Pg v Lmr
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 10 April 2003 |
| Neutral Citation | [2003] EWCA Civ 489 |
| Docket Number | Case No: B1/2002/1535 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
| Date | 10 April 2003 |
[2003] EWCA Civ 489
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE
COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM NORTHAMPTON COUNTY COURT
(His Honour Judge Mitchell)
The President
Lord Justice Mummery and
Lord Justice Mayin the Matter of 'G' (A Child)
Case No: B1/2002/1535
Mr Peter Horrocks (instructed by Harding Swinburne Jackson & Co) for the Appellant
Miss Anita Thind (instructed by Wilson Brown Solicitors) for the Respondent
Mr Michael Nicholls appeared for the Official Solicitor
Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss P. :
This is the judgment of the Court.
The issues before the Court arose from the breakdown in the relationship between the parents of a little girl, I, born on the 2 nd February 2000. On the 4 th and 5 th July 2002 His Honour Judge Mitchell heard applications, by the father for contact, by the mother to terminate contact, and for prohibited steps and non-molestation orders. He ordered that there should be no direct contact but set out a regime of indirect contact. Counsel for the mother, Miss Thind, did not ask for a restriction on making further contact applications. The judge, nonetheless, made a section 91(14) order, prohibiting the father from making any application for contact for five years, without leave of the court. Although no contempt proceedings had been initiated, the judge found the father to be in contempt of court for placing, on the website of the organisation 'Families Need Fathers', details of the case between himself and the mother and sentenced him to 14 days imprisonment suspended for six months. The judge also made a prohibited steps order, designed to prevent the father from publishing any information about the case, on the internet or elsewhere. He made an order against the father by way of contribution towards the costs of the mother, assessed at £500. The father represented himself, without legal assistance, at the proceedings before Judge Mitchell.
The father sought permission to appeal. Hale LJ on the 15 th October 2002, granted permission, if it were necessary, to appeal the suspended committal order and granted permission to appeal the prohibited steps order. She adjourned the applications for permission to appeal on the issues of direct contact, the imposition of a section 91(14) order and the £500 contribution towards the costs of the mother to the Court hearing the appeals. She invited the Official Solicitor to make representations on the appeal in relation to the finding of contempt made against the father.
At the hearing before us, the father and mother were both represented by Counsel, Mr Horrocks for the father and Miss Thind again for the mother. Mr Nicholls appeared on behalf of the Official Solicitor and the Court is most indebted to him for the excellent and most helpful skeleton argument he provided to us. We allowed the appeal on the finding of contempt and set aside the suspended sentence of 14 days imprisonment. We allowed the appeal against the prohibited steps order and substituted an order agreed by the parties. We granted permission to appeal against the section 91(14) order, allowed the appeal and set aside the order on the undertaking of the father not to make a contact application before the 1 st January 2004. We granted permission to appeal against the contribution of £500 towards the costs of the mother and set aside the costs order. We refused permission to appeal the refusal of the judge to make a direct contact order. We varied, with the agreement of the parties, the arrangements for indirect contact, invited the CAFCASS officer to report on the indirect contact and included the opportunity for a review of the contact issue during the year 2004. We reserved our reasons.
The background
The father is 50 and has been married four times. He has children, stepchildren and grandchildren from his earlier marriages. The mother is 4This was her first marriage and she was at the time a trainee, now a qualified solicitor. The parents met in September 1998 and lived together intermittently between the end of 1998 and June 2000. They married on the May 2000 and separated about five weeks later, in June 2000. The father then went to work in the Republic of Ireland and the parents did not meet again until October 2000. The child has at all times lived with the mother. On the 27th July 2000 the mother obtained a residence order with reasonable contact to the father. The father made applications for residence and for contact in October 2000, as a result of which, there were five court welfare or CAFCASS reports. There was infrequent and informal supervised contact until the end of the year 2000. The court then directed two occasions of contact observed by the court welfare officer in February 2001. These went well. Fortnightly contact was then set up at a contact centre. The contact between the child and her father initially was successful and the newly appointed CAFCASS officer, Mr Cooper, was encouraged by it. The father, who was clearly experienced in relationships with small children, acted entirely appropriately. The little girl responded and contact began to go well. The difficulties did not arise with the child but between the parents.
The mother alleged that the relationship between the father and herself ended as a result of the unreasonable behaviour of the father and one or two incidents of violence by him on her. There have not been, in this case, any findings of violence by the father towards the mother. The mother also alleged that the father had threatened to remove I from her mother and she believed that it was a threat that one day he would carry out. Judge Mitchell found that the threat had been made, and the fear planted, whatever may have been the actual intention of the father when he made it. The mother has, ever since, had an abiding fear that the father would abduct I from her care and that concern has had a profound effect on the way in which this case has progressed and on the poor prospects of a relationship between the father and daughter in the immediate future. The already fraught atmosphere created by the perceptions of each parent of the other appear to have been exacerbated by the application made by the father for residence. The father's reason for making a residence application was to ensure that he and the paternal family would have a relationship with I, such relationship being, according to the father, frustrated by the mother. The mother alleged that the father has a controlling personality.
Over the contact periods there was continuing acrimony between the parents. On the 13 th May 2001 which was the anniversary of the wedding day of the parents, Mr Cooper was observing contact at the contact centre. He had given advice to the father not to take anyone with him to the contact sessions. The father nonetheless took his adult daughter and her presence caused a scene. The contact nonetheless on that day went well and Mr Cooper reported that it was extremely enjoyable for the father and child. The father then left the contact centre and as he left banged on the windows of the contact centre wishing the mother a 'happy wedding anniversary'. He then shouted at the mother and her current partner from his car window as he passed by. Mr Cooper said that he looked upon this behaviour as totally unnecessary and certainly unhelpful. As the judge said in his judgment this was a tragic turning point. This setback was particularly sad since at that point the CAFCASS officer was looking to relax and improve the arrangements for contact without the continuing involvement of the contact centre. There were further difficulties at the contact centre and the mother complained of the father's behaviour.
Mr Cooper wrote to both parents about their conduct towards each other and he became progressively less optimistic about future contact. He felt that if the parents were unable to co-operate at a contact centre it was hard to see how they could co-operate outside the centre. At the end of 2001 the contact centre declined to allow contact any longer on their premises, giving as their reason continuing difficulties with the father. Two further sessions of contact were arranged and supervised by Mr Cooper in February and March 2002. The child was by then two years old. Mr Cooper reported on the first session as 'an unmitigated disaster'. The child was confused and anxious when her mother left the room and burst into tears at the approach of the father. Mr Cooper said in his report dated the 13 th March 2002
"All credit to [the father]; he demonstrated nothing but sensitivity for his daughter's distress, but she would not be consoled."
The second occasion was no more successful and was terminated after ten minutes. There has been no direct contact between the father and I since February 2002.
At a further directions hearing the court directed that a psychological assessment be carried out on each parent. In his report in February 2002, Dr Bellamy, the psychologist, did not find any matters of concern in the psychological profiles of the parents. He was satisfied that the fears of the mother that the father might abduct the child were sincerely held but he could not say whether they were or were not rational. He said that the father was someone who was 'a person who could take control of an interpersonal situation should he choose to do so'.
In his report of the 13 th March 2002, Mr Cooper pointed out that he had repeatedly expressed the view that any progress beyond the contact centre would be wholly dependent upon a change in adult attitudes. He said that...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Re O (children) (representation: McKenzie friend); Re W-R (A Child) (representation: McKenzie friend); Re W (children) (representation: McKenzie friend)
...before disclosing the case papers to a case worker. [33] The President, in the course of her judgment in Re G (Contempt: Committal)[2003] EWCA Civ 489, [2003] 2 FLR 58, endorsed the views of Hale LJ in granting permission to appeal when she said of the role of Families Need Fathers in that ......
-
Hammerton v Hammerton
...ECHR 19380/92, ECt HR. C (procedural error), Re [1989] FCR 648, [1989] 1 FLR 288, CA. G (a child) (contempt: committal order), Re[2003] EWCA Civ 489, [2003] 2 FCR 231, [2003] 1 WLR 2051, [2003] 2 FLR Goldsmith v Goldsmith[2006] EWCA Civ 1670, [2006] All ER (D) 380 (Oct). H v O (contempt of ......
-
Re L (A Child) Re Oddin
...to the high standard of proof necessary in committal cases. Moreover, as Butler-Sloss P pointed out in [ Re G (Contempt: Committal) [2003] EWCA Civ 489, [2003] 1 WLR 2051] (para [22]) Mr Hammerton was not obliged to given evidence at all in his own defence. The court was obliged to warn hi......
-
Re O (Children) (Hearing in Private: Assistance)
...before disclosing the case papers to a case worker. [33] The President, in the course of her judgment in Re G (Contempt: Committal) [2003] EWCA Civ 489, [2003] 2 FLR 58, endorsed the views of Hale LJ in granting permission to appeal when she said of the role of Families Need Fathers in that......