Newham London Borough Council v AG
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | THE PRESIDENT,LORD JUSTICE BUTLER-SLOSS,SIR JOHN MEGAW |
| Judgment Date | 19 March 1992 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1992] EWCA Civ J0319-3 |
| Docket Number | 92/0267 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
| Date | 19 March 1992 |
[1992] EWCA Civ J0319-3
The President
(Sir Stephen Brown)
Lord Justice Butler-Sloss
Sir John Megaw
92/0267
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE
COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
FAMILY DIVISION
(MR JUSTICE HOLLINGS)
Royal Courts of Justice
MR RICHARD CLOUGH, instructed by Messrs Mullinger Banks, appeared for the Appellant (Second Defendant).
MR CHRISTOPHER POCOCK, instructed by Gerard Curran, Esq., Solicitor to the London Borough of Newham, appeared for the Respondent (Plaintiff).
MISS MARGARET GEE, instructed by Messrs Daybells, appeared for the Second Respondent (First Defendant).
This is an appeal from a judgment of Mr Justice Hollings of 18th October 1991. The learned judge had before him an originating summons in wardship which had been issued by the London Borough of Newham relating to a little boy called Nathan. I shall direct that no report of the case shall identify the minor involved in this case.
Nathan was born on 8th July 1989 and at the time of the application before the learned judge was then just two and a quarter years of age. The application by the London Borough of Newham was for an order to be made pursuant to section 7(2) of the Family Law Reform Act 1969. The court was asked to order that the care of Nathan should be committed to the local authority, and the plaintiff also sought leave to terminate access if and when the child were to be placed for adoption.
The history of the family is a very sad one. Nathan's mother (to whom I shall refer by the initial "A") was only some 20 years of age at the time of the hearing before the learned judge. She had had a very sad childhood. She had been brought to the attention of the social services department of the local authority on a number of occasions. She had been beyond parental control as a result of difficulties with her stepfather. In 1986 it was considered that she was at risk because she was sexually active and it was believed that she had been involved in drug taking. Later she ran away from home, alleging that she had been badly treated at home on two occasions. Then when she was only 16 she became pregnant. That pregnancy was terminated. Then in 1988 she came to the social services department seeking help, saying that her stepfather had thrown her out of her home; later she actually called the police to help her move out of the house. She became pregnant again and there was a second termination of pregnancy. Then she became pregnant with the child who was eventually to be born and to become the subject of the present proceedings.
Sadly, his birth was accompanied by the onset of a serious mental illness. His mother developed a form of schizophrenia and after that she exhibited symptoms of withdrawal; she was neglecting herself and she would be found to be throwing away her medication. Sadly, her parents—the grandparents of Nathan—were not able to accept the fact that she was ill. There was also serious concern about how she handled the baby. In September 1989 she was admitted to hospital, having swallowed bleach. She was discharged on that occasion on the application of her parents against medical advice. The social worker involved became very concerned at the relationship between this young mother and her own mother—the little child's grandmother.
In September 1989 she was again admitted to hospital, having neglected herself; she was also neglecting the baby. She was detained in hospital under a 28 day order under section 2 of the Mental Health Act and was later transferred to another hospital to a mother and baby unit. There she exhibited signs of psychosis and depression, and a most disturbing feature of her illness was that she apparently perceived the baby as the devil. Her condition deteriorated at the beginning of 1990. Her psychotic symptoms worsened and there was a threat that she would give the little baby bleach. She told the health visitor, when in hospital, that she had actually hit and pinched this little baby three or four times when she was in the previous hospital.
The social worker involved sought to assist the family and wished to assess the grandmother to see whether she could be considered as a carer for the baby. But the social worker was told that the household was in what was described as a state of confusion. The grandfather was said to have used a belt excessively to enforce discipline in the house, and the circumstances appeared to indicate that the little child could not be safely settled in that household, particularly with the mother in her condition and when she might come out of hospital and then be in and out of hospital.
So an originating summons in wardship was issued on 9th February 1990 and interim care and control was ordered to be committed to the plaintiff authority by Mr Justice Thorpe. At that point the mother of little Nathan went back into hospital as a voluntary patient and the little boy was placed with foster parents.
A great deal of attention was given to the mother, and Doctor Feldman, the consultant psychiatrist concerned at the hospital in question, gave evidence before the court which eventually heard the wardship application. The local authority called a case conference, seeing a need to assess the family; that is the grandparents and the mother. An assessment was eventually carried out by Doctor Eileen Vizard, a very well-known child psychiatrist, assisted by an experienced social worker. A video recording was made of the sessions and the learned judge was in fact invited to see those videos and saw them. They were very stressful sessions.
The difficulty, which was apparent to those who gave evidence, and which was accepted by the judge, was the bizarre behaviour of the mother. There was exhibited in the videos, but not overstressed by the judge, what he described as untoward anger on the part of the grandparents, but he believed that they were essentially loving and caring people. The difficulty which the learned judge perceived and found was that the grandparents of this little boy did not show any real insight into the nature of their daughter's illness and the consequences and the risks which that entailed to this little baby. That behaviour had already been indicated when the mother had taken bleach and had threatened to administer bleach to the little baby.
Accordingly, the local authority felt obliged to seek the orders which I have indicated, with a view ultimately to the adoption of Nathan. The grandparents vehemently resisted the suggestion of ultimate adoption. They wished, if possible, to provide a home in the extended family for this little baby, and the learned judge was sympathetic to that idea if it were possible. But he came to the conclusion, which he expressed at pages 9 and 10 of his judgment, that it would not be a practicable course to take and indeed would be one which gave rise to significant risks.
Having very carefully reviewed the evidence which he had heard, the learned judge said at page 9 of the transcript of his judgment just above letter B:
"So those are the question marks over the grandparents as carers, and their track record in the past. Following from that is the question, would they be able to protect Nathan from his mother, if his mother was in a florid state of her mental illness. There I have heard the psychiatrist's evidence about this and I am told that so long as she has this illness—and it is long term; that seems to be clear now—when she is in a florid state, which may occur from time to time, she will always be a danger. She has recently threatened various persons. In June of this year she was involved in a fight in the street and as recently as 6th October she was readmitted after another incident. That is how it comes to be that she was in hospital when these proceedings started. It is, I hope, the intention that when she comes out of hospital, as no doubt she will, she should live in her own accommodation, and indeed a flat is available for her, which is some mile or a mile and a half away from her parents.
This raises the question of what would happen if she met Nathan and she was in a state of relapse or had not taken her medication. Mr Clough"—(counsel for the grandmother)—"stressed that the hospital until now has been able to observe when she is not taking her medication and to take steps accordingly, but that is somewhat weakened by the events which occurred on 6th October and in June of this year. The trouble is that if and when she comes out of hospital, and she cannot remain there indefinitely, the present psychiatric diagnosis suggests that she will go on needing medication, and she has evinced from time to time non-compliance in taking or accepting drugs. So there is this danger which she represents, which has in the past involved potential danger to Nathan.
It is this aspect of the case that really has been decisive so far as I am concerned, because I agree with the team leader who gave evidence on behalf of the social services how much better it is to place a child like this, if possible, with members of the mother's extended family, particularly where the grandparents are of a reasonably young age, as here, and fit, and are loving and are prepared to look after the child, and I have been considering throughout this case, very carefully, all the ways in which it might be possible for young Nathan to be with his grandparents."
The judge continued:
"It is quite plain that if he was with his grandparents, the idea of there being no access to his mother would be quite impossible. It would be impossible also to avoid the contact to which I have referred. I have heard evidence...
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