Capita Translation and Interpreting Ltd
Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
Judge | Sir James Munby |
Judgment Date | 02 February 2015 |
Neutral Citation | [2015] EWFC 5 |
Court | Family Court |
Date | 02 February 2015 |
[2015] EWFC 5 (Fam)
This judgment was delivered in open court
IN THE FAMILY COURT
(In Open Court)
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
Sir James Munby PRESIDENT OF THE FAMILY DIVISION
Mr Charles Howard QC (instructed by Kent County Council) for the applicant (Kent County Council)
Mr James Turner QC (instructed by Freeths LLP) for the respondent (Capita Translation and Interpreting Limited)
Hearing date: 14 November 2014
Sir James Munby, President of the Family Division:
On 7 May 2014 there were listed before me at the Royal Courts of Justice applications by a father and a mother for leave pursuant to section 47(5) of the Adoption and Children Act 2002 to oppose the making of adoption orders in relation to two of their children, J and S, boys born respectively in 2010 and 2012. The parents were Roma from the Slovak Republic. They required the assistance of interpreters in Slovak. The hearing had been listed in accordance with an order made by His Honour Judge Murdoch QC in the Canterbury County Court on 11 April 2014. So far as material for present purposes, his order provided that "HMCTS do provide 2 Slovak interpreters for the hearing on 7 May 2014."
I can pick up the story by referring to what I said in the judgment I subsequently handed down on 23 May 2014: Re J and S (Children) [2014] EWFC 4, paras 9–10:
"9 The hearing before me on 7 May 2014 was unable to proceed. Despite the order made by Judge Murdoch, and although HMCTS had, as was subsequently conceded by it, gone through the appropriate procedures with Capita Translation and Interpreting Limited (Capita) to book two interpreters, no interpreter was present at court. I had no choice but to adjourn the hearing. How could I do otherwise? It would have been unjust, indeed inhumane, to continue with the final hearing of applications as significant as those before me – this, after all, was their final opportunity to prevent the adoption of their children – if the parents were unable to understand what was being said. Anyone tempted to suggest that an adjournment was not necessary might care to consider what our reaction would be if an English parent before a foreign court in similar circumstances was not provided with an interpreter.
10 I accordingly adjourned the hearing until 15 May 2014. I directed that HMCTS was to provide two interpreters for that hearing. I directed that Capita's Relationship Director, Sonia Facchini, file a written statement (with statement of truth) explaining the circumstances in which and the reasons why no interpreters had been provided by Capita for the hearing on 7 May 2014. I gave Capita permission to apply to vary or discharge this order. It chose not to. I reserved the costs of the hearing on 7 May 2014 to the hearing on 15 May 2014 "for consideration of, inter alia, whether Capita should pay such costs.""
Ms Facchini's statement was dated 14 May 2014. I shall return to it below. The matter proceeded on 15 May 2014, Capita having provided the required two interpreters. Capita was neither present nor represented. Both Mr Roger Hall, on behalf of the local authority, Kent County Council, and Mr Jeremy Hall, on behalf of the children, indicated that they sought orders that Capita pay them their costs of the abortive hearing on 7 May 2014. They had each filed written submissions, those from Kent County Council dated 14 May 2014, and those from the children's solicitors dated 15 May 2014. Plainly I could not deal with those applications without giving Capita a proper opportunity to consider the case being made against it. I accordingly adjourned the applications, directing that "The costs of the hearings on 7 and 15 May 2014 are reserved for determination by the President of the Family Division on a date to be fixed."
Following the hearing I made a further order, dated 23 May 2014, which, after reciting that the court was treating the written submissions I have just referred to as applications that Capita pay the costs of the hearing on 7 May 2014, provided that Kent County Council and the children's solicitors were each to send to Capita's solicitors by Friday 6 June 2014 the evidence and any further submissions or other materials relied on in support of their applications. The order further provided that Capita was to send to Kent County Council and the children's solicitors by Friday 20 June 2014 any further evidence and any submissions or other materials relied on in response to the applications. I gave all parties permission to apply for further directions. In fact no further directions were sought by anyone. In due course (see below) Kent County Council and Capita filed various documents in accordance with that order. The children's solicitors did not.
The applications came on for hearing before me on 14 November 2014. Kent County Council was represented by Mr Charles Howard QC, Capita by Mr James Turner QC. The children's solicitors were neither present nor represented. They had written to the court on 27 October 2014 explaining that the scope of their legal aid certificate was exhausted when final adoption orders were made and that accordingly they had no authority to attend the hearing and would not be in attendance.
The evidence consisted of the statement of Capita's Relationship Director, Sonia Facchini, dated 14 May 2014, to which I have already referred, and a statement of Capita's Operations Director – Interpreting, Karl Johnson, dated 27 June 2014. I also had before me the written submissions from Kent County Council dated 14 May 2014, and the written submissions from the children's solicitors dated 15 May 2014, referred to in my order of 23 May 2014, further written submissions from Kent County Council dated 5 June 2014 and from Capita dated 27 June 2014, a skeleton argument from Mr Howard dated 11 November 2014 and a position statement from Mr Turner dated 13 November 2014, supplemented by a further note from him dated 14 November 2014.
The facts are not in dispute. They fall into two parts.
I deal first with the repeated failure by Capita or its subsidiary Applied Language Solutions Limited (ALS) to provide interpreters in this particular piece of litigation.
The proceedings were commenced by Kent County Council in what was then the Dover Family Proceedings Court on 2 August 2012. In due course the proceedings were transferred to the Canterbury County Court before being transferred to the High Court. Kent County Council draws attention to what had happened on six occasions prior to the abortive hearing on 7 May 2014. I summarise the undisputed facts and set out the explanations provided on behalf of Capita by Mr Johnson in his statement dated 27 June 2014:
i) 6 August 2012 – Dover Family Proceedings Court: Two interpreters were booked at 4.23pm and 4.46pm on 2 August 2012. None attended at the hearing on 6 August 2012. According to Mr Johnson, ALS was unable to find interpreters in time.
ii) 9 August 2012 – Dover Family Proceedings Court: Two interpreters were booked at 9.23am for a hearing starting 37 minutes later, at 10.00am. None attended. According to Mr Johnson, and it might be thought unsurprisingly, ALS was unable to find interpreters in time.
iii) 17 August 2012 – Dover Family Proceedings Court: Two interpreters were booked at 11.50am and 11.53am on 10 August 2012. Both arrived late for the hearing on 17 August 2012. One of the interpreters was Czech, not Slovak, and was said to be able to translate Slovak only "very slowly". According to Mr Johnson, they were late because, due to an error by ALS, they had been sent to Canterbury. He says that both interpreters were on ALS's Slovak list, both had undertaken previous Slovak assignments and that neither had previously been the subject of any complaint. In the reasons they gave at the end of the hearing, the Justices expressed themselves in justifiably strong terms:
"This is the third hearing of this case. The first hearing had to be adjourned due, in part, to the failure of ALS, the company through whom the courts now have to arrange interpreters, to provide interpreters to assist the parents.
The timetabling of this matter was tight and arrangements were made for the hearing to commence at 9.30am today in order to allow more time to hear the case. Unfortunately this court has been let down again by ALS. Although two interpreters were booked they were sent to the wrong court house causing such a lengthy delay there was no time to hear the planned evidence. The only options open to the court today was to hear very limited evidence from only one or two witnesses, or hear only submissions. No party felt that either of these options was appropriate or conducive to a fair hearing for the parents, bearing in mind the issue today was one of removal of children from their parents' care.
In light of this the parties have been able to negotiate a short term holding position until a contested hearing can be arranged."
iv) 21 August 2012 – Canterbury County Court: Two interpreters were booked at 9.51am and 9.52am on 20 August 2012. None attended. According to Mr Johnson, ALS was unable to find interpreters in time. The order made by Judge Murdoch QC contained recitals noting that the previous hearing on 17 August 2012 had been frustrated, that the parents' counsel had only been able to take instructions on a limited basis using an interpreter provided by the children's solicitor, and that the parents were declining to continue the agreement made at court on 17 August 2012.
v) 18 September 2012 – Canterbury County Court: Two interpreters were booked on 22 August 2012. None attended. According to Mr Johnson, the assignments had been filled on acceptance by interpreters on 23 August 2012 and 5 September 2012 respectively, but both were later removed, the first on 30 August 2012...
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N (Children) (Adoption: Jurisdiction)
... ... the case that when interpreters are used there is a risk of some points being lost in translation … (ii) X is a full sibling. H and K are half-siblings. All three are Hungarian nationals ... to provide interpreters for the final hearing arranged for 22 September 2014: compare Re Capita Translation and Interpreting Ltd [2015] EWFC 5 ... But it is two other matters which I need to ... ...