Little boxes and the ark of the covenant

Posted on March 3, 2014 by suesspiciousminds

As part of the continuing desire to standardise everything, and a belief that any problem can be solved if only there is enough written guidance, practice directions, policy frameworks and standard documents, there is a proposed model for the initial social work statement.

I am not sure why it is that there is a belief that one can collapse the diversity and detail of families into one standardised little-boxes pro-forma, as though all parents and children were Lego figures rather than individuals with hopes and fears, dreams and disappointments, struggles and triumphs.  If you have read any of the cases in my blog over the last two years, you will see that the Family Courts deal with surprising and intricate things, that people can end up in situations or predicaments that no person could anticpate and cater for in a standard document.  Structure, yes, guidance to avoid jargon and verbosity and sloppy attention to the difference between evidence and assertion – all good things. But don’t try to make a pro-forma that fits every case. It just isn’t do-able.

[I’m not entirely neutral on this point, I have to confess]

This one has been put together by the Association of Directors of Children’s Services.

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/279212/Annexes_to_statutory_guidance.docx

I don’t want to be unkind.  (I should just end the blog there to be honest). Apologies if you, or your friend, or your cousin was one of those people. I’m afraid that I don’t like it. Others may differ from my opinion – I may just be one loud-mouthed jerk, after all. Don’t take it to heart.  Honestly, stop reading right now. There is a really nice you-tube thing of ducklings on a waterslide – go and find that, it will cheer your heart.

In a Solution-Focused-Therapy style, let’s try to say something nice  “What were you pleased with?”

Well, people have clearly worked very hard on it.

Not necessarily the right people, but people have obviously worked very hard on it.

This version is actually worse than the first version of it, which takes some doing. It is also worse than the standardised model laid out in the revised PLO. A sentence I never thought that I’d type – I prefer the version in the new PLO document.

It is packed full of everything that is worse about design by committee – it is little boxes galore, it is reductionist, it assumes that everyone who will be writing the document is a moron incapable of independent thought without being led by the nose to the next little box to complete. The process of reading it is offensive to your eyes. It doesn’t include a Welfare Checklist. (I mean, the Act gives everyone a specific tool for analysis, is it too much to ask that this tool would be a centrepiece of the evidence produced?) It makes the Core Assessment look gorgeous and inspirational (this is some feat)

My actual reaction to this, when I opened it up and read it was…. well, do you remember the bit at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, where the nazi’s open the ark and one of the chief bad guys has his face melt off whilst screaming? Sort of that.

It’s the sort of thing that when you read it, you wonder who it is supposed to help? The workers writing it? Clearly not. The parents reading it? No way. The Judges? I’d be amazed if any Judge would prefer this cumbersome little-box form (that at one point tries to encapsulate all of the issues and thought processes around contact into a six column table) to a considered narrative document.  So, other than the designers of whatever computer programme will standardise this onto every social work computer in England, who is it FOR?

I think, comparing it to Lucy Reed’s suggested pro-forma for social work assessment, which was intended to be a nasty satire – I think Lucy’s is more rigorous as a document.

Family Justice Modernisation Programme Update No. Nine and Three Quarters

 

This document, however, it at the moment still just a consultation (which means that it is inevitable unless people who will be writing them, reading them, trying to explain them to parents speak out and say how ghastly and unfit for purpose it is – OR of course if you disagree with me, you should tell them that too)

https://www.education.gov.uk/consultations/index.cfm?action=consultationDetails&consultationId=1949&external=no&menu=1

Consultation ends 26th March.

If you can’t manage a long and detailed response, just send them this link.

 

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There’s Norway you are serious about a costs order

Posted on February 28, 2014 by suesspiciousminds

 

The Court of Appeal in Re S (Children) 2014 set aside another Care Order and Placement Order and sent the case back for re-hearing because the judgment was not sufficiently rigorous and “B-S compliant”. No great surprise there – it is something of a novelty these days when the Court of Appeal uphold a judge who makes these orders. What is a bit peculiar is making an order that the LA pay the appellants legal costs, nearly fourteen thousand pounds.

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2014/135.html

You may recall that the Supreme Court in Re T *dealt with the temptation to make Local Authorities pay costs to parties who won their case but had to pay for their own legal advice, rather than getting it for free, and were very plain that in the absence of bad conduct by the Local Authority, Courts should not make costs orders against Local Authorities just because they have money and the other side had bills.

 

* https://suesspiciousminds.com/2012/08/07/when-they-begin-to-intervene/   is the Re T blog

Why is this one, which involves a series of complex international issues and the father moving to Norway to live permanently during the hearing, different to Re T? Well, I can’t work out why not, reading the judgment.

There was an appeal recently  (Re C 2014 http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2014/70.html ) where a Local Authority got stung for costs, but in that one it was chiefly as a result of the LA counsel having a series of peculiar email exchanges with the judge at first instance, not being properly frank with the High Court judge during their own appeal and not having properly accepted that the evidence at first instance had sunk their case. That, in the view of the Court of Appeal had amounted to bad conduct, and thus a costs order could legitimately be made

A word in your shell-like

 

In this one though, the judge at first instance is criticised for not giving full enough reasons for refusing further assessment of the father and for not robustly tackling the Re B-S issues in the judgment. That’s not the fault of the Local Authority, that’s due to the Judge.

    1. The father has funded this appeal privately and seeks his costs in the sum of £13,787.70. He does not aver that the local authority have engaged in reprehensible behaviour or took an unreasonable stance in the hearing at first instance to justify a departure from the normal rule that costs are not awarded in children’s cases. However, Mr Bainham argues that the judgment in Re T (Children) [2012] UKSC 36 to this effect is directed at first instance hearings where public policy considerations militate against any possible financial deterrent to an authority taxed with the responsibility of protecting children from pursuing proceedings. Likewise, in the case of an appeal neither should a parent be deterred from challenging decisions which impact upon the most crucial of human relationships. Ms Markham argues the case is not so restricted and resists the application.

 

    1. I consider the question of costs in the appeal to be of a discrete category and the discretion of the Court broad. Re T is distinguishable for the reasons argued by Mr Bainham.

 

  1. In this case, Ms Markham has been forced to recognise the deficiencies of the judgment of the lower court but nevertheless has resisted the appeal. In the circumstances of the father’s limited means, already decreased by his travel from Norway to the United Kingdom to exercise contact, I would grant his application and order costs in the sum of £13,787.70.

 

It is that difficult sum which means that the costs of taking this case to the Supreme Court to correct that decision (which I respectfully suggest is wrong)  dwarf the amount ordered, so the decision will only be appealed if the LA involved decide that there’s an issue of principle involved.  As a long-standing advisor to Local Authorities, I know well that whilst someone at the coalface will say “It’s not the money, it’s the principle of the thing, let’s appeal”, someone higher up the chain of command who makes that decision will say “It’s not the principle, it’s the money, let it go”.   I can see why the Court of Appeal made that decision – the father had won his appeal and yet was out of pocket, Local Authorities (in the eyes of the Courts) have bottomless pockets – job done; but I think it flies in the face of Re T.

I hope they do appeal, and I think they would win; but I suspect pragmatism will win out over the principle of the thing.

If father incurs costs as a result of a flawed judgment, why aren’t his costs paid for by the Court service?  Don’t ever see the Court of Appeal deciding that…

 

The other unusual element here is the Court of Appeal suggestion that the Lucas direction (just because a person lies about X, doesn’t mean that they are lying about the major issue in the case) ought to be expanded

It has become de rigueur for a trial judge expressly to articulate their self direction in accordance with R v Lucas [1981] QB 720 in fact finding hearings. That is, the significance that may or may not attach to the lies told by a party in relation to the injury/ behaviour in question. There is none such in this judgment which deals with outcome. A specific reference to the same is unnecessary but I do consider that it was unrealistic for the judge, and the professionals not to have appraised the same exercise in the context of the non disclosure and/or deceit in question. The fact of a parent’s non disclosure or deceit is not necessarily determinative of parenting capacity or, depending on the circumstances, an ability to co-operate with the authorities.

You have been warned.

[The list of things that need to go into a final judgment now to make it bullet-proof is swelling – good news for those transcription firms that are charging by the page]

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Taken into care for being too fat

Posted on February 28, 2014 by suesspiciousminds

 

The Daily Mirror ran an interesting piece this week, as a result of Freedom of Information queries revealing that over the last five years, 74 children have been taken into care across the country for being too obese.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/seventy-four-kids-taken-care-protection-3190690

It is quite a balanced piece and has some interesting views within it – it is neither a hatchet job on parents who let their children get fat, nor on busybody professionals who interfere, but tries to look at both sides of the equation. It is probably the best article in a mainstream newspaper on child protection that I’ve read in a long while – recognising that these are difficult issues, hard choices and that there is no simple right answer either way.

From a strictly legal standpoint, it is worth remembering that a child can’t be removed from a parents care  (other than for a very short period by the police) unless a Court is satisfied that the child is suffering or is likely to suffer significant harm. Being a bit overweight (even quite a bit overweight) isn’t going to be enough for that.  In fact, these numbers tell you that – given the number of media articles bemoaning how Britain’s children are out of shape and obese, that’s quite a small number over a five year period. [If the NHS stats are right, ten per cent of children are significantly overweight]

In order to get anywhere close to meeting the significant harm test, a child would have to be massively overweight AND there would need to be some medical evidence about the harm that this would be causing the child.   (Mere common sense assertions that a child of eleven being sixteen stone is harmful won’t do – you need a medical opinion as to the damage that this is causing their health, their joints, their heart, their ability to participate in ordinary childhood life)

 

Even if a child does reach that level of obesity, the Court would still be carefully balancing the two types of harm in this case – that physical and medical harm that the obesity is causing against the emotional harm and trauma of removing a child from parents.  (I think the Mirror article covers that very well).  The Court would want to be thinking about whether there is anything else that can be done – better education, a dietician, stern warnings, therapy, putting the child on a prescribed diet – those are all things that would usually be tried before contemplating making an order to remove a child.  It would very much be the last resort when anything else one could reasonably try hasn’t worked.

And of course, the removal into care isn’t a magic wand – it isn’t a magic solution that will solve the problem. For some of these overweight children, there’s an emotional or comfort component to their over-eating and it might be that being away from the parents makes them far more unhappy and far more likely to eat more. The article, and the statistics, can’t tell us how many of those children went home again after their time in care, or how many had their problems addressed / made worse.

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Manuela Sykes

Posted on February 27, 2014 by suesspiciousminds

 

Manuela Sykes, from what I have read about her, sounds like an amazing woman. I hope that her actions in this case make a difference for others like her in the future.

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/COP/2014/B9.html

Lucy Series over at The Small Places has written an amazing and moving article about this woman, and it is far better than anything that I will manage, so go and read that

http://thesmallplaces.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/i-was-ever-fighter-so-one-fight-more.html

Manuela was 89 and suffered from dementia. It was considered by Westminster that she could not be kept safe in her own home, so they placed her in a secure home and (very commendably) made an application to the Court of Protection for authorisation of Deprivation of Liberty  (making that application allowed Manuela to be represented and to challenge that and made it a judicial decision rather than an administrative one. That was a damn fine thing to do, well done Westminster)

District Judge Eldergill decided the case, and I would like to say that it is a model judgment – I hope it blazes a trail that others will follow.  (Justice Jackson decided a case on a similar rationale in 2013, a judgment I praised highly at the time)

Ms S has had a dramatic life, and the drama is not yet over.

She has played a part in many of the moral, political and ideological battles of the twentieth century. A vegetarian from an early age; a lifelong feminist and campaigner for women’s rights; a Wren in the Fleet Air Arm; a committed Christian; a political activist who stood for Parliament; a councillor on the social services committee of the local authority that now authorises her deprivation of liberty; the editor for 40 years of a trade union newspaper; a helper of homeless people and an advocate for them; and a campaigner for people with dementia, from which condition she now suffers herself.

The court is not concerned with her particular political views, whether they are left or right of centre, and nor is it concerned with her religious views. These are matters for her. Their main relevance to this court is that by nature she is a fighter, a campaigner, a person of passion. She appears always to have placed herself in the public eye, in the mainstream, rather than ‘far from the madding crowd,’ debating the issues of the day, causing, accepting and courting controversy.

In 2006, she was diagnosed with dementia and appears to have responded to that in the same forthright manner with which she has approached everything else in her life. She participated in a dementia project and campaigned for the rights of dementia sufferers, in particular older women. In December 2006, she made a living Will. Some time later, in 2011, she appointed an attorney for property and affairs, a person she trusted to act for her in accordance with guidance set out in her LPA (attorney) document.

I DECLARE THAT if at any time any of the following circumstances exist, namely:

1 I suffer from one or more of these conditions: ….

1.5 senile or pre-senile dementia (e.g. Alzheimer’s disease); ….

2 I have become unable to participate effectively in decisions about my medical care; and

3 Two independent doctors (one a consultant) are of the opinion, having examined in full my circumstances and prognosis, that any of the following apply:

3.1 there is no reasonably likelihood of substantial recovery from illness involving severe pain and distress and from which it is likely I will die in the near future; or

3.2 I am in a state of unconsciousness or coma and it is unlikely that I will regain consciousness; or

3.3 I suffer from a mental illness resulting in me having a very limited awareness of my surrounding environment and an inability to perform basic tasks and from which it is unlikely that I will recover.

THEN AND IN THOSE CIRCUMSTANCES my directions are as follows:

1 That I am not to be subjected to any medical intervention or treatment aimed at prolonging or sustaining my life;

2 That I consent to the control of physically distressing symptoms…by appropriate and aggressive palliative care even if such care is likely to have the effect of shortening my life ….

That document proved to be very important, and I hope that this case will highlight how important such documents can be in protecting your wishes – amongst other things, it ensured that Manuela’s desire that her name should be published if she ever came before the Court of Protection meant that I can name her, and gives a much greater chance that the mainstream press will follow her story.

On the issue of capacity, the Judge found that Manuela, did, as a result of her dementia lack capacity to make decisions for herself about where she should live

Effect of this dementia on MS’s capacity to make the relevant decisions

Ms S is intelligent, articulate and knowledgeable. She has no difficulties expressing herself. That her core personality is intact is clearly demonstrated by her continuing and passionate commitment to the causes to which she has dedicated her life. Her weight is healthy, physically she looks many years younger and fitter than her chronological age, she presents well and her care is good. There are, therefore, currently no signs of neglect or refusal of care.

Unfortunately, this is not the whole picture. Her short-term memory is very severely impaired. Because she is so intelligent and articulate, this may not be immediately apparent from a brief superficial exchange.

Following an examination on 2 December 2013, Dr Barker reported that her short-term memory is less than one minute. It is this inability to retain information which lies at the root of many of her recent difficulties. The consequence is that she is unable to retain, nor therefore weigh, information (highly) relevant to the decisions about the treatment, care and support she requires.

In particular, she cannot recall the circumstances and behaviour that caused others to remove her from her own home to hospital and to transfer her to residential care. Lacking this information, she does not accept that she had significant problems at home, nor therefore that she requires a significant package of care and support. Nor can she appreciate that, without additional care, it is likely that the problems will be the same as before, because the situation is the same as before. It is recorded that she has a tendency to become defiant when these issues are raised. This is logical and understandable because, unless one has a memory of the previous difficulties, the professional view must appear patronising and intrusive, and the problems made-up or grossly exaggerated.

Sadly, the preponderance of the evidence requires a conclusion that MS lacks capacity to make the relevant decisions for herself. She frequently asks, ‘Why am I here’ because she cannot remember how her situation has arisen, nor therefore understand and weigh the reasonably foreseeable consequences of accepting or refusing necessary care or support.

To summarise, I accept the professional and family view that she lacks the capacity to make these decisions for herself because her dementia has affected her ability to understand, retain and weigh the relevant information. It is more than simply an unwise decision that she chooses to make, if free to do so.

I admire District Judge Eldergill immensely for being honest about the dilemma before the Court – there was no solution that would keep Manuela Skyes HAPPY AND SAFE – there was a choice to be made between the two.

Having summarised the legal framework, I must consider MS’s best interests in the context of it.

There is, of course, no solution.

In the suggested care settings the situation will be less than optimal.

None of the options canvassed with the court will provide Ms S with security, safety, liberty, happiness, an absence of suffering and an unrestricted home life. These different considerations cannot all be reconciled and promoted within a single setting, and the realisation of some of them must inevitably involve the sacrifice of others. The task is to choose which of these legitimate values and aims to compromise and which to give expression to, in her best interests.

The Judge addressed how Manuela Sykes expressed wishes fed into the best interests decision – underlining is mine – expect to see this quoted fairly often

S’s wishes and feelings are important factors to be taken into account when reaching my decision: after all, why would anyone wish someone to be cared for otherwise than in accordance with their wishes if they can be adequately cared for in accordance with their wishes?

In taking her wishes and feelings into account, I have considered the case of ITW v Z, [19] the degree of incapacity, the strength and consistency of her views, the likely impact of knowing that her wishes and feelings are being overridden (if my decision is contrary to her wishes), the extent to which her wishes and feelings are rational, sensible, responsible and pragmatically capable of sensible implementation, and the extent to which her wishes and feelings can properly be accommodated within the court’s overall assessment of her best interests.

I have noted the consistency of her wishes and feelings; the effect on her mental health, happiness and well-being of the continued loss of her home; her attitude towards institutional life and the importance to her of her freedom. She values her privacy and the sense of security at home.

MS is still able to appreciate and express the value of being at liberty and being allowed autonomy. [20] The importance of individual liberty is of the same fundamental importance to incapacitated people who still have clear wishes and preferences about where and how they live as it is for those who remain able to make capacitous decisions. This desire to determine one’s own interests is common to almost all human beings. Society is made up of individuals, and each individual wills certain ends for themselves and their loved ones, and not others, and has distinctive feelings, personal goals, traits, habits and experiences. Because this is so, most individuals wish to determine and develop their own interests and course in life, and their happiness often depends on this. The existence of a private sphere of action, free from public coercion or restraint, is indispensable to that independence which everyone needs to develop their individuality, even where their individuality is diminished, but not extinguished, by illness. It is for this reason that people place such weight on their liberty and right to choose.

Any written statements made by her when she had capacity

Ms S’s living Will and the guidance in her Lasting Power of Attorney are written statements which I have considered and taken into account. They indicate a wish to remain in her own property for as long as ‘feasible’ and in general that she prioritises quality of life over the prolongation of life (see §5).

Relevant beliefs and values

The law requires objective analysis of a subject not an object.

Ms S is the subject.

Therefore, it is her welfare in the context of her wishes, feelings, beliefs and values that is important. This is the principle of beneficence which asserts an obligation to help others further their important and legitimate interests. In this important sense, the judge no less than the local authority is her servant, not her master.

Applauds

The available evidence indicates that Ms S’s relevant beliefs and values include a very strong belief in and commitment to the value of open public debate and social services for those who need them.

She has unambiguous opinions about what is right and what is wrong, and has spent much of her life airing those opinions. It seems plain that it is fundamental to her nature and purpose in life that she is free to air and promote her political and personal values through discussion, marches, rallies, newspapers, campaigning and other forms of political activity.

She has a strong will to change the world, to influence others and to draw their attention to the plight of those she believes need and deserve more care, such as the homeless and people experiencing dementia. She also has a strong desire to promote the interests of those she believes are politically disadvantaged: women as compared with men; the homeless compared to those with homes; the older and more frail compared with the younger and fitter; and, to use her term, the ‘double whammy’ disadvantage of older women.

These political and personal values have a religious element, evident from her expressed religious beliefs and attendance at church services and Quaker meetings.

One thing she seems never to have lacked is courage and a willingness to place herself at the centre of public debate and attention. She stood in two Parliamentary by-elections and campaigned to have Buckingham Palace rated. Indeed, the impression is that she relishes being at the centre of public events because it means that she is exerting influence; is being heard; is affecting the outcome of social issues important to her.

All of this is highly relevant when it comes not only to the court’s decision concerning her care package but also, and perhaps even more so, the decision whether she should remain anonymous or be identified as the person at the heart of her case. What she has done with her life indicates that she has always wanted to be ‘someone’, to have influence.

Realistically, this is her last chance to exert a political influence which is recognisable as her influence. Her last contribution to the country’s political scene and, locally, the workings and deliberations of the council and social services committee which she sat on.

On a personal level, her strong sense of self, her belief in the importance of the individual, her desire for freedom and autonomy are magnetic factors, operating at positive and negative poles by providing both the pull of freedom and the counterforce of resistance to outside care.

It is undoubtedly hyperbole to suggest that Manuela Sykes is the Rosa Parks of dementia, but what the hell – that is how I feel about her at this moment.

It is my view that it is in Ms S’s best interests to attempt a one-month trial of home-based care.

Very helpfully, at the end of the final hearing the local authority told me that if I rejected its primary case, and decided on such a trial, they would put a transitional plan in place to enable the trial to proceed.

The judgment was published, and Manuela’s name not anonymised – in accordance with what she had asked for. The Judge does make this very good observation about “secret Courts” though, and I think it has wider application

Under the Court of Protection Rules 2007, the general rule is that a hearing is to be held in private.

This reflects the personal, private, nature of the information which the court is usually considering.

That is not the same as being secretive; a GP is not a ‘secret doctor’ because the press have no unqualified right to be present during patient consultations or to report what is said. All citizens have a right to expect that information about them will be held in confidence by their doctors and social workers, and to expect that any overriding, future, need to breach this right will go no further than necessary, and only exceptionally involve seeing it in national newspapers.

Everyone benefits from, and enjoys, this level of privacy and therefore there is a strong public interest in privacy. Not to allow an incapacitated person the same general right to privacy or confidentiality that we claim it for ourselves would be to discriminate against them because of their mental illness and vulnerability.

The one, highly important, difference is that whilst in an ideal world incapacitated people would have exactly the same right to privacy and confidentiality that the rest of us enjoy, when judges make decisions for them this brings into play the competing consideration that the public ought to know how courts of law function and administer justice: what kinds of decisions they are making, the quality of those decisions, and so forth.

While it is sometimes necessary to distinguish between ‘the public interest’ and ‘matters which the public finds interesting,’ there is a high public interest in seeing that hearings which determine the rights of incapacitated people, and their families, are fair and properly administered.

[You don’t often get cases where everyone involved comes out of it well, but this is one]

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Blood transfusions, jehovah’s witness and court of protection

Posted on February 27, 2014 by suesspiciousminds

The decision of the Court of Protection in Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals Foundation Trust and LM

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/COP/2014/454.html

Readers may be aware that followers of the Jehovah’s Witnesses faith are staunchly opposed to blood transfusions and will not accept them for themselves, even if that means losing their life. There has been quite a lot of litigation in the past about children whose parents have that faith, who require blood transfusions. A somewhat uneasy accommodation has been reached whereby the parent won’t agree but won’t stand in the way of the Court making an order that the child must have a blood transfusion.

An adult Jehovah’s Witness is legally entitled to refuse blood transfusion for themselves. It may seem silly and reckless to us, but it is a central part of their belief and faith, and they are entitled to make that decision for themselves.

That leaves one gray area – what happens where an adult Jehovah’s Witness lacks capacity and then needs a blood transfusion if they are to survive? What should the Court decide is in their best interests?

Not sure there’s a right answer here, and I expect it might cause some debate in the comments section.

On 18 February, an application was made by the Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals Foundation Trust for a declaration that it would be lawful to withhold a blood transfusion from LM, a gravely ill 63-year-old female Jehovah’s Witness. The application came into the urgent applications list at short notice. When it was made, the medical view was that LM might not survive for as long as a day in the absence of a blood transfusion and that even if one was given, she might still die. A decision had to be taken there and then. I took the view that it was not practicable or necessary for a litigation friend to be appointed.

In this case, the Judge made the following declaration

It shall be lawful for the doctors treating LM to withhold blood transfusions or administration of blood products notwithstanding that such treatments would reduce the likelihood of her dying and might prevent her death.

Sadly, LM died before judgment could be given

    1. This judgment concerns these questions:

 

    • Did LM (before she became unable to do so) have the capacity to make a decision to refuse a blood transfusion?
    • If so, did her decision apply to her later circumstances?
    • Alternatively, if the answer to either of the above questions was ‘no’, was the Trust’s proposal to withhold a transfusion in her best interests?

 

The Court heard from witnesses about LM’s capacity and her wishes and faith

    1. In this context, I heard from Mr R, who first met LM in 1975 and had known her ever since. He last saw her shortly before her admission. He brought letters from three other members of the congregation who knew her. Mr R described LM as a formerly active member of the congregation who fully subscribed to the tenets of the faith (including its opposition to blood transfusion) and had taught them to others, although she had become less engaged in recent years. Her beliefs on the question had been consistent. He says that if LM had been able to speak for herself she would have been distraught at the prospect of receiving a transfusion.

 

    1. Speaking on his own behalf, and expressing the united medical view, Dr C said that the evidence available to him suggested that during her time in hospital and up to 13 February LM had had capacity. There was no evidence that mental illness had interfered with her decision-making. He considered that her decision applied to her life-threatening situation, which was an unfortunate but natural progression from her underlying condition. He considered that her clearly stated views should be respected.

 

    1. Dr C said that the treating doctors intended to continue to withhold blood products, recognising that this compromised their ability to provide full care. LM would continue to receive full active medical care in all other respects in an attempt to bring her through until it became clear that all attempts were futile. At that point the team would act in her best interests as with any critically ill patient.

 

    1. The Trust’s submission was that LM had clearly made her wishes known even with knowledge of death. Alternatively, if it was a matter of best interests, the Trust did not wish to act against her wishes, being concerned to respect her individual dignity.

 

    1. Addressing the question of capacity, I find as follows:

 

1) Prior to the afternoon of 13 February, LM had the capacity to decide whether to accept or refuse a blood transfusion. There is no evidence that her underlying mental illness rendered her unable to make a decision (MCA s.2(1)). The presumption of capacity (s.1(2)) was not displaced and the criteria for capacity (s.3) were on the balance of probabilities met. I am satisfied that LM understood the nature, purpose and effects of the proposed treatment, including that refusal of a blood transfusion might have fatal consequences. 2) The decision taken by LM prior to her loss of capacity was applicable to her later more serious condition. There was no difference in kind and I am satisfied that she intended her decision to be effective in the circumstances that subsequently arose.

    1. In consequence, I find that LM made a decision that the doctors rightly considered must be respected.

 

    1. In the alternative, if LM had not made a valid, applicable decision, I would have granted the declaration sought on the basis that to order a transfusion would not have been in her best interests. Applying s.4(6) in relation to the specific issue of blood transfusion, her wishes and feelings and her long-standing beliefs and values carried determinative weight. It is also of relevance that a transfusion might not have been effective to save her life.

 

  1. The right to life (Art. 2 ECHR) is fundamental but it is not absolute. There is no obligation on a patient with decision-making capacity to accept life-saving treatment, and doctors are neither entitled nor obliged to give it   
  2.     The next issue was delicate and difficult – should there be a Reporting Restriction Order preventing LM’s real name being made public? All of the law on RROs relate to living persons and that made it uncertain as to whether an RRO could be made – the Judge took the pragmatic view that he would make the order and if anyone really wanted to litigate the issue then they could do so at a later stage
  3.  
  4.  
  5. The remainder of this judgment concerns an application for a Reporting Restriction Order made by the Trust on 24 February. At the hearing on 18 February I indicated that I would grant such an order subject to the proper procedures being followed, which eventually they were. I intended to formally make the order when handing down judgment on 26 February, but LM’s death intervened. Accordingly, I heard further submissions from Mr Speker and Mr Farmer about the appropriate course to take.
  6. The court has jurisdiction to make an order during the lifetime of a patient that will continue to have effect after death unless and until it is varied: Re C (Adult Patient: Restriction of Publicity After Death [1996] 1 FCR 605. The situation here is different in that the patient is no longer alive. The unusual circumstances raise interesting questions about the court’s jurisdiction to restrict the reporting after a person’s death of information gathered during proceedings that took place during her lifetime.
  7. It seems to me that the proper approach is to make an order that preserves the situation until the time comes when someone seeks to present full argument on the question. I will say no more than that for the present
  8. I make a Reporting Restriction Order preventing the naming of LM, and the medical and care staff who looked after her and the two Jehovah’s Witnesses who participated in the proceedings. It does not prevent the naming of the Trust or the hospital, nor discussion of the underlying issues or the court’s procedures. Anyone affected by the order may apply to vary or discharge it, whereupon its terms or existence will be looked at afresh.

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Incapacity cannot be deduced from isolated incidents of eccentric reasoning

Posted on February 27, 2014 by suesspiciousminds

The Court of Protection decision in Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust and JB 2014

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/COP/2014/342.html

In this case, the Court of Protection, in the form of Mr Justice Peter Jackson, was faced with an application by the Hospital for a declaration that JB, who was not consenting to an amputation, lacked capacity to make that decision and that the surgery was in her best interests.

The case throws up some interesting issues, and I think it leads fairly neatly into my next piece, in suggesting that the Court of Protection may be moving away from a patrician “State knows best” view of cases towards a more “vulnerable people are owed some respect for their wishes and feelings” view.

You can’t really sum up the whole issue of capacity and declarations about capacity much better than the Judge does here – it is an excellent distillation of the balancing act that the Court has to perform

    1. The right to decide whether or not to consent to medical treatment is one of the most important rights guaranteed by law. Few decisions are as significant as the decision about whether to have major surgery. For the doctors, it can be difficult to know what recommendation to make. For the patient, the decision about whether to accept or reject medical advice involves weighing up the risks and benefits according to the patient’s own system of values against a background where diagnosis and prognosis are rarely certain, even for the doctors. Such decisions are intensely personal. They are taken in stressful circumstances. There are no right or wrong answers. The freedom to choose for oneself is a part of what it means to be a human being.

 

    1. For this reason, anyone capable of making decisions has an absolute right to accept or refuse medical treatment, regardless of the wisdom or consequences of the decision. The decision does not have to be justified to anyone. In the absence of consent any invasion of the body will be a criminal assault. The fact that the intervention is well-meaning or therapeutic makes no difference.

 

    1. There are some who, as a result of an impairment or disturbance in the functioning of the mind or brain, lack the mental capacity to decide these things for themselves. For their sake, there is a system of legal protection, now codified in the Mental Capacity Act 2005. This empowers the Court of Protection to authorise actions that would be in the best interests of the incapacitated person.

 

    1. The Act contains a number of important general principles regarding capacity:

 

  • A person lacks capacity in relation to a matter if at the material time he is unable to make a decision for himself in relation to the matter because of an impairment of, or a disturbance in the functioning of, the mind or brain: s.2(1).
  • A person must be assumed to have capacity unless it is established that he lacks capacity: s.1(2).
  • The question of whether a person lacks capacity must be decided on the balance of probabilities: s.2(4).
  • A person is not to be treated as unable to make a decision unless all practicable steps to help him to do so have been taken without success: s.1(3)
  • A person is not to be treated as unable to make a decision merely because he makes an unwise decision: s.1(4).
  • A lack of capacity cannot be established merely by reference to—

(a) a person’s age or appearance, or

(b) a condition of his, or an aspect of his behaviour, which might lead others to make unjustified assumptions about his capacity: s.2(3).

    1. These principles reflect the self-evident seriousness of interfering with another person’s freedom of action. Accordingly, interim measures aside, the power to intervene only arises after it is has been proved that the person concerned lacks capacity. We have no business to be interfering in any other circumstances. This is of particular importance to people with disadvantages or disabilities. The removal of such ability as they have to control their own lives may feel an even greater affront to them that to others who are more fortunate.

 

    1. Furthermore, the Act provides (s.1(6)) that even where a person lacks capacity, any interference with their rights and freedom of action must be the least restrictive possible: this acknowledges that people who lack capacity still have rights and that their freedom of action is as important to them as it is to anyone else.

 

  1. The temptation to base a judgement of a person’s capacity upon whether they seem to have made a good or bad decision, and in particular upon whether they have accepted or rejected medical advice, is absolutely to be avoided. That would be to put the cart before the horse or, expressed another way, to allow the tail of welfare to wag the dog of capacity. Any tendency in this direction risks infringing the rights of that group of persons who, though vulnerable, are capable of making their own decisions. Many who suffer from mental illness are well able to make decisions about their medical treatment, and it is important not to make unjustified assumptions to the contrary.

 

By way of background to this case

    1. It concerns a 62 year old lady named JB. In earlier life, before she became too unwell, she undertook responsible work. She now lives with her twin sister. She is described by her Community Psychiatric Nurse as a strong willed woman who before her latest illness was good at needlework and art, enjoyed reading, attended her local church and took a lot of interest in community events.

 

  1. JB has a number of mental and physical disabilities. In her 20s, she was diagnosed as suffering from paranoid schizophrenia for which she has received treatment of various kinds, including during several involuntary hospital admissions, the last being in 2005. Since then she has been subject to what is now known as a Community Treatment Order. She lacks insight into her mental illness but accepts antipsychotic medication to avoid being returned to hospital.
    1. On New Year’s Eve, JB, having been unwell for several days, was readmitted and has remained in hospital since then. Her right foot was now entirely mummified and by the end of January it had come off, leaving an unresolved wound. Once again, the advice of the surgeons was that an amputation was necessary to allow the wound to be closed and to prevent it becoming infected. JB continued to refuse consent for this on some occasions, though she expressed agreement on others. Indeed, on 4 February she signed a consent form. Once again, doubts were expressed about her capacity, with no clear conclusion being reached. An example is the report of Dr B, who assessed JB on 14 January and concluded that “I am of the opinion that one needs to be certain of her capacity to consent or refuse the proposed intervention… However one cannot say with certainty she lacks capacity.” It was again agreed that an application would be made to the Court of Protection.

 

    1. In the meantime, discussion was taking place between surgeons, physicians and consultants in rehabilitation as to the nature of the amputation that would be most appropriate. At different times, it has been suggested that there should be amputation below the knee, through the knee or above the knee. Each option has important consequences in relation to the process of rehabilitation and the possibility of the patient walking in future. At the outset of this hearing the Trust’s position was that a through-knee operation should be approved, but this then changed to a recommendation for a below-knee operation. It is to be noted that the consent form signed by JB only two days before the proceedings began had covered an above-knee operation. The relevance of all of this is that the attempts to assess her capacity have taken place against a background of shifting medical opinion.

 

  1. On 6 February, the Trust applied to the court for a declaration that JB lacks capacity to make a decision about serious medical treatment. It sought a declaration that it would be in her best interests to have a through-knee amputation and for her to be sedated if she resisted.

21. I turn to the question of whether JB has the capacity to decide whether or not to consent to amputation of her right leg. The Trust says that she does not, relying upon evidence given by Dr O. The Official Solicitor says that she does, relying upon the evidence of Dr Pravin Prabhakaran, consultant psychiatrist, and Mr Jack Collin, consultant surgeon. Each of these witnesses has assessed JB during the past week and gave evidence during the hearing.

 

The issue of capacity was a critical one – the Judge makes it manifestly plain – if a person has capacity to consent to surgery and understands the pros and cons and risks and benefits to make an informed choice then they also have the capacity to say no. The surgery could not be performed on JB if she had capacity, because she has the right to say no.  IF she lacked capacity, then the Court would still have to consider whether the surgery was in her best interests (which does not mean simply substituting what a rational person might do in her shoes, but a consideration of what is in HER best interests)

Frankly, if surgeons came to me and said that they couldn’t agree on whether to cut my leg off above the knee, below the knee or through the knee, I wouldn’t consent to an amputation – I’d tell them to go away and come back when they know between themselves which it was.

The Judge makes a very good point about the process of assessing a person’s capacity

What is required here is a broad, general understanding of the kind that is expected from the population at large. JB is not required to understand every last piece of information about her situation and her options: even her doctors would not make that claim. It must also be remembered that common strategies for dealing with unpalatable dilemmas – for example indecision, avoidance or vacillation – are not to be confused with incapacity. We should not ask more of people whose capacity is questioned than of those whose capacity is undoubted.

 

Absolutely. Anyone faced with that decision would have had some emotional reaction to it, and some changes of heart, some denial, some over-optimism, some hopelessness. It is not fair to set the test of capacity as though the person had to approach the decision as though they were Mr Spock, coolly and dispassionately considering the pros and cons.

On assessing the conflicting medical evidence about capacity, the Judge broadly considered that those who claimed she did not have capacity were placing too high a test on JB  (underlining mine)

    1. At the hearing evidence was taken from Dr O and Dr Prabhakaran via a telephone conference call (so that the latter heard the former’s evidence), and from Mr Collin in person.

 

    1. Dr O has been JB’s community psychiatrist since October 2013. She has seen her three times: October, January and 12 February. She advises that JB lacks insight into her mental state and does not believe that she has a mental illness. This is not uncommon with schizophrenia. Dr O believes that in relation to her physical health, JB can understand and retain some but not all of what is being said by the doctors, but that her ability to weigh the information is compromised by her tendency to minimise and disbelieve what the doctors are telling her. She conceded that JB’s approach was possibly a normal reaction but said that she is not convinced that she had actually weighed all the evidence that she had been given. Nonetheless, over time JB has shown more belief and greater engagement, telling Dr O that she is frightened of surgery.

 

    1. Dr O advises that schizophrenia can have an effect on cognition but she was not in fact able to give any clear instance of irrationality in JB’s current thinking. She went so far as to say that the rejection of a through-knee operation was evidence of incapacity, although by the time she gave evidence this had been dropped as a plan.

 

    1. I note that as recently as 16 January, Dr O and Dr B expressed themselves unable to reach a conclusion as to whether JB had capacity and that during her assessment on 12 February, Dr O obtained only limited co-operation from JB.

 

    1. Dr Prabhakaran assessed JB on 9 and 12 February. She was more communicative with him than with Dr O, possibly because she regarded him as someone who is not implicated in her Community Treatment Order. He confirms the diagnosis of schizophrenia and the absence of any psychotic features or depression. He says that he had a detailed discussion with her about the various forms of amputation. JB was able to understand the main benefits and risks associated with each procedure, including the risk of death. He found her consistent in her views and reasoning process. She was very well orientated and had no problem with understanding or retaining information.

 

    1. Dr Prabhakaran discussed the then proposed through-knee operation, saying that it was the doctors’ preferred option. JB replied: “It is not my preferred option… I have a horror of the whole thing”. She said that she wanted her leg to remain as long as possible and only wanted any necrotic part removed. If she was to have an operation she wanted a longer leg and a hope of walking. She does not want to live her life with a shorter leg.

 

    1. During this conversation, JB would often pause for a long time before answering. Dr Prabhakaran considered this an effect of her schizophrenia impacting on her cognitive functioning, possibly alongside tiredness and the hospital environment. He says that given time, she can process and communicate her clear wishes. He is confident that JB has capacity to make a decision with regard to surgery, including a decision not to have it.

 

    1. Mr Collin assessed JB from a surgical perspective on 13 February. His conversation with her gave him a full opportunity to assess her understanding, as would be normal in such a case. His report details a full conversation. JB was able to give him a lucid and coherent medical history. In Mr Collin’s experience, few patients would give a better account. She has a tendency to minimise, but this is a natural response and not evidence of any incapacity. Mr Collin is aware that JB is mentally ill but throughout the discussion she gave him no reason to suspect a lack of capacity to consent or withhold consent for any essential operation.

 

    1. Mr Collin explained that JB’s decision in October to refuse surgery was unusual but not illogical and that from the medical perspective the loss of the foot by natural processes had been satisfactory. Surgically, her position is better now than it had been in October in that she is not currently suffering from any infection. As matters now stand, it is Mr Collin’s opinion that a below-knee amputation is the only sensible clinical decision to make, but if JB does not want this there would be no compelling reason to seek to persuade her otherwise. A substantial risk of infection with possibly life-threatening consequences in the longer term undoubtedly exists and the medical advice from any surgeon in the land would be clear, but she does not have to take it. Apart from anything else, the greater short-term risks arise from remaining in hospital with the risk of infection and from the small but not insignificant possibility of a major adverse consequence from surgery of this kind.

 

    1. It was, perhaps surprisingly, suggested to Mr Collin that he lacked the expertise to assess capacity. He accepted that the assessment of mental illness was outside his remit but said that he was well qualified to assess the capacity of patients to consent to operations. I agree. All doctors and many non-medical professionals (for example, social workers and solicitors) have to assess capacity at one time or another. Bearing in mind JB’s longstanding mental illness it is entirely appropriate that the core assessment of her capacity comes from psychiatrists, but other disciplines also have an important contribution to make.

 

    1. The combined and complementary evidence of Dr Prabhakaran and Mr Collin provides powerful confirmation that JB has the ability to understand, retain and weigh and use the necessary information about the nature, purpose and effects of the proposed treatment. I accept the view of Dr Prabhakaran that JB’s schizophrenia is relevant to the way in which she decides, and not to her capacity to decide. Her tendency at times to be uncommunicative or avoidant and to minimise the risks of inaction are understandable human ways of dealing with her predicament and do not amount to incapacity.

 

    1. I depart from the assessment of Dr O because I am not satisfied that she establishes the necessary link between JB’s mental illness and the alleged incapacity. Further, her analysis demands more of JB than the law requires. It is not for JB to understand everything, or to prove anything. Dr O among others has perfectly properly raised questions about JB’s capacity, but her evidence does no more than that and does not discharge the burden upon the Trust.

 

  1. I do not accept the Trust’s submission that incapacity can be deduced from isolated instances of eccentric reasoning on the part of JB: for example, agreeing to intravenous antibiotics or blood transfusion but refusing the necessary cannulation. I also reject the submission that those who conclude that JB does not lack capacity have failed to grapple with the facts that (i) she undoubtedly lacks capacity in relation to treatment for her mental illness and (ii) she has lacked capacity in relation to surgical treatment in the past and (iii) she has changed her position from refusal of all surgery to a willingness to contemplate an operation of some kind, a situation calling for investigation. As to the first element, as has already been said, there is no necessary correlation between a lack of insight into schizophrenia and incapacity to decide about surgery. The second element begs the question, in that it has not been established that JB has ever lacked capacity to decide about surgery. Finally, the development in JB’s thinking about amputation was in my view well understood by Dr Prahakaran. Insofar as it calls for any explanation, her view has evolved over time in a way that is consistent with her mental state.

 

A particular issue arises, and is dealt with in paragraph 28 – there was a time in the process, when JB was accepting that surgery was the right option (i.e following the medical advice). There’s always a risk in these situations that one tends to assume that the person has capacity when they make a decision that the doctor supports – just because JB agreed with the doctor does not mean that she had capacity. If she had said no, on the same day, the temptation would have been to dispute that she had capacity to say no, but the test and principles are the same. The ability to say no doesn’t require more capacity than the ability to say yes.

 

28. A similar issue arises from the statement of Dr W, a vascular surgeon. In common with the other surgeons he believes that an amputation is in JB’s best interests. Writing on 5 February, he said “…we now have a window of opportunity as she has become cooperative with her medical management and has consented to the operation…” There is a danger that in a difficult case like this the patient is regarded as capable of making a decision that follows medical advice but incapable of making one that does not.

 

The conclusion therefore was that JB had capacity, and that there was no locus to make a declaration. It seemed that JB might be more willing to consent to the surgery, but that had to be her free choice.

My conclusion is that JB undoubtedly has a disturbance in the functioning of her mind in the form of paranoid schizophrenia (as to which she lacks insight), but that it has not been established that she thereby lacks the capacity to make a decision about surgery for herself. On the contrary, the evidence establishes that she does have capacity to decide whether to undergo an amputation of whatever kind. She now appears to be open to having the below-knee operation that the doctors recommend. Whether she has it will be a matter for her to decide for herself with the support of those around her.

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And I ain’t talking ‘bout chicken and gravy

Posted on February 21, 2014 by suesspiciousminds

I’m afraid that I have to tackle the Court of Appeal decision in Re M (A Child) 2014, but it relates to Brussels II, article 15 and the Vienna Convention, and frankly it is hard for even me to have any enthusiasm for it

 So this is better – not sure who wrote this translation of a Human Rights blog article so that Snoop Doggy Dogg is the only person alive who could understand what is being said, but courtesy of John Bolch over at www.familylore.com   it did entertain me

 

http://www.gizoogle.net/index.php?search=http%3A%2F%2Fukhumanrightsblog.com%2F2012%2F11%2F21%2Fthe-bailii-lecture-no-judgment-no-justice%2F&se=Gizoogle+Dis+Shiznit

 

Sample :-

In relation ta tha straight-up original gangsta requirement, dat shiznit was blingin ta recognise dat tha hood was tha real crew: judgments had ta drop a rhyme ta tha public, as well as ta tha lawyers n’ litigants, n’ you can put dat on yo’ toast. They should therefore be sufficiently well freestyled ta enable reasonably intelligent non-lawyers ta KNOW what tha f**k tha case was about.

 

Quite so.  

 

Sigh, onto Re M

 This is the appeal from Mostyn J’s decision

 https://suesspiciousminds.com/2014/01/08/brussels-sprouts-ii-this-time-its-jurisdictional/

 in which, to be fair, he had clearly grasped that there were some wider public policy issues that were worthy of being looked at by the Court of Appeal, so gave a judgment which made it plain that he expected / indeed wanted to be appealed.

 

The issue that troubled him was the argument in the case that where one of the parents is from a European country that DOESN’T have non-consensual adoption, shouldn’t the presumption be that the case SHOULD be transferred to that country under Brussels II article 15. That’s what he went for in the end.  

[You can see some force in it, but the consequence of it is that you get a “Get out of Adoption free” card so long as one of the parents is from a country in the EC that isn’t Britain]

 You may also recall, that although this appeal was pending, the President got stuck into many of the Brussels II issues that Mostyn J had raised in Re M, and gave a judgment in a case called Re E

 

https://suesspiciousminds.com/2014/01/14/this-means-nothing-to-me-ahhhhh-vienna/

 

I speculated at the time that this was something of a pre-emptive strike to the Re M appeal, and I also speculated that (a) The President would find himself sitting on that appeal and (b) that the Court of Appeal would probably not stray far from Re E

 

Well, how wrong I was

 (Wait, no, I wasn’t)

 

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2014/152.html

 The Court of Appeal’s panel of three Judges did include the President, and Re E was greatly preferred to Mostyn J’s decision in Re M

 

The Court of Appeal heard the argument that where a parent is from an EC country and adoption is an issue, there should be a presumption that the case SHOULD transfer to the country that DOESN’T countenance non consensual adoption.

 

They also heard the argument that the opposite presumption should apply, as only a Court that can hear and consider ALL of the options can do it properly.

 

The Court of Appeal, being no mugs, decided instead that there was no presumption either way and that BRII should be decided on the circumstances of the case and that the wording of article 15 needed no gloss or subtext

 

15.   ) First, it must determine whether the child has, within the meaning of Art 15(3), ‘a particular connection’ with the relevant other member state – here, the UK. Given the various matters set out in Art 15(3) as bearing on this question, this is, in essence, a simple question of fact. For example, is the other member state the former habitual residence of the child (see Art 15(3) (b)) or the place of the child’s nationality (see Art 15(3) (c))?

ii) Secondly, it must determine whether the court of that other member state ‘would be better placed to hear the case, or a specific part thereof’. This involves an exercise in evaluation, to be undertaken in the light of all the circumstances of the particular case.

iii) Thirdly, it must determine if a transfer to the other court ‘is in the best interests of the child.’ This again involves an evaluation undertaken in the light of all the circumstances of the particular child.”

 

 

51. There is, in my judgment, no room for a “sub-text” in the interpretation of B2R, as the judge held at [29]. Still less is there any room for a sub-text that directly contradicts the basic policy of B2R as set out in recital (12). So the real question is whether the judge’s view that there was a sub-text of the kind that he identified vitiated his balancing exercise. It is difficult, in any event, to shake off the impression that the text of the judge’s judgment had its own sub-text, which he had articulated at [29]. But even allowing for the fact that he posed himself the right questions, I agree with Ryder LJ, for the reasons that he gives, that his answers were vitiated by his mistaken view of the underlying policy of B2R.

 

And 54

 

  1. The language of Article 15 is clear and simple. It requires no gloss. It is to be read without preconceptions or assumptions imported from our domestic law. In particular, and as this case demonstrates, it is unnecessary and potentially confusing to refer to the paramountcy of the child’s interests. Judges should focus on the language of Article 15: will a transfer be “in the best interests of the child”? That is the relevant question, and that is the question which the judge should ask himself.

v) In relation to the second and third questions there is one point to be added. In determining whether the other court is “better placed to hear the case” and whether, if it is, a transfer will be “in the best interests of the child”, it is not permissible for the court to enter into a comparison of such matters as the competence, diligence, resources or efficacy of either the child protection services or the courts of the other State. As Mostyn J correctly said, that is “territory into which I must not go.” I refer in this context, though without quotation, to what I said in Re E, paras [17]-[21].

vi) In particular, and in complete agreement with what Ryder LJ has said, I wish to emphasise that the question of whether the other court will have available to it the full list of options available to the English court – for example, the ability to order a non-consensual adoption – is simply not relevant to either the second or the third question. As Ryder LJ has explained, by reference to the decisions of the Supreme Court in Re I and of this court in Re K, the question asked by Article 15 is whether it is in the child’s best interests for the case to be determined in another jurisdiction, and that is quite different from the substantive question in the proceedings, “what outcome to these proceedings will be in the best interests of the child?”

vii) Article 15 contemplates a relatively simple and straight forward process. Unnecessary satellite litigation in such cases is a great evil. Proper regard for the requirements of B2R and a proper adherence to the essential philosophy underlying it, requires an appropriately summary process. Too ready a willingness on the part of the court to go into the full merits of the case can only be destructive of the system enshrined in B2R and lead to the protracted and costly battles over jurisdiction which it is the very purpose of B2R to avoid. Submissions should be measured in hours and not days. As Lady Hale observed in Re I in the passage already cited by Ryder LJ, the task for the judge under Article 15 “will not depend upon a profound investigation of the child’s situation and upbringing but upon the sort of considerations which come into play when deciding upon the most appropriate forum.”

 

 

Note the strong remarks made by each of the Judges about the need for the issue of which jurisdiction should properly hear the case to be fully considered at an early stage

 

 

47 Jurisdiction must be considered in every children case with an international element and at the earliest opportunity i.e. when the proceedings are issued and at the Case Management Hearing. 

 

 

And the President

 

  1. The ultimate outcome of this appeal should not be allowed to obscure the great importance of Article 15. In the nature of things one cannot be sure, but I have an uncomfortable feeling that Article 15 has hitherto played far too little part in the daily practice of our courts and that its great importance has not been as widely appreciated as it should be. I repeat what I said in Re E, paras [35]-[36]:

“It is highly desirable, and from now on good practice will require, that in any care or other public law case with a European dimension the court should set out quite explicitly, both in its judgment and in its order:

(i) the basis upon which, in accordance with the relevant provisions of BIIR, it is, as the case may be, either accepting or rejecting jurisdiction;

(ii) the basis upon which, in accordance with Article 15, it either has or, as the case may be, has not decided to exercise its powers under Article 15.

This will both demonstrate that the court has actually addressed issues which, one fears, in the past may sometimes have gone unnoticed, and also identify, so there is no room for argument, the precise basis upon which the court has proceeded. Both points, as it seems to me, are vital.”

I added: “Judges must be astute to raise these points even if they have been overlooked by the parties.”

  1. It is also vital, as this case has demonstrated, that the Article 15 issue is considered at the earliest opportunity, that is, as Ryder LJ has pointed out, when the proceedings are issued and at the Case Management Hearing. I agree with him that the Family Procedure Rules Committee should be invited as a matter of urgency to consider appropriate alterations to Practice Direction 12A to ensure that this happens in future

 

I’m not sure, if I read this judgment that it is sufficiently well freestyled ta enable reasonably intelligent non-lawyers ta KNOW what tha f**k tha case was about, but that’s no easy task, you get me?

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“Oh, I did, I did, I did, I did”

Posted on February 20, 2014 by suesspiciousminds

I may be reading too much of the Telegraph this week (I blame John Bolch at Family Lore, who I am sure is buying two bottles of Buxton water and getting a free copy of the telegraph from a well-known newsagent).

This one is about a Supreme Court judge, Lord Wilson, giving a speech in Belfast, which included his comments that gay marriage and divorce and mixing of nuclear families post separation might not be a bad thing.  In the world of the Telegraph, this sort of thing is ‘controversial’

 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/10649774/Decline-of-nuclear-family-may-have-benefits-says-judge.html 

 

Anyway, that’s not the bit that struck me, it was this bit

 

Lord Wilson also pointed out that Australia allows a woman to wed her uncle, and France permits about 20 posthumous marriages to take place a year, if the surviving member of the couple can prove they were genuinely engaged.

 

That was actually news to me, and on doing a bit of digging (sorry, probably poor choice of word) I find that it is true.

You really can apply in France, if you have good evidence that a person who has died did intend to marry you, for a posthumous marriage. It doesn’t change any financial matters or inheritance (so you can’t wait until Rupert Murdoch dies, and then agree to marry him for the loot)

At the ceremony, the deceased is represented by a photograph, and rather than the bride/groom saying  “I do” they say “I did”   – the wording also misses out, for obvious reasons the “till death us do part” bit.

 It happened after a dam broke and killed a woman’s fiance and she wrote to the President to ask him to allow the marriage to happen anyway. He allowed it and the law was later changed to permit it. Lord Wilson does seem right that about 20 happen per year. [In my researches, I haven’t come across any MEN who have asked to marry their dead fiancee, only the other way around]

[Perhaps it is because I am in my own first month of marriage that I think this is rather sweet rather than freakish and morbid.  ]

 

Anyway, that tied in to something I read about a long time ago, and have been waiting for an opportunity to crowbar in, which is the trial of Pope Formosus.

Pope Formosus was Pope for just five years, 891 to 896. His reign as Pope was quite troubled and controversial. That would explain why he was put on trial.  One of his crimes was trying to escape the Vatican and escape being Pope  (which is described as “Conspiring to destroy the papal See”  – or if you are our last Pope, “resigning”)

 

What is slightly harder to explain is why his trial was two years after he died, in what is called the Cadaver Synod.

 

His successor, Pope Steven VI, had Formosus dug up, dressed in robes, sat on a chair and made him undergo a posthumous trial as the defendant. Steven served as prosecutor and Judge.  During the trial, a Deacon (appointed by Steven) answered all of the questions on behalf of Formosus.

 

I suspect that these answers were more on the lines of cringing admissions rather than spirited rebuttals.  Unsurprisingly, Formosus didn’t beat the rap, and as punishment, all of his papal orders were set aside, three of his fingers cut off and he was then thrown in a river. He was later fished out and buried.

 

There is a story, although this is disputed, that a later Pope, Sergius III was so taken with this that he also dug up poor Formosus again, put him on trial again and this time beheaded him.

 

Clearly in the “Big Book of Rainy Day Vatican City Games”,  there was a purple bookmark on the page “digging up previous Popes and putting them on trial for a laugh”

 

Under Stephen VI, the successor of Boniface, Emperor Lambert and Agiltrude recovered their authority in Rome at the beginning of 897, having renounced their claims to the greater part of Upper and Central Italy. Agiltrude being determined to wreak vengeance on her opponent even after his death, Stephen VI lent himself to the revolting scene of sitting in judgment on his predecessor, Formosus. At the synod convened for that purpose, he occupied the chair; the corpse, clad in papal vestments, was withdrawn from the sarcophagus and seated on a throne; close by stood a deacon to answer in its name, all the old charges formulated against Formosus under John VIII being revived. The decision was that the deceased had been unworthy of the pontificate, which he could not have validly received since he was bishop of another see. All his measures and acts were annulled, and all the orders conferred by him were declared invalid. The papal vestments were torn from his body; the three fingers which the dead pope had used in consecrations were severed from his right hand; the corpse was cast into a grave in the cemetery for strangers, to be removed after a few days and consigned to the Tiber

 

Catholic Encyclopaedia Chapter 13

 

This also reminds me that in my recent research into trial by ordeal (don’t ask) – whilst most of the ordeals were pretty grim (carry a red hot bar of iron for twenty paces, plunge your hand into scalding water for a minute  – if you don’t scar on either of those you are innocent) there’s one that was “Trial by Ingestion” just put the communion wafer [or dry bread and cheese] in your mouth and then eat it without choking. That seems to me to be the one I would have been advising clients to take. 

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Donating your… ahem… time

Posted on February 20, 2014 by suesspiciousminds

 

The High Court have recently dealt with another case (there have been a lot, relatively speaking) where a man (DB) fathered a child for two women in a relationship and later wanted to have more contact than the two mothers had in mind.

 One of the contested issues in the case was whether the man had (as he said) offered to father a child to be raised by the two women but play a part in the child’s life, or whether (as both of the mothers  said) he was basically being asked for nothing but his biological contribution.

 It was common ground that the child had been conceived in the usual way, rather than by artificial insemination, the argument was about whether the common understanding was that this was where DB’s role ended.

 

Re SAB (A child) 2014

 

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2014/384.html

 

One of the big lessons from this (as indeed from most of the previous cases about this sort of situation) is that if you are embarking on a plan of conception that is something out of the ordinary, firstly make sure that all of the adults involved have exactly the same understanding and thoughts about what is intended, and secondly get something down on paper that reflects that.

 

This case was complicated further by the fact that the father DB, and the biological mother AB, had previously had a romantic and sexual relationship, which was over by the time of the conception of the child.

 

The tension that this must have brought to bear on the whole dynamic probably wasn’t helped when DB engaged in some ‘sexting’ and sent a photograph of his  [Menswear Department]  in a mobile phone text. This text and image ended up being received by AB. 

 

DB said later that it was meant to go to an entirely different woman, hopefully one who was a willing or keen recipient of such image. In fact, he had never sent it to AB and wasn’t sure how it had ever reached her.

 

One can appreciate how AB, and the other mother CB might have misconstrued his intentions there.  The Court accepted that this was entirely an accident and not an attempt to rekindle his relationship with AB or cause tension between her and her partner CB.

 

In any event, what happened was that from going from a voluntary arrangement whereby the father was seeing his child in the first year, contact was completely ended, and the Court needed to become involved.

 

The tensions, already high, were not helped by a long paragraph in a statement filed by the father   – this, whatever it was, ramped up the temperature so much that it led AB to express the feeling that she hated him. 

 

19. Throughout this hearing, which has now spanned three days, I have, frankly, been puzzled as to the intensity of the opposition to contact now, when, until a year ago, it was happening relatively smoothly and given that it was accepted that DB had not, himself, sent or caused the obscene photograph to be sent. It was very difficult to discern any other clear explanation in the facts and circumstances of this case as to why attitudes now appear to be so entrenched

  1. I have read, of course, the third statement of DB, originally signed and dated in November 2013. That included at paragraph 9 a paragraph of some length, and I have been shocked at what DB thought it appropriate to state in that paragraph. Nothing, however, had been said about it throughout the first two and a half days of this hearing. Almost at the very end, whilst she was asking some questions of the child’s guardian, Mrs Susan Scott, this morning, AB referred to her “hatred” for DB. Apparently she had used the word “hatred” in some meeting or meetings with Mrs Scott, but it was certainly the first time a word of such intensity and violent emotion had been used within the courtroom. I enquired of AB why she felt such “hatred” and it emerged that it stemmed from what he had chosen to say in paragraph 9 of his first version of that statement.
  1. As a result, that statement has been edited so as to remove altogether the highly offensive parts of paragraph 9, and a fresh version, with a much shorter paragraph 9, has been signed by DB today, 23rd January 2014. All the copies in the courtroom of the earlier version with the longer paragraph 9 have all been returned to Mr Shelton, counsel for DB, who will ensure that they are totally destroyed. I am not going to make any reference whatsoever to the offensive parts of paragraph 9. But it tragically appears that AB expresses a feeling of hatred toward somebody for whom she previously felt friendship and affection, in considerable measure because of his foolish lack of judgment in saying such unnecessary, deeply offensive and highly intimate things. As I observed earlier this afternoon, however, it would be very wrong for decisions to be made affecting the entire childhood and, indeed, lifetime of this tiny, vulnerable child on the basis of one foolish misjudgment of that kind.

 

I rather like the pragmatic solution that the Judge hit upon for this. Rather akin to Basil Fawlty dealing with Bernard Cribbins’ flawed Spanish omelette  (“There, I’ve torn it up, you’ll never see it again”).  I think there’s a line in one of A P Herbert’s imaginary judgments about a judgment given by a High Court judge having been locked in a trunk, secured with chains and thrown into the depths of the ocean so that nobody need ever refer to it again.

 

As ever, the Bard puts it well

 

“I’ll break my staff. Bury it certain fathoms in the earth. And deeper than did ever plummet sound. I’ll drown my book”

 

[Although, hands up anyone who is NOT insanely curious about what was said in paragraph nine. The guess would be that rather than discussing the facts or issues or principles, he said something that was sticking the boot in and personal and offensive to AB. This is what lawyers sometimes call “playing the man and not the ball”  – a term borrowed from football, where the intention is not in a tackle to get the football but just to hurt the other person] 

 

On the whole discord about whether father was a “sperm donor who would walk away” or an intention to father a child and play some role in that child’s life, the Judge said this

 

  1. There is, of course, one major conflict of fact in this case, namely, whether or not it was agreed that the father would simply be a “sperm donor” and then “walk away” or whether, as the father says, there was a joint intention to conceive a child who, it was anticipated, would have some relationship with both his parents. I can only resolve that conflict on what lawyers call a balance of probability. I am not at all persuaded on a balance of probability that DB did agree, as is alleged, that he would merely be a sperm donor. That does not seem to me to fit either his personality or his personal history. As I have said, his situation was that it had been a source of sadness and regret to him that he had been unable to have a child or children throughout a marriage of some length due to infertility on the part of his wife. It was also a source of the utmost regret and guilt to him that he had never had a proper relationship with his one daughter, L. It seems to me highly unlikely that he would have been willing on the one hand to father a child and on the other hand to completely “walk away”.
  1. Further, there are a number of facts in the case which do not seem consistent with the notion that, having had intercourse and conceived a child, he would then “walk away”. Indeed, it is agreed that in September 2011 he and the mother went on a camping weekend together in the Yorkshire Dales where the two of them shared a tent. They did not have sexual intercourse on that occasion but nevertheless the circumstances were obviously ones of some intimacy.
  1. As I have said, after the birth of S the father was permitted to see S quite regularly and amicably. So there was certainly no concept of “walking away” in play for an appreciable period of time after the birth of S. Further, in such texts as are available, nowhere is there an assertion that he had agreed to “walk away”. As I have already said, some of the texts are, indeed, quite affectionate; and even where the mother did ask for some time and space away from him, she did not put that in terms that he had agreed always simply to be a sperm donor and walk away.
  1. It may be that in this case there was, as so often in these sorts of situations, a lack of clarity and understanding between them. It may very well be that A and C, in the spring and early summer 2011, were looking for a mere “sperm donor” as RS might, indeed, have been. But I cannot accept that when DB had intercourse that night he had, himself, agreed that his role was simply to be that of a sperm donor.
  1. In any event, as authority of the Court of Appeal makes clear, even somebody who has agreed to be a mere “sperm donor”, unless anonymous, should not necessarily be excluded from the life of the resulting child. However, it is not necessary to wrap up my decision in this case by reference to authority. It is absolutely clear that cases of this kind are highly fact specific. It is absolutely clear that there is only one legal principle in play, namely, that the welfare of the child concerned must be the paramount consideration.

 

 

It is clear that feelings were running high on this one, and the Judge makes some very helpful remarks, applicable to other cases about what the role of the Court is in this regard.

 

  1. The principal reasons that A and C advance against any contact are these. First, A, in particular, clearly has a very strong view as to parental autonomy, and it is her view that she and C (who also has parental responsibility for S) alone know what is best for their child and that they, and they alone, should decide. Whilst I have some appreciation of that point of view, it is, of course, not the law, and it is precisely because an individual parent, or in this case two mothers, do not have that degree of autonomy that courts in the end do have to decide the outcome of cases such as this.
  1. Next, they stress that from the outset the agreement was that DB would simply be a sperm donor and walk away. I have already explained that I cannot accept that there was agreement to that effect. It may have been their hope and expectation, but it certainly was not that of DB.
  1. Next, A in particular refers to the intensity of her feelings now in relation to DB. As I have said, earlier today she used the word “hatred”, and her overall position is that it could not be in the best interests of S to be brought up in a situation of conflict between the adults.
  1. Allied to that is a similar, but discretely different, point, namely, that in any event she, or they, cannot bring themselves to promote the image of DB as the father and present him in a positive light.
  1. So their overall position is that this would simply be a situation of such stress and intensity of emotions that they would inevitably impact upon S and be damaging to him.
  1. I do, of course, appreciate and understand all those arguments. They are often deployed in situations where there is conflict and disagreement as to contact. But the argument and consideration the other way is the real benefits that S may gain throughout his childhood and, indeed, into his adult life from having proper knowledge of, and interaction with, and some relationship with his father.
  1. Of course, at this moment, when he is aged 20 months and a mere toddler, none of this is immediately apparent. No one could suggest that S is suffering at this moment from the absence of his father from his life. But it is in infancy that the seeds should be laid for slowly developing a relationship in the most natural of ways as the child grows up. The position of the mothers is that S can, of course, see his father when he is older if he wants to do so. But that would not happen in that spontaneous way, at any rate for many years, unless he has grown up with knowledge of, and some relationship with, his father.

 

 

The Judge opened his judgment with this, but I have moved it for my purposes to the end

 

  1. In a letter written as long ago as 23rd August 2013 the mothers forecast that:

“Unfortunately, it is becoming increasingly clear to ourselves that this awful situation will just have to play its course within the court system.”

 

That is what has happened and, despite repeated attempts and encouragement on my part and my affording ample time and opportunities in which to do so, the parties have, unfortunately, not been able to narrow their differences and agree an outcome. Nonetheless, it is very clear that the three adults involved in this case are all, if I may say so, very worthy, caring and decent people, and it is a matter of the utmost sadness that there is currently so great a rift between them.

 True enough. Sad when three decent people end up in such a  situation.

So, three golden lessons to avoid it happening to you / your client

 

  1. Make sure you are all on the same page, and have it written down, before embarking on an unorthodox conception

 

  1. When you write a statement and you play the man and not the ball, bear in mind that this might cause significant problems in due course, and if it has really inflamed things too much, an offer to remove the offensive remarks is not a bad idea. In fact, just don’t play the man and not the ball. It never works.

 

  1. If you think that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, imagine taking two irate mothers on at once…

 

Get it in writing, always get it in writing.

 

Or as Sam Goldwyn didn’t say  “A verbal contract isn’t worth the paper it’s written on”

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After ten years of war, peace breaks out

Posted on February 18, 2014 by suesspiciousminds

The High Court decision in Re J and K (Children : Private Law) 2014

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2014/330.html

Another judgment from Pauffley J – not remarkable on the facts, nor indeed on the law, and I suspect it is one that might not have been published were it not for the transparency guidance. But it is another good judgment, and remarkable in that a set of private law litigation, which began in 2003 and involved 24 court hearings finally ended with agreement.

This opening is worth reading, for a start

This private law dispute demonstrates a number of phenomena. Firstly, that it is sometimes possible to achieve real and substantial progress as the result of the hearing itself. Secondly, that there can be incalculable benefits from the simple exercise of parents giving evidence and, just as importantly, listening to the evidence of others. Thirdly, that proceedings which begin in an atmosphere of adversity may swiftly evolve into an exercise in constructive collaboration. Fourthly, that protracted litigation over children is profoundly harmful to everyone concerned. And fifthly, that the involvement of skilled and insightful professionals – in this instance Miss Wiley, Ms Bushell and Mr Kirkwood – has immeasurable advantages in (a) achieving a better understanding of the genesis of past problems and (b) assisting parents to an infinitely more constructive way of working together for the benefit of their children.

The Judge tried, in this case, to understand, and describe why it was that two loving, caring and kind parents had ended up in a horribly conflicted and contentious bout of litigation that lasted so long. It is worth a read, if you advise parents in this position, or if you are finding yourself in this position. It is possible to get sucked into a fight that neither side really intended – there doesn’t have to be a good guy and a bad guy in family cases. Sometimes everyone is a decent person and a good parent, and a wrong turning just gets made and the case escalates into something nobody wanted.

Why did the problems arise?

    1. So why did things go so badly wrong for this couple such that there was serious and persistent disagreement even although there has never been a valid welfare argument against ongoing contact? Peeling away the layers of mistrust and antipathy has been both painful for the parents but also, I would say, illuminating. In addition, it has been, as Mr Kirkwood so rightly says, cathartic. And the best demonstration of that is the scene he witnessed at lunch time on Wednesday when all the family members were together in the coffee shop, standing around and chatting.

 

    1. To revert to the reasons for the difficulties, I would identify the following as having contributed to the atmosphere of hostility. The twins were alarmingly small when delivered – less than 3 lbs each – and had to stay in hospital for 8 weeks. Their mother had been ill herself in the period prior to their birth. Thereafter, the boys were not physically robust for a couple of years. The mother, entirely understandably, was intensely protective of them as was their closely involved maternal grandmother. It must have been a time of enormous stress and anxiety for the whole family, particularly the mother whose attachment to the babies, of necessity, was of the most concentrated kind.

 

    1. The father felt excluded to an extent though he would say he always did his best to support the mother and his children. During the twins’ first year, the long standing relationship between the parents ended. Doubtless there was disappointment and a sense of loss on both sides. Inevitably, the maternal grandmother would not have been inclined to give the father ‘a good press’ at that time or indeed in the years that followed. Clearly, she had views about his actions in the earliest months of the boys’ lives which were highly unflattering and, I would have to say, very hurtful to him.

 

    1. In the years that followed, the father’s applications to court – his efforts to ensure he played a proper fatherly role in the boys’ lives – were seen as “attacks” upon the mother. Doubtless she was strongly encouraged, by successive CAFCASS officers and judges, to play her part in ensuring the smooth progress of a developing contact routine. Her husband and the children’s father are very different individuals. By trying to do right by her husband, there must have been times when she did wrong by the children’s father. She was criticised for the way in which contact handovers were undertaken at the children’s schools. She complained to various bodies when she believed her behaviour had been wrongly reported as having been confrontational. When a suggestion was made by Cafcass that her actions may have had a psychological or psychiatric component requiring of expert advice, she responded defensively. There was, as it is all too easy to see now, a downward spiral of alarming dimensions.

 

    1. If there was one thing that the parents seemingly failed to do for all of the years they were in dispute, it was that they did not consider the impact upon the other – and the children themselves – of their actions. A prime example of that lack of empathy and its harmful impact was the regularly repeated performance at the children’s schools on a Friday afternoon when the handover was effected. It was easily done; and could, with the benefit of hindsight, have been so straightforwardly avoided as the mother conceded in evidence.

 

    1. For his part, I have no doubt but that the father had not considered the repercussions for the mother and her very respectable, well ordered and closely governed family of repeated court appearances. I am sure they became almost too much for her to bear; and the impact upon the children was a sense that their mother was under attack. They are and were both incredibly loyal to and, said the mother’s husband, fiercely protective of her. He could see though that the boys would have been far better off had they not been inappropriately exposed to the detail of the adults’ dispute.

 

  1. I am hopeful, very hopeful, that for the future similar mistakes will not be made; and that, as Ms Bushell suggested, the mother and her husband will be able to parent the boys authoritatively. There is very little which frightens children more than an absence of appropriate parental guidance and firm boundaries about the things in life which matter most.

I think that it is also worth drawing specific attention to the praise that the Judge gave to Ms Bushell, who acted as the McKenzie Friend for the father.  McKenzie Friends are a bit like Environment Ministers – you only usually know who they are when they are getting told off, but the reality is that 99% of the time they are silently getting on with it and doing very good work.  I have been lucky enough, in the writing of this blog, to come into contact with some very good and thoughful McKenzie Friends, and it is a role that requires all of the qualities praised here by the Judge.

So, it is nice to see a case that recognises that McKenzie Friends can be a powerful force for good and common sense.  (It is also worth noting that the mother’s counsel was acting pro bono – which is a way of masking by clever use of Latin to your clerks and bank manager that you are doing  work for free)

    1. The very last matter for comment is the extent to which each of the parents has been assisted by highly skilled, insightful and intuitive representatives.

 

    1. Ms Bushell has acted as the father’s McKenzie friend. Her background is in social work; her experience of the family justice system as a former guardian is extensive. I had no problem in agreeing that she should perform the role of speaking for the father, asking questions of him and on his behalf. Ms Bushell explained that the father is a shy man who would have encountered considerable difficulty if left to conduct the advocacy on his own. Having seen him give evidence, I agree wholeheartedly with that assessment. He is also, unsurprisingly given what he had lived through, extremely emotional, and would not have managed the advocacy task unaided.

 

    1. Miss Wiley is a member of the Bar with very considerable experience of high conflict private law disputes as well public law Children Act and inherent jurisdiction cases. She enjoys a reputation, deservedly, for diligence, economy, realism and innovative thought. She responded with immense generosity and in the very best traditions of the Bar when she accepted the invitation to act pro bono for the mother. Minor adjustments were made to the court’s sitting time on Wednesday to accommodate another one of her professional commitments in the High Court. Miss Wiley’s questions of her own client as well as of the father demonstrated just how well she understands the dynamics of a dispute of this kind. Her wisdom and emotional intelligence played a very large part in achieving so pleasing an outcome – not just as to the order itself but more importantly as to the shifts in attitude.

 

  1. Both parents were fortunate indeed for the professionalism and legal assistance provided by each of their ‘representatives.’ But of greater significance still, it seems to me, they were in the hands of individuals unafraid to show kindness, generosity and with a desire to help others.

 

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