A Local Authority v X, Y and Z
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | His Honour Judge Hess |
| Judgment Date | 02 September 2016 |
| Neutral Citation | [2016] EWFC B72 |
| Court | Family Court |
| Date | 02 September 2016 |
| Docket Number | Ref.: SN16C000055 |
[2016] EWFC B72
THE FAMILY COURT
The Law Courts
Islington Street
Swindon
His Honour Judge Hess
Ref.: SN16C000055
Miss Pine-Coffin appeared on behalf of the local authority
Miss Ephgrave appeared on behalf of the mother
Mr Vatcher appeared on behalf of the father
Miss Young appeared on behalf of the paternal grandparents
Miss Reed appeared on behalf of the guardian
(Transcript Approved on 22 nd September 2016)
I have before me proceedings which are care proceedings brought by the Local Authority (LA), to whom I shall refer in this judgment as the "local authority", in relation to four children, who are:-
(i) A, who is aged thirteen;
(ii) B, who is aged eleven;
(iii) C, who is aged ten; and
(iv) D, who is aged nine.
The respondents to this application are: First M, to whom I shall refer in this judgment as the "mother", and is aged now thirty-four. Secondly F1, who is the father to A, and although he is aware of these proceedings and of a dispute in relation to A, he has taken no interest, and has not become engaged at all in the proceedings nor attended nor been represented at any stage, including the final hearing. Thirdly F, to whom I shall refer in this judgment as the "father", because he is the father of the three children with whom I am most concerned at this stage, that is B, C and D — and is aged forty-three. G & H, who are the paternal grandparents of A, the parents of F1, and they have become involved in the case solely in relation to A. Finally the children, parties via their guardian, G.
The application has proceeded to a final hearing over three days on 31 st August and 1 st and 2 nd September 2016. The legal representatives before me during this hearing have been:-
(i) for the local authority Miss Pine-Coffin of counsel;
(ii) for the mother Miss Ephgrave of counsel;
(iii) for the father Mr Vatcher of counsel;
(iv) for the paternal grandparents Miss Young, solicitor; and
(v) for the guardian Miss Reed of counsel.
I want to express my gratitude to all of the advocates for the help that they have given to the court — all the parties have been well represented before me.
For the purpose of this hearing I have been provided with a bundle which includes but is not limited to the following material:-
• I have seen some material from the local authority social worker made up of three statements of 13 th April 2016, 4 th April 2016 and 4 th May 2016, her parenting assessment of 15 th March 2016 and her interim and then final care plans for all of the children
• I have seen a report from the FASS, the family assessment and safeguarding service, dated 24 th March 2016.
• I have seen mother's statement of 7 th June 2016.
• I have seen father's statement, undated on its face but provided, he told me, in early August 2016.
• I have seen a report from Dr Budd, a psychologist, on mother dated 26 th January 2016.
• I have seen the guardian's analysis of 9 th June 2016.
• I have seen various position statements relevant for various hearings.
• I have seen a threshold document provided by the local authority upon which are added father's responses, mother's responses having been included in the body of her narrative statement.
I have carefully looked at all of this material and I have also heard oral evidence tested in cross-examination from the social worker, from mother, from father and from the guardian.
I make two preliminary observations:-
(i) Although I was told on the first day of this hearing on Wednesday that there might be an application for the court to hear some evidence from one or more persons, friends or family members of the mother and father, no application has been forthcoming.
(ii) Secondly, I invited the advocates to indicate what time they expected to take on their various cross-examinations and they all gave me their times, all of which were acceptable to the court, and all of the cross-examinations were carried out within the given time limits. I am satisfied that full and adequate time has been given to the advocates both to present their own case and to challenge the cases of the other parties and I have a clear picture of what all of the parties are saying about the relevant matters.
I heard oral submissions from all the advocates this morning on 2 nd September 2016 and I am delivering this judgment on the afternoon of 2 nd September 2016.
The background to this case is as follows. The mother, whom I have already said is aged thirty-four, had a troubled childhood. I have read of parental separation, sexual and other abuse, serious misbehaviour by her and her being placed in a residential boarding school at the age of ten. Plainly from what she said it was not a happy childhood. At the age of fourteen it appears that she was involved in a serious road traffic accident and it appears, although I have not seen the medical documentation, that this left her with significant physical and mental impairments and frailties. Her mobility has been permanently affected and she told me a number of times poignantly in her evidence that after that accident she had had to learn everything again and had little memory of her life before the accident. This has some echoes of Dr Budd's report when he said: " Mother is of broadly low average intelligence, while her overall memory functioning was found to fall within the average range, she evidenced a specific impairment in her working memory, i.e. the ability to hold information in memory for a brief time by actively rehearsing this and in her verbal learning recall. A current assessment further suggested that whilst it is likely that mother will take longer than most of her peers to learn new verbal material, once she has learnt this she will be no less likely to forget it following a short delay than most of her peers. Whilst this pattern of results is consistent with acquired cognitive impairment resulting from a head injury, such a diagnosis can only be confirmed by a detailed neuropsychological assessment." In addition to that Dr Budd made some recommendations about the way in which she should be dealt with in the course of the proceedings in order to ensure that she was properly engaged in these proceedings, one example of that is that the matters should be explained to her in a straightforward and direct way avoiding the use of low frequency words and technical language. I am satisfied that in the course of these proceedings, certainly in the hearing before me, that all of those involved have followed those recommendations, for example in cross-examination of mother the issues were explained, in particular by counsel for the local authority, in a straightforward and clear way which she was able to understand.
At the age of fifteen not long after this accident, the mother met F1. They had a relationship of some eight years, which produced two children: E, who is now aged sixteen, and A is therefore aged thirteen. Her relationship with F1 came to an end not long after A was born and as a result of that F1 left the family home, leaving the mother looking after two very young children, as they were then, E and A.
Shortly after that the mother began a relationship with the father, as I have said he is now forty-three, nearly a decade or so older than the mother. The relationship between the mother and the father is ongoing and is now of some thirteen years duration. That relationship has produced three children: B who is eleven, C who is ten and D who is nine.
The local authority have had anxieties about this family for a very long time. I have read carefully the local authority chronology which shows reports on a very regular basis from 2006 right up to this year, some of which are of a very serious nature. Indeed, as the guardian commented, it is in one sense remarkable that no proceedings were brought before this year. In 2013 E, as a result of various matters, went to live with his father F1 in Wales; but this placement appears to have broken down quite quickly and he went off then into local authority foster care.
In the same year, 2013, there were seriously escalating concerns, particularly about the behaviour of both A and D. In 2014 the problems with A led to some private law proceedings in which both mother and the paternal grandparents of A, that is G & H, were involved. Those appear to have culminated in the making of a residence order in favour of the paternal grandparents but expressed to be a shared order with the mother. I am told that order was made on 15 th December 2014 by Deputy District Judge Brown, although I have not actually seen the order itself. As a result of that order I am told that for a while A lived with the paternal grandparents but that this did not last long and that the placement quickly broke down and A returned to the family home, notwithstanding the court order which remained in place.
In 2014 and 2015 and early 2016 there were a very large number of incidents reported to the local authority, again many of them featured the behaviour of A and D. By late 2015 and early 2016 the local authority were very seriously troubled by what was going on in the family, hence the commissioning of the FASS report in early 2016 and the parenting assessment by the social worker in March 2016. The results of these assessments, and a number of incidents which took place then or shortly thereafter in late March and early April 2016, finally convinced the local authority to issue proceedings, which were duly...
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