L and another v Reading Borough Council and Others
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Mr Justice Keith |
| Judgment Date | 06 October 2006 |
| Neutral Citation | [2006] EWHC 2449 (QB) |
| Docket Number | Case No:S/06/0032 |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division |
| Date | 06 October 2006 |
[2006] EWHC 2449 (QB)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
Mr Justice Keith
Case No:S/06/0032
(1) L
(2) B
(1) Reading Borough Council
(2) Wokingham District Council
Mr Nicholas Bowen (instructed by Gabb & Co.) for the Claimants
Mr Andrew Miller (instructed by Watmores) for the First and SecondDefendants
Approved Judgment
I direct that pursuant to CPR PD 39A para 6.1 no official shorthand note shall be taken of this Judgment and that copies of this version as handed down may be treated as authentic.
Introduction
The claimants are father and daughter. The father was suspected of sexually abusing her when she was very young. He was not allowed to see her for many years. The allegation was later held to be unfounded, and in these proceedings damages are sought for the actions of the social workers and the police officers involved. An application has now been made to strike out some of the causes of action pleaded against some of the defendants, and this is the court's judgment on that application. Although the application originally related to other causes of action pleaded against the first and second defendants, and sought summary judgment on those causes of action under rule 24.2 of the Civil Procedure Rules, the application is being pursued only in respect of two of the causes of action, and is being made only under rule 3.4(2)(a) of the Civil Procedure Rules, namely that the Re-amended Particulars of Claim disclose no reasonable grounds for bringing the claim in the sense that the facts asserted in them do not disclose legally recognisable claims against the first and second defendants on those two causes of action.
The application was issued on 30 January 2006, and on 6 March Master Rose ordered that it be heard by a judge. At the hearing of the application, I directed that nothing should be said or reported which would result in the daughter being identified. Accordingly, the daughter will be known as L, the father as B, and L's mother as S. For the purposes of this application, the facts set out in the Re-amended Particulars of Claim are to be treated as correct, but it should, of course, be emphasised that no trial has yet taken place of the accuracy or otherwise of the allegations. Having said that, the Re-amended Particulars of Claim are not quite as clear as they might be in some respects, and I have had to make one or two assumptions about what is being alleged.
The assumed facts
L was born in 1987. Her parents, S and B, were not married. In June 1988, the relationship between S and B broke down, and they went their separate ways. B used to see L every week until March 1989 when S stopped B seeing L. For three months B did not see L at all, but contact was resumed in June 1989, and from then until April 1990, he was allowed to see L irregularly. Despite the sporadic nature of their contact, they enjoyed an affectionate and companiable relationship.
In the early part of 1990, S became concerned that B may have been sexually abusing L. After discussing her concerns with her doctor and a health visitor, S got in touch with the Social Services Department of Berkshire County Council ("Berkshire"). As a result, L was interviewed by a social worker employed by Berkshire, Sandra Sullivan, and a police officer, WPC Grey, at her home on 10 April 1990. The interview was not video-recorded, nor were contemporaneous notes made of it by Ms Sullivan or WPC Grey. But L said things which made them think that B had sexually abused her, even though they were subsequently to accept that what L had told them had not amounted to evidence of sexual abuse.
Ms Sullivan and WPC Grey interviewed L again the following day. This time the interview was video-recorded. The claimants' case is that the questioning of L was "outrageous and oppressive", she was pestered and pressed until she became upset, she was exposed to a number of inappropriate sexual suggestions, but despite all that nothing was elicited which could have been described as evidence of sexual abuse. Specifically, L denied that a game she had played with her father, and which had led Ms Sullivan and WPC Grey to suspect sexual abuse, had been "naughty", she said that she had played the game with her mother, and she said that B was not the only person she referred to as "Daddy". That was what she called one of her mother's boyfriends.
B was arrested following this interview. In the course of his interview, WPC Grey told him that the police had medical evidence that L had been sexually abused. That was untrue. Despite that, B denied having ever abused L. He was released without charge, but on 25 April 1990 Ms Sullivan attended a child protection case conference about L, at which she claimed that L had said things which could only have meant that fellatio had taken place. The Re-amended Particulars of Claim do not state whether she recommended that L be placed on the child protection register as a child who had suffered sexual abuse, but what is pleaded is that that was the consequence of Ms Sullivan's claim that what L had said B had done amounted to fellatio. That decision was confirmed on subsequent occasions, and B was not allowed to see L. It looks as if it is being alleged that those decisions were based on the recommendations of the various social workers who were responsible for L's case subsequently.
In due course, B issued an application for contact with L. That application was eventually consolidated with Berkshire's application for a care or supervision order in respect of L. Those applications were considered by Judge Kenny in Reading County Court in 1993. He urged the social workers to "take a fresh look" at the case. Despite that, and despite the doubts expressed in the psychiatric evidence filed in those proceedings about the propriety of the actions of the social workers and whether B had indeed sexually abused L, it looks as if it is being alleged that the social workers continued to recommend the retention of L's name on the child protection register. Eventually, following a lengthy hearing in 1995, Judge Kenny found that B had not sexually abused L in any way, and he made various orders intended to promote contact between L, B and B's parents. Eventually, a full care order was made in favour of Berkshire so that L could receive such support and counselling as she needed. In October 1996, she went to live with B, and has lived with him and his new family ever since.
L's attitude to these proceedings
The proceedings were issued in 199L was only 11, and her father was her next friend (as a litigation friend was then called). Instructions to their solicitors were given by B. However, as L approached her 18 th birthday in 2005, it was thought appropriate to ascertain from her whether she wished to continue to be a party to the litigation, and if so the extent to which she wished to participate in it. Her solicitor says that she confirmed that she wished to continue to be a party to the litigation, but that she wanted her father to continue to deal with it on her behalf. L herself has claimed that she informed her solicitor that she did not wish to continue to be a party to the litigation. Be that as it may, her solicitor accepts that she no longer wants to be a party to the litigation. He suspects that she may have been under some pressure from her mother to take that stance, but he acknowledges that that is her current state of mind. Accordingly, a notice of discontinuance was filed on her behalf on 2 June 2006. B has consented to her discontinuance as required by rule 38.2(c)(i) of the Civil Procedure Rules if the court's permission to discontinue is to be dispensed with. Accordingly, B is now the only claimant.
The causes of action
Since the issue of the proceedings, Reading Borough Council, the first defendant, has succeeded to Berkshire's liabilities, and Wokingham District Council, the second defendant, has succeeded to the liabilities of the first defendant. Accordingly, Berkshire (which has ceased to exist) has dropped out of the proceedings, and Reading Borough Council and Wokingham District Council are now the two local authority defendants. The third defendant is the Chief Constable of Thames Valley Police, who is alleged to be responsible for the acts and omissions of WPC Grey.
For reasons which will become apparent shortly, the Chief Constable is not a party to the present application. It is therefore necessary to focus on the allegations pleaded against Berkshire and its staff, since the first and second defendants are the only parties making the present application. Three causes of action are pleaded against Berkshire and its staff:
(i) Breach of the duty of care. Four social workers – Sandra Sullivan and three others – are alleged to have been in breach of the duty of care they owed to B to discharge their professional functions with the care which could reasonably be expected of a reasonably competent social worker. Ms Sullivan is alleged to have failed to question L properly at both interviews or to record her responses and demeanour during the first interview or to represent what L had said at both interviews accurately or to provide the appropriate information about L. In addition, she and the three other social workers are alleged to have failed to support contact between L and B if that had been possible, or to follow and apply the Council's policies and guidelines relating to the assessment of allegations of sexual abuse and the making of recommendations to the Child Protection Committee. Berkshire is alleged to have been vicariously liable for all these breaches of duty.
(ii) Misfeasance in a public office. Two aspects of the conduct of Ms...
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