved during the relationship. In which case the duration of the agreement will be for eighteeen years (“eighteen years”)

 

The parties agree

 

1. In the event that GD has one of Mr West’s children, then 18 years, he will give her money for 18 years. The sum of money shall be no trifling sum indeed  (I have advised specificity in this clause but to no avail)

2. Mr West retains naming rights for the child – if this influences any decision by GD to conceive, his choices of names are “North” “Northbynorth” “String” and “Mymommaisagolddigga”

3. In relation to the money that Mr West gives the GD when she is in need, she MAY spend the money on TYCO (or other toys) for the child, and for sundries of her own.

4. She MAY NOT spend the money on the following:-

(a) She may NOT get lipo with his money

(b) She may NOT walk around looking like Michael with his money

(c) She may NOT purchase insurance from Geico with his money

(d) As his babymomma, her car crib must not be bigger than his   [I believe that Mr West means that she must not, as the mother of his child, have a larger garage than him, but his wording was most specific]

 

5. GD agrees never to ask Mr West whether he likes fishsticks.

 

[Next week, Shirley cross examines Destiny’s Child on previously inconsistent statements vis-a-vis  “Independent Woman” and “Bills bills bills”]

 

 

[Hobbit reference]  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnE36Y55cQw

 

[Fishsticks] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRLyxjZtkzY

 

[Fizzy lifting lemonade]  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSQNl4V_R88

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Child giving evidence

Posted on March 5, 2015 by suesspiciousminds

Very quick one – this is an appeal just decided, about a 14 year old girl who wished to give evidence in care proceedings. She was saying that the allegations made against her father (about sexual abuse of her younger sibling) were not true, and thus the father was not a risk to her or her sister and her mother had not failed to protect.

 

The Local Authority and the Guardian were both saying that what the girl was saying was not correct  ( This might have covered either that she just didn’t know about the abuse or that she was lying to protect her parents) but that she should not give evidence and the trial Judge had agreed with that.

 

The Court of Appeal ruled that this decision was wrong – this was a witness who had capacity, who was willing to give evidence, she had filed a statement and the contents of that evidence was being challenged and it went to a material issue. The girl should have been able to give evidence, and if her evidence in her statement was not right for that to have been tested in cross-examination.

 

(Of course a Local Authority when bringing care proceedings on a child feels uncomfortable about cross-examining that child and causing them emotional harm, and similarly the Guardian is in a tough position cross-examining a child, but in a situation like this, the child has to be able to give evidence if she wishes)

 

Re R (children) 2015

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2015/167.html

 

  1. In civil litigation the general rule is that where a party witness provides an appropriately verified written statement of her evidence, and is willing to attend for cross-examination, the court cannot be invited by other parties to disbelieve that evidence on a matter within her personal knowledge, unless it has been tested in cross-examination. This is a basic and deep-rooted aspect of the fair conduct of a trial, and reflects the central role which cross-examination plays in the ascertainment of the truth.
  2. It is therefore very unusual to find, as in the present case, a situation where the parties who do wish to challenge verified statement evidence from a party witness with the closest personal knowledge of the relevant events, seek to persuade the judge not to allow that witness to attend for the necessary cross-examination, where the witness herself positively desires to do so. Of course the motivation for this persuasion is of the very highest, namely an understandable concern for the young witness’s welfare. But for that concern, one would expect it to be common ground that there was a need for the witness to attend for cross-examination, since she denies in her evidence the very thing which the Local Authority seek to prove, namely that both she and her sister have been sexually abused by their father.
  3. To my mind it is the absence of any real recognition of the basic importance of the cross-examination of GR to a fair trial of the serious issues in this case, in the judge’s judgment or even in the respondents’ submissions on this appeal, that makes it necessary that the appeal should be allowed. I would regard the welfare implications of the choice whether to permit her to give oral evidence and to be cross-examined as being evenly balanced. The risk of harm which the process may cause to this bright and articulate fourteen year old does not seem to me to be more substantial than the risk of long-term harm at being denied the opportunity to have her evidence properly weighed in the determination by a court of matters of the utmost importance to her.

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Oedipus Wrecks

Posted on March 5, 2015 by suesspiciousminds

I have written about some strange cases involving the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act, but this one might be the strangest.

 

Re B v C (Surrogacy : Adoption) 2015

 

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWFC/HCJ/2015/17.html

 

[Read the piece first, it makes more sense that way – don’t read the judgment till you have read the piece]

 

In this case B (let’s call him Bob, because it makes following the story a bit easier) decides that he wants to have a baby. Bob doesn’t have a partner, he is a single man in his twenties, but he wants to have a baby.

 

Bob decides to get a surrogate mother to have his baby. This surrogate mother is C (let’s call her Carol – not her real name).

 

Carol is married to D (let’s call him Derek). Derek consents to this procedure.

 

The baby is born. The baby is A (let’s call him Alfie)

 

The baby is the biological child of Bob and Carol. But the legal parents are Carol and Derek. Bob doesn’t have PR. Bob is not the child’s legal father, Derek is.   (Because he is married to Carol and consented to the pregnancy – if he wasn’t married or didn’t consent, Bob would have been the legal father)

 

So Bob makes his application to Court. Now, as a single parent, a parental order is not open to him (which is the usual order sought post surrogacy)

 

Under section 54 of the HFEA 2008 in situations where a child has been carried by another woman a parental order can be made by the court, this provides for a child to be treated in law as the child of the applicants. However, all the requirements under section 54 have to be met, one of which is that there have to be two applicants who are either married, civil partners or are ‘two persons who are living as partners in an enduring family relationship and are not within prohibited degrees of relationship in relation to each other.’ (Section 54 (2)). A single person is therefore unable to apply for a parental order.

 

Bob has to instead, as a single carer, apply for an adoption order. As he isn’t the child’s legal father, he is not prohibited from adopting his own child (because legally it isn’t his child because of Derek’s marriage to Carol and consent to the process)

 

 

With me so far?

 

Here is the tricky part.

 

How should I say this? Remember Carol, who had the baby on Bob’s behalf? Well, on Sunday 15th March, Bob will be sending Carol a card. Not just on Alfie’s behalf, as many dads do. But on his own behalf.

 

Carol is Bob’s mum. Derek is Bob’s stepdad.

 

Remember at the moment that the biological parents of Alfie are Bob and Carol * But the legal ones are Carol and Derek.
[*A commentator on Twitter has found in the judgment the reference to there being an egg-donor that I couldn’t find in the judgment. So genetically Carol is not Alfie’s mother]

Alfie is biologically Bob’s son and also his brother. But legally, Alfie is Bob’s brother.

 

Mrs Justice Theis must have called on all of her powers of understatement to summarise this arrangement as :-

 

This, admittedly, unusual arrangement was entered into by the parties after careful consideration, following each having individual counselling and with all the treatment being undertaken by a fertility clinic licensed by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) who are required under the HFEA code to consider the welfare of the child before embarking on any treatment.

 

 

Is this legal? It feels like it shouldn’t be legal? Is it legal? I agree with you, it doesn’t feel like you should be able to have a baby with your own mother, even if it is artificial insemination. That feels like a baby who is going to spend a lifetime in therapy.

 

Always worth examining your own thoughts when you have a strong visceral reaction to something. It is pretty common in surrogacy for a woman to ask her sister to have the baby for her; if Bob was Betty and Carol was Betty’s sister that wouldn’t even raise an eyebrow. Why is it that surrogacy between a mother and son feels… somehow a bit “Take a Break” ?

 

[I suppose on this basis, a female Bob – let’s call her Betty, could decide to have a baby with artificial insemination with her dad Derek providing the raw material. Let’s call that baby Electra and be done with it. I’d be interested to know which scenario makes you feel less comfortable, or even whether you have no adverse thoughts about either]

 

It is legal and the people involved in this, from what I read of the judgment, are all perfectly normal, sensible and decent people who used a legal solution to solve Bob’s problem that he wanted to be a father and didn’t want to wait till he found a partner. (That again is something that if Bob was Betty, nobody would bat an eyelid about)

 

Unusually, and where the legal aspect of this case is noteworthy, is that it is only the fact that Bob and Carol are related that stops the agreement they reached about Bob adopting Alfie being a criminal offence.

 

Underlining here shows all the offences that would have been committed by Carol agreeing to have a baby for Bob to adopt (if they weren’t mother and son)

 

The ACA 2002 provides restrictions on arranging adoptions in section 92, the relevant part provides

 

 

(1) A person who is neither an adoption agency nor acting in pursuance of an order of the High Court must not take any of the steps mentioned in subsection (2).

 

(2) The steps are—

 

 

(a) asking a person other than an adoption agency to provide a child for adoption,

(b) asking a person other than an adoption agency to provide prospective adopters for a child,

(c) offering to find a child for adoption,

(d) offering a child for adoption to a person other than an adoption agency,

(e) handing over a child to any person other than an adoption agency with a view to the child’s adoption by that or another person,

(f) receiving a child handed over to him in contravention of paragraph (e),

(g) entering into an agreement with any person for the adoption of a child, or for the purpose of facilitating the adoption of a child, where no adoption agency is acting on behalf of the child in the adoption,

(h) initiating or taking part in negotiations of which the purpose is the conclusion of an agreement within paragraph (g),

(i) causing another person to take any of the steps mentioned in paragraphs (a) to (h).

 

 

 

(3) Subsection (1) does not apply to a person taking any of the steps mentioned in paragraphs (d), (e), (g), (h) and (i) of subsection (2) if the following condition is met.

(4) The condition is that—

(a) the prospective adopters are parents, relatives or guardians of the child (or one of them is), or

(b) the prospective adopter is the partner of a parent of the child.

 

Breach of s 92 is a criminal offence under s 93 ACA 2002.

 

 

We’ve established that the actions of Bob and Carol would amount to a criminal offence under s92.

 

There are two circumstances in which the offence doesn’t apply, from s92(4)

 

Either Bob is a parent, relative or guardian of the child

 

OR he is Carol’s partner (which thankfully he isn’t) or Derek’s partner (which he isn’t)

 

He isn’t, in law a parent or Guardian of Alfie, but he might be a relative.

 

And the relative bit is defined in s144 ACA “relative”, in relation to a child, means a grandparent, brother, sister, uncle or aunt, whether of the full blood or half-blood or by marriage [or civil partnership]

 

 

So the offences in s92 don’t apply (I actually think that offence s92(a) which isn’t covered by the s92(4) defence still applies, but it does seem a bit weird if ‘asking someone if they will have a child that you can adopt’ is a crime whereas ‘negotiating with them with a view to achieving that’ isn’t. So I can’t see anyone in Bob’s position being prosecuted for that)

 

What this case shows is that if you are a single person, surrogacy is something of a legal minefield. You can’t apply for a Parental Order. And if you plan instead to go the adoption route, then you risk falling foul of the criminal offences – since if you aren’t directly related to the child taking any step to arrange or agree it or handing over the child is a criminal offence.

 

The placement would also be a Private Fostering Placement pending the court making its decision (unless like Bob, you are related to the child), meaning that social workers would need to be involved.

 

  1. By virtue of the provisions of the HFEA 2008 set out above A and B have the same parents and, therefore, B is the legal brother of A. This means that in the unusual circumstances of this case, B met the conditions of s92 (4) (a) ACA 2002 with the result that when C and D placed A for adoption with B they were acting lawfully.

 

 

  1. The parties have also drawn my attention to the fact that, were it not for the highly unusual fact that B is a relative of A, when C and D placed A into B’s care, the placement would have fallen within the definition of a private fostering arrangement under the Children (Private Arrangements for Fostering) Regulations 2005 (SI 2005/1533).

 

 

  1. These regulations impose an obligation on both the legal parents of a child, as well as the proposed carer, to notify the appropriate local authority of the intention to care for a child under a private fostering arrangement. The obligation in these regulations arises of out the Secretary of State’s power to make regulations under paragraph 7 of Schedule 8 of the Children Act 1989 (CA 1989), which in turn supplements the provisions in s.66 of the CA 1989. Breach of the provisions of s.66 CA 1989 is an offence under s.70 CA 1989. It is of note that when a child born as a result of a surrogacy agreement, is placed in the care of intended parents who intend to apply for a parental order, the placement is not treated as a private fostering arrangement because of the effect of The Human Fertilisation and Embryology (Parental Orders) Regulations 2010 Sch 4 para 12).

 

 

  1. What this case highlights, is that but for the close familial relationship between B and C, their actions would have breached these important statutory provisions and potentially left them liable to a criminal prosecution under both s.93 ACA 2002 and s.70 CA 1989.

 

 

  1. It is therefore imperative that single parents contemplating parenthood through surrogacy obtain comprehensive legal advice as to how to proceed as adoption is the only means to ensure that they are the only legal parents of their child. The process under which they can achieve this is a legal minefield, they need to ensure that all the appropriate steps are undertaken to secure lifelong legal security regarding their status with the child.

 

 

The wording of s92 opens the door to the possibility that a single carer could do all of this if the High Court had granted permission in advance. I can’t think for the life of me what application you’d make (before the birth of the child or discussion about whether a stranger would have a baby for you to adopt had happened) but on the wording of s92, it seems like the High Court can by giving its blessing stop those actions being a crime.

 

 

The adoption order was made (and despite my own personal feelings of disquiet / ickiness about the perfectly legal arrangements, it is worth noting that the professional and independent assessments about everyone were clear that Bob would be a great carer for Alfie)

 

What is apparent from the reports is that the parties thought carefully about this arrangement, pausing, reflecting and seeking advice at each stage. In my judgment a critical feature of this case are the obviously close relationships within this family; it is an arrangement that was entered into not only with the support of the parties to this application, but, importantly, also the wider family. The strength of these familial relationships, and the consequent support they provide now and in the future, will ensure A’s lifelong welfare needs are met. An adoption order will provide the legal security to A’s relationship with B, which will undoubtedly meet A’s long term welfare needs.

 

 

Therefore, B’s application will be granted and an adoption order made.

 

 

All the very best for Bob and Alfie (not their real names) in the future.

 

If you do have a client call into your office to discuss with you their plans to have a baby with their own mother, then (a) you now know what to do and (b) if you can maintain your face as an impassive mask then I am never playing poker with you.

 

 

 

 

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Flawed placement order application

Posted on March 5, 2015 by suesspiciousminds

 

When you call a case  RE EF (flawed Placement Order application) 2015, you are laying down a marker that this is going to be a judgment that makes criticisms. And so it does.

 

In fact when you read it, had the Judge designated this case as Re EF (Local Authority screw everything up, badly) 2015, that would not cause anyone in the Trades Description Act enforcement department to be concerned.

 

This is a judgment from a Circuit Judge, which means that it is not binding, but lessons can still be drawn from it. It was delivered by His Honour Judge Wildblood QC (who readers may recall fixed the tangle on banning a UKIP parliamentary candidate from allowing his younger children to participate in any political activity)

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWFC/OJ/2015/B21.html

 

If you are umming-and-ahing about whether to read on, let me give you this titbit.

For reasons that will be apparent, I cannot have any confidence at all that the authority would operate appropriately under a placement order in relation to this child; I have never said that before in a judgment about any authority. The guardian shares my lack of confidence.

 

Still with me? Yes, I thought so.

 

I can’t really better how the Judge opens the case, so I will just quote it.   [When a Judge is kicking your ass and being kind about it, that actually feels worse than being roasted by an angry Judge – just like when your parent tries the “I’m not cross with you, I’m disappointed” is astonishingly effective – at least the first time round]

 

1. Foreword – Of course many cases reveal a few points of bad practice. However it is very rare that so many such points should be gathered into one case. It has taken two years and five months for these proceedings to be resolved. The case was listed in front of me (even though I had had no previous dealings with it save for a short procedural directions hearing 18 months ago) because there were such difficulties with it that it was thought necessary for it to come before me as the Designated Family Judge. I can see why.

2. This is an application for a placement order in relation to a little girl who is 4½ years old and who is already subject to a care order. It is a case that reveals multiple failures. The principal failures have been those of the Local Authority but there have also been failures within the court led process and by those who represent the parties. The delay speaks for itself but, in this judgment, I will set out what has happened. Despite what is said in Re W [2014] EWFC 22 orders of the court have been ignored. In one instance the Local Authority chose to ignore an order of the court (i.e. it declined to carry out an assessment of the father despite having been ordered to do so). In another instance the Local Authority failed to do what it had agreed to do (i.e. issue a placement application within a timescale agreed on the face of an order – by 30th October 2013- choosing to leave it for another four months before the application was issued on 18th February 2014). There has been sequential presentation of applications, as to which there are now the authorities of Surrey County Council v S [2014] EWCA Civ and Re R [2014] EWCA Civ 1625 [para 20]; here a care order was made in October 2013 with a view to the child being placed for adoption and, seventeen months on, I am hearing the placement application. This is the fifth listed hearing of this application for a placement order with each adjournment being necessitated by the inadequacy of the evidence that the Local Authority has provided. The analysis of options is inadequate (and does not analysis to any sufficient degree the benefit to the child of maintaining contact with her natural family). The professional assessments do not weigh up adequately the pros and cons of the competing options for this child (and the experts both gave evidence about the negatives of the father’s position without being asked to consider the negatives of adoption, such as the loss of family contact). The social worker who is the social worker responsible for this case, carried out a viability assessment of the father, and wrote the Local Authority’s final evidence has never met the father (except at court). The authority has had permission to investigate available foster and adoptive carers since September 2013; it has not investigated long term fostering as an option at all (despite saying that it would on many occasions – see e.g. page 38 of the transcript of the evidence of the social worker Ms Morley) and despite its apparent searches has had one expression of interest from a couple who know nothing about the specific details of the child. There has been no judicial continuity.

3. I realise that the Local Authority management will be as deeply disappointed as I am that a case comes before a court in this area in this condition. Criticism is often far from helpful and I would much prefer to work with authorities to improve matters rather than deliver criticisms from the bench. However, if I make a placement order I cannot attach conditions to it; as examined in helpful closing speeches, the power to attach contact provisions to a placement order under section 26 of the Adoption and Children Act 2002 bears a large number of practical difficulties (e.g. contact until when?). As Ms Rowsell said in her realistic and helpful closing speech – the Local Authority asks you to have confidence that it will operate appropriately under a placement order but accepts that the past means that there is little reason for it to do so. For reasons that will be apparent, I cannot have any confidence at all that the authority would operate appropriately under a placement order in relation to this child; I have never said that before in a judgment about any authority. The guardian shares my lack of confidence.

 

Although clearly the bulk of the faults here have been with the Local Authority, the Judge recognises that the lack of judicial continuity and control has been a factor as well.  It was wrong to have made the Care Order in the first place when the care plan was for adoption and there was no Placement Order application, it was wrong to have tolerated that drift, it was wrong to have allowed the timetable to get so out of hand.

 

Again, I will pick out one devastating line

 

The social worker who is the social worker responsible for this case, carried out a viability assessment of the father, and wrote the Local Authority’s final evidence has never met the father (except at court).

 

Can I resist the urge here to make a sarcastic aside about how that is standard practice for some (not all) Guardians?  No, it appears that like Oscar Wilde I can resist everything except temptation.

 

 

This next bit is music to my ears – it something that particularly vexes me and I am pleased to see a Judge dealing with it. It is the issue of getting to a final hearing without it being plain what orders each party invites the Court to make.  It is not that helpful to just know that X opposes Y, what you need to know is what order does X propose instead?

The only application before the court is that of the Local Authority for a placement order. There are no actual applications by either of the parents. On the scale of things involved in this case, I advance this point as one of mild criticism only and primarily for the purposes of clarifying what I am dealing with. But there should either have been applications setting out the orders sought or at least a record on the face of orders as to what applications are being pursued. The nearest that one gets is to look at the order at B128 that states that ‘the father wishes EF to be placed with him. The mother wishes for EF to be placed with her. The paternal grandmother wishes for EF to be placed with the father but if not with him then with herself’. On behalf the father I was told that he seeks a child arrangements order. I hope that it is not just legal pedantry to say that the nature of the orders sought should be identified not just for the purposes of clarity and definition but also because some applications involve different procedural requirements – for instance I had no idea whether the paternal grandmother might be seeking a special guardianship order in default of placement with the father. Of course no judge wants to see money and trees wasted in making unnecessary paper applications and it is often acceptable to record that parties are deemed to have applied for orders. But there must be some attempt at formality in establishing who is seeking what orders.

 

On a factual basis, the Gordian knot in this case seems to be that the Placement Order / adoption route was only the plan for this girl, who was 4 1/2 by the time of this hearing, and that her older siblings would be placed elsewhere. A plan of adoption would not only sever her relationship with her parents, but with those siblings. There might be circumstances in which that was still in the child’s best interests, but it is a very important aspect to be balanced in reaching that decision – the Court would need to know why an alternative option (like placing with father or long-term foster carer) which would not have the detriment of ending the sibling relationship would not be right for this particular child. And that never really got answered to the Court’s satisfaction.

 

For some reason the two experts instructed in the case weren’t asked to address this issue in their reports, and thus didn’t. And the social worker didn’t address the sibling relationship and merits of contact in  final evidence.

As it is the attempt to weigh up the competing options within the paperwork has to be taken from Mr Gray’s final statement. There are any number of difficulties with that document. Firstly, there has been no Local Authority assessment of the importance of contact between the siblings; the arrangements for this have largely been left to the three sets of foster carers. Secondly, the only assessment of the father (including three contact sessions) that Mr Gray wrote was the positive viability assessment; the quality of contact with the father and the importance of his role are not analysed when considering the options. Thirdly, the difficulties in finding adopters was not considered (the Local Authority has already had 17 months to do this). Fourthly, the fact that the Local Authority has not looked for foster carers at all is not mentioned

 

In a case like this, the search for foster carers would be a vital component. If you search and can’t find any, it is an important piece of evidence about the likelihood of being able to find one in the future. If you find some, then you have provided the Court with concrete options to choose between. You can’t really sidestep the issue by not even looking.

Especially when your care plan six months ago when the Care Order had been made was to triple track and look for adoptive placements, foster placements and assess dad.  Having done none of those things, it wasn’t really even a single track.  Having said they would in effect build a tricycle, the Local Authority turned up for this final hearing with a care plan where the wheels had come off completely.

The care plan states that the Local Authority would plan to search exclusively for an adoptive placement for six months following the making of a placement order. That amounts to a departure from what was being said in September and October 2013 where the case was to be twin tracked between fostering and adoption and permission was given for this to occur. Further, the Local Authority was again given permission to seek adoptive and long term fostering placements in September 2014 (i.e. six months ago) with the intention that it would pursue a triple track analysis – adoption, fostering and placement with father. It did not pursue fostering at all, failed to assess the father properly despite being ordered to do so and can offer one tentative enquiry about adoption from a couple who expressed interest ‘before Christmas’ and have not been investigated further.

 

And what of the future? And sibling contact? What were the Local Authorities proposals?

19. If an adoptive placement is not found in six months the Local Authority says that it would give further consideration to long-term foster care. In six months time EF will be five and in her second year of school education (she is just ‘rising five’ for this school year – C10). Thus her start at school in September 2014 took place from interim foster care 11 months after the care order was made and seven months after the placement application was made.

20. The care plan is non-specific about contact between the three siblings; at C179 the social worker says: ‘direct contact would be promoted [between the three siblings] if this was assessed as being in EF’s best interests and risks associated with their ongoing contacts with the wider birth family could be mitigated. Adopters open to promotion of direct contact would be recruited by the agency’. The guardian said this about inter sibling contact in her oral evidence: ‘The contact between EF and one of her brothers has included an overnight stay. There has been inter sibling contact three times a year with all three children together but there is also separate monthly contact between EF and one of the her brothers and less frequent contact between EF and her other brother. Ideally, if EF is placed for adoption, an adopter would have to accept inter sibling contact although this will not be easy because the parents will continue to have contact with the boys and adopters might find that difficult’. Having considered matters overnight, and after a period of adjournment for reflection, the guardian through her solicitor and in her presence said that one could not have any confidence that the Local Authority would deal with this issue of inter sibling contact appropriately and there was a very risk that it would not press for or find adopters who would tolerate inter sibling contact. Thus there was a very real risk that a placement order would result in this child losing all contact with all of her family members.

21. The care plan also proposes indirect (i.e. written) contact between the children twice a year (which is not easy to envisage given the ages of the children) as well as cards at birthdays and Christmas. As to the parents, maternal grandmother and paternal grandparents the care plan suggests that they should have indirect contact only, once a year and Mr Gray, the social worker suggests at C179 that ‘this enables the continued development of [EF]’s identity and comprehension of her birth family story within safe parameters’. When considering the proposals for contact nothing is said about the quality of the father’s contact to date. It was agreed in closing speeches (on my enquiry) that the contact between this father and this child has been ‘good and loving’. The contact notes are at enclosure F.

Remember that one of the wheels on the Local Authority’s care plan (on which the Court made a final Care Order) was an assessment of the father? What happened with that?

  There was also a preliminary parenting assessment of the father at C108 by the social worker, Mr Gray, dated 22nd October 2014. It suggested that further in depth assessment of the father was necessitated and that this would take two months to complete [C111]. The preliminary report was positive in its assessment of the father and suggested at C110 that a good attachment had been observed between the father and EF (a suggestion that Dr Edwards doubts to be correct – E37); however, at C111 Mr Gray said that there were a number of matters not covered by the assessment such as home life, providing EF with appropriate clothing, getting her to and from school, managing her behaviour and providing her with a stable environment. What is more, the person writing the assessment is Mr Gray, who has never met the father except when attending court hearings (again I say more about this later).

41. Notwithstanding the positive nature of Mr Gray’s initial report, there was then a statement filed on 6th November 2014 by Mr Tyrrell of the Local Authority child permanence team (C131); in it Mr Tyrrell stated that the Local Authority did not intend to assess the father because the ‘timescales for EF would not allow them to do so’ [C135]. The order of the Recorder of 3rd September 2014 states at paragraph 14: ‘The Local Authority shall carry out a parenting assessment of father and this shall be filed and served by 17th October 2014’. The Local Authority accepts on the face of Mr Tyrrell’s statement that it did not carry out a full assessment in accordance with that order [C135]. That is inexcusable. The order to carry out a parenting assessment means that the Local Authority should carry out a proper parenting assessment; on the very face of Mr Gray’s statement his work was not a parenting assessment, as he himself accepted in evidence.

42. The Local Authority’s decision not to assess the father properly was deliberate and considered; since that decision was in direct contravention of a court order I do not see how I can describe it other than as contemptuous. Nor do I accept that an assessment of the father would have taken two months; it would have taken as long as those involved chose.

 

So there was a positive viability assessment of father, the Court ordered a parenting assessment of him be filed and the Local Authority decided not to do it.

I have certain withering views of my own about how helpful it is for the President to cascade judgments suggesting that parties who are four hours later in filing a document should obtain a Court order in advance extending the deadline, but this is a kettle containing entirely different fish altogether.

We have all been late, we probably (despite our sincere desire for the contrary) will be late in the future. I HATE being late, it makes me feel sick and stops me sleeping. But it does happen.  But if you get ordered to file an assessment of a father, you file something, even if it is late. You don’t just decide not to do it. For a case where your plan is adoption.

 

In his oral evidence Mr Gray said this. When he carried out his parenting assessment he did not see any of the case papers from the care proceedings. He did not meet the father when preparing it (and has never met him even now despite having been the social worker for EF since the end of October 2014 and being called as the only witness for the Local Authority at this hearing). Is it acceptable for a social worker to prepare care plans and file Local Authority evidence, including evidence of options and services, without ever meeting the one member of the family who seeks to care for the child concerned? One can never say ‘never’ to that question but, on the facts of this case, it was obviously inappropriate for Mr Gray to come to give evidence without ever meeting this father.

44. Mr Gray said that, since his involvement, the Local Authority has discounted the parents and so it was not thought appropriate for him to meet with them. He was not aware that the court had adjourned a final hearing because of the inadequacy of the Local Authority evidence particularly in relation to the assessment of the father. He accepted that his assessment was not a complete parenting assessment and said that he told the legal department that there needed to be a full assessment of the father.

45. There is no analysis of the contact that has taken place between the father and this child save for the three contact visits that Mr Gray did not himself observe; Ms Griffiths, who did observe them, said this at C110: ‘in general, the nature of all three observations does suggest a good attachment between EF and her father. Indeed, there was one poignant moment shared by them both when they discussed how much they missed each other’.

Poor Mr Gray gets somewhat hung out to dry here – he picked up the case after the Care Order was made and believed that what he was inheriting was a completed piece of work where all that really needed to be done was the paperwork to do a Placement Order application. That was far from the case, and there appears to have been a serious breakdown in communication as to what the new social worker would need to do in this case – the triple track of exploring potential adopters, exploring foster care and assessing dad (all against the backdrop of what each of these options might mean for EF and her siblings)

Remember all of the recent judicial strictures about keeping the bundles to 350 pages? Bear this in mind

 None of the important documentation from the care proceedings was in the court bundle and so I called for the court file to be retrieved from the basement of the court office. It is from that file that I found the order of the District Judge of 1st October 2013. I also found the care plan that was made on 20th September 2013 which states that ‘a search to identify a suitable adoptive placement for her will be made; alongside this a long term foster placement will be sought as a fall back position’. No long term placements have been identified. The care plan states that the child ‘is due to be considered by the agency’s decision maker on 16/10/13’ (i.e. 15 days after the final care hearing – why? – the care plan proposed adoption).

 

There were even problems with the threshold – the basis on which the original Care Order had been made.

 

 

 

 

 51. There is no record within the bundle about the terms in which the threshold criteria were fulfilled for the purposes of the making of the care order. Indeed, on my exploration of the two large court files there was no copy of a threshold document on file. I had to ask for it to be produced and it came into being on the second day of this hearing.

52. Further, the District Judge said this in his October 2013 judgment: ‘I incorporate into this judgment by reference two important documents, firstly the agreed final threshold document that set out the agreed facts as at the time that the application was brought and, secondly, the findings of fact that I have already made on the previous occasion’. When I asked ‘what findings were made and on what previous occasion’, there was some confusion because, within the court file, there was a schedule of findings that the Local Authority was seeking with responses from the mother. I asked: ‘Had there been a fact finding hearing?’ It appears that there was not. The District Judge did deliver a judgment in September and stated that his October judgment was a continuation of that earlier judgment. I do not have a transcript of what he said in September.

53. It is very unfortunate that I do not have a transcript of what the District Judge said in September because it was in the September that the Judge reached the conclusions that I have already set out above. Plainly it is important for me to understand the welfare basis for that. I would have thought that the Local Authority would have wanted such a transcript also so that it could guide their work. Emphasising the importance of a judgment is not judicial pique or self importance. A judgment is given after everyone has had an opportunity to have their say and it represents the rule of law in practice. If judgments and orders are just ignored, as they have been here, what follows? Further, the judgment allows people to distinguish between what is established fact and what is no more than allegation. It also explains why people are being ordered to do things.

54. The threshold document relates to the time when proceedings were started – that is 2012. Therefore it does not record the issues that were contemporary at the time of the care order and led to the conclusion that only care with a view to adoption would do. Further the document suffered from many of the deficiencies identified recently by the President in Re A (a child) [2015] EWFC 11 (the Darlington case); for instance: ‘there are concerns as to the rough handling of the children ….there are concerns as to the general care of the children’. The threshold criteria were fulfilled on the basis of the violence between the parents, the neglect of the children, the parents lack of engagement with an assessment, the social hostility towards the parents, the parents misuse of drink and drugs and the parents’ failure to seek medical advice for the children after they suffered ‘unexplained injuries’.

If you are doing a quick head count – in this case the bundle didn’t have the right documents in it, the threshold was both wishy washy and hadn’t actually got put in the bundle, the social worker hadn’t met the father he was assessing, the experts hadn’t been asked to assess the most important thing, a triple track care plan turned into a ‘what’s a track?’ care plan, the Local Authority had been ordered to file an application for a Placement Order and filed it four months late, and the Court had granted a Care Order with a plan that looked like adoption without actually having a Placement Order application to consider (and, it turns out, without the Local Authority having Agency Decision Maker approval to actually do that)

In this case, the Local Authority were not just flirting with disaster, they had bought disaster dinner and had a toothbrush in their bag hoping that disaster would ask them to stay over.

The conclusion

135. Conclusion – I do not consider that it has been demonstrated to me that the welfare of EF requires that she be placed for adoption. I do not consider that it has been demonstrated to me that the less interventionist solution of fostering is inconsistent with her welfare. I think that the detriments of adoption outweigh the advantages as matters now appear. I think it highly unlikely that the Local Authority would twin track the case between fostering and adoption if a placement order were to be made. I think that such an order would be highly likely to result in all contact between this girl and her family ending. I do not consider such an order to necessary or proportionate and I do not consider that the making of such an order would place her welfare as the paramount consideration throughout out her life.

136. I therefore dismiss the application for a placement order. The effect is that EF will remain in care and will continue to have contact with her natural family. I will hear submissions if necessary on another occasion as to the arrangements for contact.

The only crumb of comfort for the LA is that in the face of a judgment like that, there wasn’t a paragraph 137 about an application for costs.

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Failed attempt to revoke an Enduring Power of Attorney

Posted on March 3, 2015 by suesspiciousminds

 

As Senior Judge Lush remarks at the beginning of Re DT (2015) it is fairly unusual to dismiss the application of the Public Guardian to revoke an Enduring Power of Attorney. You can often learn a lot more from a single unsuccessful application than you can from reading dozens of successful ones.

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCOP/2015/10.html

 

In this case, the man DT had dementia, but had previously made an Enduring Power of Attorney giving control of his financial affairs to his three sons.

DT and his wife are separated, although this separation has not become a judicial separation or a divorce, and she of course remains the mother of the three sons, who are all adults.

The Public Guardian became concerned about the running of DT’s affairs as a result of two substantial issues:-

 

1. The care home fees were in substantial arrears (by the time of the hearing to the tune of nearly £70,000)

2. DT had been expressing very strong views about his wife getting his money and that his money was being spent on her.

Because there was uncertainty whether DT still had capacity to make a number of specific decisions relating to the management of his property and financial affairs, the Public Guardian commissioned a Court of Protection Special Visitor, Dr Rajaratnam Thavasothy, to examine DT. It was not the easiest of interviews and in his report dated 31 March 2014, Dr Thavasothy described it as follows:

“I visited DT on 24.03.14. … Staff warned me that he could scream at me and would not engage and, even if he does engage, it is likely he would not engage for more than a few minutes. At my request the staff had informed him of my visit and the purpose of my visit.I assessed DT in a large room to which he walked unsteadily with the help of staff and sat in a chair. He was well dressed with clean clothes. He was kempt. The staff left him with me and, as I introduced myself, he understood the purpose of my visit and immediately shouted, “I wanted my sons to have the power of attorney, I don’t want my wife to be involved.” I then asked him what he meant by the power of attorney and he became extremely hostile and shouted again reasserting that his wife should not be involved. I distracted him by talking about his interest in films. He then talked at length about film actors from the 1960s to the 1980s, often repeating the same statement over and over again. After diverting his attention I thought I could proceed with the mental state examination, but as soon as I started assessing his mental state, he would scream at me, shouting loudly to the point that staff came into the room to make certain that I was alright. After the staff left I once again distracted him by talking about his various interests, and when I recommenced the mental examination, he once again started screaming and shouted repeatedly that he had had ‘enough’ and wanted me to leave. The staff arrived and I suggested that they could take him out, as he was demanding cigarettes, and that I would see him after he had smoked his cigarette.

When I recommenced the mental state examination, he shouted that he did not wish his wife to be involved and that he wanted his sons to have the power of attorney. When I asked him what he understood about the power of attorney, he once again became very angry, but later I was able to elicit that he wished to convey that all his finances should be managed by his sons. He stated that he trusted them implicitly and did not wish anyone else to be involved. He stated clearly “of course I am happy for my sons to have the power of attorney. My wife does not have the power of attorney.” When I asked him how much money he has, he shouted “I don’t know. The boys have the money and give me whatever money I need. I don’t have to go out anywhere.” As he screamed, ordering me out of the room, I had to terminate the assessment.

Apart from noting that he becomes impulsively aggressive with a very low level of tolerance, and often became frustrated when he found it difficult to answer any question, I did not find any evidence of depression or elation of mood. Though I could not conduct a mini-mental state examination, as he became angry, I am certain that he does present with cognitive deficits which add to his frustration when he finds it difficult to answer simple questions. His long term memory was, however, very good when he detailed the private lives of film stars from films he has seen in the past.

 

There were clearly difficulties with DT’s functioning, particularly his temper control, but bearing in mind that the starting point of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 is to assume that a person has capacity unless demonstrated otherwise, this appears sufficient information to glean that DT – (a) understood what a Power of Attorney was (b) understood that he had one (c) understood that his 3 sons had the Enduring Power of Attorney and (d) was happy with this.

 

  1. The Public Guardian asked the Court of Protection Special Visitor to assess whether DT had the capacity to revoke the EPA himself, and the Visitor confirmed emphatically that he did have capacity. Although, strictly speaking, this information was unnecessary for the purpose of deciding whether to revoke the EPA, I cannot ignore it.
  2. If one thing is certain in this case, it is that DT is perfectly satisfied with his sons’ management of his property and financial affairs under the EPA, and he has no desire to revoke their appointment as attorneys.
  3. Having regard to the contents of the Special Visitor’s report, and in particular the frustration and anger expressed by DT when questions concerning his sons’ management of his affairs were raised, I consider that, if the court were to revoke the EPA, it would cause significant distress to him, which cannot possibly be in his best interests.
  4. I am reminded of the remarks of Her Honour Judge Hazel Marshall QC in Re S and S (Protected Persons) [2008] COPLR Con Vol 1074, where she held that, if P expresses a view that is not irrational, impracticable or irresponsible, “then that situation carries great weight and effectively gives rise to a presumption in favour of implementing those wishes, unless there is some potential sufficiently detrimental effect for P of doing so which outweighs this.”
  5. She went on in to say in paragraph 58 of her judgment:

    “It might further be tested by asking whether the seriousness of this countervailing factor in terms of detriment to P is such that it must outweigh the detriment to an adult of having one’s wishes overruled, and the sense of impotence, and the frustration and anger, which living with that awareness (insofar as P appreciates it) will cause to P. Given the policy of the Act to empower people to make their own decisions wherever possible, justification for overruling P and “saving him from himself” must, in my judgment, be strong and cogent. Otherwise, taking a different course from that which P wishes would be likely to infringe the statutory direction in s 1(6) of the Act, that one must achieve any desired objective by the route which least restricts P’s own rights and freedom of action.”

  6. There is nothing irrational, impracticable or irresponsible in DT’s wish that his sons should continue to act as his attorneys, and I am not satisfied that their conduct has had a sufficiently detrimental effect on DT or his finances to justify overriding his wishes.

 

There was a quirky side issue, which has a direct bearing for Local Authorities. The Public Guardian had asked that the Director of Adult services at Suffolk County Council become the deputy and manage DT’s financial affairs.  The Director had politely declined.

 

Why would that be, you might ask? Well it is this. There is a fixed fee for being a public authority Deputy and that fixed fee bears no relation to what it would cost the LA to actually do the job. The LA gets £700 for the first year, and £585 a year after that.  (Bear in mind that a deputy from a family does it for nothing, but Local Authorities are cash-strapped) If you are appointing a deputy from the private sector, you are paying £200 AN HOUR for someone very experienced and £111 AN HOUR for a trainee solicitor.

 

  1. Section 19(3) of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 states that “a person may not be appointed as a deputy without his consent,” and I am disappointed that, having agreed to act as deputy, Suffolk County Council, subsequently withdrew its consent. This has an enormous impact on the costs involved.
  2. Public authority deputies are allowed remuneration in accordance with Practice Direction 19B, “Fixed Costs in the Court of Protection.” The rates of remuneration have remained static for the last four years, since 1 February 2011. Understandably, this is a bone of contention for cash-strapped local authorities, and partly accounts for an increasing and alarming trend in which councils are refusing to take on deputyship work.
  3. If Suffolk County Council were appointed as DT’s deputy, it would be entitled to an annual management fee of £700 for the first year and £585 for the second and subsequent years.
  4. At the hearing IT asked about the likely costs of a panel deputy, and I suggested that they would be in the region of £200 an hour. Any meaningful calculation is, of course, more complicated than that.

 

The costs of appointing a deputy from the private sector (the Court not being able to appoint someone from the LA if they object) would of course come out of DT’s finances. The Court had to think about whether that was proportionate, given that the 3 sons were doing this task for nothing and that DT was happy with them.

[The Court had been satisfied that the arrears for the nursing home would be paid off and why they had arisen]

  1. As regards the nature, extent and complexity of the affairs that need to be managed and administered, DT’s former matrimonial home will be sold shortly. His share of the gross proceeds of sale will be £70,000. His share of the net proceeds of sale may be a couple of thousand pounds less than that and will be extinguished by the payment of his debt of £69,000 to Suffolk County Council. His remaining capital assets – a half share of a Scottish Widows ISA and a half share of the balance on a Halifax account – amount to just under £8,000. His income is roughly £17,000 a year.
  2. As can be seen from the fixed costs regime described above, generally speaking, costs are higher during the first year immediately following a deputy’s appointment than they are in the second and subsequent years. DT is likely to remain living in an institutional environment for the rest of his life. The family are not at loggerheads with one another and there is no evidence of dishonesty, which would warrant interfering with DT’s Article 8 rights for the prevention of crime.
  3. The average of Bands A to D in National Band One is a charge-out rate of £172 an hour and, if one reckoned that a fairly straightforward case, such as this, would involve at least twenty four hours’ work during the first year (in other words, an average of just two hours a month), one is looking at a baseline of £4,128 to which should be added:(a) VAT (£825.60);

    (b) the cost draftsman’s fee (say £335) plus VAT (£67);

    (c) the premium payable in respect of any security bond required by the court; in this case a single one-off premium of £98, not recurring annually;

    (d) the detailed assessment fee of £225 (which applies where the costs exceed £3,000 including VAT and disbursements);

    (e) the OPG’s initial deputy assessment fee of £100; and

    (f) the OPG’s annual deputy supervision fee of £320.

  4. It is likely, therefore, that in this case, a panel deputy’s costs would be roughly £6,100 during the first year of appointment, and approximately two thirds of that sum in the second and subsequent years. By comparison, DT’s attorneys charge nothing. They don’t even claim travelling expenses when they go and see him, because they visit him as his sons, rather than as his attorneys.
  5. I consider that, in this case, the employment of a panel deputy to manage DT’s property and financial affairs, even if it were necessary (which it is not), would be a disproportionate drain on his limited resources.
  6. Considering all the relevant circumstances and, in particular, the extent to which DT retains capacity and his clear expression of his present wishes and feelings on the matter, I dismiss the Public Guardian’s application to revoke the EPA.

 

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Judicial appointment is not a licence to be gratuitously rude

Posted on March 2, 2015 by suesspiciousminds

 

You may recall His Honour Judge Dodds, who has not had the best time with appeals in the lifespan of this blog.

Sentence first, verdict afterwards

where he made full Care Orders at the first hearing, when none of the parties were expecting that or asking for it.

 

and

Go on then, appeal me, I dare you

 

Where the Judge refused to assess family members largely because they were in Poland and offered the remarkable sentence of “If you don’t like it, there is always the Court of Appeal”

 

And this is the one that I’ve been waiting for.

Re A (Children) 2015

http://www.familylawweek.co.uk/site.aspx?i=ed143386

 

This was an appeal, arising from the conduct of a hearing. The Judge was asked for several things at that hearing. The mother and father both applied to discharge the Care Order and for more contact. The child SA, asked for DNA testing, saying that she had always had doubts that the father was really her biological father.

It is quite a short judgment, and practically every line of it is remarkable. This is the sort of thing that people who disapprove of the family justice system can rightly point to and say “This is the sort of thing that goes on”

In this case, the appeal was probably the easiest that the Court of Appeal have ever had to deal with – every single aspect of the hearing was wrong and improper. So in this case, the system screwed up royally, but then worked because an appeal put things right. But what we can never know is how many times something a bit like this happens and the advocates don’t appeal. Either they can’t get funding, or their client doesn’t want to, or they take the view that appealing a Judge who approaches things in this way is going to be counter productive in the future  (the “don’t poke an angry bear with a stick” argument)

 

It is a terrible indictment and this case makes sorry reading. The only consolation really is that the child herself was not in Court.

 

5. The importance of and the right of children to know the identity of their biological father has long been recognised and has only recently been restated by the President in Re Z (Children) [2014] EWHC 1999 Fam. Para 5. An application under section 55A is the proper procedural route in order to determine the parentage of a child. It must therefore have caused Ms Roberts and Mr Saunders (who acted on behalf of the Local Authority), considerable consternation when the judge, having dismissed out of hand the father’s application to discharge the care order as, “Factious” and the mother’s as, “An affront”, turned to Mr Saunders and told him that in relation to the section 55A application, “You may want to put your crash helmet on”.

6. Mr Saunders and Ms Roberts valiantly tried to explain to the judge what they sought and why they sought it, only to be met with evermore intemperate responses from the judge. In relation, for example, to the cost of the DNA testing, Ms Roberts told the judge that Legal Aid would paid for it. The response was, “You can pay for it if you want, I will let you. In fact, I am half minded to make an order that you do so”. Judge Dodds continued, “If she (meaning SA) told you that the moon is made of green cheese will you say, ‘Yes, S, no, S, three bags full S?” He continued: “The lunatics have truly taken over the asylum” and “For heaven sake, in this day and age especially, just because the lunatic says, ‘I want, I want’, you do not have to respond by spoon feeding their every wish”. The judge went on to comment, “Can I tell you how bitterly resentful I am at how much of my Saturday I spent reading this codswallop”.

7. Finally, the judge in dealing with the actual application said, “There is not a syllable of evidence before me to warrant making the order you seek and so it is refused”. He went concluded:

“At lest there be a nanosecond’s doubt as to the application for an order under section 55A of the Family Law Act 1986, I am nothing short of appalled that it was thought that public funds could be expended upon such nonsense. And I tell you I am within a hair’s breadth of ordering that any costs incurred in respect of that application should be paid by you.”

 

 

The Appeal Court, as indicated earlier, had no trouble in deciding that the appeal had to be granted and the case sent back to a different Judge for re-hearing.

 

9. In my judgment, it is not necessary to consider the merits of the application itself. The submission that the hearing amounted to a serious procedural irregularity is unanswerable. Each of the points made in the skeleton argument are made good when the transcript is considered. The judge did not allow proper submissions to be made; the premature threat of costs inevitably, and rightly, gave the impression that the judge had a closed mind in relation to the application and no proper reasons were given for the decision to dismiss the application. The manner in which the hearing was conducted went far beyond anything that could be characterised as robust case management.

10. In the event, neither parent attended the hearing, fortunately, although not surprisingly, SA was not there either. Even so, the unrestrained and immoderate language used by the judge must, I am afraid, be deplored and is wholly unacceptable. Such bombast can only leave advocates seeking to present, on instructions, their cases to the court feeling browbeaten and impotent and, rightly, as though their lay clients have been denied a fair hearing.

 

 

and

 

The transcript of the hearing makes embarrassing reading and I hope that Judge Dodds will read it for himself and be ashamed of his behaviour on that particular occasion. Appointment as a judge, at whatever level, is not a license for intemperate language or for being gratuitously rude to advocates and others appearing before you. Judge Dodds’ behaviour on that occasion was beyond what is permissible. It meant that there was a serious procedural irregularity. That particular hearing was not fair. I do emphasise that my remarks concern only that one particular hearing. However, this appeal must be allowed.

 

I am aware that the newspapers in Liverpool made enquiries about whether there was an investigation or complaint into judicial conduct as a result, and were told that there was not, because no complaint had been received.  One does not want to see judicial complaints made each and every time a Judge loses an appeal or gets something wrong, but you might think that an appeal judgment as serious as this might be a trigger for an investigation without a formal complaint being made.

 

[In case you are ever before a Court and this sort of thing happens, and I very much hope that it never does, there is a formal body who deal with complaints about judicial conduct, as a separate body to the appeal process which deals with the decision made.

 

http://judicialconduct.judiciary.gov.uk/making-a-complaint.htm

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Let’s not bring politics into it

Posted on February 27, 2015 by suesspiciousminds

The case Re A and B (Prohibited Steps Order at Dispute Resolution Appointment) 2015 might have one of the dullest names concievable, but I’ll be very surprised if it doesn’t become rather newsworthy.  Wizardpc (regular commentator – you’re going to want to read this one)

http://www.familylawweek.co.uk/site.aspx?i=ed143473

Why?

Because fresh on the heels of the President of the Family Division telling us all that there’s nothing wrong with a father belonging to the English Defence League, we have a family Judge banning a UKIP Parliamentary candidate from bringing his children to election rallies. [And another family Judge overturning that on appeal]

It is a short judgment, so before anyone’s knees jerk too much, let’s all read it first.

The children are both under 10, this is an appeal from a decision of the District Judge in private law proceedings to make this order:-

i) By way of preamble, that the court held the view that it is inappropriate for young children to be actively engaged in political activities as they may be emotionally damaged by potentially hostile reactions from members of the public;

ii) By way of order, that neither parent is to involve the two youngest children actively in any political activity.

 

 

There were three older children who were not subject to these stipulations.

As a matter of law, can the Court do that? Well, section 11 of the Children Act allows the Court to set conditions about contact / time spent with a parent, and the powers are broad, or as here, a Prohibited Steps Order, where one parent can ask that another be prevented from doing something particular (almost anything) with their child – so long as they meet these three criteria

Is it a necessary and proportionate interference with article 8 right to family life?
Is it better for the child to make this order than to not make the order?
Is this the right order, considering that the child’s welfare is paramount.

So the Court has the legal power to make such an order – providing those tests are met. But can it be right to make such an order?

9. Procedure – The father says that:

i) The District Judge was wrong not to hear evidence or at least his full submissions in relation to the need for a prohibited steps order to this effect;

ii) The District Judge made incorrect assumptions about the factual basis for such an order;

iii) The District Judge wrongly dealt with the issue without the father having notice prior to the hearing as to her intention to consider making such an order;

iv) The District Judge did not give the father an opportunity to contend that the order was neither necessary nor proportionate.

10. The mother, who is in person, contends that 99.9% of parents would recognise that their children should not be involved actively in political activities and so the District Judge was acting sensibly and fairly when faced with a father who, she says, does not share that recognition. However, she accepted before me that the father had not been given the opportunity to argue his case before the District Judge and that he made it plain throughout that he did not agree to the order that the District Judge was proposing. The mother could plainly see the difficulties that arise in seeking to upholding the decision of the District Judge.

11. The Cafcass report – The Cafcass report is in the bundle. The following parts of it are particularly relevant:

i) The only mention of political activity in the report is at D5. There the Cafcass officer stated: ‘The mother has expressed concerns that the father’s political views and value base are influencing the children – particularly C who can be racist and homophobic. The father has allegedly enlisted the support of his children to distribute UKIP leaflets when they have spent time with him’. That is the only reference to political activity within the report.

ii) The views of the children, which are very fully explored by the Cafcass officer, do not record any complaint by them in relation to their father’s political activities or their involvement with them;

iii) The children are reported as having some other concerns about their father’s method of disciplining them but were observed by the Cafcass officer to be happy in their father’s company. The Cafcass officer stated at paragraph 27 that ‘it is my view that, on the whole, the children enjoy the time they spend with their father and this needs to be supported…my observations of the children with their father were positive’.

12. Statements – Both parties provided brief statements for the hearing before the District Judge. The father’s statement is dated 20th November and the mother’s dated 24th November 2014 (the day of the hearing before the District Judge). There was no application in relation to the father’s political activities or the children’s involvement in them and therefore the father’s statement makes no mention of this. The mother states in her statement at C8: ‘I would like it if he respected my wishes and promised the court that he will not use the children directly in any of his political activities. I would be prepared to abide by the same promise if he so wished. Although it is apparent that the court has failed to protect certain of the children from brainwashing, since [C] has been campaigning for UKIP, is a member of UKIP youth and [E] has also attended UKIP rallies and is intent on joining UKIP youth’.

13. That is as far as any prior notice of this issue went. The father saw the mother’s statement at court. He did not have any other notice prior to the hearing that this issue would be raised. It is therefore significant to note that there was no evidential material relating to any involvement or harmful consequences for the two younger children in relation to the father’s political activities.

It does appear that this issue was somewhat bounced upon the father – did he have proper opportunity to challenge it, and was there proper evidence before the Court as to political activity being harmful?

If one is saying that political activity is harmful to young children generally (as opposed to just toxically dull) then there a lot of babies who will be saved from being kissed by George Osbourne/Ed Balls/Danny Alexander (choose which candidate you most dislike / least admire).  And to be perfectly honest, if it would remove any possibility in the future of the horror that was Tony Blair in his shirtsleeves drinking tea out of a mug with a picture of his kids on it – then, y’know, I can see an upside.

 

The worry with this is that a decision was made about whether the Court cared for the particular brand of politics espoused by the father – which is getting us into Re A territory to an extent. We see mainstream politicians regularly dragging their kids out for the cameras.

14. What happened at the hearing? Both parties appeared in person, that is without legal representation. I have studied the whole of the transcript of the hearing. I made sure that I read it through twice. Both parties were in person and the District Judge was faced with a difficult task in relation to parties who held strong views. I do not in any way underestimate the task that befell the District Judge and, by this judgment, pay tribute to her experience and exceptional industry. She knew this case well having been involved in it previously.

15. The following are some of the key parts of the transcript :

i) At page three there is the following: ‘THE DISTRICT JUDGE: Yes, all right. One of the other issues she raises, and I know there is another issue in your statement that you want to raise in a minute, [father], I have not forgotten this, one of Mother’s concerns is, and she is quite happy to promise in the same way but she does not like the fact that the boys are being involved in your UKIP activities and she would like you to give an agreement that you will not involve them in your UKIP, for instance, C campaigning in [X town] recently she mentions. How do you feel about that?…FATHER: I’m totally unwilling to have her dictate anything what I’m doing with the children in that respect….THE DISTRICT JUDGE: She said that she would be prepared not to involve them in any political activities as well….Father: Well, she does. She indoctrinates them, you know, so I just don’t think this is on. C is very keen; he gets a lot out of it’.

ii) At page 4 the District Judge said: ‘I can understand where you are coming from because you are not a UKIP supporter, yes….MOTHER: Or any political party. Is it right for a child of A’s age to be going into school saying, “What did you do at the weekend? I’ve been to a UKIP garden party”, and the other kids go, “Hey, what?” they have no idea what she’s talking about. They shouldn’t know what she’s talking about because none of them at that age should know anything to do with politics. Isn’t that to do with abusing their childhood if they’re being pumped full of whatever political party?

iii) At page 5 – ‘THE DISTRICT JUDGE: As I have said, children will always be very conscious about what their parents’ political views are. Your political views may well be at the other end of the spectrum. MOTHER: But I wouldn’t dream of taking them to any political meetings or encourage them to leaflet on the streets. C was egged by somebody. Is that right? …THE DISTRICT JUDGE: Is that right? Was C egged by somebody?…Father: He was exceedingly amused to have an egg land somewhere near his feet on one occasion. MOTHER: I do not want the younger children put in that position.
iv) Also on page 5 – ‘MOTHER: And what about the younger children— THE DISTRICT JUDGE: No, I am just thinking—MOTHER : —who go into the classroom— THE DISTRICT JUDGE: Yes. MOTHER: Think about the teachers then who have to pick up the pieces, so and so’s brother was egged at the weekend. The other children are too young to be worried about this and it’s confusing for them’.

v) At page 8: ‘THE DISTRICT JUDGE: What have you been doing with A and B at the moment so far as UKIP is concerned?…FATHER: A and B have sat on the van while a couple of the others get out and do some leafleting, that’s happened about once. Then there was a garden party where they played in the garden a long way from a congregation where there was a speech going on, so they were happy and they were supervised and they didn’t feel embarrassed and we all left together. So they were not put in any sort of awkward or inappropriate situation and I wouldn’t do, of course…THE DISTRICT JUDGE: I mean what I would like to do is to make a neutral order which is that neither of you should involve A or B in your political activities. Now, going to a garden party, I do not regard that as political activity, that is a garden party, all right? Probably sitting on the van is not but what I am talking about is they should not be going out leafleting and actively taking part….FATHER: Well, I’m just amazed, I’m just amazed— MOTHER: [Inaudible – overlap of speech] A was encouraged to hand out a leaflet and somebody went up to her and just tore it up in her face. She’s a tiny, little girl. This is really mentally challenging for them. THE DISTRICT JUDGE: Yes, look. Father, I am not expressing any political views, it is not appropriate for me to express any political views but there are a lot of people in this country who have very strong feelings about UKIP and I would not want to expose your two youngest children to emotional harm because of how people might react to them if they get involved. That is how I am looking at it, because you must accept there are a lot of people who are dead against UKIP, you understand that?

vi) At page 9 and 10 – ‘THE DISTRICT JUDGE: I am worried about somebody throwing – all right, C is 15, if he is happy to get involved in UKIP then he is old enough to decide that but I am not happy with A and B being involved in political activity to the extent that somebody in front of their faces rips up a poster. That is emotionally damaging for them. That should not be happening to two little girls and I do not care whether we are talking about the Labour party, the Conservative party, UKIP, the Liberal Democrats or whatever. That should not be happening to two little girls…FATHER: Well, that’s three of us agreeing then, isn’t it?…THE DISTRICT JUDGE: Yes….FATHER: So what’s the problem? I don’t see—…THE DISTRICT JUDGE: So I am going to make an order that neither of you are to involve the two younger girls actively in political activities, so I am saying to you garden party is not a problem, sitting on the van is not a problem but they are not going out actively taking part in your political activities because there are a lot of people out there who do not like UKIP and probably a lot of grown ups will not think about the impact on children’ .

16. There was no formal judgment given. The matter was dealt with as part of the discussion that took place at the hearing. There was no evidence given and the underlying facts were disputed, in particular, the extent to which the father does involve the children in his political activities and the extent to which this might have caused harm to them. The father wished to advance in full his arguments but the matter was cut short by the judge making what she perceived as a ‘neutral order’.

 

 

The Judge hearing the appeal, His Honour Judge Wildblood QC came to these conclusions  (underlining mine, emphasising that the three ingredients I spoke of earlier weren’t present. That, combined  with lack of  fairness to the father in the procedure meant the appeal was successful and the order discharged)

28. My difficulties with this case are:

i) The father had no notice before the hearing that this issue would be raised as one that was argued, let alone governed by orders.

ii) The factual underlay behind the orders is disputed and there was no written or oral evidence before the court that related to the issues before it.

iii) The contentions that the mother raised in support of the order were contested and the father did not have an opportunity to answer them. If he was not to have notice of this application for an order and was not to be allowed to give evidence about it he was entitled to the opportunity to make full submissions about it. He expressed the wish to advance his side of the story on the issues that arose and did not get it.

iv) The Cafcass report did not raise this as an issue that required intervention and there was no professional evidence before the court that supported the necessity for such an order.

v) This was an important issue in the context of this case. The order made was a prohibited steps order. Such an order should only be made for good (and, I add, established) cause and for reasons that are explained as being driven by the demands of the paramount welfare of the children. I do not think that such orders can be justified in contested proceedings on the grounds of neutrality and I do think that the decision must relate to the specific children in question. In Re C (A child) [2013] EWCA Civ 1412 Ryder LJ said: ‘A prohibited steps order is a statutory restriction on a parent’s exercise of their parental responsibility for a child. It can have profound consequences. On the facts of this case, without commenting on the wisdom of any step that either parent took or intended to take when they were already in dispute, and in the absence of an order of the court, father had the same parental responsibility as mother in relation to his son. Once the order was made, he lost the ability to exercise part of his responsibility and could not regain it without the consent of the court. That is because a prohibited steps order is not a reflection of any power in one parent to restrict the other (which power does not exist) it is a court order which has to be based on objective evidence. Once made, the terms of section 8 of the Children Act 1989 do not allow the parents to relax the prohibition by agreement. It can only be relaxed by the court. There is accordingly a high responsibility not to impose such a restriction without good cause and the reason must be given. Furthermore, where a prohibition is appropriate, consideration should always be given to the duration of that prohibition. Here the without notice prohibition was without limit of time. That was an error of principle which was not corrected by an early return date because that was susceptible of being moved or vacated unless the prohibition also had a fixed end date. The finite nature of the order must be expressed on the face of the order: R (Casey) v Restormel Borough Council [2007] EWHC 2554 (Admin) at [38] per Munby J’.

vi) Further, the District Judge was being asked to make orders that were invasive of the Article 8 rights of the father and of the children to organise their family lives together without interference by a public authority unless that interference was necessary and proportionate. That issue was not examined.

vii) Oral evidence is not always necessary (see Rule 22.2 of The Family Procedure Rules 2010). However there must be some satisfactory basis for an order if it is to be made. Otherwise the justification of the order is absent.

29. The form of the order made – The order that was made merely states that ‘neither parent is to involve the two youngest children, A and B, actively in any political activity’. I am personally in no position to cast stones on the drafting of injunctive orders in the light of what was said in Re Application by Gloucestershire County Council for the Committal to Prison of Matthew John Newman [2014] EWHC 3136 (Fam) but I think that there are very real difficulties about the form of the order that was made in this case.

30. By reason of Rule 37.9(3) of The Family Procedure Rules 2010 it is a matter of discretion as to whether a prohibited steps order should contain a penal notice (In the case of …a section 8 order…the court may’…attach a penal notice). I am concerned that this order did not make plain the consequences of any disobedience, the duration of the order or the activities that were prohibited. I realise that the District Judge said that garden parties would not be covered but I think that, if this order was ever to be enforceable in any way, it needed better definition. At a DRA there would have been very little time to examine that, I appreciate. District Judges lists are stretched to snapping point.

31. The conclusion that I have reached, therefore, is the decision of the District Judge was procedurally irregular and cannot stand. I therefore give permission to appeal and allow the appeal. I direct that there be a rehearing of the issues that have been raised in this appeal before me. Paragraph three of the order of the District Judge is discharged.

 

 

I think, regardless of what you might think about UKIP, the appeal was correct. The issues had not been properly explored and the father had not had proper opportunity to challenge what was a very unusual request, made at a hearing which was really only intended to set up the necessary directions to get the case to a substantial hearing.

I already have fond thoughts of His Honour Judge Wildblood QC, having read a lot of his judgments, and this made me think even better of him – this is very nicely done.

34. Finally, I will release this judgment on Bailii. By this decision I mean no offence at all to the very experienced District Judge for whom I wish to record my appreciation and thanks. In choosing my words when explaining why I am allowing this appeal I hope that I have displayed an understanding of the motto ‘do as you would be done by’ – who knows, tomorrow another court might hear an appeal from me.

 

[This case shows some of the risks of jigsaw identification – I’m sure I could work out UKIP Parliamentary candidates in the West country with five children and identify this family very swiftly. I’m sure others can do the same, and probably will. Not here in the comments though, please. ]

 

6. Publication – An officer of the press is present in court. I have referred her to Rule 27.11 of The Family Procedure Rules 2010 and also to PD27B of those rules. I explained the law to her in the presence of the parties and adjourned so that she could read the Practice Direction and the rule. She was referred to Section 97(2) of The Children Act 1989 and also to section 12 of the Administration of Justice Act 1960 and confirmed her understanding of the limitations on any reporting of this case. I am not going to explain those limitations in this judgment. If any person, organisation or party is thinking about making any aspect of this case public, they should inform themselves of those limitations. If in doubt, an application should be made to the court because breach of the law would amount to contempt which would be punishable by imprisonment, a fine or sequestration of assets.

7. Anonymised information about this case has already appeared in the press today. The father expresses his views in the press reports, without revealing his identity other than as a father and UKIP candidate. That being so I have alerted the Judicial Press Office about this case and of my intention to place this judgment on the Bailii website under the transparency provisions. I think it essential that there should be a clear and immediate record of the basis of my decision. That being so I have had to type this judgment myself immediately at the end of the hearing under pressure of time.

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