Tag Archives: Court of Appeal

Contempt of Court and right to silence

Posted on March 22, 2016 by suesspiciousminds

This is an intricate, but important, decision by the Court of Appeal. A man here was sentenced to six months imprisonment for failure to comply with an order, and the Court of Appeal overturned that decision.  It does seem that the man spent about five weeks in prison, and the Court of Appeal found that the decision was procedurally flawed in some significant ways.

 

Re L (A child) 2016

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2016/173.html

It relates to an application to commit to prison the Uncle of a child for contempt. The child had been the subject of care proceedings in 2004  (yes, 2004), and the parents had fled the country with her. The High Court had made some orders under the inherent jurisdiction, including importantly the “collection order” in this case, which included this provision

 

“If the Defendants[1] or any other person served with this order is not in a position to deliver the child into the charge of the Tipstaff, he or she[2] must each:-

(a) inform the Tipstaff of the whereabouts of the child, if such are known to him or her; and

(b) also in any event inform the Tipstaff of all matters within his or her knowledge or understanding which might reasonably assist him in locating the child.”

The Uncle, Mr Oddin, was brought to Court AS A WITNESS in July 2015

  1. On 30 June 2015, Keehan J discharged both the care order and the freeing order. L remained a ward of court. On 30 July 2015 Keehan J made an order which, so far as material for present purposes, was in the following terms:
    1. “UPON the court being satisfied that the attendance of Mr Gous Oddin to attend court for the purpose of examining the whereabouts of the parents [that is, L’s parents] and the welfare and whereabouts of the child [that is, L] is necessary

… IT IS ORDERED THAT

1 Leave is granted to the local authority for a witness summons to be issued, whereby Mr Gous Oddin shall attend court at 9.30am on 8 October 2015 before Mr Justice Keehan sitting at … for the purposes of being examined as to the whereabouts of the parents and the welfare and whereabouts of the child, L …

2 Mr Gous Oddin … shall attend the hearing on 8 October 2015 for the purpose of examination as to the whereabouts of the parents and whereabouts of the child L …”

Mr Oddin gave evidence before the Court on 8th October 2015  – remember that he was there as a witness, and that he was NOT at that point subject to an application for committal. However, the Court was not satisfied that he was giving honest answers.

  1. On 8 October 2015 Mr Oddin attended before Keehan J as directed. We have the Transcript of the proceedings. The local authority was represented by Mr Stefano Nuvoloni and L by Miss Roberta McDonald. Unsurprisingly, since he was there as a mere witness, Mr Oddin was not represented. The judge asked Mr Oddin to “come forward to the witness box.” Mr Oddin affirmed, gave his name and address and explained, in answer to questions from the judge, that he was L’s paternal uncle. Keehan J then said this:
    1. “Now, Mr U, I want you to understand something very clearly. You are here today to give me all the information you know about the current whereabouts of L. If I come to the view that you have not told me the truth or you have not told me everything you know about the current circumstances and whereabouts of L, you will be liable to be found in contempt of court. If I find you to be in contempt of court, you then fall to be punished for the contempt. That punishment can consist of a fine or it can result in your committal to prison. Do you understand?

A. Yeah.

You are today in a very, very serious position. I should tell you now that, subject to anything that is said by Mr Nuvoloni or by Miss McDonald, what I propose to do is to take evidence from you today. If I am not satisfied with your answers, I will adjourn the matter for a period of time to hold a committal hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice in London. If that comes to pass, I would very strongly advise you to seek legal representation for that hearing. Do you understand?

A. Yeah.”

  1. Mr Oddin was then questioned, at the judge’s invitation, first by Mr Nuvoloni and then by Miss McDonald. From time to time the judge asked Mr Oddin questions. Mr Nuvoloni asked a few more questions, concluding “My Lord, I do not think I can take it further.” The Transcript continues:
    1. “THE JUDGE: (Long pause) Mr U, I am very sorry to tell you that I do not believe you have been telling me the truth. I do not believe that you have given me all the information that you can. This is what I propose to do. I am going to list this matter at the Royal Courts of Justice in London on Wednesday, 28th October. It will be listed for half a day. It will be listed as a committal hearing, when I will consider whether you are in contempt of court, and if you are in contempt of court, I will then proceed to decide what punishment you should face for that. Do you understand?

 

THE WITNESS: Yeah.”

The case was duly listed for a committal application, and Mr Oddin was represented. Keehan J gave him a six month prison sentence. It is worthy of note that Mr Oddin’s passport was taken from him in 2004 and he had not been able to travel abroad since that time.

Counsel for Mr Oddin at the committal hearing attempted to establish whether Mr Oddin was charged with contempt for BREACHING the collection order of 2004, or whether he was charged with contempt in the face of the Court for not answering Keehan J’s questions.

We have the Transcript of the hearing on 18 January 2016. Before the evidence was called, Miss Norman sought clarification from Keehan J as to “what the contempt is that my client faces.” She made the point that the collection order required the provision of information that might reasonably assist the Tipstaff in locating the child, whereas the judge’s observations at the end of the hearing on 8 October 2015 had been in very much wider terms, referring to the whereabouts of the parents and the welfare and whereabouts of the child. She continued, “what I am not clear about is, is the contempt as your Lordship might see it not answering your Lordship’s questions, or is the contempt going back to the 2004 order?” The judge replied, “It is going back to the 2004 order.” Miss Norman took the point no further (nor, for that matter, did anyone else) and the judge proceeded to hear the only witness called in support of the allegation of contempt, L’s guardian.

  1. In the course of her closing submissions Miss Norman returned to her opening point:
    1. “MISS NORMAN: My Lord, I expressly asked the question were we dealing with the 2004 order or were we dealing with contempt in the face of the court, and I understood your Lordship to say we were dealing with the 2004 order.

MR JUSTICE KEEHAN: The two are related, though, because if I find that I do not accept the evidence that Mr Oddin gave me on 8th October, or if I do not accept the evidence he has given me today and I find that he is lying to the court, I am then entitled, or may well then be entitled on that basis to be satisfied that he is not telling the truth, that he knows more than he is telling and is therefore in breach of the 2004 order.

MISS NORMAN: My difficulty is this, as I have suggested to your Lordship earlier on, that your Lordship found him to be at fault in a much wider area than the 2004 order. The 2004 order was matters which might reasonably assist in locating the child and that was it, nothing about welfare or parents or anything else. And so if we focus on that issue …”

  1. After Miss Norman had concluded her submissions there was a short adjournment, after which Keehan J returned to court and gave judgment.
  3. In paragraph 3 of his judgment the judge framed the issue in these terms:
    1. “This matter is listed today before me for committal proceedings against one of the father’s brothers, Mr Gous Oddin. The issue is, do I find that he is in breach of the order made consequent upon that abduction on 30 December 2004.”

He then quoted paragraph 3 of the collection order. In paragraph 5 of his judgment, he said this:

“The question was raised by Ms Norman, on behalf of Mr Oddin, at the start of this hearing as to precisely on what grounds Mr Oddin was being considered for committal and contempt proceedings. I made plain that that related solely to the order of 30 December 2004. But very plainly when considering whether there has been a breach of that order, I am entitled and I must consider the totality of the evidence before me and, in particular, whether I find that Mr Oddin is telling the truth or not. If I find that he is not telling the truth, I then have to consider the reason or possible reasons for him lying to the Court.”

The Court of Appeal make it very plain that a person faced with an application to commit him for contempt has a right to silence – such right extending further than just an ability to refuse to answer individual questions but an ability to refuse to go into the witness box at all.

  1. The absolute right of a person accused of contempt to remain silent, which carries with it the absolute right not to go into the witness box, was established in Comet Products UK Ltd v Hawkex Plastics Ltd [1971] 2 QB 67, where this court held that such a person is not a compellable witness. This right is to be distinguished both from the privilege against self-incrimination and from legal professional privilege, each of which may entitle a witness in certain circumstances to decline to answer a particular question but neither of which entitles the witness to refuse to go into thewitness box or refuse to take the oath (or affirm): see Re X (Disclosure for Purposes of Criminal Proceedings) [2008] EWHC 242 (Fam), [2008] 2 FLR 944, para 9.
  2. As both Re G and Hammerton v Hammerton illustrate, the principle in Comet has repeatedly been emphasised in this court; see also Re K (Return Order: Failure to Comply: Committal: Appeal) [2014] EWCA Civ 905, [2015] 1 FLR 927, para 61, to which we were referred. Most recently, so far as I am aware, the relevant principles were summarised by Jackson LJ, with whom both Lewison LJ and Treacy LJ agreed, in Inplayer Ltd and ors v Thorogood [2014] EWCA Civ 1511, paras 40-45:
    1. “40 A person accused of contempt, like the defendant in a criminal trial, has the right to remain silent: see Comet Products UK Ltd v Hawkex Plastics Ltd [1971] 2 QB 67. It is the duty of the court to ensure that the accused person is made aware of that right and also of the risk that adverse inferences may be drawn from his silence.

41 If the committal application is heard at the same time as other issues about which the alleged contemnor needs to give evidence, he is placed in the position where he is effectively deprived of the right of silence. That is a serious procedural error: see Hammerton v Hammerton [2007] EWCA Civ 248. This is precisely what happened in the present case. Furthermore no-one told Mr Thorogood that an alleged contemnor has the right not to give evidence.

42 If the contempt application had been the subject of a separate hearing and Mr Thorogood had been informed of his right not to give evidence, he might have exercised that right. He could then have dealt with the contempt allegations by way of submissions. In that regard it should be noted that the judge based her two findings of contempt upon answers which Mr Thorogood had given under skilful cross-examination.

43 Mr Milford points out that Mr Thorogood was reminded of his right not to incriminate himself. That is true, but it is not sufficient. Mr Thorogood should have been told that he was not obliged to give evidence. Furthermore the litigation should not have been managed in a way that forced Mr Thorogood into the witness box.

44 Mr Milford submits that even if there had been a separate hearing of the contempt application, the result would have been the same. If Mr Thorogood gave evidence, he would have been caught out in cross-examination. If he had declined to give evidence, the court would have drawn adverse inferences.

45 What Mr Milford says may well be true. Indeed, as things have turned out, Mr Thorogood may be a very lucky man. Nevertheless there can be no question of upholding findings of contempt against a person who has been deprived of valuable safeguards in the circumstances of this case.”

What we have here is a man who was compelled to Court to give evidence, and made to then answer questions – such answers as he gave then became evidence against him in the committal proceedings – although if he had been served with an application for committal, he never would have had to go into the witness box at all. That doesn’t seem very satisfactory – if the committal was for breach of the 2004 order, then it must have been a live possibility when he started to give his evidence in the October 2015 hearing. He was not legally represented, as a witness, and he was not advised by the Court that he had a right to silence.

In fact, looking again at Keehan J’s words in October 2015, committal was obviously a possible outcome of his evidence, yet he was being urged to give evidence and provide answers

  1. “Now, Mr U, I want you to understand something very clearly. You are here today to give me all the information you know about the current whereabouts of L. If I come to the view that you have not told me the truth or you have not told me everything you know about the current circumstances and whereabouts of L, you will be liable to be found in contempt of court. If I find you to be in contempt of court, you then fall to be punished for the contempt. That punishment can consist of a fine or it can result in your committal to prison. Do you understand?

The problem here arises because Keehan J was making use of the evidence given by Mr Oddin in that October hearing at the committal hearing in January 2016. He was deprived of the safeguards (legal representation, being made aware of his right to silence) and was a committal hearing where a defendant had been deprived of such safeguards legitimate?

  1. In my judgment, no criticism can be made of what happened on 8 October 2015; the problem arises because of the use that was made on 18 January 2016 of the evidence given by Mr Oddin on the earlier occasion.
  2. It is quite clear that on 8 October 2015 Keehan J was exercising, and exercising only, the jurisdiction which I have described in paragraph 9 above. By then, Mr Oddin was no longer a party to the proceedings. He attended court as a witness in answer to the witness summons which Keehan J had directed on 30 July 2015. Mr Oddin was a compellable witness. He was compelled to give evidence. Despite being a compellable witness he would have been entitled to plead the privilege against self-incrimination as a reason for declining to answer a particular question. He was not advised of that right, though in the event nothing, in my judgment, turns on this fact.
  3. Keehan J was appropriately robust in spelling out the implications for Mr Oddin if he did not tell the truth: namely that if he did not tell the truth he stood in peril of committal proceedings for contempt. Keehan J said nothing at that point about the collection order; the species of contempt he had in mind was plainly contempt in the face of the court, not contempt arising from breach of the collection order. The warning, though robust, was entirely proper, indeed only fair, so that Mr Oddin be left in no doubt as to the seriousness of the proceedings before the judge. It is precisely the kind of warning that I have myself given on many similar occasions. As McFarlane LJ said in Re K (Return Order: Failure to Comply: Committal: Appeal) [2014] EWCA Civ 905, [2015] 1 FLR 927, para 77:
    1. “The situation that faced Russell J in the various hearings leading up to the final committal hearing not infrequently arises in the context of international children cases before a High Court judge. A judge may be required to deploy the court’s considerable powers to compel parties or others to attend court or to bring about the return of the child to this jurisdiction. At a hearing in which pressure is brought to bear on an individual, and injunctive orders are made, the judge may be justified in presenting a very robust demeanour and, in so doing, making reference to the potential consequences if court orders are disobeyed. In the present case, the judge did just that, and no criticism has been sustained in relation to her actions.”

However, as he went on (para 78):

“The difficulty that can arise … occurs if and when the court is later required to hear committal proceedings arising out of an alleged breach of an earlier order … The more robust the judge has been in delivering a coercive message at the earlier hearings, and the more the judge has emphasised the consequences of breach, the more inappropriate (or impossible) it will be for the same judge to conduct the committal process.”

  1. A comparison of the language used in the order which he had made on 30 July 2015 with the language used in the orders Keehan J subsequently made on 8 October 2015, 28 October 2015 and 9 November 2015, shows clearly, in my judgment, that the contempt in relation to which Mr Oddin was required to attend before Keehan J on 18 January 2016 was in respect of his untruthful evidence to Keehan J and not in relation to the collection order. It is the point which Miss Norman correctly identified on 18 January 2016. Each of the three later orders identified the contempt as being “not providing the court with” all the information Mr Oddin had “as to the whereabouts of the parents and the welfare and whereabouts of the child” (emphasis added). The inconclusive discussion between Miss Norman and the judge on 30 November 2015 did not, seemingly, change matters, though, as her question to Keehan J on 18 January 2016 indicated, it left Miss Norman somewhat unsure as to what exactly the contempt was which the judge was intending to consider at that hearing.
  2. At the beginning of the hearing on 18 January 2016, as we have seen (paragraph 34 above), Keehan J made clear that the contempt he thought he was considering was not contempt in the face of the court on 8 October 2015 but rather contempt for breach of the collection order. It was at this point, in my judgment, that the proceedings took a fatal turn.
  3. It rather seems that Miss Norman’s main concern may have been as to the ambit of the factual inquiry before the judge at the hearing on 18 January 2016. Be that as it may, the salient, and very regrettable, fact is that no-one – no-one – thought through the implications of the answer Keehan J had given Miss Norman; no-one thought through the implications of the fact that the judge was about to embark upon the hearing of committal proceedings, based on an alleged breach of the collection order, in the course of which much weight was obviously going to be attached to the evidence Mr Oddin had given under compulsion on 8 October 2015. And, even after all the evidence had been given and Miss Norman was making her closing submissions (paragraph 38 above), no-one thought through the implications of what had happened or of the fact that, as the judge put it, the collection order and the evidence he had heard on 8 October 2015 were “related” in the way he described.
  4. The confusion is revealingly illustrated by what the judge said in paragraph 6 of his judgment, where he referred to “the start of these committal proceedings … on 8 October 2015.” The committal proceedings had not started on 8 October 2015; and if they had, there would have been the plainest possible breach of the Comet principle on that occasion.
  5. The consequence of what I have just described was a serious, and in my judgment irremediable, procedural error. Because of the use that was made against him during the hearing on 18 January 2016 of the evidence which had been extracted from him under compulsion on 8 October 2015, Mr Oddin was denied the safeguards which anyone facing proceedings for committal is entitled to: in particular, and fatally, the right to remain silent, the right to refuse to go into the witness box. The court had forced him into the witness box on 8 October 2015 and then used his evidence against him, not in committal proceedings for perjury committed on that occasion (which would have been entirely permissible) but in support of committal proceedings in relation to a previous order. In my judgment, this amounted to a clear, serious and irremediable breach of the Comet principle, necessitating, for the reasons given in Hammerton v Hammerton and Inplayer, that the appeal be allowed. As Jackson LJ said in the passage from Inplayer which I have already quoted, “there can be no question of upholding findings of contempt against a person who has been deprived of valuable safeguards in [such] circumstances.” I add, lest it be thought I have overlooked the point, that there is, in my judgment, nothing in the decision of this court in Dadourian Group International Inc and others v Simms and others (No 2) [2006] EWCA Civ 1745, [2007] 1 WLR 2967, which can be relied upon to save what happened here.
  6. On this ground alone, the appeal must, in my judgment, be allowed.

The issue that Holman J raised in Re DAD  2015  – that the standard orders have been wrongly drafted in a way that puts the warning about consequences of breach on page 5, when for committal the consequence MUST BE CLEAR on the FACE OF THE ORDER is raised again

  1. There is a further problem with the collection order. FPR 37.9(1) requires that, if an order is to be enforced by committal, it must contain a penal notice in appropriate form “prominently displayed, on the front of the copy of the … order”. In this case, the penal notice was on the fifth page. I can do no better than to repeat and endorse what Holman J said of a similarly defective collection order in Re DAD [2015] EWHC 2655 (Fam), para 12:
    1. “the use of those words in that paragraph on the fifth page of the order simply does not comply with, or satisfy at all, the requirements of rule 37.9(1). In the first place, the warning cannot be said to be “prominently displayed”. It is merely a part of several pages of somewhat indigestible text. In the second place, it most certainly does not appear, as the rule requires, “on the front of the copy of the … order”. It will be recalled that rule 37.9 is emphatic and prohibitive in its terms. Unless the penal notice is prominently displayed on the front of the copy of the order, “a judgment or order … may not be enforced …” In my view, the words “may not be enforced” where they appear in that rule do not import a discretion in the court. Rather, they are a mandatory direction to the court that it cannot and must not enforce the order by committal.”

 

 

The Court was also perturbed about a collection order that was made in 2004 being used to commit  a person to prison for breaching it some eleven years later, and at the length of time that Mr Oddin’s passport had been withheld from him.

 

The collection order

  1. Once we had announced our decision to allow the appeal, the question arose as to what should happen about the collection order which had been made on 30 December 2004. We indicated our view that it should be discharged. No opposition to this course having been voiced either by Mr Bennett or by Mr Maynard, we discharged the collection order and directed the immediate return of the passports.
  3. Three factors, in my judgment, pointed very obviously and, in the event, decisively to that outcome:
  5. i) First, it is wholly wrong in principle that a collection order should be left in place, hanging over peoples’ heads like the sword of Damocles, for anything remotely approaching the eleven years throughout which this collection order has been in force.

ii) Secondly, it is undesirable, to put it no higher, to allow an order to remain in force which is not compliant with FPR 37.9(1).

iii) Finally, and decisively, the perpetuation, beyond a comparatively short period, of the passport order (paragraph 4(b) of the collection order), essentially for purposes of coercion, was wrong in principle and fundamentally objectionable: see In re B (A Child) (Wrongful Removal: Orders against Non-Parties) [2014] EWCA Civ 843, [2015] Fam 209, [2015] 1 FLR 871, paras 24-33. This should never have been allowed to happen. Mr Oddin’s protests as set out in his three witness statements (paragraphs 22, 24 and 27 above) were well-founded. It is very much to be regretted that Mr Oddin and other members of his family should have been deprived of their passports for so long and without any proper justification. They have been badly ill-used by the court.

This appeal, even more than the decision of Holman J in Re DAD, has focused attention on a number of disquieting problems arising in relation to collection orders made prior to the new form of order which was introduced in July 2013. It is idle to imagine that the collection order we have been considering in this case is unique. On the contrary, there is every reason to fear that there are significant numbers of elderly collection orders still in force and which, it might be thought, ought, for the reasons set out in paragraph 65 above, to be discharged. I propose, therefore, to identify, with the assistance of the Tipstaff, just how many such orders there are, with a view to taking appropriate steps to investigate whether those orders should or should not be allowed to remain in force.

 

The Court of Appeal also touched upon the delicate issue of whether a Judge who is considering committal of a person ought to be a different Judge to the one who conducted the hearing in which the contempt is said to have arisen. They are cautious about that – but I read this as being a cautious suggestion that it is probably safer to have it heard by a different Judge

  1. As McFarlane LJ said in Re K (Return Order: Failure to Comply: Committal: Appeal) [2014] EWCA Civ 905, [2015] 1 FLR 927, para 77:
    1. “The situation that faced Russell J in the various hearings leading up to the final committal hearing not infrequently arises in the context of international children cases before a High Court judge. A judge may be required to deploy the court’s considerable powers to compel parties or others to attend court or to bring about the return of the child to this jurisdiction. At a hearing in which pressure is brought to bear on an individual, and injunctive orders are made, the judge may be justified in presenting a very robust demeanour and, in so doing, making reference to the potential consequences if court orders are disobeyed. In the present case, the judge did just that, and no criticism has been sustained in relation to her actions.”

However, as he went on (para 78):

“The difficulty that can arise … occurs if and when the court is later required to hear committal proceedings arising out of an alleged breach of an earlier order … The more robust the judge has been in delivering a coercive message at the earlier hearings, and the more the judge has emphasised the consequences of breach, the more inappropriate (or impossible) it will be for the same judge to conduct the committal process.”

I referred in paragraph 50 above, to what McFarlane LJ had said in Re K about the circumstances in which a judge who had conducted the kind of hearing which took place in the present case before Keehan J on 8 October 2015 ought not to conduct subsequent committal proceedings. That issue, which was at the heart of the appeal in Re K, is not one which, in the event, arose for determination here, so I say no more about it. The point to which I draw attention, is simply this. Quite apart from the Comet principle, which, as we have seen, would prevent the use in subsequent committal proceedings of the evidence given by someone in Mr Oddin’s position at a hearing such as that which took place on 8 October 2015, it is possible that the rule in[2008] 2 FLR Hollington v F Hewthorn and Company Limited and another [1943] KB 587[15] might in certain circumstances prevent the use in subsequent proceedings of any findings made by the judge at the first hearing. That is a complicated matter which may require careful examination on some future occasion; so, beyond identifying the point, I say no more about it.

Theis J’s judgment draws together some very important practice issues, and is worth reading in full, so I set it out here.

  1. The powers of the court to make, and enforce, orders to secure the return of children who have been wrongfully removed from those who care for them is an essential part of the family court’s powers to protect vulnerable children from harm.
  3. Before any court embarks on hearing a committal application, whether for a contempt in the face of the court or for breach of an order, it should ensure that the following matters are at the forefront of its mind:
  5. (1) There is complete clarity at the start of the proceedings as to precisely what the foundation of the alleged contempt is: contempt in the face of the court, or breach of an order.

(2) Prior to the hearing the alleged contempt should be set out clearly in a document or application that complies with FPR rule 37 and which the person accused of contempt has been served with.

(3) If the alleged contempt is founded on breach of a previous court order, the person accused had been served with that order, and that it contained a penal notice in the required form and place in the order.

(4) Whether the person accused of contempt has been given the opportunity to secure legal representation, as they are entitled to.

(5) Whether the judge hearing the committal application should do so, or whether it should be heard by another judge.

(6) Whether the person accused of contempt has been advised of the right to remain silent.

(7) If the person accused of contempt chooses to give evidence, whether they have been warned about self-incrimination.

(8) The need to ensure that in order to find the breach proved the evidence must meet the criminal standard of proof, of being sure that the breach is established.

(9) Any committal order made needs to set out what the findings are that establish the contempt of court, which are the foundation of the court’s decision regarding any committal order.

  1. Counsel and solicitors are reminded of their duty to assist the court. This is particularly important when considering procedural matters where a person’s liberty is at stake.

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Appeal about the transparency in the Poppi Worthington case

Posted on February 25, 2016 by suesspiciousminds

 

At first glance, this looked a bit  “Let me just fix this stable door, it is SO much easier without the horse being in here getting in the way and standing on my foot“, but the appeal was actually heard in November  BEFORE the re-hearing of the fact finding, and it is just that we’ve only today had the judgment itself.

I know that some people were curious about how much material was allowed to be reported (for example Poppi’s name, and the name of the father) and some were curious about the ‘live’-tweeting aspects and the Press being present during the hearing itself.

Re W Children 2016

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2016/113.html

Mr Justice Peter Jackson had given a decision about his plans as to what could or could not be published, in advance of that re-hearing and what role the Press could play.  The Guardian appealed that decision, supported in part by the father. The mother and Local Authority were neutral.

The Court of Appeal were asked specifically to consider what role the welfare of the children had to play in a decision about reporting and press attendance. They bravely duck that question  (to be fair, I think it ends up being a conflict between some  authorities one of which is a House of Lords case, so it has to be resolved ultimately by the Supreme Court). Given that the Guardian’s case was largely based on the degree of openness and transparency here being inimical to the welfare of the other children, that decision was pretty fatal to the appeal.

  1. During the hearing of the appeal we accepted the jointly argued approach of counsel and that, in turn, was the basis upon which we came to the decision on the appeal which we announced at the conclusion of the oral hearing. In the process of preparing this written judgment, however, I have come to the preliminary view that there may be a conflict, or at least a tension, between the apparently accepted view that welfare is not the paramount consideration on an issue such as this, on the one hand, and Court of Appeal authority to the contrary on the other hand. As this present judgment is a record of the reasons for our decision announced on 23rd November 2015 and that decision was based upon the children’s welfare not being the paramount consideration, I do no more than flag up this potential point which, if it is arguable, must fall for determination by this court on another occasion.
  2. The key authorities to which I am referring are a criminal case in the House of Lords, Re S (Identification: Restrictions on Publication) [2004] UKHL 47; [2005] 1 AC 593, a private law family case in the Court of Appeal, Clayton v Clayton [2006] EWCA Civ 878; [2007] 1 FLR 11 and a public law child case in the High Court, Re Webster; Norfolk County Council v Webster and Others [2006] EWHC 2733 (Fam); [2007] 1 FLR 1146.
  3. Although, in my view, a reading of those cases may give rise to a potential point relating to the paramountcy of the child’s welfare, which, as I have stated, must fall for determination on another occasion, it is not necessary to go further in this judgment and consider the matter in any detail.

 

Counsel for the Press association (the always excellent Caoilfhionn Gallagher) set out the case for openness and transparency in this case very well  – and it really explains why so much was allowed to be reported in this case.

a) In the unusual circumstances of this case, the judge’s decision on publicity and reporting is entirely justified for the reasons that he gave after giving careful thought to the submissions of each party;

b) In general, there is a strong principle in favour of open justice which has long been regarded as integral to protecting the rights of those involved in court proceedings, and as essential to maintaining public confidence in the administration of justice;

c) The President of the Family Division has drawn attention to the importance of transparency in the context of family justice in Practice Guidance Transparency in the Family Courts: Publication of Judgments [2014] 1 FLR 733 and in a 2014 consultation document Transparency – Next Steps;

d) The Practice Guidance identifies two classes of judgment, (i) those that the judge must ordinarily allow to be published and (ii) those that may be published; the present case falls into category (i) and there is therefore a strong presumption that the final judgment should be published in due course;

e) There is already an extremely strong public interest in transparency being applied to this case at this time;

f) The Appellant’s acceptance that paragraph [1] to [100] of the July 2014 judgment should be published, which contains a summary of the medical evidence, renders illogical her opposition to the publication of the remaining paragraphs (albeit in a redacted form);

g) There is already substantial publicly available information regarding the injuries that Poppi sustained prior to her death and the fact that her father had been arrested with respect to an allegation of sexually abusing Poppi. Reference is made to the clip of media reports provided to the court;

h) Daily news reporting is justified against the backdrop summarised in (g) above and is justified in this ‘highly unusual’ case. In any event the judge will retain some measure of control over reporting through the ability to impose a retrospective embargo if some particularly sensitive material is disclosed in court;

i) The challenge relating to the judge giving judgment in public is misconceived as the judge did not make any such direction. His proposal to sit in private, with the media in attendance, prior to publishing the judgment was entirely proportionate in the circumstances.

 

The Court of Appeal concluced that this was unusual, but that Poppi was  ahighly unusual case, given that so much was already within the public domain. They largely upheld Mr Justice Peter Jackson’s decision, albeit limiting the amount of medical information that was to be published from the original finding of fact judgment (you may recall at the time that the judgment published initially had such huge chunks redacted from it that one couldn’t see what father was alleged to have done and it was left to astute reading to see that taking a sample swab from father’s penis suggested something very dark. )  They also said that tweeting from Court would have to wait until the end of the day, when the Judge could consider anything unusual arising from the evidence and give directions about it.

 

  1. Ms Gallagher accepts that daily reporting of a child protection case was unusual, but she submits that this has now become a highly unusual case in terms of there being a second fact finding hearing in circumstances where a good deal about the case is now in the public domain.
  2. During the hearing the court asked for more detail of the arrangements that the judge had put in place to maintain some control on the material that could be reported by press representatives who were attending court. The judge’s proposal was that if, for example, a witness were to give unexpected evidence, the disclosure of which might unnecessarily breach the Article 8 rights of the children, or more generally cause them unnecessary harm, the court could embargo that part of the evidence from that which could otherwise be reported. The wording of the judge’s order on this point was that ‘such reporting is subject to any further directions given by the court concerning what can and cannot be published if an issue arises during the course of the hearing’.
  3. In considering the appeal on this point, the starting point must be that the introduction of a facility for daily reporting of an ongoing fact finding hearing in a child protection case is indeed highly unusual. It is not profitable to debate whether this is or is not the ‘first’ such case. For my part, in a slightly different context, I recall that there was widespread national media reporting day by day of the sad case of Re RB [2009] EWHC 3269 (Fam); [2010] 1 FLR 946; other judges will no doubt be aware of other cases. Be that as it may, no party submits that Jackson J was acting outside his powers by permitting daily media reporting. For the reasons that I have given at paragraph 37, such a course was plainly within his discretion.
  4. In circumstances where, as the Appellants have accepted, the final judgment will be published in due course, the issue of daily reporting relates to the quantity and timing of reporting rather than to reporting the facts of this case as such in principle. It is a matter that calls for a proportionate approach, over which a trial judge is entitled to exercise a wide margin of discretion; as I have stressed, in the present case that is particularly so with respect to this trial judge at this stage in this trial process.
  5. Although I must confess to having a feeling of substantial unease at this degree of openness at the start of an unpredictable fact finding exercise, I am clear that it is simply not possible to hold that Jackson J is wrong in his analysis of the issue and his decision to grant media access to this degree. I am, however, sufficiently concerned about the laxity of the terms of the order dealing with daily reporting as it is currently drawn to stipulate that a further sub-paragraph be added to that part of the order in the following terms:

    ‘such reporting (whether by live reporting, Twitter or otherwise) may not take place until after the court proceedings have concluded on any given day, in order to ensure that the court has had an opportunity to consider whether any such additional directions are required.’

    The purpose of this new provision is, hopefully, self-explanatory in that it allows for stock to be taken at the close of the court day so as to identify any aspect(s) of the evidence which should be subject of embargo before any reporting, of any nature, can take place.

  6. The grounds of appeal relating to whether or not the judge should sit in public to deliver his judgment were not pursued and therefore fall away.
  7. For the reasons that I have given, I would therefore allow the appeal to the very limited extent of (a) requiring the removal of reference to any of the medical evidence from the edited 2014 judgment, and (b) inserting a tighter requirement in the court order relating to the control of daily reporting.

 

 

 

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It’s time… for Pig to say sorry to Hartley

Posted on February 23, 2016 by suesspiciousminds

 

In my youth, there was a TV show called Pipkins, in which Hartley, a moth-bitten hare with a personality disorder lived in a house with a Brummie pig, a monkey called Topov, a creepy tortoise who slept in a shop till and a Zsa-Zsa Gabor type ostrich. There would always be a section in the show where the human presenter would tell one of the characters to say sorry to another – with the “It’s time…. for Pig to say sorry to Hartley”

(There would be a montage of clocks and the noise of clocks striking during the “Time” bit)

 

This looks like the stuff of some sort of fevered Shock-Headed Peter nightmare, not a children's entertainment. (I am not even showing you the evil tortoise)

This looks like the stuff of some sort of fevered Shock-Headed Peter nightmare, not a children’s entertainment. (I am not even showing you the evil tortoise)

 

That pig looks as though he’s going to lunge at me and eat me from the soles of the feet up.

Besides being largely responsible for my life-long aversion to tortoises (seriously, I have to leave the room or look away if I see one on television, they give me the Fear), that expression always stayed with me.

In the case of Re K (children) 2016

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2016/99.html

The Court of Appeal were considering the father’s appeal against a decision that he have no contact with his children, there having been domestic violence between the father and mother and the children having been exposed to some of this. The Court of Appeal granted the appeal, ruling that the Judge had not gone far enough in the duty to exhaust the reasonable avenues of getting contact re-established.

The interesting feature of the case is that both the Judge and the Guardian had become quite fixed on the idea that the father needed to apologise to the mother for his behaviour.

Vos LJ firmly rejected this and it may have a bearing on other cases.

 

I agree, and would only add a few words on one aspect of this case that I found somewhat disturbing. As Lady Justice King has recorded, the recorder seems to have taken the view that the father’s failure to make a genuine and heartfelt apology to the mother precluded him from seeing his children. I cannot accept such a starting point. It may well be that a repentant father would offer a reduced risk of harm to the children, but it is that risk and the welfare of the children generally that are important in contact cases, not any moral judgment of either parent. As has been often pointed out, parents are of all kinds and demonstrate all levels of moral virtue. It is not the court’s job to judge a wrongdoing parent for the sake of doing so, because it will, in all but the most exceptional circumstances, be in the children’s best interests to see their parents. If the failure to apologise posed a risk to the children, that might have been a different matter, but that does not seem to have been the case here. The recorder was wrong to impose a pre-condition of repentance and apology. Those matters were relevant, but only insofar as they had a bearing on the welfare of the children.

 

 

And if you want some more nightmare fuel, there were Pipkins episodes where Hartley (to my mind a cross between a really annoyed Kenneth Williams and Al Pacino at the end of Scarface) had his own puppet, which was even more malevolent.

 

Will I ever sleep again?

Will I ever sleep again?

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Payment of a contact supervisor – private law

Posted on February 11, 2016 by suesspiciousminds

This may crop up again in private law cases, and is important therefore for Judges, lawyers, parents and very importantly Independent Social Workers and contact supervisors to know about.

In Re D (Children) 2016

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2016/89.html

There was a decision at an interim stage that father’s contact needed to be supervised. An order was made for six sessions of supervised contact and that the father should pay for an ISW to supervise this contact. When the bill arrived, father considered it excessive and only paid some of it, leaving an amount outstanding.

As part of the appeal on other issues, the Court of Appeal had to consider the Judge’s final order in the private law proceedings which was that father must pay the ISW’s bill in full.  The father argued that the family Court had no jurisdiction on that issue, that this was a contractual dispute between him and the ISW and would have to dealt with as a contractual dispute, not within the family Court.

The legal argument was whether s11 (7) of the Children Act 1989 which allows a Court to set conditions about contact is sufficiently broad to allow a Court to rule that not only must contact be supervised, but who is to pay for the supervision, and how much.

 

 

  • Finally, I turn to the issue of the outstanding invoice submitted by Ms Barrett, the ISW, for services in connection with the supervision of contact pursuant to the order of 10th January 2014.
  • By that order, in which she directed the initial six sessions of supervised contact, the recorder ordered that the costs of the instruction of the ISW should be borne by the father, adding (“for the avoidance of doubt”) that the relevant costs would cover time spent in reading the relevant documents (identified by her as all the judgments save that as to costs, and the reports of all the professionals and experts in the court bundle); the cost of supervision; the cost of preparing sessional contact reports; and the costs of attending the subsequent review hearing if required by any party. Following that order, Ms Barrett was instructed and a letter of instruction sent by NYAS. As already described, contact duly took place, although the arrangements subsequently broke down. On 7th August 2014, Ms Singleton of NYAS forwarded the ISW’s invoice to the father. He replied the following day raising objections to a number of items on the invoice, and proposing that the sum payable should be reduced by £355. At the hearing on 14th November 2014, the recorder directed that the issue in respect of the outstanding invoice be adjourned to and dealt with at the final hearing. In respect of the two further contact sessions then ordered, the recorder directed that the father was to be responsible for meeting the ISW’s costs “which, in relation to these 2 contact sessions only, are to be limited to the supervision of 4 hours of contact (8 hours in total), the ISW’s travel time, and 1 hour of contact report writing in respect of each session (total 2 hours)”. The recorder further directed that NYAS was to be responsible for invoicing the father in respect of these further costs by 1st December; that the father was to pay the further invoice by 5th December (i.e. in advance of the contact); that upon receipt of the cleared funds NYAS was to inform both parties at once so that contact could take place as directed; and that, if the father failed to comply with the directions as to payment, the mother was to be released from her obligation to make the children available for contact. Following these tightly-drafted directions, a further invoice was duly submitted and paid in advance, and as already described the further contact sessions took place as directed.
  • At the hearing in February 2015, the recorder heard evidence and submissions from the parties (though not from the ISW, who did not give oral evidence at the hearing) on the disputed invoice. She dealt with this issue in the following brief passage towards the end of her judgment at paragraphs 105-6:

 

“105. The father has paid some but not all of the costs. In my judgment, he should pay all of Ms Barrett’s outstanding fees. Having been invoiced, [the father] took on the role of taxing master (a judge who decides on which costs in a case have been reasonably incurred), he told me he didn’t think that Ms Barrett was ‘cooking the books’ but that in relation to some items she had for example claimed an excessive amount of travel time, or for time spent writing her report. The invoice was rendered in August 2014 in the sum of £812.80, [the father] has paid £197.80. The balance to be paid within 28 days.

106. I have been told that Ms Barrett made no charge for all the work she undertook in trying to set up the contact on the 28th July 2014. I don’t mention that because it affects my decision in the slightest, but I think this reflects on the sort of person Ms Barrett is and why it is especially sad that she has withdrawn from being the supervisor.”

 

  • In his skeleton argument for this hearing, Mr. Rowbotham submitted that the recorder’s order that the father should pay the ISW’s costs was wrong and outwith her jurisdiction. Unless the ISW fell within the category of expert (which he submitted she did not), the obligation to pay her was purely contractual and therefore only enforceable in the county court. He submitted that the powers conferred by statute on the family court do not include the power to make orders for payment for services by a party to a non-party. In the alternative, he submitted that, even if the family court had such powers, the recorder was wrong to dismiss the father’s objections summarily. The concerns raised by the father were legitimate, and in declining to deal with them, the recorder failed to act in a way that was just or proportionate.
  • In reply, Mr. Wilkinson for the mother submitted that the order was no more than enforcement of previous orders; that the court’s powers under s.11(7) of the Children Act 1989 to attach conditions to a s.8 order are broad enough to encompass a requirement to pay the costs of contact supervision, and that, as the order was made at a hearing at which the father was present and where he did not object to such payment, he could not now be heard to say that he should not pay a sum which has been assessed as reasonable by the court. On behalf of the guardian, Mr. Fitzpatrick acknowledged that the recorder did not address the issue of jurisdiction to make the order, but submitted that a prospective appellant should first seek elaboration from the judge as to the jurisdictional basis for the decision. He further submitted that, in all the circumstances, including the fact that she was required by the order of 10th January 2014 to write a report as to each contact session, that the ISW was acting as an expert so that her remuneration fell within the court’s jurisdiction under Part 25 of the Family Procedure Rules. He further suggested that the court might think it a “grossly inequitable outcome” if the ISW were out of pocket as a result of the father’s non-payment or if NYAS, as a registered charity, felt obliged to reimburse the ISW from its income.
  • I have much sympathy with the recorder having to deal with this comparatively minor issue at the conclusion of another difficult hearing in these long-running proceedings which she has handled adroitly and sensitively. On this occasion, however, I consider that she fell into error. It seems that she was not addressed on the question of jurisdiction and it is not clear from her judgment exactly what jurisdiction she thought she was exercising. Her disapproving reference to the father taking on the role of a taxing master suggests that she proceeded on the basis that he was obliged to pay the invoice without demur. Given the father’s conduct throughout the proceedings, her approach was perhaps understandable but in my view mistaken. As the basis on which the ISW was to be remunerated was not precisely specified by the terms of her instruction, the father was entitled to challenge her invoice if he considered it excessive and, unless the dispute can be resolved by some other means, he is entitled to have his challenge judicially determined by a court with jurisdiction rather than summarily dismissed.
  • I reject the submission that the ISW was acting as a court-appointed expert. Although an ISW is capable of acting in that capacity, Ms Barrett was not doing so in this case. Accordingly, any power the family court may have under Part 25 to determine issues as to the payment of experts is irrelevant. S.11(7) of the Children Act provides inter alia that a section 8 order may contain directions about how it is to be carried into effect, impose conditions which must be complied with by any person in whose favour the order is made, or who is a parent of the child concerned, and make such incidental, supplemental or consequential provisions as the court thinks fit. The broad terms of this subsection enable a court to lay down precise and comprehensive terms concerning the payment of costs of supervising contact. That is indeed what the recorder did in her subsequent order of 14th November in which she not only fixed the number of hours for which the ISW could charge but also provided for payment in advance to avoid any further issue arising after the event. The earlier order of 10th January, however, whilst containing a number of details, did not specify precisely the hours to be taken on each item, and therefore left open the possibility of a dispute if the party responsible for paying the costs objected to the number of hours taken by the ISW. Although s.11(7) enables the court, when making an order for contact, to specify conditions as to payment of the costs of supervision, it does not in my judgment invest the court with jurisdiction to resolve a subsequent dispute about those costs, at least when the dispute is with a non-party.
  • I accept Mr. Rowbotham’s submission that the obligation to pay the ISW was contractual, but although this court was shown the letter of instruction, the information contained therein was insufficient to identify with confidence the terms of, or parties to, the contract. I also accept Mr. Rowbotham’s submission that the family court’s jurisdiction, as defined in s.31A of the Matrimonial and Family Proceedings Act 1984, and schedules 10 and 11 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013, is confined to family proceedings and does not include jurisdiction to resolve any contractual dispute involving a third party. If the contract was between the ISW and the father, such a dispute must be determined under the small claims procedure in the county court, unless resolved by agreement or alternative dispute resolution. In such circumstances, the family court would have no role to play. If, however, the contract was between the ISW and NYAS, then NYAS would be entitled to seek reimbursement from the father within the family court proceedings of sums paid in respect of the invoice by seeking to enforce the terms of the order of 10th January, at which point it would be open to the father to ask the court to reduce the sum payable by him to NYAS on the grounds that it was unreasonably high.
  • Accordingly, on this issue, I would grant permission to appeal and allow the appeal. Pursuant to CPR 52.10(2)(b), I would refer the matter back to the recorder for determination of the following issues: (1) the identity of the parties to, and terms of, the contract for the services of the ISW as contact supervisor pursuant to the order of 10th January 2014; (2) if the contract was between the ISW and NYAS, what order, if any, should be made by way of enforcement of the order, having regard to the father’s challenges to the invoice; (3) alternatively, whether the application for enforcement of the order should be stayed pending resolution of any contractual dispute. Given the small sum involved, it would be preferable, if possible, for any contractual claim and any application for enforcement of the order in the family court to be resolved by the same judge. On any view, however, it plainly makes sense for the parties and the ISW to attempt to resolve this issue by some means that avoids any further legal costs.

 

Whilst a Court order could stipulate payment to an ISW for supervision of contact under s11(7), if it is going to do so, it is going to need to stipulate in detail the exact sums to be paid and for what. If there ends up being a dispute about payment, the family Court don’t have jurisdiction to resolve that dispute. [Though it could be reserved to the same Judge, sitting with a different hat on, with a different application to resolve]

That could still end up being costly and protracted, so, if you are doing ISW contact supervision work, get paid up front.

 

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Can you compel a child to give evidence?

Posted on February 11, 2016 by suesspiciousminds

 

The Court of Appeal in Re S (children) 2016 consider this point of law, and whilst they say that they are explicitly not ruling on it, they do give the answer

 

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2016/83.html

During the appeal hearing, the question arose as to whether the judge could have compelled K to give evidence if she remained unwilling to do so. I am grateful to counsel for efficiently providing an agreed note of the legal position immediately following the hearing. As that note recognised, the question of whether a court can/should use its powers to issue a witness summons in relation to a reluctant child in family proceedings has not been considered by the Court of Appeal or the Supreme Court since the Supreme Court’s decision in Re W (supra). The present case was not one in which we needed to hear oral argument on the subject and I would not wish to be thought to be expressing any view about it. However, it may be helpful to record that counsel agreed that a competent child is a compellable witness in civil proceedings and that a witness summons could have been issued under section 31G of the Matrimonial and Family Proceedings Act 1984 if appropriate. Theoretically, the penalties for failing to attend in answer to a witness summons are committal to custody and/or a fine. However, there can be no detention for contempt of a person under the age of 18, see sections 89 and 108 of the Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000.

 

So

  1. If the child is competent  (rule of thumb here is going to be functioning at about the level of an average 13 year old, but there may be other factors which make an older child not competent or a younger one competent), then they are a compellable witness.
  2. A compellable witness can be made to attend Court to give evidence under a witness summons
  3. The protection against self-incrimination in s98 Children Act 1989  doesn’t apply to a child – so they would have to be warned about the risk of possible criminal proceedings arising from their evidence.
  4. However, the punishment for a person not obeying a witness summons (i.e what you do if they don’t turn up) are imprisonment or a fine.
  5. You can’t imprison a witness under 18 for not obeying a witness summons.
  6. That leaves you with a fine.  Unless the child witness is Richie Rich or Mustafa Millions, that doesn’t really help.
  7. So you CAN compel them, but you can’t actually do anything if they call your bluff.

 

That’s the legal interest in the case. Other than that, it is always worthy of note when the Court of Appeal split. The main issue here was that a 15 year old K, made allegations of sexual abuse and reported them to the police. There was then something of a backtracking when the police wanted to press charges. K did not want to press charges, she had wanted the abuse to stop. She said to the police that she was not retracting the allegations, but didn’t want charges to be pressed.  However, one police note of a conversation with K recorded that K said she had made the allegations up.  K then wrote two letters saying that she had made the allegations up and that things had got out of hand.

Those representing the alleged perpetrator in the family Court proceedings about K and her siblings understandably wanted K to be produced as a witness. A judicial decision was taken not to compel her attendance, and the Judge went on to make findings (including one which was supported by a medical but was explicitly not an allegation that K had ever made herself).  The findings and the case management decision were appealed.

All three of the Court of Appeal Judges said that the finding which was suggested by medical examination but had never been a claim that K had made had to be overturned. Two of the Judges held that the other findings were safe and should not be overturned. The third took the opposite view.

 

I will set out the minority view, which was not the decision of the Court of Appeal, because I think it contains some powerful arguments (even though they were not successful). For my part, I think it is very difficult to make findings of such a serious nature as sexual abuse when there are changes of position by the complainant, and letters of retraction, without hearing some direct evidence from the complainant. I think that the Judge worked very hard to make it as fair and balanced a judgment as possible, but I would have been with Lady Justice Gloster on this, I just don’t think that the findings can be considered safe in this context. The burden of proof is on the LA to prove that the abuse happened, not on the accused person to prove their innocence.  [Sometimes you do end up with cases where there are very strong suspicions but also doubts, and what tips the balance either way is the credibility of the complainant. If the accused person cannot properly test the complainant’s evidence, the right to fair trial is questionable, for me.]

 

Lady Justice Gloster:

 

  • It is with considerable diffidence that I disagree with views expressed by such experienced family judges as Lady Justice Black and HHJ Moir. This court is rightly very cautious about interfering with case management decisions and second-guessing findings of fact made at first instance by careful family judges. However this case has left me with a deep sense of unease, both in relation to the initial decision of HHJ Moir dated 16 September 2014 that K was not to give oral evidence in the finding of fact hearing and the judge’s subsequent fact-finding judgment dated 15 October 2014 (the order in relation to which is inappropriately described as a “case management order”) in which she held that the Appellant had indeed sexually abused his sister, K. That concern is aggravated by the fact that, as my Lady, Lady Justice Black, has held (and as I agree) there was no basis for HHJ Moir’s finding that the Appellant had anally abused K.
  • The critical features of this case may, in my judgment, be summarised as follows:

 

i) The single issue was whether the Appellant had abused K.ii) The case against the Appellant depended entirely on the veracity of K’s allegations.

iii) The burden of proof at all times was on the Local Authority to establish on the balance of probabilities that the abuse had occurred.

iv) There was no medical evidence of vaginal penetration, despite K’s repeated allegations that she had had full penetrative sex and that she was “no longer a virgin”. In this context the judge appears to have relied on what I regard as the somewhat ambivalent evidence of Dr Jones that “penetration through the hymen can occur without leaving any physical signs”; see paragraph 30 of the judgment.

v) The ABE video interviews of K, upon which the judge heavily relied in reaching her conclusions, had taken place in March and April 2013, at a time well before K had started to attempt to halt the criminal process (July 2013) or had begun, albeit somewhat equivocally, to retract her allegations in their entirety on the grounds that she had made them up (16 September 2013); see paragraphs 9 –13 above for the chronology. So those interviews contained no evidence about the reasons for her retractions.

vi) K frequently changed her mind as to whether she was prepared to give evidence. She informed her guardian that her allegations were untrue and that she wished to give evidence. Subsequently it appears that she changed her view and that she did not want to give evidence. Her guardian assessed her as a “mature young person who had the capacity and competence to give instructions.” The social worker who assessed described her as a “determined and strong willed individual who speaks her mind”, and also observed K as being “quite fragile in her presentation and lacking in self-esteem.”

vii) In deciding whether K should give evidence, the judge relied upon the opinion of K’s guardian and the social worker to the effect that:

“I do not feel that [K] is able to recognise any links to her self-reported frustration and anger with the coping strategies she may have adopted to deal with how she was feeling with her experiences of the current situation. I feel that she seeks to display a certain persona in order to ease her emotions while having built up a barrier up to others to cover how she is feeling.

….

I would not be in support of [K] giving direct evidence at the fact-finding hearing due to the concerns outlined above. I do not feel that she is emotionally able to deal with the impact that this could have on her. I feel [K] would struggle to manage in-depth questioning on the basis that giving direct evidence is to have her say and [inaudible]”.

viii) On any basis, the evidence of K’s guardian and the social worker as to K’s wish or ability to give evidence at trial was highly unsatisfactory and vague opinion evidence. It could not replace an assessment of K’s evidence by the judge.

ix) As a result of the judge’s ruling that K would not be required to give evidence, or otherwise be subjected to any questioning as to why she had changed her mind, because of her so-called “vulnerability, a fragile presentation and her lack of self-esteem”, the reality was that the Appellant was deprived of any effective opportunity to challenge the veracity of K’s case.

x) The case was one of huge importance for the future life of the Appellant and his relationship with his two infant sons and his partner, their mother. It clearly raised serious issues, so far as he was concerned, in relation to his rights under Article 6 of the European Convention of Human Rights (“the ECHR”) to a fair trial, and, so far as he, and his children were concerned, in relation to his rights under Article 8 to a family life.

 

  • In my judgment HHJ Moir’s case management decision dated 15 October 2014, in which she decided that K should not be called as a witness, failed in any adequate way to weigh up the two relevant considerations set out in Re W (Children) [2010] UKSC 12 namely: the advantages that a child giving evidence will bring to the determination of the truth; and the damage which it might do to the welfare of the child witness. In my judgment, there was no adequate medical, or indeed other, evidence, apart from the vague and dubious views of K’s guardian and the social worker, to support the conclusion that it would be so harmful for K to give evidence that she should not be asked to do so. Nor was there any adequate analysis by the judge as to why those concerns trumped the entitlement of the Appellant to question why she had retracted, or, at the least, to some extent resiled from, her previous allegations.
  • As to the first consideration, K was at the time of the fact-finding hearing 13 years and 10 months old and had no cognitive impairment. There was no reason on age and maturity grounds why she should not have been called as a witness. She had displayed as a person who was at least to some extent prepared to exert pressure on the authorities to force the outcome of the criminal proceedings. She clearly had differing attitudes at different times as to whether she wanted, or was prepared, to give evidence. She was a mature young person who had been described as a “determined and strong willed individual who speaks her mind”; see above. Her allegations were extremely serious. There was, in my judgment, no adequate consideration by the judge as to whether K should be required – and indeed whether it would be in K’s interests for her to be required – to give evidence, which either stood by her previous allegations, or which explained the circumstances in which she had resiled from them. Whilst, whether her allegations were true or false, it might well have been distressing or demanding for her to have given evidence, there was no psychiatric or psychological evidence to support the idea that it would have been mentally damaging for her to have given evidence. There was no consideration by the judge as to the advantages to K personally of facing up to the consequences of the allegations which she had made, whether they were true or false, or as to the disadvantages to her of being allowed to avoid responsibility for the consequences of her allegations by not being required to attend trial.
  • Moreover, it was extremely unclear whether K was an unwilling witness or not. She changed her mind frequently about wishing to give evidence in the months leading up to the judge’s ruling and had not been asked in the weeks prior to the ruling whether she would, in fact be prepared to give evidence (whether with or without special measures). Indeed it is significant that the final order dated 8 December 2014 recites the fact that K “would like to meet with the judge”, although the judge ruled that this could not take place until the proceedings were over.
  • In my view the judge was also wrong not to explore other ways in which K could have given evidence, apart from being subjected to cross-examination in open court in front of the Appellant and others. The fact that counsel for the Appellant did not raise the possibility of the judge questioning K in the presence of counsel, but in the absence of the parties, by reference to questions agreed in advance, does not seem to me to be a reason why the judge should not have given consideration to such an option or other alternative options. This was a case that cried out for special measures so as to ensure that the judge received direct evidence from K in relation to the allegations, and, in particular, her retraction of them, and was not forced to rely on the very unsatisfactory secondary evidence of the social worker and the Guardian as to their interpretation of K’s evidence. In my judgment some sort of measure should have been in place to ensure that the judge heard directly from K on the fact-finding hearing.
  • As to the second consideration, in my judgment there was no adequate consideration by the judge of the impact on the Appellant’s case of the inability of his counsel to cross-examine K as to the allegations and her retraction of, or unwillingness to proceed with, them. The consequences for the Appellant, and his infant children, leaving aside his relationship with his partner, were monumentally serious if K’s allegations against him were accepted. On any basis, in my judgment, he could not have had a fair trial in circumstances where the judge was able, in effect, to rely so heavily, if not exclusively, on the ABE interviews conducted before K sought to retract, or sought not to proceed with, her allegations.
  • For the above reasons, I would have allowed the appeal against the judge’s case management decision dated 16 September 2014. In my judgment the judge failed to appreciate that the critical issue was whether or not the Appellant could have had a fair trial without the ability of challenging K’s evidence in any realistic way. In my judgment the judge failed properly to apply the guidelines set down in Re W, which reflect the paramount consideration that a party should have a fair trial.
  • I should say that, so far as the evidence of the K’s two friends are concerned, such evidence was clearly hearsay and should have been afforded very little evidential weight, since, in all the circumstances, it could have provided very little corroborative support for K’s own evidence.
  • Likewise, for the above reasons, it seems to me that the judge’s conclusions in her fact-finding judgment dated 15 October 2014 are clearly open to serious doubt. I do not see how, in the absence of up-to-date evidence directly from K herself, as to the retraction and/or reluctance to proceed with her allegations, the judge was able to conclude that she could rely so heavily on the ABE interviews, or come to the conclusion, as set out in paragraphs 38-39 of the judgment, that K’s allegations were true and that her retraction had arisen partly because of pressure from her family, but largely because of her own feeling of responsibility for breaking up her family and her own strong desire to see her nephews. The inferences which the judge drew from the documentary evidence in my judgment cannot be supported in the absence of up-to-date direct evidence from K herself.
  • I also regard the judge’s analysis of the evidence of the Appellant as inadequate. There is no, or no adequate, explanation by the judge as to why she felt able to reject his evidence that the alleged abuse never took place.
  • In my judgment the judge failed to give proper consideration to the fact that the burden of proof lay on the Local Authority. She had no basis for concluding on the balance of probabilities that K’s serious allegations against the Appellant had been proved. In the absence of any opportunity afforded to the Appellant to challenge K’s evidence that was not a conclusion which I consider she was entitled to reach. In my judgment, the Appellant did not have a fair trial in accordance with his rights under Article 6 of the ECHR and, as a result, his Article 8 rights and those of his infant sons, have been seriously infringed.
  • I would allow the appeal and set aside the findings of HHJ Moir. I would rule that no findings adverse to the Appellant in relation to the allegations of sexual abuse could properly be made on the evidence available to the judge. But since Black and Vos LJJ consider that the appeal should be dismissed, that will be the order of this court.

 

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Court of Appeal criticise Judge for insufficient analysis of the placement options

Posted on January 20, 2016 by suesspiciousminds

 

In re P (A child) 2016

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2016/3.html

The Court of Appeal conclude that a Judge who made a Placement Order (thus authorising a child to be placed for adoption) had not conducted a sufficiently robust analysis of the relative merits of the placement options before making that decision.  The Judge had set out in the judgment what he was required to do, but the Court of Appeal say that he didn’t actually do it.

That’s been an issue I’ve been concerned about for quite a while – I read all of the published judgments, and it seems to me that the complaints that the Court of Appeal made in Re B-S about ‘adoption is the last resort’ being a stock phrase of judicial window-dressing, a remark to be thrown into a judgment but with no real engagement with the principle and philosophy has just been replaced by Judges inserting into their judgments huge swathes of case-law that tell them what they must do and what they must consider (including huge swathes of Re B-S) but there’s not often evidence when I read these judgments of the Judge going on to actually apply these principles. It seems to be considered sufficient for the Judge to simply tell everyone that they know the relevant portions of the caselaw rather than actually following those stipulations.

So in part, I’m rather glad of this case. It puts down that marker.

  1. While ostensibly aware of the need to adopt a ‘holistic’ approach to the evaluation of the options for P (and the guidance offered by Re B-S (Children) [2013] EWCA Civ 1146, [2014] 1 FLR 1935 at [36] and at [46]), we are not convinced that Judge Ansell delivered on his intentions. It is, as this Court has emphasised in Re B-S and in Re R (A Child) (Adoption: Judicial Approach) [2014] (above)) “essential” that a judge provides an adequately reasoned judgment at the conclusion of a case such as this. We very much regret that after the extensive, perhaps overly discursive, review of the evidence this judgment is light on analysis of at least one of the two realistic options (i.e. adoption) to the degree of detail necessary, nor does the judgment contain a comparison of each option or options (see McFarlane LJ in Re G (Care Proceedings: Welfare Evaluation) [2013] EWCA Civ 965, [2014] 1 FLR 670 at [54]), or a proportionality evaluation. In this respect, Mr. Horrocks makes good his submission.
  2. There is no specially prescribed form for a judge undertaking the exercise outlined above; the judge is doing little more than performing an ‘old-fashioned welfare balancing exercise’ (Re F [2015] EWCA Civ 882 at [48]); the term ‘holistic’ does not have any special meaning. Neither the parties, nor this Court, will readily conclude that a judge has performed the necessary welfare balancing exercise just because he or she acknowledges the need to do so. The debate about whether the analysis of the realistic options is a ‘balance sheet’ of the pros and cons or an aide memoire of the key welfare factors and how they match up against each other is sterile. What is expected is that the benefits and detriments of each option are considered and there is an evaluation of each option as against the other based on that analysis.
  3. In this case, as in Re R (A Child) (Adoption: Judicial Approach) [2014], Judge Ansell was faced with an essentially binary decision; either P was restored to her mother’s care, or she was adopted. There was no realistic alternative. The fact that the judge considered the merits of the mother’s position, properly evaluating, we are satisfied, her strengths and weaknesses, but ruling her out as a long-term carer for P before moving on to consider the other option of adoption is ‘linear’ thinking, both in form and substance (see Re R [18]).
  4. There was sufficient evidence before Judge Ansell for him to conclude that the mother was indeed a realistic option as a long-term carer for P (giving ‘realistic’ its ordinary English meaning: Re Y (Children) [2014] EWCA Civ 1553). After all, her aspirations to care for P throughout her childhood had attracted some support during the proceedings from both the Family Centre and (until after the hearing had started) P’s Guardian. There were many positives of her parenting, as the Judge himself recognised. This was not one of those rare cases identified in North Yorkshire County Council v B [2008] 1 FLR 1645, and discussed by Sir James Munby P in Re R at [67], in which it would have been permissible for a court, albeit acting cautiously, to rule out a parent as a potential option (even in some cases before the final hearing itself) before going on to consider other options. By his judgment (both in substance and structure), Judge Ansell gives the impression that this is precisely what he did.
  5. That said, the judge conducted a sufficiently sound analysis of the pros and cons of the mother’s potential as a long-term carer of P; he was, after all, entitled to rely on the fact that the expert and professional evidence in this case all pointed against rehabilitation of P with her mother – namely, the final evidence from the Family Centre, the social worker’s assessments and the final recommendations of Mr. Abrahams. At least two of the professional witnesses (one of the social workers and the Children’s Guardian) had known the mother from the earlier proceedings, and were able to bring to this case long-standing knowledge of her care and parental capabilities. Indeed, it is significant to us that the experienced Guardian, who had represented P’s older half-siblings in the 2012/2013 proceedings, had initially supported the mother in her endeavour to care for P, but in the final analysis, had found himself unable to do so, having heard the same compelling oral evidence as the judge. Mr. Abrahams had concluded that P would not be safe in the care of the mother, a view on which the Judge was entitled to, and did, place significant reliance.
  6. However, that was only part of the required holistic evaluation. The Judge then needed to go on to consider the issue of adoption, and place that option up against the case for parental long-term care.(6) The outcome of adoption:
  7. As indicated in the previous section, having conducted a fair review of the mother’s strengths and weaknesses, and considered her potential as a long-term carer for P, the judge should, in our judgment, have gone on to conduct an internal analysis of the pros and cons of adoption, and then place that analysis up against his conclusions on the mother. In failing to do this, Mr. Horrocks has made good his complaint under this ground of appeal.

 

However, the Court of Appeal in this case go on to say that there is sufficient material before them for THEM to go on to conduct that analysis themselves, rather than send the case back for re-hearing. That’s an approach that is legally and properly available to them and they direct themselves to the relevant caselaw.

My querying eyebrow is that the Court of Appeal therefore consider that THIS is sufficient as an analysis of placement options, as it is the one that they themselves provide and rely upon

 

  1. In reaching a view about this, we have considered carefully the evidence from the senior social worker in the adoption team, the final statement of the key social worker, the Family Centre reports, the Placement Order report, the mother’s written evidence and the Guardian’s reports, all of which (save that from the mother) was evidence accepted by the judge. We consider that we have sufficient evidence to undertake the analysis ourselves.
  2. P is an eighteen-month old infant; she is in good health, though has sickle cell traits. She has the ordinary needs for “predictable, reliable, consistent” parenting from a parent who is “available, responsive and sensitive” (per Placement Order report). She has, in the judge’s finding, a warm relationship with her mother. We acknowledge, as indeed the social workers acknowledge, that if P were to express her feelings, she would almost certainly wish to be cared for by her mother, assisted by her father, provided this was in her best interests. This would reflect well her dual-heritage ethnicity, and would most completely respect her rights to family life; she would probably be able to establish a modest relationship with five of her six half-siblings, through her mother’s periodic contact with them.
  3. By contrast, adoption will sever all legal and emotional ties with the mother and she will, in all probability, lose any contact with her half-siblings; it is thought that any ongoing direct family contact could potentially destabilise any placement. P will nonetheless be claimed as a child in a new family. It is not envisaged that there will be difficulty in finding a suitable placement for P for adoption, and it is believed that this could be done within 3-6 months of a final placement order. The “strict” test for severing the relationship between parent and child by way of adoption is now clearly defined; it will be satisfied only in “exceptional circumstances” and:

    “where motivated by overriding requirements pertaining to the child’s welfare, in short, where nothing else will do” Baroness Hale Re B [198].

  4. We have much in mind that the court’s paramount consideration, in accordance with section 1(2) of the ACA 2002, is P’s welfare “throughout [her] life.” We are of course acutely conscious of the effect on P of ceasing to be a member of her family. But having considered the case carefully, and having placed the options alongside each other, we share the judge’s view, essentially for the reasons he gave, that P’s best interests would not be protected, let alone enhanced, in the care of her mother. We are persuaded that adoption was indeed the only outcome which would meet P’s long term emotional and physical needs; it was, in the final analysis, the only realistic option. The judge was therefore entitled to conclude, albeit he expressed it with incautious brevity, that the mother’s consent to adoption was “required”.
  5. Notwithstanding the exceptionality of this outcome, and while acknowledging that the judgment is light on analysis of the competing options, and far from ‘holistic’ as McFarlane LJ used the term in Re G, the outcome was in our view sufficiently clear that we feel able to substitute our own conclusion.

 

 

It seems rather superficial and sketchy to me – it seems rather like the sort of analysis that the Court of Appeal railed against in Re B-S and all of those other cases. But now, rather than simply carping about what is deficient, we have a concrete example of what the Court of Appeal have ruled is SUFFICIENT.   And it seems, to use vernacular, a bit weaksauce.

If I got that as the social worker’s analysis of placement options, I’d have been sending it back to ask for substantial improvements. I would have been telling them that it doesn’t comply with the guidelines laid down by Re B-S. It seems exactly the sort of analysis that the Court of Appeal described as being anodyne and inadequate. It is barely longer than the example that the Court of Appeal skewered in Re B-S.

And therefore, I am puzzled.

 

The Court of Appeal did express some sympathy for the Judge in the case

In focus in this appeal is a judgment which gives every appearance of being prepared under pressure of time, in a busy court, following directly from submissions at the conclusion of a five-day contested hearing. The result is, as all parties in this appeal have acknowledged to a greater or lesser extent, not altogether satisfactory – a matter of concern to us given that we have concluded that the judge was right for the additional reasons we shall describe; the outcome could not be more momentous for this mother and this child. The appeal represents an example of an all too common occurrence, namely the difficulty of finding time in a busy list adequately to explain a decision based on a series of multi factorial elements. The inevitable temptation for a judge who is seeking to be compassionate and also not to interfere with the other business of the court, is to try and do too much in the time available, when it would be better to take additional time.

 

The judgment was 30 pages long, so not exactly a half-assed rush job. What emerges from the Court of Appeal judgment was the sense that by the time the Judge reached the meat of the case, the real area where the judgment needs to shine – the analysis of placement options and reasons for conclusions, it had rather run out of steam.

 

The judgment finally accelerates to a rather abrupt discussion of the orders; in a concise concluding section the judge expressed the hope that he had “sufficiently analysed the options in this case”; he indicated that, “whether it be a holistic or linear approach”, he rejected the contention that either of these parents could safely protect P. He regarded himself as “driven to the only conclusion” that could be reached, namely a “care order in the welfare of the child must be made”. Without discussing the care plan as such, he reflected that a care order would “involve” a placement order and that required him “to dispense with the parental consent if the welfare of the child requires that consent to be dispensed with”. Without further reflection, he made those orders “in the interests of this child.”

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More money than cents

Posted on December 23, 2015 by suesspiciousminds

 

In this case, which involved an application by a mother to take the children to America to live, the Court of Appeal noted that the parents had, to date, spent £850,000 on Court litigation about their children.

This family appeal strongly demonstrates the damage that is caused when separated parents fail to take the opportunity to resolve their differences. Instead of finding its own solutions, this family, which has every other advantage, has engaged in two years of litigation that has caused great unhappiness, not least to two teenage children. The dispute has been about money and about child arrangements. Aside from the emotional cost and general waste of life, the financial cost has been staggering. The parents have so far expended £850,000 on legal costs and even now their overall litigation is not at an end. The scale of the costs is particularly incongruous when the parents each claim that there was not enough money to go around before the costs were spent. The proceedings are yet another example of why the Family Court repeatedly attempts to divert parties into mediated solutions that allow them to keep control of their own affairs. The court is there to resolve disagreements that cannot be resolved in any other way but, as has been said before, it is not a third parent.

 

By way of comparison, to have educated both of the children at Eton would have still left enough money to buy each of them an Aston Martin DB9.  I know lawyers are awesome, but I do think that probably a private school education and a DB9 would have done the children more good.   [The money could even have bought a small cupboard in central London as a first step on the property ladder…]

 

To put it into more context, £850,000 is the figure that the Press have been aghast that Liam Gallagher and Nicole Appleton have spent on their divorce lawyers – and those are two considerably wealthy individuals arguing about a considerable amount of money.

 

Re C (Older Children:Relocation) 2015

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2015/1298.html

 

The Court of Appeal also made some observations about the sliding and diminishing scale of the Court’s willingness to make orders about older children and ability to make orders that are effective.

 

A further and central element of the situation is that the children of this family are in fact young persons, being boys now aged 17 and 15. The case illustrates the particular caution that should be felt by any court seeking to make arrangements for children of this age. In the first place, it is likely to be inappropriate and even futile to make orders that conflict with the wishes of an older child. As was memorably said in Hewer v Bryant [1970] 1 QB 357 in a passage approved in Gillick v West Norfolk and Wisbech Area Health Authority [1986] 1 AC 112: “… the legal right of a parent to the custody of a child ends at the eighteenth birthday and even up till then, it is a dwindling right which the courts will hesitate to enforce against the wishes of the child, the older he is. It starts with a right of control and ends with little more than advice.” Nowadays, the ‘no order’ principle goes even further and requires the court to justify making any order at all, regardless of whether it is in support of the child’s wishes or in opposition to them. With an older child, the court’s grasp cannot exceed its reach, any more than a parent’s can, and attempts to regulate something that is beyond effective regulation can only create a forum for disagreement and distract the family from solving its own problems.

 

As the Court had made orders about the two children previously, technically mother did need leave of the Court to remove the children from the jurisdiction. The Court of Appeal ruled that the older child ought no longer, at 17 to be subject to Court restrictions and orders, and thus there was no need for leave of the Court. If he wanted to move to America with mother, then he could move, and if he did not, he would not have to. In relation to the 15 year old, the mother’s appeal was refused, so he could not go to America with mother, but that all orders in relation to him would end when he was 16, so he could go then if he wished to.

 

  1. Our conclusion is that the general approach taken by this very experienced recorder was one that he was fully entitled to take. To the extent that the appeal is allowed in E’s case and, to a limited extent, in J’s, it is on a basis that was not argued below, namely in consequence of the ‘no order’ principle the court should not have been making or continuing orders about young persons over 16 other than in exceptional circumstances.
  2. As stated at the end of the hearing, the outcome allows the parents and E to discuss the arrangements for his future between them. It is a clear indication that this court does not consider it appropriate for it to contribute to that discussion in any way at all.
  3. In J’s case, the outcome of the appeal is that the mother may not take him to New York. That does not prevent the parents from discussing and reaching agreement about the future arrangements for his residence and schooling, but if they cannot do so the arrangements under the existing order will continue and the terms of s.13 Children Act 1989 will remain in effect.
  4. However, we shall direct that the existing order will cease to have effect in J’s case when he reaches the age of 16. This is a variation of the arrangements that was not the subject of appeal but it is in conformity with our decision in E’s case.

 

 

The proceedings have taken a heavy toll on the children, who emerge with great credit. It must be hard for them to live amidst such conflict. The parents must now bring an end to a situation where their children are being asked to make up for their own inability to communicate effectively. The hearing of this appeal took place on the second last day of the school Christmas term, meaning that the boys did not until that moment know whether or not they would be saying goodbye to their school and their friends. They deserve better, and it is to be hoped that the end of these proceedings and the imminent resolution of the financial case will bring some respite, or even something more enduring.

 

 

The Children Act 1989 s9, as amended in 2014, sets out the Court’s powers to make section 8 orders past the age of 16

 

“9 Restrictions on making section 8 orders

…

(6) No court shall make a section 8 order which is to have effect for a period which will end after the child has reached the age of sixteen unless it is satisfied that the circumstances of the case are exceptional.

(6A) Subsection (6) does not apply to a child arrangements order to which subsection (6B) applies.

(6B) This subsection applies to a child arrangements order if the arrangements regulated by the order relate only to either or both of the following –

(a) with whom the child concerned is to live, and

(b) when the child is to live with any person.

(7) No court shall make any section 8 order, other than one varying or discharging such an order, with respect to a child who has reached the age of sixteen unless it is satisfied that the circumstances of the case are exceptional.”

The Court of Appeal had therefore to look at whether a relocation application was a specific issue order, or whether it related to a variation of residence  – they conclude that the Court ought properly when faced with an application about a child who was over 16 to consider that all orders should fall away (and thus mum would not NEED leave to remove from the jurisdiction)

  1. There is, regrettably, some lack of clarity about how relocation applications are to be classified. The debate, which is of long standing, is whether such an application is to be made under s.13 itself or by way of an application for a specific issue order under s.8. There are in my view good arguments for the latter: see the observations of Hale J in re M (above) at 340-341 and the article by Dr Robert George in Family Law Journal [2008] Vol 38 p.1121. However, this court has on at least three occasions proceeded on the basis that an application to relax the s.13 prohibition where there is an existing order is not an application under s.8 for a specific issue order: Re B (Change of Surname) [1996] 1 FLR 791; Payne v Payne [2001] 1 FLR 1052; Re F (A Child)(International Relocation Cases) [2015] EWCA Civ 882.
  2. It may seem anomalous that the statutory framework for a relocation application will differ depending upon whether there is a s.8 order in effect. In the above appeal cases, judges been enjoined to apply the welfare checklist even when it is not strictly engaged. In the present case, the difference is potentially sharper because the bar on making s.8 orders for children over 16 will only apply if the application is for a specific issue order: it does not apply if the application is considered to be made under s.13.
  3. How did the recorder deal with this issue? He accepted Ms Murray’s submission that he could make an order in relation to E because he could “regard any new living arrangements as being a variation of the existing shared residence order”. In doing so, he rejected M’s submission that he would be making a new order which, he accepted, would be barred by s.9(7). He found that the circumstances were not exceptional and it is common ground that he was right to do so. Without being prescriptive, I would interpret the main intention behind the proviso as being to allow an order to be made where a child has qualities that require additional protection, not to override the views of a mature child of 16 or 17.
  4. I have set out the arguments on this issue because they formed part of the recorder’s decision and the argument in this court. However, drawing matters together, it seems to me that whether a relocation application is regarded as being made under s.13 or s.8, the general intention of the Act (prominently seen in s.9) is to prevent the imposition of inappropriate requirements on older children.
  5. But I would go beyond that and find that the issue in this case is not to be determined by reference to s.9, but instead by reference to the wider principle expressed in s.1(5). In my view it is not better for the court to make an order in relation to E than to make no order. In fact, it would be positively better for the court to make no order about him. The simple fact is that E is too old to be directed by the court in a matter of this kind. Although the existing child arrangements order, buttressed by the effect of s.13 is not addressed to him, it directly affects him as the subject of the proceedings. This is not to ignore the common interests of this strong pair of brothers, but to recognise the proper limits on the court’s exercise of its powers in the case of a mature and intelligent older child who is now 17 years of age.

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Cracking a case at IRH without father present – robust case management or jumping the gun?

Posted on November 23, 2015 by suesspiciousminds

 

This is a Court of Appeal decision

 

RE v North Yorkshire County Council and Others 2015

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2015/1169.html

 

(Making me wonder if it is going to get shortened to “Re RE”)

It has an unfortunate typo in the very first line of the case report which will delight those like me with a childish mind – you really do need to be very careful with the spelling of the word “Public” in Public Law Outline.

 

Though this version has a certain aptness – in many parts of the country it doesn’t really exist at all, in some areas only a sliver of it can be observed,  everyone can agree that some pruning and trimming is wholly desirable, and nobody really pays it much attention until a bit gets stuck in your throat…

 

Anyway, the nuts and bolts of the case. The parties attended an Issue Resolution Hearing. The father was not in attendance – he was in prison and a production order was not sought.  [As a person in prison is not in a position to simply saunter out and wander down to Court of their own volition, what needs to happen is for their solicitor to apply to Court for a Production Order so that the prison staff know that the person is required in Court on that date and must be brought there. Without a Production order, the prisoner won’t be produced. With one, they will be produced two hours later than you asked for…]

 

The Court made a series of final orders

 

i) A Care Order in favour of the Local Authority, North Yorkshire County Council;

ii) Permission to the Local Authority, to refuse contact between the child (A) and his father (F) pursuant to section 34(4) of the Children Act 1989;

iii) Leave to the Local Authority to apply for a declaration removing responsibility to consult F in relation to A;

iv) A declaration that the Local Authority should be absolved from the statutory responsibility of consulting F in relation to A’s care and their obligation to involve him in the Looked After Children (LAC) consultation process;

v) A non-molestation order (granted until further order) prohibiting F from:

a) Contacting M, A or the maternal great grandmother (MGGM) either directly or indirectly or through any third party except through lawyers or through the Local Authority for the purpose of the letterbox contact;

b) Attending within 100 metres of any address where he knows M and A or MGGM are living;

c) Should F meet M in any public or private area he is ordered to leave immediately to a distance of at least 100m away.

A power of arrest was attached to the non-molestation order.

 

 

The father appealed the order, on the following grounds

 

  1. The Grounds of Appeal have been drafted in very general terms (even as amended) but the thematic basis, which embraces each of the orders set out above, is identified in Ground 1 of the Appellant’s Amended Grounds of Appeal:

    “The Judge was wrong to have made final orders at interim hearing which:

    1. Prevent a child from maintaining personal relations with a parent; and

    2. Prevent a child having a future determined by which both parents have played a part.”

    It is argued that at the IRH the Judge was not in a position to conduct the ‘holistic analysis’ of the available options that was required in order properly to do justice either to the interests of the child or the father. In particular, at Ground 3, which is really an amplification of the same point, it was contended:

    1. Before reaching the determination that it was necessary and proportionate to the identified risks, that ‘nothing else would do’ the Judge needed to be sure that all the evidence was before the Court. The Judge was wrong to have proceeded to make Final Orders at an interim hearing;

    i. Without the court bundle;

    ii. Without the father having had notice that the IRH might be dealt with as a final hearing;

    iii. Without the father having been produced from prison

    iv. Without having heard any evidence or allowed father the opportunity to properly challenge the evidence of the Social Worker and Children’s Guardian;

    v. Without some form of contact being tested, the father, having made requests for contact, photographs and for the Social Worker to visit him, had the father having never met A or received any update in respect of his developments except the redacted Care Plans when the child was nearly 5 months old.

    vi. Where despite a large number of concessions and acceptances by Father, enough for a court to consider the Threshold Criteria for making s.31 orders was crossed, the Threshold Criteria annexed to the order had only been agreed by the Mother and not by Father,

    vii. Without having proper evidence before the court as to the impact upon the child of having no contact with the paternal family.

  2. Further, the Declaratory Relief granted by the Judge is attacked on the separate ground that the Judge lacked a jurisdictional basis to grant such relief and accordingly exceeded the ambit of her lawful powers. No party now seeks to uphold these declarations recognising and conceding their lack of jurisdictional foundation. The Appellant however goes further and contends that ‘even had there been jurisdiction, it would have been wrong to make the orders’. Furthermore, it is asserted ‘the declarations were in breach of the F’s Article 6 rights and were unlawful.’

 

 

The Court of Appeal tackled the declaration first, and had no difficulty in saying that it ought not to have been made. Firstly, the Judge had not been sitting in the High Court or as a s9 Judge and had no jurisdiction for a declaration of that type,

 

As I have already foreshadowed, none of the advocates seek to salvage the declaration releasing the Local Authority from its obligation, pursuant to statute, to consult F in relation to A’s care and to involve him in the Looked After Children (LAC) consultation process. I propose therefore to address this point first. HHJ Finnerty was sitting as a Judge of the Family Court. Though she is an experienced Judge who sits regularly as a Deputy High Court Judge of the Family Division, she was not sitting in that capacity in this case on the day of the IRH. No application had been made for her to seek permission from her Family Division Liaison Judge or other Judge of the Division to sit as a Section 9 Judge of the High Court. It is plain that, through oversight, no thought was given to the jurisdictional basis of the declaration by either Counsel or the Judge. Such declarations are made pursuant to the inherent jurisdictional powers of the High Court, they have no other foundation. If this had been the sole difficulty here and had they been otherwise sustainable I would, for my part, have been prepared to investigate some pragmatic resolution, perhaps a speedy remission to the Judge inviting her to reconstitute herself in the High Court to authorise the declarations on a free standing application pursuant to the inherent jurisdiction. It may well be that there is no such solution. However, it is unnecessary for me to investigate further as I am of the clear view that the declarations are more generally flawed.

 

  1. There are sound reasons why declarations are required to be made under the Inherent Jurisdiction and commenced in the High Court. Frequently, as here, they involve authorisation of actions which fall outside statutory obligation or may, again as here, be directly contrary to it. Thus, these are invariably complex issues which require to be dealt with in the High Court. This is given effect to, unambiguously by Rule 12.36 (1) and PD 12D.
  2. In Re B [2013] EWCA Civ 964, the Court of Appeal considered whether there needs to be a formal transfer where the Circuit Judge is authorised to sit as a s.9 Judge. At para 7, Black LJ observed:

    ‘Where a circuit judge is to sit as a High Court judge, it seems to me that this needs to be arranged deliberately, with the proceedings commenced in or transferred to the High Court. The mere fact that the judge who has heard the case happens to be authorised to sit as a High Court judge or to try Administrative Court cases might not redeem a failure to observe proper practice.’

  3. I note that Black LJ does not completely exclude some pragmatic resolution, limiting herself to the observation that the matter ‘might not’ be capable of being redeemed. Here, as I have stated, Counsel on behalf of the Respondents all agree that the declarations cannot be sustained for these jurisdictional reasons.

 

Secondly, that a declaration of that seriousness could not be made lightly and not on the sort of facts that this case presented

  1. Ms. Bazley submits the case law establishes that a Local Authority may only be absolved from its duty to consult and to provide information to a parent in ‘exceptional circumstances’. I agree.
  2. The duty, pursuant to s.26, is directory not mandatory. But, as Ms. Bazley submits, the result of non-compliance is treated as an irregularity: Re P (Children Act 1989, ss22 and 26: Local Authority Compliance) [2000] 2 FLR 910. Ms Bazley further directs this Court’s attention to Re C (Care: Consultation with Parent not in Child’s Best Interests) [2006] 2 FLR 787; [2005] EWHC 3390 (Fam). There Coleridge J granted a declaration to the effect that the Local Authority was absolved, in what were described as ‘exceptional circumstances’, from any obligation to consult the father. In that case the father was serving a lengthy sentence for raping the child, who did not wish the father to be informed or consulted at all in relation to her future. The child had applied, successfully, to discharge the father’s Parental Responsibility. The applications were decided on the basis of C’s best interests. The Court concluded that the father’s total disregard for C’s best interests in committing the offences, coupled with her consistently and strongly articulated wish that he be excluded from her life entirely, led to a clear conclusion that he should not participate in any discussions about her future welfare. Nonetheless even there, the court directed that he would be informed if the Local Authority intended to make significant changes to the Care Plan, such as applying for adoption. Coleridge J observed:

    “[30] The conclusions that I have come to are really these: the considerations which govern the dismissal of this father from further involvement in the proceedings, and the granting of the declarations seem to me to be the same. Indeed, there is little point in him remaining a party if he is not going to be given any information; indeed, it would be impractical for him to remain a party if he was not going to be given information.”

    [31] The second pivotal point, of course, is that this application is decided, first and foremost, on the basis of s 1 of the Children Act 1989 – that is to say, what is in S’s best interests. Of course, hers are not the only interests, but they are the ones which are of paramount concern to the court.

    [32] The third factor, self-evidently, is that it is a very exceptional case only which would attract this kind of relief. Self-evidently – and it hardly needs the human rights legislation to remind one – a parent is entitled to be fully involved, normally, in the decision-making process relating to his, or her, child, and if not to be involved, then at least informed about it. However, insofar as that engages the father’s rights to family life, then by the same token it engages S’s right to privacy and a family life.”

  3. The factual background, giving rise to this appeal, though undoubtedly very troubling does not, in my judgement, amount to ‘exceptional’. It is not difficult to contemplate strategies which enable the privacy and security of the placement to be protected by a far less draconian level of intervention. Accordingly, Ms. Bazley submits and I agree that: ‘even had it been lawful to make the declaration, the circumstances of this case were not so exceptional as to justify it being made‘.

 

 

The appeal was granted and the declaration set aside.

Next, the substantive part of the appeal – was it wrong for the Judge to have made final orders, particularly final orders which in effect ended the father’s relationship with the child when the father had not expressly agreed, had not attended Court (as a result of Production Orders not having been obtained) and had not had the opportunity then to oppose those final orders?

That may seem something of a no-brainer, but bear with me.  All advocates will need to be aware of particularly paragraph 49 and the duty that this places upon them

 

  1. The following uncontentious facts require highlighting:

    i) The Care Plan provided for mother and baby to remain together;

    ii) No Party opposed the plan;

    iii) It was agreed by all the parties that the question of A’s direct contact with F was not an issue for the final hearing, in consequence of F’s incarceration;

    iv) All agreed that a Care Order was the appropriate order;

    v) All agreed as to the extent to which F should be able to provide photographs / cards to A;

    vi) All Parties and the Judge were aware of the indeterminate Restraint Order passed by the Crown Court preventing F from having contact with M (and others);

    vii) F had not asked to be produced from custody at any stage in the case.

  2. It is axiomatic that this was precisely the kind of case that had every potential for resolution at the IRH. It was the professional duty of all concerned to ensure that it did. I regret to say that the profession fell short in that duty. The Judge had done everything she could. By contrast, the Advocates’ Meeting appears to have been formulaic and ineffective. It was plain that F wished to have photographs of his son. F’s solicitors had not obtained a Home Office Production Order to facilitate F’s attendance at Court. Accordingly, F’s counsel was not in a position to take instructions on last minute and important details. Ms. Bazley asserts that F repeatedly elected not to come to court because he considered his presence to be an impediment to the mother’s case. The obligation of his lawyers here was to ensure that F’s own case was not compromised by his non-attendance.
  3. It requires to be stated that Court Orders are there to be complied with, they are not aspirational targets. I strongly suspect that if the advocates’ meeting had absorbed the true objectives of the IRH, and F produced at court, this case would have resolved by agreement. Moreover, I have no doubt at all that had there been proper thought given to concluding the case, the advocates would, at the final meeting, have paid greater attention to the legal basis of the Local Authority’s application for a declaration.
  4. I agree with King LJ in Re S-W (supra) that a Final Order at a CMH will be appropriate only occasionally. However, the message must go out loudly and clearly that the Court will and must always consider the making of Final Orders at the IRH. It must be understood that it is the professional duty of the advocates and all the lawyers, in every case, to direct their attention to the obligation to achieve finality at the IRH wherever possible. It follows that the lay Parties are always required to attend. If a Party is in custody a Home Office Production Order should be obtained and, if necessary, at the instigation of the Judge.
  5. In granting permission to appeal Ryder LJ considered that this case raised an important issue. Though the Court of Appeal has considered these points before it has been in the context of Judges who have been too robust in concluding cases where evidence required to be tested. This case, for the reasons I have set out, is one of wholly different complexion. It provides an opportunity to signal the cultural shift brought about by the Family Justice Reforms and the particular responsibilities on all involved at the IRH.
  6. Though I regret to say it, where the Judge’s objectives (i.e. to facilitate the potential for resolution of the case) are thwarted by non-compliance with Case Management Orders then this may in future have to trigger the consideration of appropriate sanctions in costs. Such orders are counterintuitive in a court arena where much reliance is placed on cooperation and common endeavour. However, the Family Justice Reforms are not merely administrative; they are designed, as I have emphasised above, to reconnect the profession with a core welfare principle: the avoidance of delay.
  7. The approach of the first instance Judge has been entirely vindicated in this Court. The Parties have been asked to consider whether the key issues were capable of resolution given the very narrow ambit of dispute. It struck me that it would have been hugely disproportionate to adjourn them for hearing before a High Court Judge, as it was submitted the outcome should be.

 

In the event, the parties at the Appeal hearing were able to reach agreement on indirect contact and Christmas cards etc, so in part the appeal fell by the wayside. But putting that to one side, was the Judge wrong to have made final orders when father’s attendance had not been facilitated, or was this robust case management?  It seems from my reading that the Court of Appeal would have backed the trial Judge here (other than on the declaration) and the appeal if it had been on those grounds alone would have failed. The responsibility here was with the advocates for not ensuring that either father’s position was entirely in keeping with the orders sought or to obtain a Production Order so that negotiations / representations could have been dealt with at the IRH.

 

The Court of Appeal put down a marker here that advocates must always be alive to the possibility that the case may be concluded at IRH and turn their minds to the final orders.   [They didn’t actually expressly deal with some of the important issues in the appeal – to whit, whether this Judge had made such serious final orders without a Court bundle i.e reading all of the papers, and the threshold having been finally determined taking into account mother’s concessions but including within it matters that father disputed without the Court hearing evidence about the disputed matters and making findings]

 

 

 

 

 

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Bickering (or the ever decreasing circle of life continues)

Posted on November 14, 2015 by suesspiciousminds

[Grateful to @dilettantevoice for highlighting this case to me on Twitter]

 

You may recall the Court of Appeal taking Mostyn J to task for taking them to task for taking him to task.

Ever decreasing circles – Court of Appeal take Mostyn J to task for taking them to task for taking him to task…

 

Well, none of you thought that it would end there, did you?

Re CD 2015

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCOP/2015/74.html

An exceptionally tricky case, and one absolutely can’t underestimate just how difficult a job High Court Judges have to do. This one involved a woman with very severe mental health problems, who after she stabbed herself in the stomach, the hospital found that she had tumours in her stomach that needed to be removed. Although the woman was detained under the Mental Health Act, the power to perform treatment against a person’s will under that Act is really confined to treatment for their mental health, and this was a physical treatment. As the woman would be under anesthetic at the time, the High Court has previously ruled that this would be a deprivation of liberty.

A NHS Trust v A [2013] EWHC 2442(Fam) [2014] Fam 161

Additionally, there’s the complication of some wording in the Mental Capacity Act which suggests that a deprivation of liberty can only be dealt with under the Mental Health Act if the person is detained under the Mental Health Act.

 

 

  • he confusion surrounding the main test is mirrored by the confusion that the interface with the MHA gives rise to. I recently have had to grapple with this in Re A [2015] EWCOP 71. Mr Justice Baker has given a characteristically exhaustive judgment on the subject in A NHS Trust v A [2013] EWHC 2442(Fam) [2014] Fam 161 as has Judge Parry in A Local Health Board v AB [2015] EWCOP 31. The confusion arises from the highly ambiguous and double negative laden terms of para 3(2) of Schedule 1A to the MCA 2005. This states:

 

“P is ineligible if the authorised course of action is not in accordance with a requirement which the relevant regime imposes”

 

  • In this case CD is P. “Ineligible” means ineligible to be deprived of liberty by the 2005 Act. The “authorised course of action” is the surgical removal of the ovarian masses. The “relevant regime” is the MHA regime whereby CD is compulsorily detained in a mental hospital. So, for our purposes, para 3(2) reads:

 

“CD is ineligible to be deprived of liberty by the 2005 Act if the surgical removal of the ovarian masses is not in accordance with a requirement which the MHA regime whereby CD is compulsorily detained in a mental hospital imposes.”

 

  • Mr Auburn rightly says that there are two ways of reading this which give rise to directly contradictory results. The first is in a pitilessly literal way, as argued by Mr Matthewson. It is this: if the surgical removal of the ovarian masses is not in accordance with a requirement of the MHA regime whereby CD is compulsorily detained in a mental hospital then CD is ineligible to be deprived of liberty by the 2005 Act. It isn’t, he says, so she is ineligible and so the necessary orders have to be made under the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court. The problem with this interpretation is that it gives rise to a result directly contrary to the intention of the statute and to the express terms of the Code of Practice, as I explained in Re A at paras 10 – 14 (accepting the submissions not only of Ms Butler-Cole but also of Ms Dolan, on that occasion instructed by the Official Solicitor).
  • The alternative interpretation, which I adopted in Re A, and which I maintain to be correct is this: if the MHA regime whereby CD is compulsorily detained in a mental hospital imposes a specific requirement for dealing with the problem of the ovarian masses then CD is ineligible to be deprived of her liberty under the 2005 Act for the purposes of dealing with the problem by a different procedure under that Act. It doesn’t (obviously) so she isn’t ineligible. As I said in Re A this is plainly what the scheme of section 16A and Schedule 1A intends and the matter is conclusively confirmed by paras 4.50 and 4.51 of the Code of Practice. In my judgment it would be ridiculous if the whole case had to leave the Court of Protection with its statutory powers and enter the High Court exercising common law inherent powers by virtue of a pedantically literal reading of para 3(2).
  • The orders which I make will be made by me sitting in the Court of Protection under powers granted by Parliament in the MCA.

 

 

Mostyn J is utterly and completely right here, the wording of this piece of the legislation is ghastly (double-negatives are really not something that you want in a piece of legislation anywhere, particularly about something so serious) and it has left a serious lacuna in the law.  And you know how High Court Judges tend to solve lacunas in the law – that’s right, the ‘theoreticaly limitless powers of the inherent jurisdiction’  [Though not here, Mostyn eschewing Baker J’s inherent jurisdiction solution to say instead that the power must really remain under the MCA]

 

A very tricky case, and almost all of what Mostyn J says in the judgment is careful, apposite and fair.

Unfortunately, this passage decides to resurrect the quarrel with both the Supreme Court in Cheshire West, and the Court of Appeal

 

In KW & Ors v Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council [2015] EWCA Civ 1054 at para 32 the Court of Appeal stated “even if Cheshire West is wrong, there is nothing confusing about it”. It may seem that way from the lofty heights of the Court of Appeal; and of course the literal words of the Supreme Court’s test are perfectly easy to understand. But for we hoplites who have to administer it at first instance the scope and ramifications of the test are, with respect, extremely confusing. As Mr Matthewson, instructed by the Official Solicitor for CD, rightly stated “anyone who deals with this day by day knows this is confusing”. What of the situation where, as here, the protected person actively and fervently expresses the wish to undergo the procedure that is said to amount to a deprivation of liberty? What of the situation, as was the case in Bournemouth Borough Council v PS & Anor [2015] EWCOP 39, where the protected person shows no inclination whatsoever to leave the home where he is cared for round the clock? What of the situation where the protected person is seriously disabled, perhaps bedridden, perhaps in a coma, and is thus physically incapable of exercising the freedom to leave? The answers I received from the Bar when discussing these scenarios belie the blithe suggestion that “there is nothing confusing” about the test. I do not accept the criticism that my approach to these cases is “distorted” by my “passionate” and “tenacious” belief that Cheshire West is wrong. Rather, it is a loyal approach which tries to apply literally and purposively the Supreme Court’s test while at the same time pointing out how confusing and curious it is, to say nothing of the cost it causes to the public purse

 

 

I think that there IS an argument about whether Baker J’s decision in Re A (that the surgical procedure amounts to a deprivation of liberty) actually meets the test in Cheshire West – I think that one can argue it either way and a strong case can be made for if a Court has declared that the procedure is in P’s best interests despite a lack of consent that the patient has had sufficient safeguards and an additional authorisation of a Deprivation of Liberty isn’t necessary.

It is also quite right that we now have a definition of deprivation of liberty which is utterly unworkable in practice due to resource implications (as we have seen, if every LA issued every deprivation of liberty application that they need to on the wording of Cheshire West, the Court would spend the next five years dealing with this years cases, and so on), and that the MCA on this particular issue is badly in need of reform. Such reform not likely to hit us until 2017 at best.

 

But the Rule of Law is the Rule of Law.  Whatever one might think of the Cheshire West test (and personal opinions and critiques of it are perfectly valid – it wasn’t a unanimous decision on all issues in the Supreme Court itself), the test has been set and it is now to be applied.  In the first of the two examples, it is really plain that the absence of resistance from P if they lack capacity is neither here nor there, that’s not a legitimate part of the test. After all, that was the very issue in Bournewood that led to the development of the MCA in  the first place. The latter question of whether you assess whether a person is being deprived of their liberty by looking at their physical characteristics has been squashed by the Supreme Court.

[There IS , I think an argument about whether someone who is physically prevented temporarily from getting up to leave – under anaesthetic for example, or that they have a broken leg that will heal, meets the Cheshire West test. But that’s for a Judge to determine when they are faced with an application of the test to those particular facts]

 

It is a fine line between a Judge being free to criticise the law when it is resulting in unfairness and staying out of politics and just applying the law as it is to the facts of the case.

I’m aware that I am being hypocritical here – because I do think that Judges can and should speak out when the law at present is unfair and makes unreasonable outcomes when it is applied.  Because when Mostyn J and others have attacked LASPO, I’ve supported and applauded them. That is a law whose application is currently unfair (particularly the Legal Aid Agency’s approach to granting exceptional funding where human rights require it, but ignoring when Judges tell them that this particular case would breach a person’s human rights if funding were not given).  I also disagree with LASPO itself, but I’m stuck with it unless and until Parliament changes it. So, am I just as unreasonable as Mostyn J considers the Court of Appeal to be – given that I’m happy for him to critique and attack the law when I agree with him, but criticise him when I think the law is right?

Damn, I’ve painted myself into a corner here.

 

Perhaps what we need is a case with the citation Mostyn J v Court of Appeal  (to be decided in the Supreme Court)

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Abuse by foster parents – can the Local Authority be sued?

Posted on November 12, 2015 by suesspiciousminds

 

Almost every case I write about is full of human tragedy and sadness, and this one particularly so. It involves a woman who when she was a child was placed in the care of foster parents, one presumes because it was decided that her own parents could not perform that task. That particular foster carer went on to physically and sexually abuse her. Dreadfully sad and unspeakably awful. I hope (but don’t know) that the foster carers have been convicted and punished.

The issue for this case was whether the woman could sue the Council who placed her there. They did not know of the abuse at the time, and there is no suggestion here that there was negligence on their part  (which would be either that the fostering checks hadn’t been carried out, or that they failed to make the visits and ongoing checks that were required by law at that time, or that they learned of the abuse and failed to act).  Councils can be sued for negligence, if any of those things were alleged and capable of being proven, but negligence is not the case pleaded here. The detail makes it plain that none of those failings were present.

 

Instead, it is something called “vicarious liability”, which in simple language means that an employer can be held legally responsible in some situations for things that its employees did. Vicarious liability can be a useful remedy where the organisation was not negligent, but where they have the necessary care and control over the employee’s actions. It is useful in particular because generally an employer (for example a Council) has more money (and insurance) than the wrong-doers themselves, who would not have the financial means to pay the compensation that the victim would really deserve.

So the fundamental question for the Court of Appeal here was “Can the Council be vicariously liable for criminal actions carried out by foster carers?”

 

NA v Nottingham County Council 2015   (It should be Nottinghamshire, but who am I to question the Court of Appeal?)

 

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2015/1139.html

 

Unpleasantly, a lot of the law around vicarious liability involves the sexual abuse of children, with the lead case being one about the Catholic Child Welfare Service Various Claimants v Catholic Child Welfare Society and Others [2012] UKSC 56, [2013] 2 AC 1

 

“35. The relationship that gives rise to vicarious liability is in the vast majority of cases that of employer and employee under a contract of employment. The employer will be vicariously liable when the employee commits a tort in the course of his employment. There is no difficulty in identifying a number of policy reasons that usually make it fair, just and reasonable to impose vicarious liability on the employer when these criteria are satisfied: (i) the employer is more likely to have the means to compensate the victim than the employee and can be expected to have insured against that liability; (ii) the tort will have been committed as a result of activity being taken by the employee on behalf of the employer; (iii) the employee’s activity is likely to be part of the business activity of the employer; (iv) the employer, by employing the employee to carry on the activity will have created the risk of the tort committed by the employee; (v) the employee will, to a greater or lesser degree, have been under the control of the employer.”

 

In this case, the critical element was (v) whether the employee (the foster carers) to a greater or lesser degree was under the control of the employer (the Council)

 

The Court of Appeal ruled unanimously that there was no vicarious liability here

 

The provision of family life is not and by definition cannot be part of the activity of the local authority or of the enterprise upon which it is engaged. Family life is not capable of being so regarded, precisely because inherent in it is a complete absence of external control over the imposition or arrangement of day to day family routine, save insofar as is provided by the general law or by ordinary social conventions. The control retained by the local authority is at a higher or macro level. Micro management of the day to day family life of foster children, or of their foster parents in the manner in which they create the day to day family environment, would be inimical to that which fostering sets out to achieve, for the reasons expressed by McLachlin CJ at paragraph 24 of her judgment. The control retained by the local authority, over and above the proper selection of foster parents and adequate supervision of the placement which is here not in issue, is thus irrelevant to the risk of abuse occurring during the unregulated course of life in the foster home. In the Catholic Child Welfare case Lord Phillips described the relationship between the Brothers and the Institute as “closer than that of an employer and its employees.” The manner in which the Brother teachers were obliged to conduct themselves as teachers was dictated by the Institute’s rules. There is in my view not the remotest of analogies to be drawn between that situation and the relationship of local authority to foster parents.

 

 

and

 

For vicarious liability to exist, there would have to be (1) the necessary relationship between the foster parents and the local authority and (2) the requisite close connection between that relationship and the abuse that they committed (see paragraph 21of Lord Phillips’ judgment in Various Claimants v Catholic Church Welfare Society, supra, and also paragraph 88 where he proceeds to apply what he has distilled from the authorities in the preceding paragraphs). I do not consider that the relationship between the foster parents and the local authority was of the required nature. It was not, to my mind, sufficiently akin to employment. Although the significance of control in the relationship has changed over the years, it remains a relevant aspect of the assessment of whether there is vicarious liability. Certain aspects of the care of a child by foster parents are, and were at the relevant time, regulated and the local authority have a supervisory duty over the placement, which can be ended if they consider it appropriate. But the essence of the arrangement is, just as it was at the time with which we are concerned, that the child is placed with the foster parents to live with them as a member of their family. The child’s day to day life is in the charge of the foster parents, who are expected to give the child as normal an experience of family life as they can. The degree of independence that this gives the foster parents is not indicative, in my view, of a relationship giving rise to vicarious liability.

 

 

There was a second part of the claim which was that this was a “non-delegable duty”  – i.e that it was the Council’s job to provide a child whom they are looking after with a safe home and they could not delegate that duty to the foster carers. This is a much more technical argument, and beyond the scope of this blog to explore in detail, but the Court of Appeal ruled that there was not such a duty here. That possible remedy arises largely from a case called  Woodland v Swimming Teachers Association and others [2013] UKSC 66 [2014] AC 537, decided in the Supreme Court and setting out five ingredients.

The Court of Appeal did not think that this case met all of those Woodland ingredients, and were also cautious about viewing the Woodland ingredients in isolation.

 

 

  • I do not propose to take my discussion of this point any further because it seems to me that consideration of the five features set out in Lord Sumption’s paragraph 23 should not be undertaken in a limbo. This is because the question of liability for non-delegable duty has got to be approached having very much in mind what he said at paragraph 25 of the Woodland case:

 

“The courts should be sensitive about imposing unreasonable financial burdens on those providing critical public services. A non-delegable duty of care should be imputed to schools only so far as it would be fair, just and reasonable to do so.”

Lord Sumption explained why he considered that no unreasonable burden would be imposed in that case. In this case, however, I am of the view that to impose a non-delegable duty on a local authority would be unreasonably burdensome and, in fact, contrary to the interests of the many children for whom they have to care.

 

  • I therefore find myself in agreement with Males J’s conclusion about this aspect of the case. I take into account the desirability of providing a remedy of substance for someone in the Appellant’s position. Nothing that I say here should be taken as suggesting that I am anything other than deeply conscious of the dreadful treatment she has suffered and sympathetic to the lasting impact that it must have had upon her. However, there are powerful reasons against the imposition of liability in circumstances such as the present ones.
  • It is a fundamental principle of social work practice that children are best placed in a family environment. If they cannot live with their parents, the majority of children are therefore likely to benefit most from a foster placement. Careful screening of prospective foster parents, training, supervision of the foster family, proper checks and balances in relation to the foster parents’ practice, and regular contact between social services and the child all play their part in ensuring that the child is safe with the foster parents. If, through the duty that it places upon the local authority, the law of negligence improves the chances of these safeguards being rigorously maintained, it is a very good thing. But, as this case demonstrates, even proper care on the part of the local authority cannot always prevent harm coming to the child from the foster parents. It seems to me that the imposition of liability for the actions of the foster parents by means of a non-delegable duty, operating in the absence of negligence on the part of the local authority, would be likely to provoke the channelling of even more of the local authorities’ scarce resources into attempting to ensure that nothing went wrong and, if such were possible, into insuring against potential liability (see paragraph 201 of Males J’s judgment). Particularly influential in my thinking is the fear that it would also lead to defensive practice in relation to the placement of children. Local authorities would inevitably become more cautious about taking the risk of placing children with foster parents and may possibly place some children who would otherwise have had the benefit of a foster home in local authority run homes instead, simply in order that the local authority can exert greater control over their day to day care. Males J dealt with this at paragraph 204 of his judgment. It was referred to also in the Canadian case of KLB v British Columbia [2001] SCR 404, in the context of vicarious liability, at paragraph 26.
  • The imposition of liability on the local authority might also give rise to another undesirable consequence for children. Important amongst the ways in which, under the statutes of the time, the local authority could discharge its duty to provide accommodation for the child was by allowing the child to live with a parent or relative (see section 21(2) of the Child Care Act 1980). If the local authority had a non-delegable duty towards a child in their care under a care order, making them liable for abusive actions on the part of a foster parent, there seems little principled basis for saying that they would not also be liable for such actions on the part of a parent with whom the child had been placed in this way. That sort of strict liability might well, it seems to me, affect the willingness of the local authority to take what would otherwise be seen as the manageable risk of allowing the child to live at home, thus reducing the chance of reuniting the child with his or her own family where that would, in fact, benefit the child. That is the point made by Males J at paragraph 206.
  • To these points, I would add that it is material, when considering a possible non-delegable duty rather than liability in negligence, to remember that the local authority has the powers and duties of a parent. I raised earlier my uncertainty as to what the precise implications of this are in the context of non-delegable duty. However, whatever they may be, I think it appropriate to bear in mind that a parent would not have a strict liability for harm caused by someone to whom he or she had entrusted the child’s care, for instance a nanny or, to take Burnett LJ’s examples, friends or relations. If the local authority’s powers and duties under statute are those of a parent, and where it is day to day care by a third party that is under consideration rather than strategic and management decisions on the part of the local authority, it is difficult to see why the local authority’s liability should be more onerous than a parent’s.
  • I acknowledge that although I am quite clear in my conclusion that the judge was right that the imposition of a non-delegable duty would not be fair, just and reasonable, I have not expressed firm views about the precise nature of the duty that should be considered to be at the heart of the non-delegable duty argument or about all of the five indicia of non-delegable duty. As Baroness Hale observed at paragraph 28 of the Woodland case, the common law is a dynamic instrument, but caution is needed in developing it. The law in relation to non-delegable duties is still evolving, as the Woodland case itself showed, and it seems to me preferable that I should only determine those matters which are essential to the determination of the appeal which, for the reasons that I hope appear from the preceding paragraphs, I would dismiss.

 

 

 

It does seem awful that this woman has no legal remedy for the awful things that were done to her – assuming that Criminal Injuries Compensation is not open to her (it may not be, due to the passage of time).  Nothing in this case affects a Local Authority’s liability under negligence – i.e if they had known of the abuse and failed to stop it, or it had been a foreseeable risk that they had failed to prevent through carelessness.

 

There are some hints in this judgment that it might go up to the Supreme Court – as it is largely interpretation of two distinct and recent Supreme Court authorities, that seems a distinct possibility.

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