Re K (A Child: Post Adoption Placement Breakdown)
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | His Honour Judge Clifford Bellamy |
| Judgment Date | 27 July 2012 |
| Neutral Citation | [2012] EWHC 4148 (Fam) |
| Date | 27 July 2012 |
| Court | Family Division |
| Docket Number | CASE No. EY11CO0084 |
[2012] EWHC 4148 (Fam)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
Family Division
COVENTRY DISTRICT REGISTRY
His Honour Judge Clifford Bellamy
Sitting as a Judge of the High Court
(Judgment handed down 27 th July 2012)
CASE No. EY11CO0084
Miss Elizabeth McGrath for the Local Authority
Miss Martine Kushner for the parents
Miss Elizabeth Walker for the child
Coventry City Council ('the local authority') applies to the court for a care order in respect of a child who I shall refer to as K (that is not her real name). K is 15 1/2 years old. She was adopted in 2004. Her adoptive parents are MG ('the mother') and FG ('the father').
K's early history
K is the fifth youngest of six children. K's birth family first became known to Bradford Metropolitan District Council ('Bradford') in 1995 as a result of an unexplained injury to one of the older children. Subsequent concerns included inappropriate sexual behaviour involving some of the older children and allegations of sexual assault against the birth mother's then partner. A Child Protection Conference was held on 2 nd July 1999 and the names of all six children were placed on the Child Protection Register under the category of sexual abuse. On 14 th February 2000 the children's names were removed from the register. On 7 th March 2000 the local authority closed its case file. By then the birth mother's former partner was serving a six year prison sentence for offences of indecent assault and affray.
Concerns about the family persisted. These included the birth mother's lack of adequate control over the children; her long history of mental health difficulties; the children's poor school attendance; the children's physical appearance at school; the birth mother's lack of co-operation with social workers; reports of the children being left home alone and on occasion being locked in the house alone; and the physical conditions within the house which, on occasions, were noted to be appalling.
The local authority issued care proceedings. On 8 th August 2001, having obtained interim care orders, K and her siblings were finally removed and placed in foster care.
In a written statement prepared for the Bradford proceedings, K's foster mother said that K and her two siblings were very scruffy and dirty when they first arrived. They had very bad head lice. When she took K to visit the family dentist, the dentist advised that four of K's teeth were rotten. Following x-rays she had eight teeth removed. The children did not appear to have routines. K did not want to go to bed, saying that when at home she often played out in the dark. K spoke about her mother's boyfriend throwing video-cassettes at her mother and about them arguing and him kicking the door.
Although the foster mother noted that academically K appeared to be doing well at school, she also noted that her teacher had reported problems with defiant behaviour.
The final report of the Bradford Children's Guardian addressed issues which find an echo within these present proceedings. She said that in her opinion,
'all the children have been deprived of consistent parenting and they are all extremely needy children. [K and her sister Rosie] do not appear to have significant attachment to a primary carer. Both present as indiscriminate in their relations with adults, freely going to any adult for attention…In my view with preparation and a good level of support following placement, the three youngest children can effectively move onto new families, none of the younger children appear to have particularly strong attachments to their mother or siblings.'
K was presented to Bradford's Adoption Panel on 4 th March 2002. In a report prepared pursuant to Schedule 2 to the Adoption Rules 1984 the author notes that K,
'will not show affection, but will respond to hugs and kisses. [K] has difficulty in accepting discipline and will push the boundaries. She is described as sly and devious at times…'
The report goes on to note that at school 'There have been incidents when [K] has taken things that do not belong to her'.
Section 6 of the Schedule 2 Report sets out a general overview:
'K is a popular child who has a warm and friendly personality. K has met all her developmental milestones. She shows her emotions in an age appropriate way. K needs a permanent family who can offer her stability and unconditional love. She also needs a family that can offer her the appropriate boundaries and stimulation to enable her to reach her full adult potential. K is used to being in a busy household but she also enjoys one-to-one attention and can amuse herself. Although K interacts well with other children she would benefit from being in a home where he (sic) does not have to compete for attention.'
In her conclusions, the author of that report states that,
'K has had a lot of instability in her life, lack of routines, boundaries and has had her education and health needs neglected. She needs to be able to build up the security and stability of relationships during the rest of her childhood so that she can enter adulthood from a firm basis. K can be a demanding child, liking one-to-one attention, but is also very rewarding to care for. She therefore needs carers who can give him (sic) the attention and boundaries she requires and can help channel her energies into constructive pastimes. She is a child who craves 'normality' and although she would have achieved this with her current foster carers, it would be detrimental to her welfare, given her age, to leave her in long-term foster care if an adoptive family can be found.'
The Bradford Adoption Panel made a 'best interests' decision that adoption would be in K's her best interests. On 30 th April 2002 Bradford Family Proceedings Court made a final care order and an order freeing K for adoption.
The adoptive parents
FG and MG have been married for twenty-five years. They have two children from their marriage, Chloe and Rachel. Chloe and Rachel are now aged 20 and 18 respectively. They are both at university.
MG is 45 years old. She has been a school teacher for 20 years.
FG is 48 years old. He is self-employed, running his own business.
MG and FG are committed Christians. They are Roman Catholics (the significance of which will become apparent later in this judgment). Their decision to adopt was borne out of a desire to help a child less fortunate than their own children. They approached Coventry City Council in February 2000. In their Form F it is recorded that they 'do not feel able to take a child who has been sexually abused or who displays sexualised behaviour because of the effect this might have on Chloe and Rachel.' It was recommended 'that they are approved as adopters for one child of either sex aged between 4 and 6 years with no major health or emotional problems.'
MG and FG were approved as adopters on 22 nd August 2001.
The local authority's records
Before I consider the history of the placement it is necessary to say something about the presentation of the local authority's records. In charting the history of a local authority's engagement in the life of any family, its records are a key source of information. When a family becomes involved in court proceedings, those records are likely to be an important part of the forensic enquiry. In this case, the standard of the local authority's presentation of that material to the court has fallen far below that which the court is entitled to expect.
The required content and format of court bundles is set out in simple, clear, easy-to-follow terms in Practice Direction 27A to the Family Procedure Rules 2010. The Practice Direction's repeated use of the word 'shall' makes it clear that compliance with the Practice Direction is mandatory. The Practice Direction requires that bundles 'shall contain copies of all documents relevant to the hearing, in chronological order…paginated and indexed'. It goes on to provide that the bundle 'shall be contained in one or more A4 size ringbinders or lever arch files (each lever arch file being limited to 350 pages)'.
In the index to the hearing bundle in this case, section K is described as 'Social Care documents'. This section runs to 1,350 pages. It is contained within three lever arch files. The documents in this section are not in chronological or, indeed, in any other discernable order. There is no indexing of these documents. Several documents appear more than once at different points throughout this section. Even accepting that some degree of redacting may have been necessary, it is difficult to understand the purpose of including more than 150 pages in which the entirety of the text has been completely blacked out.
This key section of the hearing bundle is disorganised and chaotic. In the words of Bracewell J, it is 'a jumbled mass of documentation' (Re E (Care Proceedings: Social Work Practice) [2000] 2 FLR 254 at p. 257). It has hindered rather than assisted the forensic process. Twenty years ago Ward J (as he then was) memorably made the point that 'judges are not forensic ferrets' ( B-T v B-T [1990] 2 FLR 1 at p.17). The pressure under which modern family judges are required to work is such that they simply do not have the time to be 'forensic ferrets' searching through inadequately prepared and disorganised hearing bundles in order to identify key information.
The placement
The possibility of K being placed with MG and FG was first discussed with them in September 2002. According to a statement by their adoption social worker, Gail Helfet, in February 2003 she went with them to meet with the psychologist who had been advising K's foster carer. In her written statement, Ms Helfet says that she
'noted at the time that the psychologist was of the view that K was a...
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Re K (A Child: Wardship: Publicity)
...that an anonymised version of my judgment should be published and that the local authority should be identified – Re K (A Child: Post Adoption Placement Breakdown) [2012] EWHC 4148 (Fam), [2013] 1 FLR 1. 7 On 16 August 2012 articles appeared in the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph. There ......
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Re K (A Child: Wardship: Publicity)
...that an anonymised version of my judgment should be published and that the local authority should be identified — Re K (A Child: Post Adoption Placement Breakdown) [2012] EWHC 4148 (Fam), [2013] 1 FLR 1. 7 On 16 August 2012 articles appeared in the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph. There ......