Re G (Child Case: Parental Involvement)
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | LORD JUSTICE BUTLER-SLOSS,LORD JUSTICE WARD |
| Judgment Date | 23 February 1996 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1996] EWCA Civ J0223-6 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
| Date | 23 February 1996 |
[1996] EWCA Civ J0223-6
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE
PRO-FORMA APPLICATION
COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM READING COUNTY COURT
Before: Lord Justice Butler-Sloss Lord Justice Ward
MR ALAN LEVY QC & MR. B. NATHAN (Instructed by Martin Murrays & Associates, 56 High Street, Slough, Berkshire, SL1 1EL) appeared on behalf of the Applicant.
MISS PAMELA SCRIVEN QC & MISS O'BRIEN (Instructed by Messrs Barrett & Thomson, 2 The Quadrangle, 10 Church Street, Slough, SL1 1TQ) appeared on behalf of the Respondent.
We are extremely grateful to leading counsel both for the father and the mother of a little boy called Bud, born on 21 October 1992, so he is three, for their extremely helpful skeleton arguments and oral arguments which have been provided to us at extremely short notice.
The father makes three applications to this court for leave to appeal. In respect of the first two applications he requires an extension of time. Those two orders are from His Honour Judge Hague, the first on 3 March 1994 where Judge Hague refused applications by the father for residence and contact and the subject of the application for leave and extension of time he revoked a parental responsibility agreement between the father and the mother. The second application for leave and extension of time relates to the order of His Honour Judge Hague of 17 January 1995 when the father applied for and withdrew applications for residence and contact and at the request of counsel for the mother a section 91(14) order was made which required him to have leave to make applications under section 8. The third application which does not require, as far as I know, an extension of time is an application for leave to appeal the order of His Honour Judge Morton Jack of 14 February of this year refusing the father leave to be joined as a party in the care application and under the section 91(14) requirement he refused him leave to make a residence application.
This is an unusual case which presents certain difficulties. It is set down to be tried in respect of an application for care proceedings by the county council and to be heard on Monday, that is to say we are today Friday and it is to be heard after the weekend.
The mother of the four children, who are the subject of the care proceedings, had those four children by three different fathers. The first child is Michael who is thirteen; the second child is Jessica who is twelve and the third child, Sidney, who is six. Michael and Jessica had different fathers. Jessica and Sidney may be, though we do not know, the children of the same father. But all three children have fathers different from Bud, the youngest of the family, who is the child of the mother of the all four children and the father, who is the applicant, before this court. They did not marry. The mother was on, with this applicant, the third of a series of violent and unhappy relationships. She is said by many to have a fragile and vulnerable personality. She had a relationship with this father between 1991 and 1993. That also was a relationship which was unhappy and violent. During it Bud was born.
After the birth of Bud the father drew up a parental responsibility agreement, took the mother to their general practitioner and in the presence of the general practitioner they both signed it. It is said that that was not an agreement which the mother understood or signed voluntarily.
When Bud was four months old the father, with the assistance of the police, removed the child from the mother and thereafter, for a period of about a year, the father cared for the child from the age of four months to, I assume, fourteen months. His care of the child was good. He was at the time and he has continued to look after a child of a former relationship who is now, I think, probably fifteen or sixteen and therefore he is accustomed to looking after children. But, nonetheless, he put himself in the position of being the sole carer of a very young baby. Although his care of the baby was good the relationship with the mother was poor. According to the welfare officer his proposals for contact were grossly inadequate and the mother saw comparatively little of the child.
There were competing applications for residence. A section 37 investigation was directed in respect of this child. On 17 February 1994, in the middle of a eleven-day hearing, His Honour Judge Hague made a residence order to the mother. On 3 March he made the order, which is the subject of this application for leave, by revoking the parental responsibility agreement. The judge, on that occasion, formed an extremely adverse view of the father based upon his own assessment of the father, based also upon a considerable volume of evidence from the mother, evidence from the welfare officer, who also had a very adverse view of the father, and evidence from the school who again had an adverse view of the father. The judge formed a very favourable view of the mother. In particular it was clear from his long and careful judgment that he expected that this child with his elder brothers and sister would live for the foreseeable future in the care of this mother who would be a perfectly sensible and adequate mother to these children and that the contact by the father would be disruptive for this rather fragile personality and without his intervention, which was seen as malign, the mother and children would live happily together. The judge unfortunately was not in possession of all the facts and was unaware that the mother's hold upon the care of her children was uncertain and within an extremely short time of the hearing in March there were worrying stories as to the care of the children. There were worrying stories about the mother taking drugs. She says that she was raped by two men who at one stage, at least, she has alleged, were set up to do that by the father. Alternatively, I think the other explanation was that they were dealers or sent by dealers in the crack cocaine business because she was involved in taking crack cocaine. There is little doubt that she was engaged in putting together crack cocaine in her property and in the presence of her children.
In May 1994, within two or three months of the hearing, the children were accommodated and there has been since then a to-ing and fro-ing of the children in and out of the accommodation with the local authority.
When the father heard that the child had been taken into voluntary care, as it used to be called, and accommodated by the local authority, he made applications for residence and contact. As it happens, although the elder children were placed with the mother's sister and her husband, Bud returned to his mother on 12 November 1994. On the hearing on 17 January 1995, after the case had proceeded for a day or so, according to Miss Scriven, who has represented the mother, the father withdrew his applications for residence and care, according to Mr Levy, who represented the father, because he was aware that the mother had now got the care of these children and it was done in order not to disrupt Bud's care by his mother. Whether I have those facts entirely correct it matters not because on that occasion the order that was made, which is the subject of the second application for leave, was an order that there should be a section 91(14) requirement of leave. That is the second application for leave to this Court.
Since January 1995 the approach of the social workers to the mother's suitability to be the carer of all of these children, and in particular Bud, who is the subject of these proceedings, has gone through various fluctuations. But the present thinking of the social workers appears to be and is supported by the Guardian ad Litem that the mother is not capable of caring for these children and they should be cared for by virtue of a care order under a care plan, which we have now seen, and that they should have continuing contact with their mother, the three children should continue to live with their aunt and uncle and the little boy, the subject of these proceedings, should continue to live with a suitable foster family on the basis that he would go on seeing his mother and, in particular, he would go on seeing his three siblings. According to the social workers and to the Guardian ad Litem at long last these four children, having had a most unhappy time in the care of their mother, are now placed suitably and that is where they should stay. Once the father knew that these proceedings were going to take place, and ten days are set aside for these proceedings, he came, on several applications, before the court in January and appeared both before Judge Kenny and Judge Morton Jack on different occasions and applied under rule 4: 7(ii) of the Family Proceedings 1991 to be joined as a party in the care proceedings and under the requirement of section 91(14) he asked for leave to be able to make a residence application without which, of course, he could not make any effective inroads to a care application.
Putting it shortly, there was no opposition to him being joined as a party initially and that is what happened. Then there was a re-think, both by the mother and by the local authority, and on 14 February 1996, the father having had a skirmish or two earlier hearings, Judge Morton Jack decided that his leave should be revoked. That is the third application for leave before this court.
The problem that this Court has is that His Honour Judge Hague in March 1994 and in January 1995 has expressed extremely strong feelings adverse to this father. Now the judge...
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