RSS Feed

Tag Archives: HFEA

Nods and becks and wreathed smiles

Posted on October 17, 2017 by suesspiciousminds

In this case, the President of the Family Division deals with the thirty-fifth case where a fertility clinic had failed to complete the paperwork properly, meaning that people who thought they were a child’s legal parents were not, and had to go to Court at considerable stress and expense to put this right.

Re P, Q, R, S,T and U 2017
http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2017/2532.html

(This episode of Sesame Street is brought to you today by far too many letters)

The clinic in question sent letters out to the people who had conceived a child with flawed paperwork, following the realisation and reporting of the first such case Re A 2015

12.No-one before me seeks to justify, either in terms of their tone or in relation to their legal content, the letters sent out by Dr X on 15 March 2016. I also have concerns about the form of letter sent out on 28 April 2016. My concerns relate to (i) the focus on “clarifying” the parent’s “intention” and (ii) the indication that a statement “clarify[ing] what your intention was … may not give you legal certainty or resolve any potential problems with legal parenthood” (emphasis added). The point is very simple. Although “intention” is a necessary it is not a sufficient condition for acquiring parenthood. For, as I very recently observed, in Re the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008 (Case AK) [2017] EWHC 1154 (Fam), para 20, it is the presence or absence of consent in writing – and, I should emphasise, such a consent given before the relevant treatment – which is ultimately determinative:

“As In re A demonstrates, the ultimate question is whether X has, within the meaning of sections 44(1)(a) and 44(2) of the 2008 Act, “given … a notice [in writing .. signed by [X]] stating that [X] consents to [X] being treated as the parent of any child resulting from treatment provided to [Y].”

Moreover, the word “may” was, it seems to me, insufficient in circumstances which surely demanded plain words rather than “Nods, and becks, and wreathed smiles.”

You do have to admire a Judge who, whilst admonishing someone for not using plain words, throws in a bit of Milton poetry containing the word “becks” which is not in wide circulation other than when referring to German lager. A beck, in this context is a gesture designed to attract attention (as if you were trying to catch the eye of a waiter) and is where we get the expression “At his beck and call”

The line before “Nods, and becks, and wreathed smiles” in the poem is “Quips and cranks, and wanton wiles” which I am going to claim as an accurate description of my site. If only I were launching it today, I’d have that as the tag-line.

“Cranks” in the Milton poem, means ‘clever or fanciful speech, whims, caprice’ and not what you thought I meant.

Oh, also “wreathed smiles” just means to have a big smile on your face – I had originally taken this to be a sinister or thin-lipped smile because of the negative connotation that wreath has now, but I guess it is more in the laurel wreath or Christmas wreath sense rather than a funeral wreath.

I am beginning to think that Milton is not the best source for plain speaking that everyone can readily understand…

As ever, I am ashamed that I did not have a proper classical education. If I had, then I too would scatter allusions to Homer and Milton around as though this was commonplace on the Clapham omnibus. The only Milton I was exposed to in my school days was on the last day of term when we were allowed to bring in Ker-Plunk by Milton Bradley Games. [Tin-Can Alley was the best thing for someone to bring in, because there was a rifle that shot light at toy tin cans, making them jump into the air. Awesome-sauce. I only really know Milton now from the ‘better to serve in Heaven than to reign in Hell’ line and that only from Neil Gaiman’s Sandman)

Anyway, what emerged in the case was a practice of patients being asked to sign declarations kept by the clinic that they MEANT to be joint parents, and thus avoiding the need to go to Court AND more importantly that the HFEA was wrongly passing on to clinics this suggestion.

The President was rightly not in the slightest bit keen on that, and stressed that this practice emerged AFTER Re A, which clearly demonstrated that Court orders were required to fix the mess caused by these clinics.

13.My real concern is that there appears to be an impression in some quarters that the kind of problems which have characterised all the many cases which I have had to deal with – Re the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008 (Case AK) was the thirty-fifth such case in which I have given judgment – can sometimes be resolved appropriately without obtaining an order of the court. This, in my judgment, is a highly problematic, indeed dangerous, view. I need briefly to explain why.

14.I venture to repeat at this point what I said in in In re A and others (Legal Parenthood: Written Consents) [2015] EWHC 2602 (Fam), [2016] 1 WLR 1325, para 3:

“The question of who, in law, is or are the parent(s) of a child born as a result of treatment carried out under this legislation … is, as a moment’s reflection will make obvious, a question of the most fundamental gravity and importance. What, after all, to any child, to any parent, never mind to future generations and indeed to society at large, can be more important, emotionally, psychologically, socially and legally, than the answer to the question: Who is my parent? Is this my child?”
15.Legally the issue has the potential to arise – possibly, I emphasise, years or even decades in the future – in a variety of contexts. Family lawyers will of course be alert to the risk of future breakdown in the parental relationship, perhaps triggering private law proceedings under the Children Act 1989 in which the precise legal status of a parent may be challenged. But we need also to be aware that the existence or otherwise of the legal relationship of parent and child may become relevant in the future in relation to such matters as citizenship and nationality or – and possibly decades in the future when both parents are dead and therefore unable to give evidence – in relation to matters of succession and inheritance.

16.In what is now a long line of cases involving applications for parental orders in accordance with section 54 of the 2008 Act, Theis J has emphasised the importance of the need for such orders. There is, of course, a significant difference between the two types of case, because whereas a parental order has, as has been said, a “transformative” effect, and creates legal rights, the declaration granted in the present type of case is, as the word suggests, merely declaratory of existing legal rights. But that does not mean that there is no advantage to be gained by obtaining such a declaration. Far from it: a declaration of status granted by the High Court after appropriately stringent investigations, and after, as is invariably done, notice of the proceedings has been given both to the Attorney General and to the Secretary of State, has an effect in law and reality which far transcends any purely private transaction or agreement between the parents. To adopt, mutatis mutandis, some words used by Theis J in J v G [2013] EWHC 1432 (Fam), para 28, quoting from the parental order reporter in that case:

“A parental order allows the reality for [the children] to be formalised now and bestows a sense of finality and completeness. It closes the door on official challenges to the intended parents’ authority and paves the way for the future without … further anxiety.”

Similarly, a declaration puts matters on a secure legal footing. It affords both child and parent lifelong security. It puts beyond future dispute, whether by public bodies or private individuals, the child’s legal relationship with the parent as being, indeed, his legal parent.
17.There is one final matter to which I need to draw attention. The witness statement filed on behalf of the HFEA by Nick Jones, its Director of Compliance and Information, included the following:

“Ms Walsh [she was the Senior Inspector who, with colleagues, undertook the inspection of the clinic in March 2016] has set out in her statement the facts and circumstances surrounding Care Manchester’s ill-advised decision to try resolving the parenthood issues by getting patients to sign a declaration. As Ms Walsh has said, we were not aware that the clinic intended doing this until after they had already sent out a number of those declarations to patients. Whilst we were not aware of Care Manchester’s intentions to use this declaration, following the judgment in the Alphabet case [In re A] we had been informed by a number of clinics that on legal advice, they were asking a small number of patients to complete declarations.

These clinics told us that some patients had, having been fully informed of the potential consequences and impact of the consent failings, said that they did not wish to go through any legal process in order to become the legal parents of their own children. Understandably, some patients were affronted at the suggestion that they were not legally the parents of their children. In such cases, a small number of clinics informed us that on legal advice, they had asked these patients to complete a declaration. These clinics and a legal advisor acting for several clinics, told us that the purpose of this declaration was to record the intentions of the couple at the time of their treatment, that is, a way of confirming that at the time that the couple had treatment, and notwithstanding any anomalies in their consent forms, they had intended to have treatment together and for both to be the legal parents of the children born from such treatment.

Clinics told us that this was a measure their legal advice suggested they put in place in order that in the future, should these couples separate, for example, and have to grapple with issues around the custody and care of their children, the clinics would have these signed declarations which could be relied on at that time, albeit with uncertainty as to the status of such a declaration. Whilst I expressed some concern about such an approach, and felt unease, I was assured the clinics did so on the basis of legal advice, and then only in those cases where patients had said that they did not wish to go through a court process in order to become the legal parents of their children. Having advised clinics to take their own legal advice, and now having done so, I felt we were not in a position to question that advice. Similarly, not having any method of communicating with this group of patients directly and also taking it on trust and good faith that the legal advice was sound and that clinics were acting in the interests of their patients, we felt we could not question the clinic’s approach and the decision these patients had taken to sign declarations.”
18.For reasons which by now will be apparent, Mr Jones was, as it seems to me, well justified in having those concerns and feeling that unease. But I am bound to say that it seems, and not merely with the priceless benefit of hindsight, unfortunate that the HFEA was not more questioning of what it understood was the advice being given at a time, I emphasise, after I had given judgment in In re A. I appreciate that the HFEA was not privy to the detail of any of that advice, but in the light of its understanding, as explained by Mr Jones, of what advice was being given, it might be thought that alarm bells should have been ringing and that the HFEA should have been more questioning, both privately and more publicly, as to the appropriateness and wisdom of the advice it understood was being given. I do not suggest that the HFEA should necessarily have commissioned legal advice itself on the point, but might it not have been better if it had circulated guidance to clinics, setting out what it understood to be happening, stressing that it was for individual clinics to obtain such legal advice as they might think appropriate, but saying that it did have concerns about the appropriateness of the advice which it understood certain clinics had received and perhaps briefly explaining why.

Comments Off on Nods and becks and wreathed smiles

Posted in case law and tagged , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Surrogacy and exploitation and Facebook

Posted on July 1, 2016 by suesspiciousminds

This is a grubby and desperately sad case, which indicates that there urgently needs to be some proper system of regulation over commercial surrogacy  (which ought not to exist at all in this country but is doing so under the guise of ‘reasonable expenses’)   This case highlights how easily someone very vulnerable, whose financial circumstances were so stretched that she couldn’t afford phone top-ups might be persuaded by what in that context is a huge amount of money.   (Here £9,000. If you are on benefits, £9,000 is a LOT of money)

Z (Surrogacy agreements : Child Arrangement Orders) 2016

 

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWFC/HCJ/2016/34.html

 

Here a baby boy Z, was born as a result of a surrogacy arrangement in 2015.  Z’s mother X, agreed to be a surrogate for a same-sex couple A and B.  The child was the biological child of A, but the eggs were provided through an anonymous egg donor. So X was the vessel for carrying the baby, but was not a biological or genetic mother to the baby.

The surrogacy arrangement was set up through a Facebook Group.

The applicants, who are a same sex couple, were introduced to X through a Facebook surrogacy site, which was run or administered by W and others, to provide a forum for the introduction of potential surrogates and commissioning parents. Although it is the applicants’ evidence was they were not members of the forum it was through that social media site that they were introduced to X. There is no screening of either surrogate or commissioning parents and no support available other than support from others involved with the forum. This court has heard, in this case and in others, that the surrogates were paid sums of money for their expenses at what was considered to be the “going rate”; which apparently varied from about £8,000 to £15,000. This unregulated form of surrogacy means that there are on the one side vulnerable surrogates, and on the other commissioning parents who are legally unprotected from unpredictable outcomes.

 

 

A and B had had Parental Orders granted in relation to twins, born in another surrogacy arrangement through a woman V.  Within 48 hours of the orders, they began making arrangements for another child through surrogacy.

 

Here are some of the things that the Judge said about V and the way that A and B had behaved towards her

 

  1. The applicants are a same sex couple who are in a civil partnership; they are both professionals, A an academic and B works for a charity as an advisor. Socially and economically they are in a much more secure position than X and much more affluent, although by no means wealthy. They are the parents of twin boys born in June 2013 by virtue of parental orders made in January 2014 by the Family Court. Within 48 hours of those orders being granted B started to make contact online to find another surrogate.
  3. The twins are the biological children of A and a known egg donor. They were conceived as a result of IVF treatment in the same clinic in Cyprus later used for the conception of Z. The twins were carried by V, a gestational surrogate. This first surrogacy agreement and the circumstances surrounding it are relevant as the applicants’ conduct was repeated in their agreement with X. Of particular note was their attitude towards the surrogate V which was mirrored later in their attitude towards X. The applicants ‘met’ V online or on Facebook in late September 2011, they knew very little about V relying instead on the views of L who was also involved in the surrogacy forum; what they did know was that V was in the process of what they called “matching” with another couple of commissioning parents but that that agreement was breaking down. There is no evidence before me that the reason for the breakdown was explored or that the applicants were concerned about it.
  5. Once introduced the applicants and V had become further acquainted online and arranged to meet in person. As was clear from the oral evidence of the applicants to this court the purpose and focus of that, their first meeting, was to sign the surrogacy agreement. A told the court in his oral evidence that the three had met in a services area in a “restaurant off the motorway in the West Midlands” and, that at the meeting which lasted 3-4 hours, they had discussed “the agreement and who we were”. They had signed an agreement at that meeting and that had constituted “matching”.
  7. It was abundantly clear from their evidence that A and B knew very little at all about V, her circumstances or her motivation for acting as their surrogate when they signed the agreement with her. L, who gave evidence before me, knew that V was in some financial difficulty because her phone had been cut off prior to the meeting or “match”. Money and payments were an issue between the applicants and V during the pregnancy and after it; as could be seen from electronic messages exchanged between them. L said, in her written statement, that V had “money trouble” throughout the pregnancy. It was known that V had separated from her partner at the time of the “match” so it would be fair to assume that she was, at the very least, more emotionally vulnerable than she otherwise might have been but neither of the applicants appear to have given this any thought and were firmly focussed on what she would be doing for them.
  9. In his oral evidence B, who told me that he had found V’s behaviour to be too demanding just after the twins’ birth, dismissed her need for his support at the time unsympathetically describing it as being “because of her hormones”. B was unable to demonstrate any understanding or empathy for a woman who had just given birth to twins, was in hospital alone and unsupported there or at home until he was pressed to do so. L was similarly dismissive and also gave a harsh unsympathetic description of V; who was described in a similar vein by all three witnesses; L, A and B.
  11. V was characterised by all three of them as “volatile” without any thought being given as to why she might be in an emotional, still less in a vulnerable, state. When considering their evidence about V in its totality I found the applicants to be dismissive of the considerable positive contribution to their lives she had made, at considerable physical risk to herself. She was unwell for the last three months of the pregnancy and required someone to live in at the end of the pregnancy to look after her own children. In their descriptions of V as a person they were largely negative and appeared almost wholly uninterested in her, rather, it seems, they saw her primarily as a service provider to whom they had paid £12,500.
  13. The applicants complained about V demanding too much attention from them after the twins were born and handed over to them. B said that she kept texting him when she and the twins were still in hospital after the birth, and that she kept wanting him to spend time with her. Both he and A saw this as unreasonable as they wanted to be with the twins who had to remain in hospital for some time for treatment. The applicants remained on speaking terms until after the parental orders were granted and it was part of the evidence before the court when the parental orders were made that they had an agreement with V that she would remain involved for the twins’ sake. By the time of this hearing they had “fallen out with her entirely“. The terminating event was, they claim, because she had failed properly to acknowledge the children’s first birthday. I find this evidence inherently contradictory as they also claimed they had found it necessary to limit V’s involvement as they found her to be both intrusive and demanding.

When the baby was born, X did not want to hand the child over to A and B (and you might get a sense of why later on) and that then led to private law proceedings to determine where the child should live.

 

The case was decided by Ms Justice Russell, who is very experienced with surrogacy and HFEA cases.

 

Firstly, and significantly, X was cognitively assessed and was found to have difficulties in understanding things and had to be helped during the hearing.

  1. X has been assessed by Dr Willemsen as having learning difficulties, which appeared to him to be congenital. Until she was seen by him and his report prepared, it would seem that neither her family nor her partner were aware of her difficulties although she had been perceived as different from her siblings and her peers at school, and her partner told me that while he was aware she was vulnerable he did not know just how vulnerable. X is aware of what she sees as her own short-comings and, as described by Dr Willemsen, will want to please people to hide her shame and embarrassment. X has difficulty in speaking up as observed by the guardian and confirmed by Dr Willemsen. Dr Willemsen told the court in his report that on growing up she has become more aware of her difficulties and this has been accompanied by self-doubt and insecurity; to deal with this she has sought isolation and did so from her partner during the pregnancy. Dr Willemsen, who gave oral evidence, reported that X “is a vulnerable young woman who is susceptible to influence and pressure from others. She gave a few examples where she felt she had not been able to speak out loud about her thoughts and feelings to the couple who asked her to be a surrogate.”
  3. Dr Willemsen emphasised that despite her difficulties she had been able to concentrate during their meetings (with half hour breaks) and that what was not affected was her “ability to be emotionally available. She was able to relay her frustrations, as well has her love for [her son with P] and [Z]. She was able to speak as openly as she could about her life and the course of events she had found herself in.”

 

If surrogacy were properly regulated, it is hard to believe that a person such as X could have been approved as someone who really knew what she was getting into or the emotional turmoil it might cause her.  It was not that her problems were so subtle that only an expert assessment could reveal them :-

 

  1. It is striking how the applicants did not seem able to see how vulnerable X was even at this stage. The guardian was almost immediately struck by it and on her behalf her counsel pointed out how many other people have commented on her vulnerability, over and above Dr Willemsen and the intermediary. The guardian said even on their first phone call she sensed that X was lacking in confidence and that by the time she had met X and spoken to her she believed she had learning difficulties. Everyone that the guardian had spoken to in August and September when she visited the area where X lives, to assess X’s support network, all commented on her vulnerability: they included the mid-wife; P’s mother who described the X as ‘naïve and gullible‘; P, himself, spoke about “how vulnerable [X] is”; X’s step-father described her as “gullible”; her own sister described X as “very naïve”; a family friend described X as lacking confidence.

 

Do we as a society, want someone who is vulnerable, naïve and gullible, being paid money to have a baby on behalf of someone she barely knows?  Let’s look at the circumstances in which the surrogacy agreement was signed

 

Although X had agreed to act as a gestational or “host” surrogate for the applicants, the circumstances in which agreement was reached and signed by X is a matter of some concern and one that I shall return to. The agreement was one found on-line and based on overseas commercial surrogacy agreements from the USA. The provisions and regulation of commercial surrogacy in the USA do not, in any real sense or detail, mirror the supposedly altruistic and non-commercial surrogacy in the United Kingdom. It was signed by X at a fast-food outlet at or near a railway station after a brief face to face meeting lasting less than two hours. X was accompanied by her young son and a young relative, no more than eighteen years old. X’s partner did not support the surrogacy although he did not object to it; as he later told me, he did not believe that it was for him to tell X what to do with her body.

 

By the time of the hearing, in considering whether a Parental Order could be made, the Judge had to look at whether X WAS consenting (she was not) and whether if she was consenting that she was doing so on an informed basis (she was not)

 

Legal framework

  1. The HFEA s56 (6) provides that a parental order can be made if the court is satisfied that the woman who carried the child (X) has freely, and with full understanding of what was involved, agreed unconditionally to the making of the order. I have to say that, in this case, even if X had given her consent I would not be satisfied that she had done so with a full understanding of what was involved. X does not consent freely or unconditionally so neither limb of s54 (6) has been met and there is no question of a parental order ever being made.

 

Looking at the pregnancy, it seemed that initially, there was a wave of enthusiasm from both sides about the arrangements

 

From the first few days the messages on Facebook, as described by Dr Willemsen, provide an illustration of the faux-intimacy that developed between the applicants and X. As he said “fairly soon an amicable, almost euphoric, atmosphere develops between people who hardly know each other. There is a shared excitement based, probably, on two very different realities. It is easy to read a great deal into Facebook (and email) messages.” It was his view, and one I share, that X was unable to put forward her opinions, just to say that she was “totally fine” when the applicants message that they are now “matched” and “totally fine” with an agreement that she had signed, although it is clear that she could not read or understand the contract she had signed. So little were they concerned about any protection for X’s position, moreover, that the applicants never even bothered to send her a signed copy. The applicants’ sole focus was on signing an agreement. There was little, if any, evidence in their messages of interest in X herself, just as there had been little interest in V.

 

But then look at how things soured  – and squirm as you read the attitude of A and B towards the woman who was carrying a child for them and her financial circumstances.

 

  1. The level of compensation or expenses which the applicants were willing to offer was, at £9,000, at the low end of the scale that is prevalent on the online websites and forums. From evidence I heard, and from the emails and electronic messages provided to the court, it would seem that this was the figure suggested to the applicants by W before it was suggested to X. In his oral evidence B (who was responsible for most of the communication) said that he assumed X was on benefits but admitted he was not sure, did not appear interested either way and certainly took no steps to find out. This presumption would seem to indicate that he expected financially vulnerable or impoverished women to be more likely to be putting themselves forward for surrogacy.
  3. In her messages X often referred to having problems using the phone and/or the internet because she had no credit, which should have revealed something of her straitened financial circumstances and economic vulnerability but this was not a matter ever taken up by the applicants. Nor is there any evidence that they considered, at any stage, whether a need for money might affect her ability to enter freely into any agreement. As commissioning parents entering into an agreement which can and does compromise the health of the surrogate they owed her a basic duty of care and did not carry out that duty or signal that they considered they had a responsibility for her well-being other than as a healthy surrogate for their off-spring.
  5. The applicants did not consider with X, or discuss with her, what she knew or understood about her rights or legal status in respect of any child or their legal rights and status. In his oral evidence B said he assumed she would know about such things from the Facebook forum. There is no evidence before this court that they had touched on the legal and ethical considerations that arise in surrogacy at all. They had not informed themselves of what professional support may be available to assist in successful surrogacy arrangements such as implications counselling; indeed when giving his oral evidence A did not know what it was. The sums offered, by way of compensation, for “contingencies,” such as £1,000 for a hysterectomy, were wholly inadequate and can only be taken as evidence of the low value that they placed on the physical and emotional well-being of the woman who acted as their surrogate. The language used by the applicants was unequivocally the language of the market-place; “the absolute maximum we could offer for each potentially happening would be £1000″. Their approach to X was, at the very least, potentially exploitative and they did little or nothing to ameliorate it

 

 

Neither applicant, in his evidence, was able to give more than a perfunctory account of their meeting with X in March 2014 or to recall anything of what she was like as a person. The meeting in the fast-fast-food outlet, near to the railway station they had all travelled to, was very brief. There were three children present, the twins and X’s little boy and a young man not much more than a child himself, who was X’s 18 year old nephew, and who acted as a witness. From their own evidence it was clear that the applicants discussed only those aspects of the agreement about which they were concerned. X did not, could not, read or properly understand the agreement and such was their self-absorption that neither applicant noticed, and in any case they did not see fit to go through the agreement with her to reassure X, or even themselves, that she understood it. Despite promising to send her a signed copy they only emailed the “agreement” to her several months later leaving her to try to read it on her phone – she does not have a computer. It is inexplicable how the applicants could have ever considered this meeting as an acceptable way to “get to know” the woman who would carry their children and consider that they had, even in the loosest sense, “matched”.  

 

 

Remember the twins commissioned from V ? And V being cut out of the twins life afterwards? Well, as V and X had both been members of the same facebook group, they were in communication with each other.

 

  1. In planning the trip to Cyprus the applicants were concerned with their own convenience, such as A going instead of B, who had had the bulk of the contact with X. B accepted in his oral evidence that they did not discuss between themselves or consider at all how X might experience the trip or how to make it comfortable for her. In his evidence A came across as seeming to believe that X should have been grateful for the trip, which, after all, they were financing. Their behaviour towards her was crass; they did not know that she had never been abroad before because they didn’t ask. They took no steps to ensure that she was comfortable or to find out from her what they could do to make her feel supported, and, above all appreciated.
  3. The trip was a very unpleasant one for X. In his evidence A spoke only of the symbolism for him of being present during transfer of the embryos and was either unwilling or unable to recognize how lonely or frightening the trip was for X. He came across as emotionally unavailable and entirely self-regarding.
  5. X was effectively excluded from discussions at the clinic; certainly she did not, on anyone’s account, actively participate in any conversation with the consultant in the clinic. It is understandable that X felt intimidated by A and his suggestion that he had helped her by holding her hand while the embryos were put inside her body is an example of the crass behaviour to which I have already referred. X, naturally, felt nervous throughout the trip and was not at ease with A. The food was strange and unpalatable to her and she felt even more isolated because she did not have credit on her phone. Why A did not see to it that she was able to contact her family and top up her phone is incomprehensible. To repeat what Dr Willemsen said, as fantasy met medical reality she felt used and deeply uncomfortable about the arrangement but she could not find a way of expressing her feelings because she was concerned that she might upset and displease the couple. She found herself caught in a conflict; in the words of Dr Willemsen “between maintaining the fantasy and facing up to reality. She must have felt very alone at times.”
  7. The procedure in Cyprus had a huge impact on X. She had never wanted to carry two embryos and later told W that she did not say anything to the applicants as she did not want to let them down. She was both scared and anxious about it but believed the applicants when they told her that “probably only one would work.” X’s relationship with the applicants deteriorated as the reality of the uncomfortable and intrusive IVF procedure and the pregnancy took hold and she began, increasingly, to see herself as being used. Her reaction at the time has been graphically described by Dr Willemsen; as her emotional state and responses are essentially subjective I accept his evidence, and, furthermore I consider that the way that X responded to her treatment by A and B was entirely predictable. The fact that her own difficulties made her more vulnerable to suggestion and pressure being put on her does not in any way detract from her reaction, but it made it more difficult for her to stand up to the applicants and tell them that she no longer wanted to proceed. She told Dr Willemsen that she had had doubts before the trip but her experience while she was there intensified her feelings of doubt and uncertainty and she felt used.
  9. It was from then that she had started to look for a way out of the agreement. It is clear from the messages that she sent in late October 2014 that she felt worried about having twins “how scairy twins lol xx” and … “my partners like its gunna damage your body blah blah…” to which L, who she was in touch with online, replied “no it wont [sic]”; a response, which while might have been meant as reassuring, was patently untrue. The applicants had not arranged life insurance as agreed despite the agreement stipulating it would be arranged before pregnancy and X became so worried, that this issue was revisited 4 days later, when, in early November 2014, W emailed the applicants about arranging a scan for X and X messaged A “I would like to get insurance starting today please, as it should have been done befor we [sic]got pregnant xx”.
  11. Then in mid-November V was told by L that X was the next surrogate for the applicants. When A became aware of this two days later he sent a message to W about V saying “she can turn really nasty” A sent a message to X telling her “to try not to get stressed and ignore nasty msgs we had such good news today with the heartbeats lets focus on the future”. He clearly had not thought about the effect that V might have on X when she would come to realise that they had deliberately withheld information from her about the poor relationship that had developed between V and the applicants during their “journey”. His messages are further evidence that the applicants had sought to ensure that V did not find out about the second pregnancy to stop her from putting any surrogate off entering into a surrogacy agreement with them, not, as they said in their evidence, to avoid confrontation with V.
  13. Over the next week in November X received several messages from V in which she complained that the applicants had not paid her fairly; that she had been ill during and after pregnancy with the twins; and that they had treated her badly. Unsurprisingly this increased the fears X already had about her agreement with the applicants. The standard response from the applicants and from L was to minimize the concerns by repeatedly blaming V and saying, amongst other similar epithets, that she was “bonkers”. A then sent X a message saying ‘its sad but I’m reconciled now to having no relationship’ with V which, far from reassuring her must have sent the unspoken message to X that she, too, could be cut out of any child’s life in the future.
  15. In their oral evidence both applicants showed limited if any real understanding of the various factors which had undermined X’s confidence in the agreement and led her to consider a termination. Instead I was left with the clear impression that they seemed to expect her to be grateful for acting as their surrogate rather than the other way around. From the messages filed in the court bundle it is clear that there were emotionally intense exchanges from V, W and others on the forum to X. Later in November 2014 B travelled to be there during a scan and saw X for the first time since March 2014 (when they met at the fast food outlet to sign the agreement). They do not appear to have discussed V or what had happened between them. X’s anxiety had increased and in late November she asked V to speak to or text her sister. It was around this time that she decided to seek a termination and turned to W for support.

 

 

 

In the event, she didn’t have a termination, but she did tell A and B that there had been a miscarriage. The woman running the Facebook group, W, doesn’t come out of this judgment terribly well.

 

Miscarriage, birth and the role of W

  1. Although there is no evidence before the court to establish that W is an agent or runs an agency it is clear that she has had a very strong interest in linking surrogates to commissioning parents and being involved in surrogacy. Precisely what her motivation for taking on this role is not something that this court is in a position to decide. As can be seen from the messages that passed between them W offered to “link” or introduce the applicants to X and repeatedly told them she had many other contacts and options for them should the “match” not work out. W’s influence over X can be seen in her successful attempt to persuade X not to have a termination and W accepted, in her evidence, that she was instrumental in that decision.
  3. Although W has tried to insist that she did not want to get involved in things which did not concern her, she actively and deliberately placed herself at the centre of the crisis that X was experiencing and which unfolded on the Facebook site over V in November 2014, and which, in turn, lead to X deceiving the applicants. When W gave oral evidence before me she was by turn defiant and defensive; she was unsympathetic to X and sided with the applicants who she referred to as “the boys“. W accepted that she had encouraged X to tell the applicants she had miscarried and gave as her own motivation for doing so her determination to ensure that there was no termination. She told me she was aware that the applicants’ relationship with V had ended badly and said that when X complained to her, for example about the life insurance not being in place, she had begun to believe that V might have been right about the applicants as there were now two surrogates with complaints about them.
  5. It remains unclear from W’s written statement or from her oral evidence why she later changed her mind, took against X and decided to inform the applicants that she and X had deceived them about the miscarriage. I accept the submission made on behalf of X that W seemed personally to invest in continuing the pregnancy and then disclosing that X was still pregnant to A and B; she had no reason to involve herself to this extent apart from her own personal gratification in a sense of power or exercise of a controlling influence over the lives of others with whom she was so singularly unconcerned. At first, as can be seen from the messages exchanged between them, W urged X to carry the child rather than terminate a pregnancy; she explained to X that she was the legal parent, as X had thought she would go to prison if she did not hand over the baby at birth (another example of how little X had understood her legal position and the effects of the agreement). There can be no doubt that W can be characterised as manipulative, just as there is no doubting that X was easily led. W’s messages were directive and it was she who suggested to X how she should lie to the applicants, going as far as to say “make sure you get paid first”.
  7. That W was duplicitous is obvious from her conduct; on the one hand she encouraged X to deceive the applicants, and some of the comments she made about A and B were vicious and unkind; and on the other having convinced X to keep the baby she then told the applicants about the pregnancy while pretending to X that she was supporting her. In what Ms Fottrell described as a particularly cruel exchange about X’s inability to afford a lawyer in any court proceedings she messaged A “lets hope she xant afford a solicitor if she cannot even afford credit on her phone! Xxx”. A’s response of “isn’t she a joke, [W]!” exposed the contempt in which he held the woman who had gone through a very difficult pregnancy at his behest, whether or not she had ended up trying to deceive him. This is in contrast to X, who has continued to seek to please the applicants, as evidenced in her readiness to agree to extended contact whenever it has been suggested to her and to ensure that Z has had an opportunity to develop a relationship with his biological father.

 

[The Judge doesn’t say that these messages were vile, but my personal view is that she would have been entitled to do so. You can all form your own personal views, I’m sure]

  2. While W’s manipulation of X was calculated and had a direct impact on her, the continued inability of A and B, in their evidence before this court, even to consider that their conduct may have had something to do with the manner in which X had reacted to them is noteworthy, and in keeping with the air of victimhood on the one hand and sense of entitlement on the other trailed throughout their written evidence. It was palpably evident that A seemed to feel he had ownership of Z and that X was merely a gestational surrogate, a mere vessel, with no rights over the child she was carrying and none over the child when he was born. Throughout these proceedings as can be seen from their reaction to the guardian’s recommendations about contact and other matters concerning Z’s care both the applicants struggled to accept X as Z’s mother; the woman who carried and gave birth to him. It was not until they gave oral evidence that there was, reluctantly, an emerging acceptance of the importance of that role in Z’s life.

 

 

Like me, you might well be very relieved that the view of the Court was that X, with help from her partner and support, should keep Z and that Z should not be moved to A and B.  Z will have contact with A and B one weekend every two months.

There are some massive lessons to be learned from this case – treating people with kindness and respect is much more likely to result in a workable surrogacy arrangement than treating them as merely a ‘vessel’ and the arrangement as a commercial transaction or purchase; that if surrogacy agreements go wrong they can take a great deal of time, heartache and money to unpick and put right, and that surely we need some proper form of protection so that someone like X who was naïve, gullible, easily led, vulnerable and sufficiently poor that she had difficulty in even keeping credit on her phone is not exploited or manipulated by others who don’t have those vulnerabilities.

 

 

 

 

6 Comments

Posted in case law and tagged , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Yet more IVF misery due to clinic mistakes with paperwork

Posted on June 8, 2016 by suesspiciousminds

 

You write one up, then another one appears.

 

Again the President, again Miss Deidre Fottrell QC, again failure by an IVF clinic to get the paperwork right in an IVF process and meaning that the parents need to go to the High Court to get their legal status as parents sorted out.

 

And again, a hospital trust being pretty unsympathetic and feeble in how they picked up the pieces. (“Oh parents, there are some pieces. Mind how you go. No, we’re not picking them up.”   Actually, that sarky summary seems to be an improvement on the bedside manner employed in this particular case, where a doctor rang them up to tell them that one of them was not the child’s legal parent, and didn’t offer them an appointment or even explain it in more detail in a letter. Cheers for that.)

 

Re N 2016

 

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2016/1329.html

 

Here’s the mistake itself

 

The issue

  1. Adopting the terminology I have used in previous cases, the problem in the present case is very shortly stated. Before the treatment began, X signed a Form PP. Y did not sign a Form WP. Both of them signed a Form IC, though it was not in precisely the same form as the Forms IC I have had to consider in previous cases. The central issue is this: Did Y give her consent to X becoming the father of her child? In my judgment the answer is clear: she did.
  3. I can take the matter quite shortly. The only material difference between the Form IC used in this case and the other Forms IC which I have previously had to consider, is that X’s declaration was in these terms:
    1. “I am not married to [name] but I acknowledge that she and I are being treated together and that I will take appropriate action to become the legal father of any resulting child.”

Below this there was the following Note:

“NOTE: The centre is not required to obtain a partner’s acknowledgement in order to make the treatment lawful, but … it is advisable in the interests of establishing the legal parenthood of the child.”

  1. Whatever might otherwise be the effect of the words “I will take appropriate action …” there is, on the facts of this case, no problem, because X subsequently signed the Form PP.
  3. In these circumstances, the application of the principles set out in the earlier authorities is simple and the answer is clear: Y gave the relevant consent and X is entitled to the declaration he seeks.

 

And here is what the President said about the emotional strain on the parents and the clinic’s approach

 

 final matter

  1. I have drawn attention in my previous judgments to the devastating impact on parents of being told by their clinic that something has gone ‘wrong’ in relation to the necessary consents (see In re A, para 69, Case G, para 31, and Case I, para 28). I commented (Case G, para 32) that these were situations calling for “empathy, understanding, humanity, compassion and, dare one say it, common decency, never mind sincere and unqualified apology.” In both Case G and Case I, I was very critical of those clinic’s behaviour in this respect. Here again, unhappily, the clinic’s response fell far short of what was required.
  3. In the present case, X and Y were similarly affected as had been the parents in other cases. X, who received the initial telephone call from the clinic, says he “cannot describe the shock I felt.” “It is impossible to describe what it feels like to be told so baldly over the telephone that the child you believed you were the legal parent of was not your legal child.” He was initially unable to contact Y. When she got home “I was beside myself; I was not crying but I was distracted, shaking and unable to function at all.” The impact on him was graphically illustrated by the fact that he was unable to remember either the name or the telephone number of the doctor who had telephoned him. Y remembers the “shocking state” X was in when she got home. In her statement, she voiced her anger that “a doctor should think it reasonable to ring someone up and give them such terrible news over the phone and then not back up the news with an offer of an appointment to discuss the issues in person, an offer of counselling and not to confirm the advice in writing.” By the time there was further communication, about a week later, X and Y had lost all confidence in the clinic and decided to seek their own legal advice.
  5. The contrast with other events, before and after, is poignant and telling. X recalls how “I quite literally burst into tears when I found out [Y] was pregnant.” And the intense emotion, the enormous joy, the immense happiness with which X and Y reacted in court as I announced my decision was the most powerful and moving indication which it is possible to imagine of all they had had to go through.
  7. Unhappily, they did not receive from the clinic the support they were entitled to look for. The clinic declined to meet X and Y, as they wished. The clinic was tardy in confirming, though eventually it did, its unqualified assurance that it would pay their reasonable costs. Even worse, and despite earlier correspondence in which they had sought disclosure, the solicitors X and Y instructed had to make an application to the court before the clinic finally disclosed the relevant records.
  9. In F v M and the Herts and Essex Fertility Centre [2015] EWHC 3601 (Fam), Pauffley J was, as it seems to me with every justification, unsparingly critical of the behaviour of the clinic in that case after their mistakes had been discovered. Referring to guidance issued by the HFEA following the judgment of Cobb J in AB v CD and the Z Fertility Clinic [2013] EWHC 1418 (Fam), [2013] 2 FLR 1357, Pauffley J observed (para 14):
    1. “The underlying message was clear. Clinics should have been supporting and assisting parents. They have an obligation to be open and transparent – most particularly with those whose parenthood was potentially disturbed by administrative incompetence. The parents were (and are) the individuals in most need of advice and assistance; they are entitled to and should have been treated with respect and proper concern.”

I repeat what I said I have said previously (Case G, para 33), I agree with every word of that. Pauffley J went on to criticise in particular the tardiness of the clinic in that case in disclosing the relevant patient files to the parents.

  1. What is required in all these cases, I emphasise, is immediate, full and frank disclosure by the clinic of all the relevant files as soon as they are requested by the parents. Legal professional privilege apart, which can hardly apply to the original medical files, there can be absolutely no justification for refusing such a request.
  3. I have now had the experience of watching too many parents in these cases sitting in court, as they wait, daring to hope for a happy outcome. The strain on them is immense. If the process is delayed because of obstruction on the part of the clinic, that is shocking. The original administrative incompetence in these cases is bad enough; to have it aggravated by subsequent delay, prevarication or obstruction on the part of the clinic merely adds insult to injury. Ms Fottrell, on instructions, tells me that her clients were shocked and upset by the clinic’s conduct and experienced great distress and anguish in the weeks and months following the initial telephone call. I am not surprised. The only mitigation is that when the clinic came to file its evidence, the “person responsible” who made the statement adopted a more seemly and appropriate stance, expressing “sincere apologies” for the clinic’s error and for its effect on X and Y.

 

 

And hooray, this time there were consequences

 

The clinic must pay X and Y’s reasonable costs in full: both the costs of the solicitors they originally instructed and who obtained the order for disclosure of the documents, and the costs of the solicitors they subsequently instructed to bring their substantive claim to court.

4 Comments

Posted in case law and tagged , , , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Ticking ALL the boxes

Posted on June 8, 2016 by suesspiciousminds

 

Another one of the cases where due to failures in completing the paperwork with IVF treatment, one of the parents did not acquire the legal parental responsibility that they should have acquired, leading to painful and possibly expensive Court proceedings.  The failure in this particular case, leading to the parents to have to make an application in the High Court and get Deidre Fottrell QC  to represent them, is that the Clinic failed to make sure that the form when completed had shown a tick in the right box to indicate consent.

 

So, in this case, whilst a tick in a box may be quite continental, double-checking is a mum’s best friend.  I’m here all week, try the chicken.

The President identified these problems first in

A and Others (Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008)  2015

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2015/2602.html

 

https://suesspiciousminds.com/2015/09/11/ivf-and-declarations-of-paternity-major-cock-ups-in-ivf-clinics/

 

The individual cases have kept rumbling on, and the High Court has been rather scathing from time to time of the mess that the Hospital management / legal department have been handling things.

For example here :-

 

https://suesspiciousminds.com/2016/01/24/striking-ineptitude-from-an-organisation/

 

This particular decision is Re J 2016

 

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2016/1330.html

 

Following IVF treatment provided by a clinic at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, which is and was regulated by the HFEA, Y gave birth to their child. X seeks a declaration pursuant to section 55A of the Family Law Act 1986 that he is, in accordance with section 36 of the 2008 Act, the legal parent of the child. Y is wholeheartedly supportive of X’s application. 

In this case, the failure was not a failure to use the right forms, or indeed to ensure that the parents had signed them, but here, that the parents had failed to put what the judgment calls a “v”  (but I think must be a tick) in the right box.

 

The issue

  1. Adopting the terminology I have used in previous cases, the problem in the present case is very shortly stated. Before the treatment began, X signed a Form PP. Y signed a Form WP. There is no problem with the Form PP. The problem arises because when Y signed the Form WP, which otherwise was properly completed, she omitted to place a v in the box in section 3 opposite the text “I consent to my partner (named in section two) being the legal parent of any child born from my treatment.” The central issue is this: Did Y give her consent to X becoming the father of her child? In my judgment the answer is clear: she did.
  3. I can take the matter quite shortly. This case is not unlike Case I where, as I said (para 21):
    1. “a v was inserted in the wrong place and, as it were, against the wrong piece of text. It was, as [counsel] submits, a simple undetected clerical error. In the circumstances, this obvious mistake can, in my judgment, be ‘corrected’ as a matter of construction, and without the need for rectification.”
  5. That there has been a mistake in this case in the completion of the Form WP is obvious, for the very purpose of completing the form is to give the consent indicated by the placing of a v in the relevant box. And it is plain what was meant. After all, Form WP is headed “Your consent to your partner being the legal parent.” What did Y think she was doing when she completed and signed the Form WP, if not to give her “consent to [her] partner being the legal parent”? The answer is obvious: by signing the Form WP she intended to and believed she was giving that consent. The only defect in the completed document is, as was the defect in Case I, a simple undetected clerical error. In the present case, as in Case I, this obvious mistake can, in my judgment, be ‘corrected’ as a matter of construction, and without the need for rectification.
  7. In these circumstances, the application of the principles set out in the earlier authorities is simple and the answer is clear: Y gave the relevant consent and X is entitled to the declaration he seeks.
  9. A final matter
  10. On the same day as she signed the defective Form WP to which I have referred, Y, at the invitation of the clinic, also signed another Form WP to ‘correct’ an error which, she was told, had been made in the Form WP she had signed some years before in connection with earlier successful IVF treatment. The earlier Form WP had been wrongly dated. What ensued was quite remarkable, as the clinic committed itself to – blundered into – what, were these matters not so sensitive and grave, one might be tempted to call a comedy of errors. First, the suggested ‘error’ in the earlier Form WP was quite immaterial for, as I noted in In re A (para 78), “the precise date is not material; what is vital is that the form was signed … before the treatment.” Secondly, it is quite clear that a mistake in a Form WP (or for that matter a Form PP) cannot be corrected retrospectively after the treatment by the signing of a substitute form. Thirdly, precisely the same error (the omission of the v in the box in section 3) appears in each of the two Forms WP signed by Y on this occasion. Fourthly, one might have thought that the clinic, having, as it thought, detected an error in the earlier Form WP, would have been more than careful to ensure that each of the new Forms WP was correctly completed. Not a bit of it!
  12. The lack of understanding of the critically important legal framework with which it had to comply, and its seemingly lackadaisical failure to ensure proper completion of the new Forms WP in the face of what it believed to be its previous error, cast a sadly revealing light on the managerial and administrative failings of a clinic which one really might have thought would have been able to do better.
  14. Not for the first time I am left with the feeling that the medical staff in these clinics, who seem to have been given the responsible for ensuring that all the necessary medical and legal consent forms were properly completed, wholly failed to appreciate the critical need to ensure that the legal consent forms were properly, indeed meticulously, completed. I repeat what I said in In re A (para 111):
    1. “the approach to checking that the Form WP and the Form PP have been fully and properly completed is surely just as important, and demands just as much care, attention and rigour, as would be demanded in the case of a legal document such as a contract for the sale of land, a conveyance or a will – indeed, in the context of parenthood, even more important.”

These administrative failures, which have been so characteristic a feature of every one of the cases I have had to consider, unhappily seem indicative of systemic failings both of management and of regulation across the sector. I can only hope that what all this litigation has revealed will by now have led to very significant improvements in understanding and practice.

 

Sadly, I suspect that it is only going to be when the Hospitals are hit with compensation claims or costs orders that things will improve.

 

1 Comment

Posted in case law and tagged , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Striking ineptitude from an organisation.

Posted on January 24, 2016 by suesspiciousminds

 

This is a HFEA case, along the same lines as the one decided by the President discussed here:-

 

https://suesspiciousminds.com/2015/09/11/ivf-and-declarations-of-paternity-major-cock-ups-in-ivf-clinics/

 

I.e that because a clinic involved in artificial insemination (IVF) failed to use proper consent forms and keep proper records, the parents ended up in Court to resolve who had parental responsibility.  You may recall from that case, that the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority had carried out an audit and found that about HALF of the clinics who do this work were using the wrong forms and losing records.  There was always going to be more litigation about this cock-up.

This individual case, however, did not (as the President’s 8 cases did) involve parents who were all on the same page about their intentions and who should have parental responsibility but parents who were already litigating issues about the children. So this was an added complication to already difficult proceedings.

 

In this particular case, Pauffley J was rightly very critical of the clinic involved, Herts and Essex Fertility Centre.

 

  • In the course of my separate Children Act judgment delivered on 30 November, I said I would be able to find unequivocally that F is entitled to the declaration he seeks. He is the father of C. This judgment explains my reasons for that preliminary indication. It also comments upon the actions and omissions of the Herts and Essex Fertility Centre (HEFC) for identical reasons to those described by the President in his judgment. It is both alarming and shocking that, once more, a court is confronted with an instance of such striking ineptitude from an organisation which is subject to statutory regulation and monitored by a statutory regulator namely the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA).

We’ll come onto it in detail later, but because the Clinic refused to comply with Court orders, the Court had to make the orders again, but with a penal notice attached. It is pretty unusual for a Court to need to do that against an organisation (as opposed to say a lay person)

 

 

F v M and Others 2015

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2015/3601.html

 

When the parties contacted the clinic to ask for the records, and even when Court orders were sent, the Clinic was unresponsive – my reading is that the requests were processed by someone who went into “someone is trying to sue us for something, give them nothing” mode.  (which is not even the way it actually works with a personal injury or negligence claim, where disclosure is part of a pre-action protocol). As it turned out, the Clinic’s resistance to assist and comply with Court orders not only made the litigation more protracted and costly, but they ended up having to offer to pay the costs anyway.

Also, seeing the lawyers involved in the case in the headnote, boy did this clinic mess with the wrong people…

 

 

  • The second noteworthy matter surrounds HEFC’s litigation conduct which has been wholly extraordinary. Notwithstanding both parents’ written authorisations and ready agreement to the disclosure of material from HEFC, the process has been fraught and, at best, piecemeal. There would seem to have been a fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose for which disclosure of records was sought.
  • In early May, only 20 or so pages of medical records were made available. Had there been full and proper disclosure at that stage, the eventual shape of the litigation could have been very different. Again and again, letters were written by M’s and F’s Solicitors. In late May, HEFC was strongly recommended to attend the first court hearing. In response, the Clinic’s finance manager stated that it was not accepted that “HFEC had failed to comply with the necessary procedures;” and the suggestion of attending the hearing was declined.
  • On 29 May an order was made joining HEFC as a party and directing it to file any evidence upon which it intended to rely. Two months later, on 28 July, in the absence of any engagement by the Clinic, F’s Solicitors wrote a lengthy and informative letter, drawing attention to the 7 cases being heard by the President, seeking agreement to fund the father’s legal costs, reiterating the disclosure requests and giving information about the next court hearing.
  • On 10 August, the Clinic’s finance manager emailed F’s Solicitors saying, “to confirm, we will not intervene nor will we be attending the hearing.”
  • On 14 August, I made an order directing HEFC to disclose all and any medical notes relating to M and F’s treatment as well as all correspondence (including emails and other communications) with M and F. I also directed the Clinic to file and serve detailed statements from the Person Responsible and the Medical Director. The HEFC was directed to attend the next hearing on 22 October.
  • On 4 September two statements were provided, one from the Person Responsible, the other from the Medical Director. The covering email from the finance manager indicated that the Clinic would not be in attendance at the next hearing as “this is a Family Law matter.”
  • I cannot begin to understand how such a misapprehension arose as to the proper role for the Clinic in these proceedings particularly given the unambiguous correspondence from the parties’ Solicitors supported as it was by the text of several court orders.
  • On 20 October (about a month after F’s Solicitors had drawn the Clinic’s attention to the President’s HFEA 2008 judgment), an email was sent to the Clinic’s finance manager reminding her that HEFC was required to attend the hearing on 22 October. The response was that the Clinic would not be attending.
  • It was therefore necessary, on 22 October, to make an order with a penal notice attached so as to ensure the Clinic’s compliance with directions. I also listed a hearing to determine the Clinic’s liability for the parties’ reasonable costs. Once again, an order was made that the Clinic should attend the next hearing.
  • On 4 November, Russell-Cooke LLP was instructed by the Clinic. Seemingly that was the point at which the Clinic appreciated the need for assistance from lawyers. As Mr Powell explained during his final submissions, the Clinic’s first point of contact (when faced with requests for information) had been the insurers. Apparently, though this is difficult to understand given the explicit nature of incoming correspondence, the Clinic had not appreciated the gravity of the situation.
  • There was then inter-solicitor correspondence resulting in further disclosure on 10 November. For the first time, critically important laboratory records were revealed showing affirmative ticks by the WP and PP boxes on forms. Two further and important tranches of documents were disclosed on 19 and 20 November just a very few days before the final hearing listed on 24 November.
  • The detail of the Clinic’s litigation conduct is both important and profoundly disappointing set against the framework of the dispute between these parents. The levels of conflict have remained at the highest level throughout. M and F are bitter, resentful and mistrustful of each other. M’s position, in all probability, became ever more entrenched as the result of the Clinic’s lack of engagement and failure to disclose early.
  • The Clinic’s bewildering behaviour has undoubtedly added to a situation of enormous tension in circumstances which were already intensely fraught. It would have assisted greatly if the Clinic had responded to requests for information in a timely and cooperative fashion. Seldom is it necessary to make orders backed with a penal notice against organisations whose aims include a desire to serve the public and to a high standard. It was altogether necessary here.
  • It should also be observed that even by the very end of the hearing, there had been no attempt on the part of the Clinic to engage directly with either M or F. Beyond what had been said formally within the proceedings there has been no correspondence and no apology on the part of anyone at HEFC. That is quite obviously a profoundly shocking state of affairs. Neither parent has had any offer of help, support or explanation for the situation in which they have been entangled. They have been left completely on their own with no ability to understand the reasons for what went so badly wrong.
  • On behalf of the Clinic, Mr Powell accepts that no words would do justice to the emotional distress caused to M, F and their family members. He did not seek to defend the Clinic’s actions; and accepts the criticisms levelled. The Medical Director’s unreserved apology, said Mr Powell, although late is nonetheless candid. The Medical Director accepts that the Clinic’s litigation conduct was wholly unsatisfactory and has prolonged the parents’ distress. He intends to write directly to them apologising on behalf of HEFC and would welcome the opportunity to meet each parent to provide an apology in person and answer their questions.
  • Mr Powell indicates that lessons have been learned and contrition on behalf of the Clinic is genuine. It is a good indication of the HEFC’s remorse that it has undertaken to pay the parties’ costs as they relate to the declaration of parentage proceedings.

 

 

On the fundamental issue, whether the proper consents had been recorded about the treatment and who was to be considered as legal parents for any child produced by the treatment, the Judge had this to say:-

 

 

  • Without descending into more of the detail, I am entirely satisfied of the following – (1) that M and F did sign WP and PP forms prior to the commencement of treatment; (2) that the forms as well as the internal consent forms were signed at the treatment information appointment (as the checklist confirms); (3) that the WP and PP forms have subsequently been mislaid or lost; (4) that M and F received appropriate counselling prior to treatment in relation to the consequences of using donor sperm; (5) that notwithstanding the lost forms the clinic acted within the terms of its licence; and accordingly (6) F is C’s father.
  • Turning from the specifics relating to parentage, there are a number of associated matters which require comment. The first is as to the bemusing and seemingly unsatisfactory response of HEFC to the Legal Parenthood Audit initiated at the request of the HFEA on 10 February 2014 following the judgment of Cobb J AB v CD and the Z Fertility Clinic [2013] EWHC 1418 (Fam).
  • On 1 September 2014, the HFEA wrote to all clinics to inform them of the outcome of the Audit – namely that “nearly half of all clinics that have responded reported anomalies with their legal parenthood consent.” The letter expressly informed clinics – “if you have any doubt about the validity of legal parenthood you should seek your own legal advice. You should also inform the affected patients and their partners.”
  • The underlying message was clear. Clinics should have been supporting and assisting parents. They have an obligation to be open and transparent – most particularly with those whose parenthood was potentially disturbed by administrative incompetence. The parents were (and are) the individuals in most need of advice and assistance; they are entitled to and should have been treated with respect and proper concern. In this instance, M and F were left completely on their own without assistance of any kind from HEFC.
  • The medical files for these parents should have been (but were not) included in the Legal Parenthood Audit which was to be completed over a period of three months. The omission has been reported to the HFEA. It is perplexing to say the least that this couple’s files were missed when account is taken of the chronology of the mother’s telephone calls (from late March / early April 2015) seeking information about the consent forms as well as initial ‘phone calls followed then by a formal letter from M’s then Solicitors requiring information.
  • At the instigation of the Chief Inspector of the HFEA an investigation is about to begin to discover the reasons for the error. There will be a ‘Root Cause Analysis’ undertaken by an independent consultancy for UK regulated organisations so as to identify what went wrong. The investigation will also seek to discover whether the HEFC complied with the HFEA’s request to sample or review files. Importantly, it will examine how the WP and PP forms were mislaid or lost. It is said on behalf of HEFC that the investigation will be thorough and comprehensive.
  • The findings of the independent consultancy will be reported to the HFEA so that decisions may be made about what action should be taken. The medical director of HEFC assures the court that he is committed to “getting to the bottom of what happened, to taking all remedial action and to working with the HFEA to ensure that the circumstances which gave rise to this case can never happen again.”
  • The HEFC has taken other steps including the installation of ‘Meditex,’ a new Fertility Database which will require the scanning in of Forms WP and PP enabling immediate retention and availability for inspection. The database is comprehensive, internationally recognised and used by other leading clinics across Europe.

 

It really does seem likely that there will be many more of these cases. I’d suggest that hospitals stop putting Court orders from family Courts in the “Go Screw Yourselves”* section of the in-trays.

 

(*That wasn’t actually intended to be an artificial insemination joke when I first wrote it, but hey, I’m not one to snub serendipity when it comes a’knocking)

 

1 Comment

Posted in case law and tagged , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Guidance on foreign surrogacy

Posted on December 10, 2015 by suesspiciousminds

 

Yet another High Court decision about international surrogacy.

 

Re Z (Foreign Surrogacy:Allocation of work: Guidance on parental order reports) 2015

 

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWFC/HCJ/2015/90.html

 

This one throws up a lot of the issues that can go wrong with international surrogacy. The arrangements were all made, properly and legally in India. The commissioning ‘parents’ then found it impossible to come back to England with the twins until they had a Parental Order. But they in turn found it difficult to get a Parental Order, because there was uncertainty about whether the applicants needed to be present in England at the time of the application, whether the child’s ‘home’ had to be in England, and whether the parental order reporter had to go to India to observe the ‘parents’ with the child. In fact the parents had to leave the twins in India, deal with matters in Court and then get the twins from India, a sorry state of affairs.

 

Ms Justice Russell cuts through a lot of this with the guidance that applications for Parental Orders with an international element (where child is born outside of England and Wales) should henceforth be heard only in the High Court. They are also to be heard in London, where possible by Pauffley J, Theis J or Russell J, all of whom have been at the forefront of the most challenging cases of this nature and are well placed to resolve difficult issues.

 

 

  • Guidance In respect of the allocation of parental order applications there will be the following guidelines applied in keeping with the practice and procedure as set out in Schedule 1, 3 (f) (iv) of the Distribution of Business in the High Court of the Senior Courts Act 1981, rule13.9 (1) (e) of the Family Procedure Rules (FPR) 2010 and Schedule 1 paragraph 4(f) of the Family Court (Composition and Distribution of Business) Rules 2014 which have been in force from 22 April 2014 on the formation of the Family Court (as referred to above).

 

i) All proceedings for parental orders will commence in the Family Court where they will remain. They should not be transferred to the High Court.

ii) All proceedings pursuant to s 54 of the HFEA 2008 where the child’s place of birth was outside of England and Wales should be allocated to be heard by a Judge of the Family Division.

iii) In London all cases should, if possible, be allocated to Mrs Justice Pauffley, Mrs Justice Theis or Ms Justice Russell.

iv) Cases which originate on circuit, unless transferred to London, should be allocated to be heard locally by a Judge of the Family Division identified by the Family Division Liaison Judge in consultation with the Judge in Charge of the HFEA list (this is Mrs Justice Theis).

v) Allocation of the case to either the Cafcass High Court Team or to a local Cafcass or Cafcass Cymru officer to act as parental order reporter is a matter for Cafcass (subject to their own guidance and the guidance below).

 

  • The President has seen paragraph [73] and has approved it.

 

 

On the particular issues that arose in this case :-

 

  1. Do the parents need to be physically present in the UK to apply?    No, they just need to be domiciled here.
  2. Does the ‘home’ with the child need to be in the UK?  No, and also it does not matter that the time the children were in a home with the applicants was not continuous. It needs to be at the time the application is made and again at the time that the order is made.

 

The child’s home must be with applicants at the time they made the application (Section 54(4) (a) HFEA 2008) and at the time the court is considering making the order. Although the twins had remained in India and at times were not being cared for there by the Applicants there was no issue in this case as the place the children were living was a home that was entirely arranged and provided for by the Applicants; moreover the commissioning father had returned to India in February and remained with the children until the whole family came to the UK in May 2015. Either or both the applicants must be domiciled in the United Kingdom or in the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man (sub-section (4) (b)). Domicile can be problematic in some cases as it is a peculiarity of English and Welsh law which is often confused with residence by applicants acting in person (and others). This was the matter with which the court was concerned in the case of Re G referred to paragraph 2 above. In the instant case, however, there was no such problem as both Applicants were born in England to fathers domiciled here and there was no evidence to suggest that they had not retained their domicile of origin. They were both over eighteen years old at the time the order was made and so meeting the requirements of s 54(5) HFEA 2008.

 

3. Does the parental order reporter, who carries out an investigation and reports to the Court need to see the applicants WITH the child?  This seems obvious, but of course in a situation like this that would have involved the reporter (who no doubt has a heavy workload and an organisation not flush with cash) flying out to India.   The answer is longer than the other two, but ultimately ‘yes’

 

 

Parental Order Report

 

  • The children’s guardian was prepared to consider making recommendations without having seen the children in the care of the Applicants in the UK in the exceptional circumstances of this case. She made it plain to the court that this was not her preferred option and it was her assumption that she needed to see the children at home with the Applicants. The only reason that Ms Dawe felt able to consider such a course was because there was what she described as “wealth of material” about the Applicants’ ability to parent K and the support that was available to the Applicants from their wider families. Ms Dawe accepted that parenting three children is different to one but was so concerned about the welfare of the babies stranded in India that she felt that it was an appropriate course for her to take. The role of the Cafcass officer/Cafcass Cymru/Parental Order Reporter and the extent and nature of their investigations was one issue in this case that I specifically sought assistance upon from Cafcass Legal and I am grateful to them for that assistance.
  • A specific issue raised in this case was whether it was necessary for the child or children who are subjects of applications for parental orders under s54 of the HFEA to be seen by the Parental Order Reporter for the welfare report to be properly prepared. The Human Fertilization and Embryology (Parental Orders) Regulations 2010 does not incorporate section 42(7) of the ACA 2002 which require a privately placed child to be seen by the Local Authority together with their adopter in their home, and the Explanatory Memorandum to the Regulations makes no reference to any such requirement. For the purpose of cases of international surrogacy it sets down the following about the acquisition of nationality or citizenship:

 

“Nationality

8.7. As a result of responses to the consultation, and to ensure parity with adoption legislation, the Parental Order Regulations 2010 now ensure that where a parental order is made in the United Kingdom and one or both of the commissioning couple are British citizens, the child – if not already so – will become a British citizen.”

 

  • The Court was referred to the Cafcass Guidance issued to Parental Order Reporters at the hearing on 18th May 2015. This guidance did not require in terms that the parental order reporter sees the child, but since that guidance was issued, further work was undertaken within Cafcass as a result of which fact-sheets were produced for commissioning parents who are applying for parental orders and in the fact-sheet entitled “Parental Order Reporters” intended applicants are told that they will be seen by the parental order reporter with their child (my emphasis). These documents or fact-sheets were only just published within a few weeks of the final hearing of this case on 7th July 2015.
  • Ms Penny Logan of Cafcass Legal, who appeared before me and Ms Lakin, counsel on behalf of the children, both told the court that they were unaware of a case that had been reported where the parental order reporter has not seen the child. This was accepted by Ms Cronin on behalf of the Applicants. Ms Logan pointed out, and as this court is well aware, members of Cafcass Legal routinely act for High Court team guardians in cases where the children are parties. The court was reminded of the fact, well known to it, which is that the High Court team undertakes a large proportion of the parental order cases in the High Court and most of the international ones. Ms Logan told the court that she was unaware, through Cafcass, of any case reported or unreported, where the parental order reporter has not seen the child. Although this court is aware of one such instance in a reported case (see the reference in [86] below) it is difficult to imagine circumstances in which a parental order reporter could properly report on welfare without having seen the child with the Applicants. Ms Logan went on to inform the court she was, at that time, involved in another surrogacy case where determination of the application hade been delayed for a year for similar reasons.
  • It is accepted that it was never the preferred option of the guardian in this case that she would make recommendations in the absence of seeing the children with the Applicants in the UK. It is the experience of this court that applications for parental orders are made by commissioning parents who do not presently reside in this country (when one or both have a UK domicile). In such cases parental order reporters see children with commissioning parents/applicants when they visit this jurisdiction as in the case of CC v DD (supra) [2014] EWHC 1307.
  • In the instant case the guardian’s report amply demonstrates both the value and necessity of such observations in terms of the analysis of the welfare checklist set out in s.1 ACA 2002. While it would have been a matter for the court as to whether it would have made the order in the absence of this work in the circumstances of this case; I took the view that the parental order reporter had to have seen the children with the Applicants before the court could be satisfied about their welfare.

 

 

 

 

2 Comments

Posted in cafcass, case law and tagged , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

IVF and declarations of paternity – major cock-ups in IVF clinics

Posted on September 11, 2015 by suesspiciousminds

 

I’m often a bit snippy about the President’s decisions in Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act cases, but I can’t fault him in this one.

 

A and Others (Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008)  2015

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2015/2602.html

 

This case involved eight cases where couples had made use of very well known and well regarded reputable fertility clinics within England, but as a result of mistakes in the clinics processes, found that not all of them had legal status with their own children and had to apply to Court for a Declaration of Parentage to resolve those issues.

The advocates involved were a roll-call of some of the best minds around, and one can see why.

This judgment relates to a number of cases where much joy but also, sadly, much misery has been caused by the medical brilliance, unhappily allied with the administrative incompetence, of various fertility clinics. The cases I have before me are, there is every reason to fear, only the small tip of a much larger problem.

 

The question of who, in law, is or are the parent(s) of a child born as a result of treatment carried out under this legislation – the issue which confronts me here – is dealt with in Part 2, sections 33-47, of the 2008 Act. It is, as a moment’s reflection will make obvious, a question of the most fundamental gravity and importance. What, after all, to any child, to any parent, never mind to future generations and indeed to society at large, can be more important, emotionally, psychologically, socially and legally, than the answer to the question: Who is my parent? Is this my child?

 

Why has this arisen?

 

  1. The decision of Cobb J on 24 May 2013 in AB v CD and the Z Fertility Clinic [2013] EWHC 1418 (Fam), [2013] 2 FLR 1357, brought to public attention and, more particularly, to the attention of the HFEA, the lamentable shortcomings in a clinic identified only as clinic Z which, in the judge’s view (para 74), had fallen “far short” of its obligations and which (para 88) had failed to comply with the conditions of the licence granted to it by the HFEA.
  2. I must return in due course to explain in more detail the relevant statutory requirements. For the moment I merely indicate two fundamental prerequisites to the acquisition of parenthood by the partner of a woman receiving such treatment. First, consents must be given in writing before the treatment, both by the woman and by her partner. The forms required for this in accordance with directions given by the HFEA are Form WP, to be completed by the woman, and Form PP, to be completed by her partner. Secondly, both the woman and her partner must be given adequate information and offered counselling.
  3. Following Cobb J’s judgment, the HFEA required all 109 licensed clinics to carry out an audit of their records. The alarming outcome was the discovery that no fewer than 51 clinics (46%) had discovered “anomalies” in their records: WP or PP forms absent from the records; WP or PP forms being completed or dated after the treatment had begun; incorrectly completed WP or PP forms (for example, forms not signed, not fully completed, completed by the wrong person or with missing pages); and absence of evidence of any offer of counselling. At the time of the hearing, I did not know how many cases there might be in all, how many families are affected and how many children there are whose parentage may be in issue – so far as I was aware the HFEA had never disclosed the full numbers – but it was clear (see below) that some clinics reported anomalies in more than one case. Since the hearing, the HFEA in a letter dated 1 September 2015 has indicated that there are a further 75 cases.
  4. As it happens, we are best informed about the St Bartholomew’s Hospital Centre for Reproductive Medicine, operated by Barts Health NHS Trust, which I shall refer to as Barts. It was the subject of a judgment given by Theis J on 13 February 2015: X v Y (St Bartholomew’s Hospital Centre for Reproductive Medicine Intervening) [2015] EWFC 13. Moreover, it has been commendably open and frank about its failings (others seem to have been more coy), sharing its findings with the wider medical community as long ago as September 2014 when, at the instigation of the HFEA, they were published on the HFEA’s clinicfocus e-newsletter. Of 184 patients who had undertaken fertility treatment with donor sperm since April 2009, when the 2008 Act was implemented, there were 13 cases (7%) where legal parenthood was in issue.
  5. The picture thus revealed, and I am referring not just to Barts, is alarming and shocking. This is, for very good reason, a medical sector which is subject to detailed statutory regulation and the oversight of a statutory regulator – the HFEA. The lamentable shortcomings in one clinic identified by Cobb J, which now have to be considered in the light of the deeply troubling picture revealed by the HFEA audit and by the facts of the cases before me, are, or should be, matters of great public concern. The picture revealed is one of what I do not shrink from describing as widespread incompetence across the sector on a scale which must raise questions as to the adequacy if not of the HFEA’s regulation then of the extent of its regulatory powers. That the incompetence to which I refer is, as I have already indicated, administrative rather than medical is only slight consolation, given the profound implications of the parenthood which in far too many cases has been thrown into doubt. This is a matter I shall return to at the end of this judgment.

 

All of these people put themselves in the hands of, as the President says, brilliant doctors, who brought them the gift of children, but also had put themselves in the hands of an administrative system upon which the entire notion of whether they were both legally that child’s parents. That administrative system did not always work.

As can be seen in this case, the wrong forms were sometimes used, forms were misplaced or lost.

For both of the couple to be legal parents, it is vital that before the treatment commences that the mother to be signs a form saying that she agrees and consents for the man to be the father in law of any child created, and that the father-to-be signs a form saying that he agrees and consents to be the father in law of any such child. That’s an essential component of the Act.  If there is no such written consent, then the man would not be in law the father.   [I’ve used mother and father for simplicity here – of course it is possible for two women to become parents under such an arrangement]

 

  1. The issues
  2. As will become apparent in due course, the cases before me raise three general issues of principle which it is convenient to address at this point.
  3. The first (which arises in Cases A, B, E, F and H) is whether it is permissible to prove by parol evidence that a Form WP or Form PP which cannot be found was in fact executed in a manner complying with Part 2 of the 2008 Act and whether, if that is permissible, and the finding is made, the fact that the form cannot be found prevents it being a valid consent, as involving a breach by the clinic of its record-keeping obligations. This was the issue decided by Theis J in X v Y (St Bartholomew’s Hospital Centre for Reproductive Medicine Intervening) [2015] EWFC 13. In the light of her decision, with which, as I have said, I respectfully agree, the only question in such a case is a question of fact: Allowing for the fact that it can no longer be found, is it established on the evidence that there was a Form WP or Form PP, as the case may be, which was properly completed and signed before the treatment began?
  4. The second issue (which arises in Cases D and F) is the extent to which errors in a completed Form WP or Form PP can be ‘corrected’, either as a matter of construction or by way of rectification. A similar point (which arises in Cases E and F) is the extent to which errors in a completed Form IC can be ‘corrected’ This is a novel point in this context which, in my judgment, falls to be decided in accordance with long-established and well-recognised principles.
  5. I start with rectification. As a matter of general principle, I can see no reason at all why a Form WP or Form PP should be said to be, of its nature, a document which cannot be rectified. The fact that it is a document required by statute to be in a particular form (that is, “in writing” and “signed by the person giving it”) is, in my judgment, neither here nor there: compare the many cases where rectification has been decreed of conveyancing or trust documents similarly required by various provisions of the Law of Property Act 1925 to be in a particular form. Nor does it matter, in my judgment, that a Form WP or Form PP is used as part of, and, indeed, in order to comply with the requirements of, a statutory scheme. There is, for example, nothing in the language of any of the relevant provisions of Part 2 of the 2008 Act to suggest that rectification is impermissible. Contrast, for example, the well established rule that the Articles of Association of a company will not be rectified because rectification would be inconsistent with the provisions of the Companies Acts: see Scott v Frank F Scott (London) Ltd [1940] Ch 794. So, in my judgment, if the criteria for rectification are otherwise established, a Form WP or a Form PP can be rectified.
  6. Quite apart from the equitable doctrine of rectification, the court can, as a matter of construction, ‘correct’ a mistake if (I put the matter generally, without any detailed exegesis) the mistake is obvious on the face of the document and it is plain what was meant. The reported examples of this are legion and stretch back over the centuries. They include cases of clear misnomer. Again, there is, in my judgment, no possible objection to the court taking this course in relation to a Form WP or a Form PP.
  7. The third issue (which arises in Cases A, C, D, E, F and H) is whether a properly completed Form IC is capable of operating as consent for the purposes of sections 37 and 44 of the 2008 Act

 

If you are wondering what ‘parol evidence’ is, then you are not alone. I wondered that too. Of course, if you all knew, then I was the only person wondering it, and now I feel bad.

 

Parol refers to verbal expressions or words. Verbal evidence, such as the testimony of a witness at trial.

In the context of contracts, deeds, wills, or other writings, parol evidence refers to extraneous evidence such as an oral agreement (a parol contract), or even a written agreement, that is not included in the relevant written document. The parol evidence rule is a principle that preserves the integrity of written documents or agreements by prohibiting the parties from attempting to alter the meaning of the written document through the use of prior and contemporaneous oral or written declarations that are not referenced in the document.  [In short, any other supplementary evidence that would allow a Court to decide that yes, both ‘parents’ did agree that each would be a legal parent to that child]

I am pleased to say that the President did conclude that in each of these cases, there was parol evidence that the couples had all gone into this arrangement fully consenting to the legal parentage of the child, and thus the deficiencies in the forms or the missing status of the forms could be remedied and the Declaration of Parentage made.

 

I conclude, therefore, that, in principle:

i) The court can act on parol evidence to establish that a Form WP or a Form PP which cannot be found was in fact properly completed and signed before the treatment began;

ii) The court can ‘correct’ mistakes in a Form WP or a Form PP either by rectification, where the requirements for that remedy are satisfied, or, where the mistake is obvious on the face of the document, by a process of construction without the need for rectification.

iii) A Form IC, if it is in the form of the Barts Form IC or the MFS Form IC as I have described them above, will, if properly completed and signed before the treatment began, meet the statutory requirements without the need for a Form WP or a Form PP.[2]

iv) It follows from this that the court has the same powers to ‘correct’ a Form IC as it would have to ‘correct’ a Form WP or a Form PP.

 

That, I’m sure came as a relief to the parents involved. I won’t dwell on the nuts and bolts of how the President reached that conclusion, but focus more on the human angle

 

 

  1. The evidence I listened to in these cases was some of the most powerful, the most moving and the most emotionally challenging I have ever heard as a judge. It told of the enormous joy, both for the woman and her partner, to discover, in some cases after a hitherto unsuccessful journey lasting years, that she was pregnant, having taken a pregnancy test that they had scarcely dared to hope might be positive; the immense joy of living through the pregnancy of what both thought of from the outset as “their” child; the intense joy when “their” child was born. In contrast, it told of the devastating emotions – the worry, the confusion, the anger, the misery, the uncertainty, the anguish, sometimes the utter despair – they felt when told that something was wrong about the parental consent forms, that, after all they had been through, all the joy and happiness, W’s partner might not legally be the parent. In one case, where the journey to a successful birth had taken the parents twelve years of what was described as grief and pain, it is hardly surprising to learn that they were “devastated and heartbroken” when told by the clinic that the mother’s partner was not the child’s parent. In another case, the comment was, “it is simply not fair.” The words may be understated, but the raw emotion is apparent. Another called the situation “terrible.” Another spoke of being “extremely distressed”, unable to sleep and “constantly worrying about the future.”
  2. It is testament to the enormous dignity they displayed, even while the case was going on and they did not know what the outcome was going to be, that these parents, despite their justified criticism of how they felt let down by professional people they had trusted and who they had thought, wrongly as it turned out, they could rely upon, did not give voice to greater anger and more strident criticism. It was, if they will permit me to say so, a humbling experience to watch them and hear them give evidence.
  3. A number of common themes emerge from the evidence. In each case, having regard to the evidence before me, both written and oral, I find as a fact that:i) The treatment which led to the birth of the child was embarked upon and carried through jointly and with full knowledge by both the woman (W) and her partner.

    ii) From the outset of that treatment, it was the intention of both W and her partner that her partner would be a legal parent of the child. Each was aware that this was a matter which, legally, required the signing by each of them of consent forms. Each of them believed that they had signed the relevant forms as legally required and, more generally, had done whatever was needed to ensure that they would both be parents.

    iii) From the moment when the pregnancy was confirmed, both W and her partner believed that her partner was the other parent of the child. That remained their belief when the child was born.

    iv) W and her partner, believing that they were entitled to, and acting in complete good faith, registered the birth of their child, as they believed the child to be, showing both of them on the birth certificate as the child’s parents, as they believed themselves to be.

    v) The first they knew that anything was or might be ‘wrong’ was when they were subsequently written to by the clinic.

    vi) The application to the court is wholeheartedly supported by the applicant’s partner or, as the case may be, ex-partner.

    vii) They do not see adoption as being a remotely acceptable remedy. The reasons for this will be obvious to anyone familiar with a number of recent authorities which there is no need for me to refer to. As it was put in the witness box by more than one of these parents, as they thought of themselves, why should I be expected to adopt my own child?

  4. There are two other matters which emerged clearly in the evidence. There is no suggestion that any consent given was not fully informed consent. Nor is there any suggestion of any failure or omission by any of the clinics in relation to the provision of information or counselling.

 

 

 

The President did consider that it was appropriate to name the clinics involved.

 

I can see no reason at all why the clinics should not be identified. So far as concerns IVF Hammersmith Limited, readers of this judgment will appreciate that the case has not yet been heard and that there are as yet no findings. Barts, MFS and BH, on the other hand, each stands exposed as guilty of serious shortcomings, indeed, at least in the case of Barts and MFS, repeated and systemic failings. Why, in the circumstances, should their shortcomings be shielded from public scrutiny or, indeed, public criticism? I can think of no compelling reason. On the contrary, if public condemnation serves to minimise the risk that any future parent is exposed to what these parents have had to suffer, then it is a price well worth paying. I have not identified any of their staff, nor any of the treating clinicians. There is no need, and it would be unfair, to do so, for the failings are systemic and, ultimately, the responsibility of senior management and the HFEA.

 

 

This was not, of course, a public enquiry into the failings of the clinics, or the regulatory body, but the President made some remarks aimed at preventing such problems in the future (though it seems that these 8 cases are likely to be followed by many, many more – at least another 65, that are known to have gone wrong).   The President here has thwarted my usual practice of putting the quotes from the judgment in bold, as he emboldens particular words for emphasis…

 

  1. An afterword
  2. It is not for me to provide guidance as to how these serious and systemic failings could better be prevented. That, after all, is the function of the HFEA and, within each clinic, the responsibility of the individual who is the “person responsible” within the meaning of section 17(1) of the 1990 Act. There are, however, three observations which I am driven to make in the light of the very detailed forensic examination to which these matters have been subjected during the hearing.
  3. The first relates to the material published from time to time by the HFEA in the aftermath of Cobb J’s judgment in AB v CD. I have in mind letters sent out by the Chief Executive of the HFEA dated 10 February 2014 and 1 September 2014, a letter sent out by the Chair of the HFEA dated 3 February 2015 and the April 2015 version of the HFEA’s Consent forms: a guide for clinic staff. While a careful reader who studies these documents with a critical and attentive mind ought not to be left in much doubt about the need to make sure that both Form WP and Form PP are completed properly, and at the right time, I cannot help thinking that it might be better if this FUNDAMENTALLY IMPORTANT requirement, and the potentially DIRE LEGAL CONSEQUENCES of non-compliance, were expressed in more emphatic, indeed stark, language and, in addition, highlighted by appropriate typography. By appropriate typography I mean the use of bold or italic type, CAPITAL letters, or a COMBINATION of all three; the use, for example, of red ink; and the flagging up of key points by the use of ‘warning’ or ‘alert’ symbols. To be fair, some effort has been made to highlight particular points, but I suggest that the process could go further.
  4. The second relates to the imperative need for all clinics to comply, meticulously and all times, with the HFEA’s guidance and directions, including, in particular, in relation to the use of Form WP and Form PP.
  5. The final observation relates to practice within clinics. A completed Form WP and a completed Form PP surely needs to be checked by one person (probably a member of the clinical team) and then re-checked by another person, entirely separate from the clinical team, whose sole function is to go through the document in minute detail and to draw attention to even the slightest non-compliance with the requirements – all this, of course, before the treatment starts. I trust that the parties will not be offended by the comparison, but the approach to checking that the Form WP and the Form PP have been fully and properly completed is surely just as important, and demands just as much care, attention and rigour, as would be demanded in the case of a legal document such as a contract for the sale of land, a conveyance or a will – indeed, in the context of parenthood, even more important.

 

1 Comment

Posted in case law and tagged , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Breastfeeding mother versus gay couple

Posted on May 5, 2015 by suesspiciousminds

 

I think that this case has probably been in the news, or is about to be.

It is yet another example of a case where arrangements that were made before the birth of a child where conception was not the routine (birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it) method, but a complex arrangement between adults that the adults involved did not properly record.

Re H v S (surrogacy agreement) 2015.

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWFC/HCJ/2015/36.html

 

I will use fake names, because I find in these cases that the bare initials just leave you grappling around for what the heck is going on.

The child is M (Mary). Mary was born on 27th January 2014.

Mary’s mummy and daddy were not two people who loved each other very much and when a mummy and daddy love each other very much, they have a special cuddle.

Mary’s mummy S (Sarah) says that she wanted a baby, and a gay man that she knew, H (Harry) agreed that he would provide her with the genetic material to have a baby, and that when she had that baby, she would be the only carer for that child.

Harry, on the other hand, says that he and B (Bob) are in a committed homosexual relationship, wished to have a child, and reached an agreement with Sarah that Harry would artificially inseminate Sarah, and that after the birth, Harry and Bob would care for the baby together, but that Sarah would play an active role in the child’s life.

That is not so much a gap but a Grand Canyon in the different understandings of the people involved.

Ms Justice Russell said this:-

Very sadly this case is another example of how “agreements” between potential parents reached privately to conceive children to build a family go wrong and cause great distress to the biological parents and their spouses or partners. The conclusions this court has made about the agreement between the parties which led to the conception and birth of this child will inform the basis of future decisions the court has to make about the arrangements for the child. The lack of a properly supported and regulated framework for arrangements of this kind has, inevitably, lead to an increase in these cases before the Family Court.

The Court had to deal with this as a straight private law children dispute under the Children Act 1989, rather than an application by Harry and Bob for a Parental Order under Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act, because Sarah did not consent to the making of a Parental Order  (and the Court have no power to make one if the biological mother does not consent)

Also, some of these adults were Romanian, some had been raised in Romania but were of Hungarian birth, and so the child is of mixed Romanian and Hungarian heritage, although all concerned now live in England.

We add into the melting pot of complexity here that the three adults concerned are not all of the same religion and there was a dispute about what religion the child should be baptised into. There was a Court order that Sarah should not baptise the child until the Court had heard argument about this and determined the dispute, but she did, and she also lied about it. Also registering Mary with names that had not been agreed or even discussed.

 

On the 21st May 2014 the Applicants applied for prohibited steps orders regarding the child’s name and her baptism. The Respondent had registered the child on her own with her surname and with first names chosen by her that had not been discussed with the Applicants or agreed between the parties. The Applicants also applied for an order prohibiting S from having M baptised according to Christian Orthodox rites as although all three of the parties are Christian H is a Protestant and B is Roman-Catholic. An order was made by Recorder Bazley QC which prohibited any party form removing M from the jurisdiction or from causing or arranging for her to be baptised or christened. In the event S not only disobeyed the order of the court and had M baptised but lied about having done so. She informed the court and the parties that she had M baptised in October 2014 at the hearing in January 2015; this despite her assurances to the contrary to the guardian in December 2014 and to the court in her own statement dated the 7th January 2015.

 

Towards the end of the hearing, the Court heard that a Tweet had been sent about the case and that the tweet had been tagged with the name of a reporter at ITN, no doubt with the intention of stirring up a public debate.  {I think that I have seen that tweet, or retweeted versions of it on my own twitter feed, which is why I had been watching out for this judgment}

 

  1. At the outset of the trial the guardian (on behalf of M) and the Applicants drew my attention to the publication of information regarding the case on social media. The first was a posting on Facebook on the 5th October 2014 by a person known to be a friend of S. The guardian was made aware of this post soon after it was published but considered that there was no information by which M herself could be identified and decided not to bring it to the court’s attention. I accept from the information contained in it that the source of that information must have been one of the parties (or someone very close to them) and it is more likely than not that that source was S. The person concerned wrote to the court and had been involved in “mediation” between the parties. This is an example of S’s mode of conducting her case not through the court alone but by recruiting support from others to pursue her case in other arenas. I do not accept that he would have published this or the Tweet in January 2015 without her knowledge or consent.
  2. On the 16th January 2015 the guardian was made aware that the same person had made the following Tweet: “Wealthy gay couple force child from good mother’s breast setting bad precedent. Starts Mon19Jan 10am High Court RCJ, court 35,“
  3. The Tweet which was available to anyone online was tagged to alert a reporter at ITN. S denied any part in this tweet, and while it may be the case that she did was not directly involved in posting the tweet, it is in keeping with her conduct of the case during which she sent emails copious emails to the court, to the President of the Family Division and pursued an appeal against the order made on the 1st October 2014 apparently against legal advice. The solicitor for the Applicants, sent an email to the person who had tweeted requesting him to take the tweet down and informing him of the objections of the Applicants to him tweeting about this matter.

 

During the hearing, the mother raised two major arguments. The first was that as she had been breast-feeding Mary, that had led to a bond and relationship which would be damaging to break.

  1. S has made a great deal of her status as a breast-feeding mother and the disruption to M’s routine of staying with her father overnight; not least because M “co-slept” with S and was breast fed during the night. Although some weeks after the hearing concluded S changed her position and agreed to M staying over-night with her father and B it is evident that she did so as she accepted that she had to following the decision to refuse her permission to appeal. Prior to that S had, as I have set out above, used the fact that she continued to breast-feed M as a reason for reducing or limiting contact and claimed that it was in M’s best interest. It is the current orthodoxy, which the court does not gainsay, that breast feeding, if possible, for the first year or more as it provides many health advantages for a child. In her first statement in April 2014 S said that she wanted to breast-feed for the first 9 months; as time has progressed so the length of time she wishes to breast-feed has increased. In her oral evidence she was unable to say how long it would go on but indicated that it would be as long as M wanted it to which could be as much as several years into the future.
  2. Part of S’s case is that she sleeps with M which also provides the child with health and emotional advantages in respect of their co-attachment. The practice is not recommended for babies and small infants as there is a danger of over-lay and as a result may be considered to be more controversial, but that was not a matter that I was asked to decide. This practice when it takes place cannot be used as a reason to inhibit or curtail a child’s right to form a positive and substantial relationship with her other parent or parents; which was a direct effect of S’s practice in this case and she used it as part of her argument to support the curtailment of overnight stays. Based on the needs of a child, as M grows she must be allowed to become independent and grow as a human being separate from her parents and carers. At her age it is most unlikely that she will not suffer any harm sleeping on her own; indeed she has already experienced it without ill effect when she stayed with her father and his partner overnight.

The second was that Harry and Bob were in a gay relationship and that all such relationships were promiscuous and inherently wrong and unstable.

  1. I have now heard the oral evidence of all the parties and read copies of electronic communication between them. The dispute about the agreement is largely based on S’s assertion that she and H decided to parent a child together, and that B was to play no part other than as the child’s father’s “boyfriend”; to use her word. S has sought to present herself throughout the proceedings as a victim and someone whose “rights” as a mother and as a woman have been trampled over and abused. She claims, in terms, that H and B are attempting to remove her child, from her breast, in a cruel and calculated attempt to build a family and that she is being discriminated against and victimised. She describes H and B in an openly disparaging and dismissive way saying that they are not like a very well known celebrity couple (who she names) who have had children by surrogates; “They are not a gay couple having a child”.
  2. S repeatedly made allegations, wholly unsupported by any objective evidence, about H and B; about their relationship and about their lifestyles. About the former she repeatedly relied on stereotypical views on the nature of their relationship suggesting that she knew “they have an open relationship, what gay people call it, have sex in groups.” There is no foundation to this claim which I consider to be a reflection of her deliberate attempt to discredit H and B in a homophobic and offensive manner. At the outset of the case she filled in a form (C1A dated 19th February 2014) alleging harm and domestic violence. She said in this form that H “has an open view on class A drugs. He believes that it is OK for people to use class A drugs and has said he would like to try it himself” She went on that H “is a self-confessed antibiotics user he gets his own supply of very strong antibiotics from Belgium and use [sic] them all the time”. S went on to allege that H might give them to M if he had unsupervised contact; and to allege that there were “loads of people coming and going” from the Applicants’ address and that drugs may be used at that address. None of these allegations were followed up before or during the hearing when the Applicant’s gave oral evidence. The abandonment of allegations during the trial lends little to the weight that that court can give her evidence as a whole.
  3. I had the opportunity of re-reading the emails sent to the court and evidence filed by S both during this case and after it concluded. It is peppered with allegations, innuendo, offensive and disparaging comments about H and B. I do not need to set them all out or repeat them as most of it was never put to the Applicants and was not pursued in evidence. I had the opportunity to see the Applicants and S in court during the five days of the hearing and on other occasions when they have appeared before me. I saw S give evidence and observed her while she listened to the evidence of others. There was never the slightest indication of a cowed, submissive or victimised person. On the contrary she conducted herself in a very confident and most assertive manner throughout. She has sought to impose her will on the court and manage the proceedings. The need to express her breast milk while genuine was used to interrupt and disrupt the evidence of the Applicants. The evidence in support of this was the manner in which she could, suddenly, regulate it after their evidence was completed

 

On the factual dispute – whether this conception was intended (as Sarah says) to be a baby for Sarah to look after with Harry donating his sperm or (as Harry and Bob say) a surrogate arrangement where Harry and Bob would care for the baby but Sarah would play a role in the baby’s life, the Judge heard evidence and read a lot of emails between the main players.  The Judge concluded that the stated  intention between the parties  HAD been for Harry and Bob to be the main carers, and more significantly that rather than this being a case where mum changed her mind after the birth (as can happen), that she had basically tricked and manipulated these men into providing a baby for her when they would never have agreed if they had known it was always her intention to keep the child.

 

  1. The emails do not set out an agreement in terms and it is H’s case that after the beginning of February the discussions were oral and went on to include B. The fact that there are not any emails produced after February supported his case. It also fits in with the insemination taking place about the fourth week of April 2013, in the Applicants’ home with B there on at least one occasion. It is, and I use the term advisedly, inconceivable that B was not aware of what was going on before April and was not party to any of the discussions. In this as in much else I do not accept the evidence of S. Her later use, in evidence, of the term “sperm donor” is completely at odds with the tone and contents of her emails in February. It is not possible to accept both from what H told her in the emails and from the obviously close relationship of H and B (which I have seen at close quarters throughout the trial) that S could have ever thought that she was having a child with H to the exclusion of B; she says so herself in her emails. I conclude that she must have either deliberately misled the Applicants about her intentions or changed her mind as the pregnancy progressed.
  2. On the balance of probabilities, and for the reasons set out above and in the following paragraphs of this judgment, I find that S deliberately misled the Applicants in order to conceive a child for herself rather than changing her mind at a later date. Having at first encouraged H to be involved S was already trying to exclude H not long before M was born from involvement with the birth and with the child. I accept the evidence of H and B that S was a part of the arrangements that were made to rent a larger property. If as she claimed they were aware from the outset that any child would be her’s and live with her there would have been no reason to go to the expense of moving and furnishing a larger home. It highly unlikely that S could ever have thought H, who had told her he so desperately wanted a child in his emails, would decide to act as a sperm donor for her, there was no reason for him to do and it would have been entirely at odds with his own plans and wishes.
  3. S has consistently done all she can to minimise the role that H had in the child’s life and to control and curtail his contact with his daughter. Far from being a child that she conceived with her good friend, as she describes it, her actions have always been of a woman determined to treat the child as solely her own. She made sure that H was not at the hospital when M was born; she registered the birth without putting H on the certificate and did not give the child any names except those chosen by her and did not reflect the child’s paternal family names in that choice. The history of these proceedings bears this out; H and B were left with no choice but to issue applications.

 

 

The question then was where this child should live during her childhood?  You need to read the whole judgment to get a proper feeling for the case, there was a lot going on, but it finally gets distilled here:-

  1. The evidence has to be considered in the light of the child’s best interests. I have used the welfare checklist as the basis for my decision because I am concerned with how to best provide for M’s physical, emotional and educational needs under the provision of s 1 (3) (a) CA. Although M is not yet at school it is more likely than not that the parent who can best meet all her other needs and is most likely to be able to provide her with a secure home and stable upbringing with room to grow emotionally for the remainder of her infancy is more likely to meet her educational needs fulfil her potential in the future. The latter requires that M is afforded the scope to grow up in an environment where conflict is at a minimum. M is not yet able to say as she is just learning to talk so I do not know her expressed wishes and feelings but I assume it that for the immediate future she would want to continue to remain with S and continue to spend time with and H and B, including overnight stays.
  2. Any decision that M lives with H and B and spends much less time with S is bound to affect her, likely to upset and distress her in the short term at least and necessarily amounts to a change in her circumstances. However familiar M is with her home with H and B she would miss her mother with whom she has spent most of her time. Against that I will weigh the harm that she is at risk of suffering if she remains with her mother. As she gets older she will become more aware of, and will be directly affected by, her mother’s negative views about her father and B. These views will affect her own sense of identity; negatively inform her view of herself and where she fits into the world.
  3. I can only judge S’s ability to parent M based on recent history and based on that history M is more likely than not to suffer harm; to continue to be taken to the GP and to hospital at times when it is not necessary in furtherance of S’s determination to control M’s contact with H and B or in respect of contact or any other dispute she may pursue over M with H in the future. It is likely that S will present H and B in a negative way to M and give her limited opportunity to understand the history behind her conception and of how she came to be here; nothing in S’s conduct of her case can offer any assurance to the court that S is capable of doing that for M in a balanced way that is free from S’s own agenda.
  4. At present S is able to care for M well physically but there are already grounds for concerns about her mother’s over emotional and highly involved role in this infant’s life. Ultimately the role of a parent is to help the child to become independent. This is a child who at 15 months old is still carried by her mother in a sling on her body. M spends most of her time with her mother who does not set out any timetable for returning to work, as S would have to, to provide for M and for herself. There is a potential for enmeshment and stifling attachment rather than a healthy outward looking approach to the child’s life. The question is who benefits most from this chosen regime which points towards an inability to put the child’s needs before her mother’s need or desire for closeness.
  5. The attachment which will develop in an infant who sleeps with her mother, spends all day being carried by her mother and is breastfed on demand through out the day and night raises questions about the long term effect on M. From the point of view of this judgment it further begs the question as to who benefits most from the regime S has chosen to impose without reference to M’s father, H. I have little doubt that the breast-feeding was used a device to frustrate contact during the proceedings, a conclusion supported by S claiming at first that she could not express her milk which so reduced the time available for contact; subsequently when it was clear that M could be fed and was able to eat other foods S no longer had difficulty expressing milk. I am forced to conclude that S has shown herself to be unable to put M first and that she is unable to meet M’s emotional needs now and in the long term.
  6. The contact that S has with H and B has been very successful; the guardian who has observed it more than once described M as alert, happy and relaxed in her surroundings. Unlike S, H and B have not made a plethora of allegations against S; apart from those directly concerned with contact or her conduct towards them during contact. They have said that they want there to be as harmonious a relationship as possible between the adults and their support of M spending time with her mother is evinced by the level of contact they suggested. Their conduct has been consistent with this approach and while it is exemplified by an offer of contact which is greatly in excess of that proposed by the guardian they have never sought to exclude S from M’s life and to the end of the proceedings expressed the hope that the relationship between the parties could become more harmonious for the sake of M. The Applicants could easily have adopted the recommendation of the guardian that contact should be once a month but they have not done so.
  7. While to move a young child from her mother is a difficult decision and is one which I make with regret as I am aware that it will cause S distress I conclude that H is the parent who is best able to meet M’s needs both now and in the future. It is he who has shown that he has the ability to allow M to grow into a happy, balanced and healthy adult and it is he who can help her to reach her greatest potential. I accept the evidence of the guardian that H and B have had a child-centred approach throughout. It was obvious from their oral evidence and their statements. H, in particular, has always sought to put M first.
  8. H thought carefully about having a child and his discussions with S in the emails that they exchanged in February 2012 are an illustration of his awareness of the difficulties that would be encountered as well as a clear expression of his very great desire to have a child; and to have that child with B. It is highly unlikely that H would have reached any agreement about having a child without involving B, not least because it would have jeopardised his relationship with B and H’s future role as father to the child he very much wanted to have.
  9. The best that can be said for S is that she deluded herself about the nature of the agreement she was reaching first with H and later with H and B. It is very unlikely that such an obviously astute and determined woman would have left anything to chance when it came to having a baby. While I do not rely on the substance of the CA proceedings in Kent I do take account of the fact that S no longer has her daughters living with her and has limited contact with them. This situation, whatever its cause and whatever her role in it, will indubitably make it more likely that she wanted, as she said, to have another child for herself. The emails that she sent were deliberately misleading and S continued in the deceit, allowing H to believe that he and B would be the main carers for the baby until pregnancy was well advanced.
  10. It is not the function of this court to decide on the nature of the agreement between H, B and S and then either enforce it or put it in place. It is the function of the court to decide what best serves the interests and welfare of this child throughout her childhood. It is, however, a fact that M was not conceived by two people in a sexual relationship. The pregnancy was contrived with the aim of a same-sex couple having a child to form a family assisted by a friend, this was ostensibly acquiesced to by all parties at the time the agreement was entered into and conception took place. Therefore M living with H and B and spending time with S from time to time fortunately coincides with the reality of her conception and accords with M’s identity and place within her family.
  11. M should live with her father H and his partner B as it is in her best interests to do so; I reach that conclusion having had regard throughout to the welfare checklist and to M’s interests now and in the long term.

 

 

The Court therefore decided that Mary should move from Sarah’s care to live with Harry and Bob.  We will wait to see whether the media reporting deals with the substance of the case that the Judge had to decide, or whether it follows the easy sound bite narrative of the tweet – Court rips child away from mother’s breast to give to gay couple…

 

There is a Reporting Restriction Order in place that the child and the adults involved not be named, and as ever it applies to me and any commenters, so if you do know the names, I don’t want to see them here.

 

16 Comments

Posted in case law, international and tagged , , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Oedipus Wrecks

Posted on March 5, 2015 by suesspiciousminds

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

 

Re B v C (Surrogacy : Adoption) 2015

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

 

With me so far?

 

Here is the tricky part.

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

 

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

 

(2) The steps are—

 

 

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

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

(c) offering to find a child for adoption,

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

 

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

(4) The condition is that—

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

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

 

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

 

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

 

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

 

 

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

 

 

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

 

 

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

 

 

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

 

 

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

 

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

 

 

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

 

 

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

 

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

 

 

 

 

5 Comments

Posted in adoption, case law and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Conjurers and children’s birthday parties

Posted on October 6, 2014 by suesspiciousminds

 

The decision of the President in Re X (a child) (surrogacy : Time limit) 2014

 

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2014/3135.html

 

This was a case where the commissioners of a surrogacy arrangement were late getting their application for a Parental Order before the Court.

 

That caused them to fall foul of

s54(3) of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008

 

 

 

“the applicants must apply for the order during the period of 6 months beginning with the day on which the child is born.”

Although it seems that there is very little mischief (and Parliament never said why they wanted a 6 month cut off date), the Courts have previously interpreted this pretty plain English provision in the ordinary plain English sense of the word – if you don’t get your application in before the Court before the child is 6 months old, you can’t have your order.  (Parliament did not give the Court a discretion here to perhaps allow an application with leave, or allow extenuating circumstances, or to permit the Court to make the order of its own motion notwithstanding that there was not a valid application)

It has been one of those bits of law that is just, if you are too late, tough luck.

 

That was, until the President got one of these cases. I have to say that everyone involved clearly worked hard to achieve a legal framework in which the Court could make a Parental Order, that clearly being a better order for the child involved than anything else that could be come up with.   (My personal view on it is that “must” is as clear as can be, and that whilst I support the aim to soften that into a judicial discretion, I think its going beyond the scope of the separation of powers. I would personally, have been happier with a Judge saying that in a case of this kind, the Act is incompatible with article 8 and that Parliament should look at the wording again to GIVE a discretion for exceptional circumstances)

 

That said, I think the way around it is clever, and there’s nobody better at making words behave as he tells them than the President.

 

This is the thrust of it.  Where Parliament uses a mandatory form of wording, but doesn’t set out what the consequences are if that mandatory form of wording isn’t followed, is there an implicit discretion?

 

 

  • The second strand in the argument put forward by Ms Isaacs and Mr Maynard is based on the long line of cases of which the decision of Lord Penzance, sitting as Dean of Arches, in Howard v Bodington (1877) 2 PD 203 is usually taken as the starting point. Lord Penzance said this (pages 210-211):

 

“The real question in all these cases is this: A thing has been ordered by the legislature to be done. What is the consequence if it is not done? In the case of statutes that are said to be imperative, the Courts have decided that if it is not done the whole thing fails, and the proceedings that follow upon it are all void. On the other hand, when the Courts hold a provision to be mandatory or directory, they say that, although such provision may not have been complied with, the subsequent proceedings do not fail. Still, whatever the language, the idea is a perfectly distinct one. There may be many provisions in Acts of Parliament which, although they are not strictly obeyed, yet do not appear to the Court to be of that material importance to the subject-matter to which they refer, as that the legislature could have intended that the non-observance of them should be followed by a total failure of the whole proceedings. On the other hand, there are some provisions in respect of which the Court would take an opposite view, and would feel that they are matters which must be strictly obeyed, otherwise the whole proceedings that subsequently follow must come to an end. Now the question is, to which category does the provision in question in this case belong?

… I believe, as far as any rule is concerned, you cannot safely go further than that in each case you must look to the subject-matter; consider the importance of the provision that has been disregarded, and the relation of that provision to the general object intended to be secured by the Act; and upon a review of the case in that aspect decide whether the matter is what is called imperative or only directory.”

 

  • Down the years a vast jurisprudence developed around the imperative / directory dichotomy. There is no purpose to be gained by entering into this morass, for the dichotomy has fallen into disfavour in recent years: see the historical analysis by Lord Steyn in Regina v Soneji and another [2005] UKHL 49, [2006] 1 AC 340, paras 15-22.
  • Lord Steyn identified what he called the core problem (para 14):

 

“A recurrent theme in the drafting of statutes is that Parliament casts its commands in imperative form without expressly spelling out the consequences of a failure to comply. It has been the source of a great deal of litigation. In the course of the last 130 years a distinction evolved between mandatory and directory requirements. The view was taken that where the requirement is mandatory, a failure to comply with it invalidates the act in question. Where it is merely directory, a failure to comply does not invalidate what follows. There were refinements. For example, a distinction was made between two types of directory requirements, namely (1) requirements of a purely regulatory character where a failure to comply would never invalidate the act, and (2) requirements where a failure to comply would not invalidate an act provided that there was substantial compliance.”

He concluded (para 23):

“Having reviewed the issue in some detail I am in respectful agreement with the Australian High Court that the rigid mandatory and directory distinction, and its many artificial refinements, have outlived their usefulness. Instead … the emphasis ought to be on the consequences of non-compliance, and posing the question whether Parliament can fairly be taken to have intended total invalidity. That is how I would approach what is ultimately a question of statutory construction.”

In applying that approach in the particular case Lord Steyn adopted (para 24) what he called “a purposive interpretation” of the statute in question.

 

 

That is not terribly simple stuff, even for law geeks, so I am grateful that the President gives a practical example

 

 

  • Lord Rodger of Earlsferry illustrated the point with a striking example (para 30):

 

” … if your young daughter wants to go out with friends for the evening and you agree, but tell her that she must be home by eleven o’clock, she is under a duty to return by then. But this does not mean that her duty is to return by then or not at all. Rather, even if she fails to meet your deadline, she still remains under a duty to return home. On the other hand, if you contract with a conjuror to perform at your daughter’s birthday party, you want the conjuror and his tricks only for the party. His duty is accordingly limited to performing at the party held on your daughter’s birthday and, if he fails to turn up, he cannot discharge the duty later. In the present cases Parliament has placed the court under a duty, where appropriate, to make a confiscation order before it sentences an offender. If the court fails to do so and proceeds to sentence the offender first, does Parliament intend that – like your daughter – the court should remain under a duty to make the order? Or does Parliament intend that the duty should be limited so that – like the conjuror – the court can perform it only before sentencing?”

So, is s54(3)’s “MUST apply for the order during the period of six months after the child is born”  like your daughter being in after eleven (in which case you would not be happy, but you’d still let her in the house i.e make the order)  or is it like the conjuror booked for a birthday party turning up a week late, in which case he doesn’t get paid (and you don’t hear the application?)

I’d still say that it was the latter. I don’t know why Parliament put a hard cap on the time limit, or what the mischief was, but if they had wanted to give a Judge a discretion to hear the application out of time, it would have been a really simple clause 54(3) (b) addition  “SAVE THAT a Court may grant leave for the application to be heard out of time if the Court considers it necessary to do so”.

As I’ve remarked before, if you are before the President and he finds a clever way of doing something, you should bet heavily on him doing it. I can’t recall a judgment where he says “It would be possible via very clever prestidigitation to do X, but I am not going to do X”

  • Section 54 goes to the most fundamental aspects of status and, transcending even status, to the very identity of the child as a human being: who he is and who his parents are. It is central to his being, whether as an individual or as a member of his family. As Ms Isaacs correctly puts it, this case is fundamentally about Xs identity and his relationship with the commissioning parents. Fundamental as these matters must be to commissioning parents they are, if anything, even more fundamental to the child. A parental order has, to adopt Theis J’s powerful expression, a transformative effect, not just in its effect on the child’s legal relationships with the surrogate and commissioning parents but also, to adopt the guardian’s words in the present case, in relation to the practical and psychological realities of X’s identity. A parental order, like an adoption order, has an effect extending far beyond the merely legal. It has the most profound personal, emotional, psychological, social and, it may be in some cases, cultural and religious, consequences. It creates what Thorpe LJ in Re J (Adoption: Non-Patrial) [1998] INLR 424, 429, referred to as “the psychological relationship of parent and child with all its far-reaching manifestations and consequences.” Moreover, these consequences are lifelong and, for all practical purposes, irreversible: see G v G (Parental Order: Revocation) [2012] EWHC 1979 (Fam), [2013] 1 FLR 286, to which I have already referred. And the court considering an application for a parental order is required to treat the child’s welfare throughout his life as paramount: see in In re L (A Child) (Parental Order: Foreign Surrogacy) [2010] EWHC 3146 (Fam), [2011] Fam 106, [2011] 1 FLR 1143. X was born in December 2011, so his expectation of life must extend well beyond the next 75 years. Parliament has therefore required the judge considering an application for a parental order to look into a distant future.
  • Where in the light of all this does the six-month period specified in section 54(3) stand? Can Parliament really have intended that the gate should be barred forever if the application for a parental order is lodged even one day late? I cannot think so. Parliament has not explained its thinking, but given the transcendental importance of a parental order, with its consequences stretching many, many decades into the future, can it sensibly be thought that Parliament intended the difference between six months and six months and one day to be determinative and one day’s delay to be fatal? I assume that Parliament intended a sensible result. Given the subject matter, given the consequences for the commissioning parents, never mind those for the child, to construe section 54(3) as barring forever an application made just one day late is not, in my judgment, sensible. It is the very antithesis of sensible; it is almost nonsensical. It is, after all, easy to imagine far from fanciful circumstances in which the application arrives too late: the solicitor misunderstands section 54(3) and excludes the day on which the child was born from his calculation of when time runs out; the solicitor’s legal executive is delayed by a broken down train or a traffic jam and arrives at the court office just after it has closed; on the way to their solicitor’s office to give instructions the commissioning parents are involved in a car crash that leaves them both in a coma from which they recover only after the six-month period has elapsed. Why should they be barred? Even more to the point, why should the wholly innocent child be barred by such mishap? Let it be assumed, though in truth, and with all respect to her, this is little more than speculation, that the underlying policy is that identified by Eleanor King J in JP v LP and others [2014] EWHC 595 (Fam), namely to provide for the speedy consensual regularisation of the legal parental status of a child’s carers following a birth resulting from a surrogacy arrangement; that policy surely does not require section 54(3) to be read as meaning that any delay, however trivial, is to be fatal. One can see why Eleanor King J was concerned that there should not be what she referred to as delay over “a protracted period”, but that is a different point.
  • I have considered whether the result at which I have arrived is somehow precluded by the linguistic structure of section 54, which provides that “the court may make an order … if … the [relevant] conditions are satisfied.” I do not think so. Slavish submission to such a narrow and pedantic reading would simply not give effect to any result that Parliament can sensibly be taken to have intended.
  • I conclude, therefore, that section 54(3) does not have the effect of preventing the court making an order merely because the application is made after the expiration of the six month period. That is a conclusion which I come to, without reference to the Convention and on a straightforward application of the principle in Howard v Bodington (1877) 2 PD 203.

 

As I think I’ve conveyed, I’m no big fan of s54(3) and if Parliament were to amend it to add a clause (b) giving judicial discretion to allow an application out of time, I’d be delighted.

I’m not terribly delighted about a judicial decision that reads ambiguity and discretion into a perfectly unambiguous clause. The commissioning parents in this case did not make their application one day late. They realised too late that the statute applied and were already out of time (but “ignorance of the law is no excuse”)  and now the application is thirteen months out of time.

  • Having got thus far in the analysis, the remaining question is whether in the present case the commissioning parents are to be allowed to pursue an application made some two years and two months after X was born. In my judgment, they are.
  • This period in fact falls into two parts: first, the period from December 2011, when X was born, until July 2013, when Judge Hindley first drew attention to the significance of section 54; second, the period thereafter until the application was issued in February 2014. In the particular circumstances of this case, the latter period, in my judgment, properly falls out of account. Until Ms Isaacs suggested otherwise in January 2014, everyone – the parties’ legal advisers and the judges dealing with the case – were agreed that section 54(3) presented an insuperable obstacle. And that was hardly surprising given the decisions of Hedley J and Theis J referred to in paragraph 21 above. So the true focus must be on the period of thirteen months delay from June 2012, when the six month period expired, until the hearing before Judge Hindley in July 2013.
  • In one sense that is a long time, both in absolute terms and when compared with the statutory time limit of six months. And it is a very long time indeed compared with the matter of a few days that were fatal to the appellant in Adesina v Nursing and Midwifery Council [2013] EWCA Civ 818, [2013] 1 WLR 3156. But principle demands that I have regard to the statutory subject matter, the background, and the potential impact on the parties if I allow section 54(3) to bar the application. I repeat in this context what I have already said in paragraphs 54-56 above. There are, without labouring the point, three aspects of a parental order which very obviously and very fundamentally distinguish it from the kind of case which the court was concerned with in Adesina. The first is that a parental order goes not just status but to identity as a human being. The second is that the court is looking, indeed is required by statute to look, to a future stretching many, many decades into the future. The third is that the court is concerned not just with the impact on the applicant whose default in meeting the time limit is being scrutinised but also with the impact on the innocent child, whose welfare is the court’s paramount concern. In these circumstances the court is entitled, indeed in my judgment it is bound, to adopt a more liberal and relaxed approach than was appropriate in Adesina. After all, as Maurice Kay LJ recognised in Adesina, what the court is required to do, albeit it is required to do no more, is to secure compliance with the Convention. I would not be doing that if I were to deny the commissioning parents and X access to the court.
  • I intend to lay down no principle beyond that which appears from the authorities. Every case will, to a greater or lesser degree, be fact specific. In the circumstances of this case the application should be allowed to proceed. No one – not the surrogate parents, not the commissioning parents, not the child – will suffer any prejudice if the application is allowed to proceed. On the other hand, the commissioning parents and the child stand to suffer immense and irremediable prejudice if the application is halted in its tracks.

 

 

I would add this one to the ever growing pile of “Presedents”   -(phrase coined by Celtic Knot) and see these two blog posts by Lucy Reed http://www.pinktape.co.uk/rants/who-to-follow-the-precedent-or-the-president/  and David Burrows http://dbfamilylaw.wordpress.com/2014/09/23/clarity-in-law-precedent-law/

 

Of course our legal history is steeped in the tradition of Judges pushing language very hard to achieve an equitable outcome – I was probably the only person in my law class at college who thought that Lord Denning was in the wrong when he did this sort of thing. The President here has done the right thing for this family and this child, and I am probably being churlish in grumbling about it.  But I hope we are not setting a precedent that a Parliamentary use of “must” is really just a jumping off point for negotiations…

2 Comments

Posted in case law and tagged , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.
← Older Posts
→