FC v Bristol City Council

Hearing dates: 28 and 29 October 2025

Further written documents from counsel: 6 November 2025

( Judgment circulated: 3 December 2025)

Remote hand-down: this judgment was handed down remotely at 10.30 am on Thursday 11 December 2025 by circulation to the parties or their representatives by e-mail and release to the National Archives.

THE HON. Mr Justice Dexter Dias

Table of Contents

This is the judgment of the court.

To assist the parties and the public to follow the main lines of the court's reasoning, the text is divided into 13 sections, as set out in the table of contents above. The table is hyperlinked to aid swift navigation.

I. Introduction

This is an application for judicial review. At the very heart of it are two children.

The children are the claimants in this case. At every point of this important and complex claim, I have had each of them and the difficulties of their parents at the forefront of my mind. However, this is a claim in the Administrative Court and not an application in the Family Division. Therefore, it is not the court's task to make welfare decisions about the children as one would do in family proceedings.

The eldest child is SC and is now aged 12. He prefers to use the pronouns he/him, although the historical records may refer to him differently. If reference in this judgment is made to those records using the previously used pronoun, it is not intended to be disrespectful but accurately reflect the historical records. I may sometimes use the pronoun “they” when referring to SC in the records.

SC's brother is FC, a boy aged 10. Both children live with a series of conditions and disabilities that are serious and debilitating, FC's considerably more so. I will detail these shortly. The claimants are disabled children and both have Education, Health and Care Plans (‘EHCPs’), statutory plans reserved for children with complex special educational needs. They bring their claim through their mother and litigation friend LF, who has grave difficulties of her own. Their father is TF, and as may be readily understood, he has been worn down physically and emotionally trying his utmost to provide care and support for those he loves around him. The claimants are represented by Mr Broach KC and Ms Leydon of counsel.

The defendant is Bristol City Council. The children reside within the defendant's area. The defendant is represented by Ms Hannett KC. The court is grateful to all counsel for their first-class assistance. I must also pay tribute to the parents who sat with respect, dignity and restraint during two days of court hearings where deeply personal and distressing details about the life of their family was discussed.

I should add that the interested party has not taken part in the proceedings.

II. The impugned decision

The key decision taken by the defendant that is under challenge was taken on 15 December 2023 (“the impugned decision”). This requires explanation. On 7 August 2023 the defendant made each child subject to a child protection plan (“CPP”). On 17 November 2023 the defendant discontinued both plans. A mediation agreement between the claimants' parents and the defendant dated 5 December 2023 was agreed, as relevant, in the following terms:

“By 15 December 2023, the local authority will issue a written decision regarding the decision taken on 7 August 2023 to place SC and FC on CPPs. This decision will address the following:

…

b. Whether the local authority agrees that the child protection plans issued on 7 August 2023 were not lawful.”

By a decision dated 15 December 2023, the defendant confirmed its view that the CPPs were lawful. The decision was expressed in this way:

“Bristol City council do not agree that the CP plan for SC and FC was unlawful. As set out below it was based on a s47 assessment, triggered by a multi-agency strategy. Multi-agency process was followed and the decision for threshold was based on a social work assessment under s47 which substantiated the significant harm.”

The claimants apply for judicial review of this decision. The defendant's case is that the CPPs were needed because the defendant concluded after a statutory inquiry under section 47 of the Children Act 1989 (“the Act” or “the 1989 Act”) that the children had suffered significant harm and were likely to suffer significant harm. The claimants submit that the significant harm conclusion was irrational and unlawful. The risk to the children arose because of the defendant's failure to provide support services. By virtue of section 2(4) of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970 (“the CSDPA 1970”), the defendant has a duty to provide services to a disabled child to meet the child's needs. The claimants submit that this has not happened.

Following important statutory guidance, the defendant then held a child protection conference (“CPC”) on 7 August 2023. The statutory guidance is the July 2018 version of Working Together to Safeguard Children: A guide to inter-agency working to safeguard and promote the welfare of children (“WT 2018”). This pivotal guidance did not appear out of the ether. It has undergone revision and reissue over the years as our understanding of child protection and welfare has developed. I provide a brief historical context in section IV of this judgment to give a necessary context to the rival arguments.

At trial, the claimants' position was that if the court holds the defendant's significant harm conclusion as not irrational, no challenge to the lawfulness of convening a protection conference would be made. As will be explained, the claimants had previously sought to separately challenge the CPC's lawfulness, but that challenge is not maintained, nor credibly could be. The statutory guidance indicates that once the section 47 inquiry “substantiates” significant harm, a CPC should be held. This is what happened. However, it is the defendant's next decision that is sharply contested: the making of a CPP for each child.

These CPPs were made following unanimous recommendation by the multi-agency professionals attending the conference. The prime concern was that the parents were failing to protect the children from significant harm. When the defendant reviewed this decision in December 2023, the defendant assigned the category of harm that the children were likely to suffer was “emotional abuse”. In this, the defendant followed the defendant's local guidance, which says that the Chair “should” determine the category of harm. It is important to note that in WT 2018 there is no such requirement. WT 2018 marked a change from earlier versions of the statutory guidance that had similarly required the identification of a category of harm. That has gone, but Bristol continues the practice. I examine the significance of that shortly.

While the prime target of the judicial review is the December 2023 decision, the lawfulness of certain aspects of the defendant's decision-making along the way is disputed. Particularly, the claimants submit that the defendant's decision that the significant harm threshold was substantiated was irrational. Thus, while the decision to hold a CPC is not challenged as unlawful, the making of each CPP is said to be irrational, as was the December determination of category of harm as emotional abuse. The claimants' case is that cause of the risks the children were facing came not from the parents. Their father puts it this way in his filed evidence:

“The risk comes from a combination of the needs of [my wife], the children and the lack of adequate support to meet our needs.”

I later return in more detail to the complex constellation of needs in this case. For the moment, it suffices to summarise them. The mother LF has diagnoses of severe Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (“ADHD”), depression, anxiety and is on the autism assessment pathway. Most significantly for these purposes, she has a diagnosis of dissociative identity disorder (“DID”). DID is a chronic post-traumatic disorder which develops in response to overwhelming trauma in early childhood. LF is a survivor of childhood abuse. Her DID disorder has led to her developing multiple “alters” or identities. She relives her past trauma viscerally, sometimes screaming, including threatening to cut the throats of the children. Sometimes she is completely paralysed and unable to care for the children. It is vital to emphasise that no one suggests any of this is LF's fault in the slightest.

The eldest child SC has diagnoses including Autism Spectrum Condition (“ASC”), ADHD, Sensory Processing Disorder, and generalised anxiety disorder with post-traumatic features. The...