A Mother and A Father and in the matter of RE (A female child aged 5 years)
| Jurisdiction | Northern Ireland |
| Judge | McFarland J |
| Judgment Date | 15 September 2021 |
| Neutral Citation | [2021] NIFam 36 |
| Court | Family Division (Northern Ireland) |
| Date | 15 September 2021 |
1
Neutral Citation No: [2021] NIFam 36
Judgment: approved by the Court for handing down
(subject to editorial corrections)*
Ref: McF11611
ICOS: 20/008065
Delivered: 15/09/2021
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE IN NORTHERN IRELAND
___________
FAMILY DIVISION
OFFICE OF CARE AND PROTECTION
___________
Between:
A MOTHER
Applicant
-v-
A FATHER
Respondent
IN THE MATTER OF RE (A FEMALE CHILD AGED 5 YEARS)
___________
Moira Smyth QC with Ashley McCausland BL (instructed by John McCaffrey & Co
solicitors) for the mother
Suzanne Simpson QC with Colin Gervin BL (instructed by Fox Law solicitors) for the
father
McFARLAND J
Introduction
[1] This is an application by the mother under Article 7 (3A) of the Children (NI)
Order 1995 for the court to order that the father should cease to bear parental
responsibility for their child. (I will refer to the Children (NI) Order 1995 as “the
1995 Order” and any reference to an Article will be an Article of the 1995 Order.)
This judgment has been anonymised to protect the identity of the child. I have used
the cipher RE for the name of the child. These are not her initials and has been
chosen randomly. Nothing can be published that will identify RE.
Background
[2] RE was born in the Spring of 2016. The mother and father are not married,
but as the father was registered as the father on RE’s birth certificate he acquired
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