Kent County Council v S & M
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Her Honour Judge Cameron |
| Judgment Date | 21 July 2016 |
| Neutral Citation | [2016] EWFC B62 |
| Docket Number | No. ME16C00256 |
| Court | Family Court |
| Date | 21 July 2016 |
[2016] EWFC B62
MEDWAY FAMILY COURT
Anchorage House,
47–67 High Street, Chatham.
Her Honour Judge Cameron
No. ME16C00256
Miss Burt of Counsel appeared on behalf of the Local Authority.
Mrs Murkill of Counsel appeared on behalf of the Mother.
Miss Howarth, Solicitor, appeared on behalf of the Father.
Mr Crawley of Counsel appeared on behalf of the Intervener, JR.
Miss Harrington of Counsel appeared on behalf of the Guardian, Miss Jenny Lobb.
RESERVED JUDGMENT
(As Approved)
INTRODUCTION
The Court has conducted a Forensic Fact Finding Hearing in relation to a very worrying catalogue of injuries sustained by two year old M, born on the 12 th December 2013, while in the care of her mother, NS, and the mother's boyfriend, LS. It has appeared from the evidence that the Court has received during the 5 day Hearing that there was a particularly fraught and febrile atmosphere between this young child's carers from sometime in October 2015 or earlier, through M's second birthday on 12 th December 2015 and through Christmas, very much until the 2 nd January 2016, impacting on her safety and wellbeing. She was taken to hospital by her maternal grandparents, MS and KS, on that date, so concerned were they at her physical appearance.
So as not to detain the parties while I drafted this Judgment on Day 5 I gave the Court's Brief Findings and Decision at the end of Day 4 and arranged to hand down this Reserved Judgment today.
Proceedings were issued on, and the relevant date therefore is, the 15 th February 2016, the child being released to the care of her grandparents upon her discharge from hospital on the 3 rd January.
The injuries seen and found on this lively little girl's face and body are very shocking, both when the Schedule of Injuries is read and the photographs are viewed. She had multiple bruises on different areas of her body including the forehead, both cheeks, the jaw, the back, her upper chest, her arms and trunk. She had also a healing fracture to her left radius and ulna and three healing fractures in both anterior and posterior ribs. Both the excellent Social Worker here and the maternal grandmother have each commented that the dreadful photographs that the Court has seen do not actually do full justice to the physical state of this child when they observed her. Happily M has recovered well from her several weeks' ordeal in the obvious devoted and loving care of her experienced grandparents and there are no late sequela anticipated. However, even now, six months or more on, she still remembers about her arm being hurt and refers to it to her grandmother.
The father of the child is NM. He has taken really little part in these proceedings. Accordingly it was not necessary for his Solicitor to attend beyond the Court's first reading and housekeeping day and she was released at that time. He and the mother were together until the child was about six months of age. He did have contact with M but that had stopped on the 12 th March and he has not been in touch with the grandparents since then to restart that. He had also stopped paying the Child Maintenance that he previously had paid, as I read in his statement to the Police, as he was aware that the mother was spending the money on drugs.
THE MOTHER'S CONCESSIONS AND HER AND OTHERS' BEHAVIOUR
Realistically and sensibly in view of the overwhelming nature of the evidence here the mother admitted and conceded on Day 1 of the Trial that she had indeed failed to protect the child from being assaulted by a person or persons she knew or ought to have known posed a risk to M. The Court gave her an appropriate warning in relation to self-incrimination in view of the fact that the Police investigation has not yet closed and the outcome of these Civil Family Proceedings is being awaited. In essence the medical evidence has not been challenged by the mother but she denies being a perpetrator of all or any of the collection of injuries.
In relation to LS, he has successfully evaded service of papers on him and has not availed himself of the intended Intervener status and right to be represented and to see the papers and to challenge the Local Authority's case. Accordingly he has not attended the Hearing to give his own evidence to assist the Court in understanding exactly what befell this active little girl, and when, and why, and where, and how, and at whose hands she was so injured.
Although her damaged child had been removed from her care and the mother must surely have had concerns about LS's temper and behaviour, it is very clear that she has continued to live with him until probably sometime in March this year and beyond and certainly has had ongoing contact with him. That is entirely certain. Whether or not there was an ongoing sexual relationship between them is wholly irrelevant.
Indeed, mother was arrested in LS's company on both the 24 th April of this year and again even more recently on the 30 th June in relation to criminal activity in May 2016. She told the Court that he had telephoned her last weekend on the Saturday 9 th April to find out what was happening in relation to the case this week, who was going and what would happen if he did not turn up. He is a very violent man and a bully as I have found. He has been cowardly and left his girlfriend, whether past or present, to deal with all these issues of liability that arise here.
I am satisfied that the Local Authority has done its level best to serve LS but he has chosen deliberately to make himself scarce. I am satisfied also that he knows that he could and should have been here and put in a statement and co-operated with the Police and Local Authority investigation. Accordingly, I have felt it entirely appropriate to hear the case and make findings of fact in his absence.
I am also satisfied that, although she had tried to deny it and said that she had no number for him LS's mother, JR, an Intervener joined late in the proceedings as a result of what the mother had said has been easily able to contact him via the mother's own mobile phone number. As recently as a week or two weeks ago she saw him, she fed him, she washed his clothes and was asked to arrange a lift to the Police Station for him. She and her husband also told the Court they delivered LS and the mother back to an address in Queenborough.
THE EVIDENCE
The Court has read two lever arch files of detailed Chronology, Statements, Medical Reports and also received further pieces of written evidence during the second and third days of the Trial.
When I inherited the matter on the 22 nd June in relation to the Pre-Trial Review I made it very plain that the mother's Statement was wholly unsatisfactory and lacking in any fine grain of detail at all. She simply referred to her Police interview. She was ordered to produce a fully detailed Statement by the 6 th July. Very regrettably that Statement was not received until Friday 8 th July giving precious little time for it to be considered and still not in fact containing the further detail required. That resulted in the mother giving copious live evidence-in-chief from the witness box and the belated chance to reveal facts and matters never ever mentioned before over all the intervening weeks and months.
A CONFLICT ARISING
It was a matter of concern for the Court that the mother's Solicitor was actually the same person who had represented LS during proceedings involving his own young son, F, and had also actually been a neighbour of the couple and witnessed with her own eyes some violent behaviour by LS to the mother.
Because a conflict of professional interest really seemed to have been generated by all of that it was agreed that a new firm of Solicitors for the mother needed to become involved forthwith and that occurred.
The mother assiduously had not pointed the finger at anyone at all during the Police investigation bar another two year old child as I will deal with shortly. The Police report on the 25 th April 2016 recorded this:
"Mother states that the child is predominantly with her and gave some account of the bruising, i.e. child pinches herself, little friend hurts her in play, rough and tumble on the site. She denies deliberately hurting her child and DOES NOT seek to put any other person forward as a suspect, inclusive of her partner. Officer in Charge has canvassed those on site and has gained no information to progress these matters that have come to light. The hypothesis is there could be an element of protecting each other."
It was only as late as the Advocates' Meeting, just prior to the trial, that the mother started implicating both LS and also his mother JR as being people who had had care of M. In relation to JR that was for several hours mother had said.
That then inevitably resulted in a very late application for JR to be joined as an Intervener. The mother stated in her second statement that she cannot completely rule out JR because she would have M perhaps on a weekly basis for a good few hours. That was resoundingly denied by JR.
It is noteworthy that on the 29 th January 2016 the mother had said to the Police that nobody ever babysits M and she was always with her mother.
The mother denied seeing and worrying about the panoply of bruises on her own daughter's body. She said this in her cross-examination by the Local Authority:
"I know it did not happen in my care. I can't say to you they done it. It must be those two. If not me, who else? They...
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