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Tag -you’re it (or not)

Posted on May 24, 2019 by suesspiciousminds

 

 

This is a Court of Appeal decision in which the Court of Appeal were asked to find that the Judge had been wrong to make Interim Care Orders rather than the option of placing an electronic tag on father to keep him away from the children and also to give general guidance on the applicability of electronic tagging in care proceedings.

 

J-S (Children) [2019] EWCA Civ 894 (24 May 2019)    

https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2019/894.html

 

  1. On 15 March 2019, Oxfordshire County Council removed five children from their mother under an emergency protection order. Interim care orders were then obtained and the case was listed for a contested hearing before Her Honour Judge Owens on 10 April. The threshold for interim orders was not disputed, but the local authority’s plan to keep the children in foster care was. The judge continued the interim care orders and listed a fact-finding hearing for three days on 29 May. The father of the youngest child challenges that outcome on two grounds. The first concerns the justification for making the orders: the judge refused permission to appeal, and this court’s permission is now sought. The second ground of appeal, for which the judge herself gave permission, concerns the power to order electronic tagging in a case of this kind.
  2. The background is that in 2009 the father (as I shall call the appellant) was found to have caused 17 fractures to a baby son by a previous relationship. In 2012, he was sentenced to 33 months imprisonment for inflicting grievous bodily harm on the child and for neglect. In mid-2017, he began a relationship with the mother of the older four children. The local authority told the mother about the father’s history and a written agreement was made which barred him from attending the family home. In January 2018, a psychiatric report advised that the father posed a serious risk to any child and that he is not treatable. In May 2018, the local authority issued proceedings in relation to the older four children on the basis of neglect and failure on the mother’s part to protect them from unsuitable adults. That summer, the youngest child was born. In October 2018, a social work report on the father referred to his “eruptive anger”. In December 2018, the court made a supervision order for 12 months on the basis that the children would remain with their mother. The parents and the local authority made a written agreement that the father would have no unsupervised contact.
  3. In March 2019, two of the children made statements that the father had been staying at the family home, and this was apparently corroborated by one of his former partners. The children were then removed under the emergency protection order. The parents accepted that the threshold for intervention was met because there were reasonable grounds for believing that the father had been at the home, but they denied that it had in fact happened. That issue, which is central to the current proceedings, will be resolved at the imminent fact-finding hearing.
  4. Ahead of the contested decision, both the mother and the father offered to be tagged so that their physical separation could be monitored, allowing the children to return to their mother. Information from Electronic Monitoring Services, the agency responsible for tagging, was gathered. The matter came before the judge on 5 April, when there was no time for it to be heard. It was appreciated that only a High Court judge could make a tagging order, but Judge Owens directed that at a hearing fixed for 10 April she would conduct the welfare evaluation and refer the making of a tagging order to a High Court judge if she concluded that such an order should be made in principle –a course of action that was in itself not without potential difficulties in my view. She also invited the Ministry of Justice to attend the hearing, or to provide written submissions on the question of who would bear the costs of tagging.
  5. By agreement, the hearing on 10 April was decided on submissions. The parents pressed the issue of tagging, saying that it would sufficiently mitigate the risk of what was accepted to be severe harm. The local authority argued that the risks were not manageable because, even with tagging, the father could lose his temper quickly and before help could be mobilised. A letter was received from HM Prison and Probation Service (part of the MoJ) explaining the parameters and procedures for tagging. The author stated that the MoJ would not be responsible for the costs of tagging and monitoring and expressed the view that the case was for a number of reasons unsuitable for a tagging arrangement.

 

 

Obviously if the MOJ aren’t paying the costs of tagging, you can’t conceive of the Legal Aid Agency agreeing that tagging constitutes an assessment so the legal aid certificates can’t pay for it.  That leaves everyone looking meaningfully at the Local Authority, who at that point slap Kent County Council v G 1996 on the table and say “well, if you think this is an assessment whose primary focus is the child, so it comes within s38(6) good luck with making that argument’

 

Anyway, the Court of Appeal decided that there was no question of the Judge having decided the ICO wrongly

 

Ground 1

  1. The first matter for decision is whether permission to appeal should be granted on ground one. As to that, Mr Devereux submits that the judge’s overall assessment of risk was flawed. She directed herself with reference to authority on the need to consider the gravity of the likely harm, the likelihood of harm occurring, and the availability of protective measures. She was entitled to find the gravity to be serious, but she did not properly consider the likelihood of it occurring. She placed too much weight on the threshold concession, and did not take account of the fact that the parents denied breaking the agreement. Nor did she properly weigh up the protective possibilities of tagging. Had she done so, she would have been bound to refuse the application for interim care orders. Instead, she was unduly influenced by expressions of opinion in the letter from the MoJ.
  2. In response, Mr Geekie and Ms Scriven argue that the judge was right about the risks and the inability to mitigate them.
  3. I am in no doubt that the judge was right to refuse permission to appeal and that we should do likewise. The judge approached the issue correctly in law in a case in which the threshold was crossed. Moving forward, she carefully evaluated the risks and was fully entitled to find that even if tagging could be put in place it would be insufficient to mitigate them. Reading the judgment as a whole, it is plain that she considered that there was a significant likelihood of unsupervised contact taking place in the future. The evidence for that was amply sufficient for a risk assessment at the interim stage. There is no sign that she placed undue weight on opinions expressed in the MoJ letter, as opposed to its basic factual contents. Furthermore, this court will rarely interfere with an interim order, all the more so where in this case the central disputed issue is just about to be resolved. There is no prospect of this court finding the interim care orders were wrongly made. We therefore informed the parties during the course of the hearing that permission to appeal on this ground would be refused.

 

On the issue of an appeal for the Court to give general guidance, i.e an academic appeal, the Court of Appeal say “mmmmm, no”   and tell us about a case called  “Popdog”, which is my new favourite case name – replacing     Wombles v Womble Skip Hire (skips for collecting rubbish branded Womble, injunction refused) [1975] FSR 488

 

https://suesspiciousminds.com/2015/01/23/rihanna-youre-a-womble/

 

Ground 2

  1. Turning then to the appeal on ground two, the local authority and the Guardian submit that the court should not entertain it as it is academic in the light of the judge’s core decision that she would not order tagging in any event. For his part, Mr Devereux advanced this ground of appeal with moderation in the light of the outcome on ground one.
  2. In relation to academic appeals, we have been referred to the statement of principle in Hutcheson v Popdog Ltd. (Practice Note) [2012] 1 WLR 782, where Lord Neuberger MR held that, save in exceptional circumstances, this court may only entertain an academic appeal where three conditions are met: (1) where the appeal raises a point of some general importance; (2) where the respondent agrees to it proceeding, or is at least completely indemnified on costs or is not otherwise inappropriately prejudiced; and (3) where the court is satisfied that both sides of the argument will be fully and properly ventilated.
  3. Here, none of the conditions for hearing an academic appeal is satisfied. In the first place, this court is not aware of any pressing request from judges or practitioners for further guidance at this stage on the availability of tagging in cases of the present kind. In Re X & Y (No. 1) [2015] 2 FLR 1487, Sir James Munby P reviewed the availability of tagging in a case involving feared travel to Syria. At paragraphs 80-85 and 100 he referred to previous authority and to the HMCTS guidance, which notes that orders may only be made in the High Court and that states the question usually arises where there is a real risk of abduction. He noted that cases raising the issue of tagging are infrequent. At this hearing, we were referred to just four reported cases since 2003 and an anecdotal account of one other case. I do not consider that there is a pressing need for guidance on electronic tagging from this court at the present time. Cases where the issue may arise will be unusual and the decision will be case-specific.
  4. As to Lord Neuberger’s second requirement, the local authority and the Guardian do not consent to the appeal going ahead and there is no realistic form of costs protection that could be devised. Mr Geekie argues with good reason that it would be particularly inappropriate for guidance to be formulated without a real-life context that raised the hard practical issues that would have to be confronted.
  5. Thirdly, for the issue to be fully argued out, the court would need to hear submissions from the Ministry of Justice and the Legal Aid Agency and possibly from other organisations as well. The expense and delay of an adjournment for this to happen would be disproportionate.
  6. Returning to the present case, the priority now must be to further the children’s welfare by conventional means, rather than digressing into subsidiary issues such as tagging.
  7. For all these reasons, as we informed the parties at the conclusion of the hearing, we decline to offer further guidance on electronic tagging and we dismiss this appeal.

 

If you are going to proffer electronic tagging as your solution in care proceedings, you’re going to need to show

 

(a) How you will get one and how you will pay for it

(b) How it will work – i.e who is up 24-7 monitoring it and sounding the alarm bells if the two tags begin beating with just one mind

 

 

Good luck.

 

 

[Quick edit- the Court of Appeal also remind the judiciary that whilst it is right and appropriate that the trial Judge is asked for permission to appeal, the Court of Appeal greatly prefer that they say ‘no’ and leave that up to the actual permissions judge at the Court of Appeal.

  1. Lastly, I note that after what was otherwise a very proper decision, the judge was persuaded to grant permission to appeal on the basis that there was a compelling reason for the appeal to be heard. The outcome of the appeal shows that it would have been preferable for the judge to have left the issue of permission to appeal on ground 2 to this court, as she did with ground 1.
  2. CPR r.52.3(2) and its equivalent for appeals within the Family Court, FPR 30.3(3), provide that an application for permission to appeal must be made to the lower court at the hearing at which the decision to be appealed was made or to the appeal court in an appeal notice. It is good practice to make the initial application to the lower court: Re T [2003] 1 FLR 531. Under CPR r.52.6(1) and FPR 30.3(7) permission to appeal can only be given where (a) the court considers that the appeal would have a real prospect of success, or (b) there is some other compelling reason for the appeal to be heard. So there is no doubt that the father was right to apply to the judge and that she had the power to grant permission to appeal. However, permission is rarely granted by the trial judge in a family case and there are good reasons for that. As Thorpe LJ put it in Re O (Family Appeals: Management) [1998] 1 FLR 431:
        1. “Exceptionally, there are family appeals that raise a difficult point of law or principle. There the judge at first instance may well wish to grant leave himself. But if the proposed appeal seeks only to challenge the exercise of his judicial discretion in a family case, it would generally be helpful to this court if the judge at first instance was to leave to this court the decision as to whether or not the appeal should be entertained.”

A similar point was made by Butler-Sloss LJ in Re R (A Minor) [1996] Lexis Citation 2264:

“This was undoubtedly a very difficult case. But in an impeccable judgment, the Judge was in error on one matter only. He should not have granted leave to appeal. … In this sort of case it is particularly important that leave to appeal should not be granted because it only gives to the appellant a false hope in a hopeless appeal.”

  1. Here, the judge gave permission under the “compelling reason” limb. In my view, there is a need for at least as much, and possibly more, caution on the part of a first instance family judge when deciding whether to grant permission to appeal under that limb as under the first limb, particularly where there is a possibility that the appeal may turn out to be academic. Overall, judges should not be deterred from exercising their power to grant permission to appeal in a proper case: where, for example, the decision has turned on a choice of conflicting authorities, or where for some reason it is likely that this court would grant permission to appeal itself, or where an immediate permission decision has clear advantages. But in most cases it would be better for a decision to grant permission be left to this court as, apart from anything else, significant and avoidable costs may be run up by the parties having to prepare for a full appeal.

 

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The ISIS flag is apparently not a red flag

Posted on December 18, 2015 by suesspiciousminds

 

 

The President has published his judgment in one of the “are parents taking children to join up with ISIS?” cases

 

This one he has previously given judgment on, and ruled that at an interim stage the children should return home to parents with the parents wearing electronic tags. The mother, and two other adult relatives, were arrested when attempting to board a flight to Turkey with their four children.

https://suesspiciousminds.com/2015/07/30/syria-children-and-electronic-tagging/

 

This one is the fact finding hearing, as to what the mother’s motivation was.

Re X (Children) (No3) 2015

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2015/2358.html

 

First, let me recount the mother’s position at previous hearings  (underlining mine for emphasis)

 

  1. The mother’s case
  2. An order made by Peter Jackson J on 22 April 2015 recorded the mother’s position as follows:

    “The mother disputes that the threshold criteria is crossed. She says that she was intending to travel to Turkey with the children for the purposes of a legitimate family holiday. She says that although she understands why the Local Authority has intervened, her wish is for the children to be returned to her care as quickly as possible or for them to be placed with a member of their family. Once the children have settled in their current placement, she would also like to have increased contact with them so that this takes place more than twice per week.”

  3. The mother disputed the local authority’s case as set out in the original Scott Schedule. Her position, as encapsulated in her response to the local authority’s allegation in paragraph 69 (paragraph 78 in the final Scott Schedule), was that “I am a practising Muslim. I do not regard myself as a radical fundamentalist and have no links or contacts with ISIS militants.”
  4. The finding of fact hearing was at that stage listed to start before me on 29 June 2015. Shortly before, the mother’s counsel, Mr Karl Rowley QC, circulated a position statement on her behalf. This set out her position in relation to the findings sought by the local authority as being that:

    “she does not seek to oppose the making of a finding that she was intending to attempt to enter Syria and live in territory governed by the Islamic State. That is not to say that she accepts the truth of the allegations but she does not wish to resist the making of findings on the balance of probability. In these circumstances she does not require cross examination of the local authority witnesses and does not wish to give evidence herself.”

  5. That radical shift in her position gave rise to a certain amount of discussion in court when the hearing began on 29 June 2015. It was left that she would prepare and file a statement. The statement was circulated the next day, 30 June 2015. It represented another radical shift in her position. She acknowledged that she had not been fully open with the court and professionals. Her case now, in short, was (judgment, para 13) that:

    “she had travelled to Turkey to meet up again with, and possibly marry, a man” – I shall refer to him as H – “she had met in this country collecting money for Syrian refugees and whom she understood to be a doctor in Turkey. She denied any intention of travelling to Syria and said “I do not agree with or support or favour anything ISIS do … and have no wish to be involved with ISIS in any way.””

  6. That remains her stance.

 

 

The Local Authority therefore had to seek findings  [again, underlining mine for emphasis]

 

  1. The local authority’s case
  2. As I have mentioned, the final version of the Scott Schedule is dated 17 October 2015 and now runs to 80 numbered paragraphs. Much of this sets out the “agreed context”. Paragraphs 13, 16-20, 22, 24-27, 32, 34b, 36-37, 39-44, 46-48, 51-53, 55, 57-76 and 78-80 contained the findings sought by the local authority which were disputed by the mother. In his final submissions, Mr Simon Crabtree on behalf of the local authority made clear that it no longer sought findings in relation to paragraphs 13-18.
  3. The local authority’s case has seven strands, which can be summarised as follows. In support of its overarching case, the local authority relies upon what it asserts were:

    i) The mother’s acquaintanceship with various individuals who, it is alleged, had travelled via Turkey to Syria in 2014 to take up arms with ISIS militants (paragraphs 19-27).

    ii) Lies the mother told the children’s schools on 27 February 2015 about the reasons for their forthcoming absence from school (paragraphs 28-33).

    iii) The fact that when stopped at the airport on 2 March 2015 the mother gave a false address (paragraphs 36-37).

    iv) The fact that the family’s luggage, when searched at the airport, was found to contain a number of suspect items (paragraphs 39-48); as it is put (paragraph 39), “a large number of items[1] not normally associated with any family holiday.”[2] It is asserted (paragraph 48) that “There is a striking similarity between the items contained in the … luggage and a list of items a known ISIS operative asked a British recruit to bring to Syria with him (and in connection with the same the said recruit was found guilty of possessing items of use to terrorists).”

    v) The fact that, when her house was searched, the items found included (paragraphs 76-77) “ISIS flags” and ‘to do’ lists, written by the mother, “which indicated that the writer of the list was moving and not intending to return.”

    vi) The fact that the mother lied to the police when being asked the purpose of their trip (paragraphs 49-55). She described (paragraph 51) “a multi-faceted trip involving a combination of an adventure holiday, culture, sight-seeing and relaxation.”[3]

    vii) The fact that the mother’s most recent account, as I have summarised it in paragraph 10 above, is a lie (paragraphs 56-65).

  4. This last part of the local authority’s case is further elaborated as follows:

    i) It is said that she met no man in the circumstances she described or at all (paragraph 62). She has (paragraph 63) “manifestly failed to provide any tangible evidence as to his existence and cannot even produce a photograph of him, any contact details or even one of the electronic communications which she claims passed between them.” Furthermore (paragraph 64), “In so far as that man is not a point of contact she had in Turkey for another reason, he is a figment of her imagination.”

    ii) As a separate point, it is said (paragraph 59) that, if her account was true, “it would reveal a mother who was unable to place her children’s needs before her own and that she was prepared to sacrifice her children’s stability, all they knew and their relationship with their father so that she could fulfil her own desire for a relationship with a man she hardly knew.” Furthermore (paragraph 60), if it was true “the extent of her intended folly is revealed by the fact that this man has literally disappeared without trace and left the mother unsupported at a time she needed it most.”

    iii) It is alleged (paragraph 65) that “She has in essence, weaved this account around the notes secreted in the children’s underwear to try to explain away the manifest inherent improbabilities in her first version of events at the eleventh hour and in the face of a growing realisation that no Judge would on the totality of the evidence believe that first account.”

  5. The local authority’s case is summarised as follows (paragraphs 66-74):

    “The reality is, the mother, her own mother and her brother had no intentions of remaining in Turkey.

    They intended to travel with the children from Istanbul to the Turkish border with Syria.

    Once they crossed the border into Syria, they intended to join up with ISIS militants and to supply them with items of use to the group’s combative activities.

    In all probability, they also intended to meet up with those … who had already travelled … to Syria via Turkey.

    In essence, the mother’s plan was to take these children to a war zone.

    As such, she knowingly and intended to place the children at risk of significant harm.

    The sole purpose and intention was … to cross the border into Syria and take up arms with ISIS militants and/or live in the Islamic caliphate ISIS claims to have established in the region for the foreseeable future.

    [Neither] she nor [her brother] had any intention of returning to [her house].

    That is why she suddenly found the money to buy the above electronic equipment which with one exception she financed on credit in February 2015 and why [her brother] paid for the trip using a £12,000.00 loan.”

  6. In conclusion, the local authority asserts (paragraphs 78-80) that:

    “In short, the mother is a radical fundamentalist with links and contacts with ISIS militants and those who seek to recruit others to their cause.

    Although she is arguably entitled to have whatever view she chooses, she is not however entitled to place her children at risk of significant harm or even death in furtherance of such a cause.

    In furtherance of her aims and objectives, [she] is and was prepared so to do and to lie with impunity to conceal her real intentions and motives.”

 

Bearing in mind the two underlined passages, you may be surprised to learn that the President ruled that the threshold was not met, and the children are now living with mother under no statutory orders at all.

 

I have to say that mum’s counsel did a blinding job, but it is still a surprising outcome, on my reading.

 

What about the ISIS flag though?

Thirdly, he submits that the local authority has failed to show that the material recovered from the mother’s home was indicative of her holding such views or being sympathetic to ISIS. The flag is one that has been adopted by ISIS, but it contains the shahada and seal of the Prophet Mohammed, both of which, he says, are important symbols which all Muslims share. The local authority, he correctly points out, has failed to adduce any evidence to disprove the proposition that the flag predated the al-Baghdadi Caliphate, and the mother’s case that she received it from a bookshop some 12 years ago as a gift has not been seriously challenged.

 

[See, I’m NOT a Neo-Nazi, I’m just a collector of flags designed by dentists…]

 

Although the President was not satisfied with mother’s account, the burden of proof was on the LA and he was not satisfied that they had made out their allegations

 

  1. The first point to be made is that, on her own admission, she is, even if she cavilled at the appropriateness of the label, a liar. The contrast between her original case, as I have summarised it in paragraph 7 above, and her revised case, set out in paragraph 10 above is obvious. If elements of her first story have been carried forward into the second, the two are nonetheless so fundamentally different that one or other must be essentially untrue. This is not mere suggestio falsi et suppressio veri; it is simply the telling of untruths, in plain terms lying. The notes to the schools were, on any basis, and wherever the ultimate truth in relation to the trip may lie, false to the mother’s knowledge. Mr Rowley characterises them (paragraph 66) as “ill-advised”. I cannot, with respect, agree. They involved the deliberate uttering of falsehoods. I am also satisfied, and find as a fact, that the mother did indeed give a false address when questioned by DS SH. And the allegations she made in the witness-box against the police were, in my judgment, and I so find, utterly groundless. On matters of fact I accept the evidence of each of the police officers. I cannot accept Mr Rowley’s submissions on the point (paragraph 68).
  2. As we have seen, the mother put herself forward at the hearing as now being completely open, honest and frank. Was she? I am not satisfied that she was. I am unable to accept what she is now saying merely because she is saying it. Some of it may be true. About much of it I am very suspicious. Some of it may well be, in some cases probably is, untrue. But the fact that I am not satisfied that the mother was telling the truth, the fact that I am very suspicious, does not mean that I find everything she said to be a lie. And, as I have already explained, the fact, to the extent it is a fact, that the mother has in the past told, and is still telling, lies, does not of itself mean that the local authority has proved its case.
  3. Be all that as it may, the plain fact is that the mother has not, in the past, been frank and honest either with the local authority, the guardian or the court and I am not satisfied that she is being now.

 

 

 

….

 

 

  1. So where, at the end of the day, am I left? There are four key matters, in my judgment, which preponderate when everything is weighed in the balance, as it must be:

    i) The mother is a proven liar. The mother has not, in the past, been frank and honest either with the local authority, the guardian or the court and I not satisfied that she is being now.

    ii) H (if that is his true name) is someone known to the mother and who has some connection with Turkey. The mother has wholly failed to persuade me, however, either that she met H in the circumstances she describes, or that their relationship was as she asserts, or that the role (if any) he was to play in Turkey was as she says. I am unable to accept her as being either a reliable or indeed a truthful witness. The mother, in my judgment, has not proved her case in relation to H.

    iii) The mother is an observant Muslim, but the local authority has been unable to prove either that the materials found at her home have the significance which was suggested or, more generally, that she is a radical or extremist.

    iv) The luggage contained a significant number of items which cry out for explanation in circumstances where the only explanation proffered by the mother is tied to her story about H which, as I have already explained, I am unable to accept.

  2. It is for the local authority to prove its case. The fact that the mother has failed to persuade me of the truth of her case, in particular in relation to H, does not, as I have already explained, absolve the local authority of the requirement that it prove its case. And, for reasons I have explained and which Mr Rowley appropriately relied on, I must be careful to remember the Lucas point when I come to consider the inferences I can properly draw from the fact, to the extent I have found as a fact, that the mother has lied. The fact, to the extent it is a fact, that the mother has in the past told, and is still telling, lies, does not of itself mean that the local authority has proved its case.
  3. There are, as I have noted, many matters on which I am suspicious, but suspicion is not enough, nor is surmise, speculation or assertion. At the end of the day the question is whether in relation to each discrete part of its case, the local authority has established on a balance of probabilities, applying that concept with common sense, the proposition for which it contends.
  4. Standing back from all the detail, and all the arguments, there are, at the end of the day, two factors of particular importance and which, unhappily, point in opposite directions. The mother, for her part, has not proved her case in relation to H, with the consequence that the only explanation she has proffered for the presence of various significant items in her luggage falls away. The local authority, for its part, has not proved either that the materials found at her home have the significance which was suggested or, more generally, that she is a radical or extremist. Weighing these and all the other matters I have referred to in the balance, I am left suspicious of what the mother was really up to but I am unable to conclude that the local authority has proved any part of its case as set out in paragraphs 66-73 and 78-80 of the Scott Schedule.

 

 

It is very difficult to successfully appeal a finding of fact  (the Court of Appeal vacillate from time to time as to whether you even CAN – because technically you appeal an order, not a judgment. In this case, the President did make an order – because he made NO order on the care proceedings or Wardship application, so the LA can appeal that).  The Court of Appeal are very mindful that on a finding of fact hearing the Judge has the advantage of hearing all of the evidence and seeing the demeanour of the witnesses, so are reluctant to interfere.

 

Having said that, I’d appeal the hell out of this one.  The order (which one presumes would have the effect of removing the electronic tags) is stayed until 18th December (oh, today), so we will soon find out whether an appeal has been lodged.

 

 

There’s a lot in the judgment about the contents of the luggage – the President kindly sets out the matters in a footnote.  As indicated above, the President was not satisfied with either the mother’s account (of either a holiday, or that her new boyfirend H had wanted these things) or that the LA had proved that these matters amounted to evidence that mother intended to join up with ISIS

 

Note 1 Including, it is alleged, 9 battery powered or other powered torches, 4 hand-wound torches, 3 solar charger units or power-packs, 4 emergency blankets, 3 new and 2 used rucksacks, 5 mobile phones in excess of the 3 mobile phones chargers carried by the group as a whole, unused computer equipment comprising 6 machines (including 3 identical Samsung devices) and 5 chargers, 3 unused sim cards, 5 Multi-tools devices and power converters etc, what is described as “a large quantity of substantially if not entirely new size ‘large’ and ‘extra-large’ outdoor clothing including coats, waterproof bottoms, breathable t-shirts, gloves and so on”, what is described as “a large amount of medication and panty-liners and tampons”, and “telephone numbers, e-mail addresses and passwords … found on pieces of paper secreted in the children’s underwear in one of the suitcases.”

Note 2 It is further said (paragraph 42) that “By contrast, the luggage did not contain outdoor clothing of a sort which might have been associated with an adventure or camping holiday for (amongst others) 4 children”, (paragraph 43) that “Although there was a large quantity of large and extra-large outdoor clothing there was bar one piece, an absence of such clothing in sizes that would fit any of the children and in particular, X1”, and (paragraph 44) that “Those and most of the other supposedly camping equipment was or appears to be completely new.”

 

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Tag, you’re it

Posted on August 6, 2015 by suesspiciousminds

A follow-up from last week’s case involving a decision that children whose parents were suspected of intending/attempting to take them to Syria to a war zone should be at home with the parents, with the parents being electronically tagged to prevent a recurrance.

 

You may remember that during that piece, I expressed some reservations about how the scheme would operate and who would pay for it.

 

Well, part two of

 

X and Y (children) No 2  2015

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2015/2358.html

 

raises that particular question and then doesn’t answer it.

 

The answer is, that in THIS PARTICULAR CASE but not other future ones, the Ministry of Justice agree to pay.

  1. By the time the matter came on for hearing before me on 3 August 2015, Mr Alex Ustych, on behalf of MoJ, was able to tell me on instructions that it would take approximately a fortnight to put all the arrangements in place for GPS tagging. He was also able to say that, having considered its position further since filing its submissions, MoJ was willing, if I took the view that there should be GPS tagging, to meet the cost in this case without having recourse to any of the parties for any payment.
  2. That, as he made clear, was entirely without prejudice to MoJ’s position as I have summarised it in paragraph 2 above, and is not to be treated as a precedent in any future case. In particular, the fact that MoJ is willing in this case to agree to meet the cost does not mark any departure from its fundamental position that the court has no power to order MoJ or NOMS (or, I assume, EMS) to bear the cost of providing GPS tagging.

 

You may have picked up the not comforting crumb that it will take a fortnight to get the tagging sorted out.

So what about future cases?  Well, it seems fairly plain that the MOJ would at the very least want to have an argument about it, and as we learned from the Court of Appeal decision about whether the President’s suggestion that the MOJ/HMCS should pay for costs of a litigant where article 6 would be breached  (no statutory power, so no thanks)  they might well win there.

 

Can the costs be split between the parties?  Well, if you were a solicitor for the parents or child, there’s no way on Earth that you are writing that cheque without the Legal Aid Agency agreeing. And I am certain that they won’t.  Putting a tag on a parent can in no way be construed as an assessment of the parent. What are you assessing? Whether they will run away if there is an electronic device that prevents them from doing so?

 

If you want an expert to assess that, I am available to conduct the assessment.  It will be a very fast turnaround, and my report will consist of the words, “No, they won’t. I don’t know what they will do when you take the tags off”

So, that leaves the good old Local Authority.   Well, what’s sauce for the MOJ goose is sauce for the gander too.  Please find me the statutory power that allows the Court to order the Local Authority to pay for electronic tagging.  I don’t mind waiting.

 

I’m afraid that the very next Local Authority who have to go to Court because children in their area have been involved in an attempt to take them to Syria are going to have to go through this entire argument all over again.

 

And I will add in another argument – it is still really unclear what would happen if one or both of the parents does not consent – is there a proper statutory basis for an interference with their article 5 rights?  It is probably easier if both refuse, because then the children just can’t be placed with them, but if one says yes and the other says no? tricky.

 

If you WANT to enter into this arrangement, the President does set out a very useful template order.

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Syria, children and electronic tagging

Posted on July 30, 2015 by suesspiciousminds

 

In what has been a challenging month, I have to confess that my heart sank right into my boots when I saw  Sir James Munby, President of the Family Division, had published a judgment about Emergency Protection Orders.  I’m still recovering from Re X, his last major contribution to this legal domain, and that was nine years ago.

 

But Re X (children) and Y (children) (Emergency Protection Orders) 2015   http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2015/2265.html

[Weird, the link doesn’t seem to be working. Try again

 

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2015/2265.html      ]

 

is not actually about expanding the fourteen point guidance into a two-hundred and nine point guidance, so you can read on without fear or dread.

 

Note, I am lying. This is a judgment from the President. Have you ever seen a judgment from the President that made a Local Authority lawyer happy?  If I wrote the Top Ten list of case-law that had made my job harder, the President’s fingerprints would be on seven of them – going right back to seven days a week contact.  This does not buck that particular trend.

 

It is one of the cases where a family are accused/suspected/found  (delete as relevant to the particular case) of trying to take their children out to Syria to join up with ISIS (or whatever David Cameron thinks that we should call them this week), and what the State can do about it.

 

At the moment, this responsibility rests on the shoulders of Social Services and the Children Act 1989, and Parliament is more than welcome to produce some proper legislation that takes that off us and gives it to someone else, any time now.

 

A lot of this case is very factual about the circumstances, and I daresay that it will be very helpful to all the LA’s who are making applications to Court about such families.

 

[I have always wondered where the families go after that EPO. If a Court has ruled that you intended to take your child into a warzone and join up with terrorists and removes the child, what sort of assessment gets you the child BACK at the end of the final hearing? Aren’t the EPOs basically determinative of final outcome?  Well, that was the thrust of this case, whether there was some sort of arrangement that would allow the children to be back in the parents care with some form of cast-iron guarantee that they would not leave the jurisdiction. The important thing to remember here is that the Court had not conducted a finding of fact hearing about the parents intentions and plans and thus what risk the children were at – they had just determined that there were REASONABLE grounds to believe that the children were at risk of significant harm requiring interim protections]

 

However, the President would not be the President if he didn’t try to stretch the law a bit, and so that’s the point of interest.    [Occasionally, the President’s approach to the law reminds me of the year at school where all of us were given a brand new white plastic ruler to replace the wooden ones – the rulers were each labelled “Helix – Shatterproof” , an ill-thought out boast, which led to all of us industriously breaking them that very morning to demonstrate that they were not in fact Shatterproof.   I say ill-thought out, but of course, the school had to get on to Helix and order another 250 that same day, so for Helix it was a profitable claim]

 

Thinking about the cases over the intervening weekend, it occurred to me to think about the possibility of electronic tagging. Accordingly, on 5 July 2015 I sent the following email:

“I am sending this email to the advocates in both … cases. Please make sure that it is communicated as soon as possible to all concerned.

It has occurred to me to wonder whether in these cases it may be appropriate to consider the making of electronic tagging orders: see Re C (Abduction: Interim Directions: Accommodation by Local Authority) [2003] EWHC 3065 (Fam), [2004] 1 FLR 653, and Re A (Family Proceedings: Electronic Tagging) [2009] EWHC 710 (Fam), [2009] 2 FLR 891 (setting out a form of order).

Could counsel please consider this possibility.”

This time there are precedents (though fairly obscure ones, which I had to go and read). They relate of course to the powers under the Child Custody and Abduction Act 1985.  Those powers aren’t exactly delineated to require someone to submit to electronic tagging, but in the modern era of law as they don’t say that they DON’T give that power, it could be interpreted thus

5 Interim powers.

Where an application has been made to a court in the United Kingdom under the Convention, the court may, at any time before the application is determined, give such interim directions as it thinks fit for the purpose of securing the welfare of the child concerned or of preventing changes in the circumstances relevant to the determination of the application.

 

Of course here, though, there is not an application before the Court under the Convention. These are EPO applications, governed by the Children Act 1989.   It is beyond my working knowledge to consider whether an attempt by the persons who hold PR (when there are no Children Act 1989 orders) could find themselves foul of the Child Custody and Abduction Act 1985   (if everyone with PR agrees that the children will go to Syria, who are the children being abducted FROM?).   It would be different if the Court had made Children Act 1989 orders, or were seised with such an application, since there’s authority to say that the Court can go on to make orders compelling the children’s return to the jurisdiction.

 

Anyway, let’s see what the President does with the idea of electronic tagging.

 

It is worth noting that the parents were keen on the idea – because it was obviously their best shot of having the children returned to their care  – this being a case where the Court had not found any evidence that the children had been exposed to radicalisation.   So the Court did not have to consider whether there was power to impose it on the family.   (Mr Rowley and Miss Woodward were counsel representing the parents)

 

  1. Mr Rowley and Miss Woodward take as their starting point the fact that, the precipitating events apart, the parents are, in other respects, good parents who are bringing up their children lovingly and well. Although it would seem that all the children are doing as well as might be expected in foster care, there is no doubt that they are missing their parents very much and that they are, in consequence, suffering harm. In these circumstances Mr Rowley and Miss Woodward question both the necessity and the proportionality of the children remaining in foster care. Their safety, both physical and emotional, can, it is submitted, properly be met while the children remain at home; their safety, whether physical or emotional, does not necessitate their remaining in foster care.
  2. In the final analysis, say counsel, my task is to evaluate the risk of harm deriving from the possibility of flight and balance that against the undoubted harm the children are suffering because of continued separation from their parents. Given the adequate safeguards against the risk of fight which they assert can be put in place, the balance, they submit, comes down in favour of returning the children to their parents.
  3. Both local authorities are clear that they feel unable to exercise the parental responsibility vested in them by the interim care orders unless the children remain in foster care. That being so, Mr Rowley and Miss Woodward say that the appropriate order is, in each case, an order discharging the interim care orders, making the children wards of court, and placing them in the care and control of their parents, subject, however, to a raft of stringent protective orders.
  4. What Mr Rowley and Miss Woodward propose is in each case an order containing: passport orders in the usual wide-ranging form and an all-ports alert; injunctions restraining the parents removing the children from the jurisdiction and requiring them to live with the children at a specified address; and provisions for the monitoring of the parents and the children by a combination of unannounced visits by the local authority, regular reporting to a specified police station or local authority office and, in the case of the parents, electronic tagging. It is proposed that the order should include a provision requiring the parents to swear on the Quran that they will abide by each and every provision of the order and that the order should spell out the consequences (including but not limited to committal for contempt of court) in the event of any non-compliance.
  5. There is no need for me to consider whether I would have power to impose such orders on unwilling or recalcitrant parents, for all the parents here are willing to submit to whatever restrictions, including electronic tagging, I think it necessary to impose for the safety of the children. That said, I am inclined to agree with the views expressed by Singer J in the passage from his judgment in Re C (Abduction: Interim Directions: Accommodation by Local Authority) [2003] EWHC 3065 (Fam), [2004] 1 FLR 653, para 46, which I refer to below.
  6. Mr Rowley and Miss Woodward realistically accept that, however stringent the protective measures which might be put in place, there will always be some risk that the parents will be able to flee with the children. But they counsel me against being too concerned by remote or fanciful possibilities. An order the court makes is not, they submit, to be measured by the standard of certainty or infallibility but by reference to what Mr Rowley called real-world possibilities. Judged by that standard, he says, the risk is slight indeed, in reality reduced to an effective nullity if the parents are, as they propose, subjected to GPS electronic tagging (as to which see below).
  7. To get the children to Syria, he says, the parents would: have to cut the tag (thereby triggering an immediate alarm), having made arrangements to travel immediately to a point of exit from the United Kingdom; have to evade detection while in transit there; have to evade detection at the point of exit despite their being in a family group, the all-ports alert, and publicity about them being on the run; have to be able to pass through the immigration controls of a second country without detection; and have to be able to cross from that country (or some third country) into Syria. Whilst he accepts the possibility that the parents have the connections and means to achieve all this, Mr Rowley disputes that there is any evidence upon which I could reasonably infer it.
  8. More tellingly, perhaps, Mr Rowley makes the point that if the parents do indeed have the means to achieve this, the children are not safe in their foster placements. For if they have the resourcefulness and determination postulated by the local authorities and the guardians, the parents would by the same measure be able to track the children down and abduct them. The reality, he suggests, is that nothing short of actual incarceration of the children would ensure the complete eradication of all risk of their being removed to Syria. In truth, he says, the local authorities and the guardians are prepared to countenance a level of risk in the present placements while requiring from the proposed placements with the parents the certainty that all risk has been eradicated.

 

 

Mr Rowley (and no doubt Miss Woodward) go high up on my list of people who have been able to develop a compelling argument from unpromising beginnings.  They manage to make the parents position sound completely reasonable and the Local Authority’s anxieties utterly unreasonable.  In an atmosphere where the pulbic concern about terrorisim and children going to Syria could not be higher. That takes some skill.   One has to remember, of course, that the Court had not conducted any finding of fact hearing about the circumstances and intentions of the parents in making those trips or plans for the trips.

 

To Local Authority lawyers, I’m sorry that I wrongly suggested that you could read this judgment without dread. Of course you know what is about to happen now.

 

  1. The law, even the criminal law in the days of capital punishment, has never adopted a standard of absolute certainty or infallibility. So the mere fact that there is, as Mr Rowley and Miss Woodward accept, some risk that the parents will, if so minded, be able to flee with the children, the fact that it is no doubt possible to construct hypothetical scenarios of how they might achieve this, is not determinative of the question I have to decide. That question, in the final analysis comes down, in my judgment, to two linked inquiries: how great is the risk that the parents will, if so minded, be able to flee with the children, and is that a degree of risk which the court is, in all the circumstances, prepared to accept as tolerable?
  2. Given the potential consequences if the parents, being minded to flee with the children, were able to achieve their objective, it seems to me that what the court needs is a very high degree of assurance, albeit falling some way short of absolute certainty, that the protective measures put in place will be effective to thwart any attempted flight. This is ultimately a matter for judgement and evaluation, in relation to matters, in particular those dealt with DS Y, DS Z and Mr Fearnly, which I am in as good a position to assess as any of the social workers or guardians, none of whom can bring to this particular exercise in evaluation either professional training or (as they all accepted) any previous experience of any remotely comparable case. Accordingly, I have to come to my own conclusion, though obviously feeding into my overall evaluation the expert views of the social workers and the guardians as to the impact on the children of their continuing separation from their parents.
  3. At the end of the day, and having given the matter the most anxious thought both during and since the two hearings, I have concluded that the comprehensive and far-reaching package of protective measures proposed by Mr Rowley and Miss Woodward does provide the necessary very high degree of assurance that the court needs, that I need, if the children are now to be returned to parental care. Taking into account all the points pressed upon me by those opposing such an order, I am at the end of the day persuaded by Mr Rowley and Miss Woodward that I should make the orders they seek, and essentially for the reasons they have articulated.
  4. I accept that there is some degree of risk of successful flight. I cannot go quite as far as Mr Rowley when he asserts that it is reduced to an effective nullity by the protective measures he proposes, but taking a realistic view, though not forgetting that we are here in the realm of unknown unknowns, my considered assessment is that the degree of that risk is very small, indeed, so small that it is counter-balanced by the children’s welfare needs to be returned to parental care. I should add, to make plain, that in relation to their welfare (leaving flight risk on one side), the benefits all of these children will derive from being returned to their parents clearly, in my judgment, outweigh any and all of such contrary welfare arguments as have deployed by the local authorities or the guardians. Conclusion
  5. I shall therefore make orders essentially in the terms proposed by Mr Rowley and Miss Woodward. The orders will contain the additional provisions proposed by Mr Crabtree and Mrs Crowley. The orders will spell out that nothing is intended to prevent the police exercising any powers which would otherwise be available to them, including, in particular, their powers under section 46 of the Children Act 1989. I invite counsel to consider two further matters: whether the proposed oaths on the Quran should be sworn before a notary or an imam, and what, if any, provisions should be included in the orders to enable the relevant local authority to remove the children in an emergency if there has been some breach of the order and there is no time to apply even by telephone tothe duty judge. I am inclined to think that the local authorities should have that power, but strictly confined to circumstances of emergency and subject to an unqualified obligation to make an application to the court immediately

 

 

The judgment then goes on to set out the protocol for such matters. It will, I’m sure, calm the nerves of every social worker who is now going to be driven to leave children like this at home under the protection of their parents wearing electronic tags that the tagging system is provided by Capita, whose record is flawless.

 

I am perhaps missing what actually stops these children’s uncles or cousins taking them to Syria if it is the parents who are tagged?  Yes, the parewnts would be stuck her to face the music, but how great a feature is ‘fear of the consequences’ a major inhibitor to terrorism? I have always rather missed how one is to stop these things happening if the parents book a package holiday to Turkey and then just travel onwards once they are out there. Are we going to stop all families going to Turkey on holiday? Or only those who are on some sort of Watch list?  And if only those on the Watch list, given that social workers don’t have access to that, how are they supposed to intervene?

 

Whilst of course, it can’t be imposed on a parent, I’m sure they will be queuing up to agree to it.

The judgment of course does not set out who will be paying for the tagging and monitoring, but we all know that it will be the Local Authority  (or under what power the Court is apparently imposing this expense on the LA – it will be the theoretically limitless powers of the inherent jurisdiction, if anyone ever challenges it)

I wonder how any parent facing an ICO hearing for neglect, or consumption of alcohol will feel, knowing that they too are meeting the same “Reasonable grounds to believe” test as parents of this type, but that parents suspected of taking their children to join a warzone will keep them at home with electronic tags, whereas they may be separated from their own children.

Where exactly is the bar for removal under Interim Care Order, if a case like this isn’t over it?

 

And if tagging works in the interim, what stops these children being tagged for the remainder of their childhood at final hearing, even if the allegations are proven to be true?

 

 

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