Re K (A Child: Wardship: Publicity)
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | His Honour Judge Clifford Bellamy |
| Judgment Date | 25 July 2013 |
| Neutral Citation | [2013] EWHC 2684 (Fam) |
| Court | Family Division |
| Date | 25 July 2013 |
2013 EWHC 2684 (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
Miss Julie Moseley for the Local Authority
Mr Martin Downs for the Parents
Miss Vanessa Meachin for the Child
This judgment was delivered in private. The judge has given leave for it to be reported on the strict understanding that (irrespective of what is contained in the judgment) in any report no person other than the advocates or the solicitors instructing them and Coventry City Council (and other persons identified by name in the judgment itself) may be identified by name or location and that in particular the anonymity of the child and the adult members of her family must be strictly preserved.
These proceedings concern a young person. K is now aged 16. Her adoptive parents are MG and FG. On 10 June 2011 Coventry City Council ('the local authority') issued care proceedings. The final hearing took place in July 2012. The local authority's final care plan, opposed by the parents, was that K should be made the subject of a final care order. That is the order I made.
At final hearing the parents' case was that it would be more appropriate for the court to make K a ward of court. On behalf of both the local authority and the Children's Guardian it was contended not only that that was not the appropriate order but that as a result of s.100 Children Act 1989 the court had no jurisdiction to make K a ward of court. Though satisfied that K's interests would be best served by making her a ward of court I was persuaded by the local authority and the guardian that I had no power to do so. I gave the parents permission to appeal. On 22 November their appeal was allowed. The care order was discharged. K was made a ward of court. The proceedings were remitted back to me.
A number of issues have arisen since K became a ward of court, not least the continuing and urgent need to try to engage K in therapy. It is unnecessary to say more about those issues within this judgment. The one remaining issue relates to the parents' wish to be able to discuss the case with the media. It is that issue to which this judgment relates.
The background
The background history is set out fully in my earlier judgment. It is unnecessary to repeat it. I was critical of several aspects of the way in which the local authority had dealt with this case. For the purpose of this present judgment it is appropriate simply to repeat what I said at the end of my judgment:
197. Accepting a child for adoption, particularly a late adoption, inevitably involves taking a risk. The parents have said that had they known in 2003 what they know now they would not have proceeded with the adoption. But they did not know. And they did adopt K. There is no going back. Adoption is final, both for the child and for her adopters. It is to the immense credit of these parents that despite the challenges K has presented, and despite the difficulties they have had to contend with in engaging with the local authority, they still care about K, they still love her and they still want what is best for her.
198. In assessing the local authority's care plan two particular issues give me cause for concern. Firstly, the local authority's case for a care order is in large measure reliant upon the conviction of professionals that that is what K wants. Yet it is not clear that any professional involved in her care has stood back and assessed what K is saying against the backdrop of her acknowledged emotional immaturity and her propensity for using her behaviour as a means of controlling those around her.
199. Secondly, the state of the parents' working relationship with the local authority is very poor. The local authority has been accommodating K since December 2010. In that time K has been sexually assaulted, prompting the local authority to apply for a secrecy order; she has been arrested for a serious assault on a member of staff but the parents were not informed; she has had a contraceptive implant fitted but the parents (Roman Catholics) were not consulted and were only informed after the event; the local authority has signed up to a working agreement which made clear provision for regular updating information to be provided to the parents but its compliance has been erratic and unreliable; at a meeting on 8 th December 2011 the local authority appeared to agree to pay for Family Futures to provide therapy for K and yet, to date, no therapy has taken place and no clear arrangements for therapy are in place; at that same meeting the local authority agreed to prepare an updated working agreement but that, too, has not happened.
200. The father asks, plaintively: if this is the way the local authority treat us when we alone have parental responsibility, how will they treat us if they share parental responsibility with us under a care order? That is a serious question. I regret to say that on the evidence before me I am in no doubt that there is a likelihood, a real possibility, that if I make a care order the parents will be marginalised and largely ignored.
In giving the leading judgment in the Court of Appeal – Re E (Wardship Order: Child in Voluntary Accommodation) [2012] EWCA Civ 1773, [2013] 2 FLR 63— Lord Justice Thorpe described the case as "difficult and exceptional". The case undoubtedly raised significant issues concerning, for example, the conduct of this local authority particularly in its dealings with the parents (whom I largely exonerated of the local authority's criticisms of them), the importance of providing prospective adopters with detailed and relevant information about a child's background before placement, the level of post-adoption support available to adopters of children with challenging behaviour and the impact of reactive attachment disorder ('RAD') on a child's behaviour and the therapeutic support required to deal with it.
It was against that background that I took the decision 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.
On 16 August 2012 articles appeared in the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph. There was a further reference to the case in another article in the Daily Telegraph on 18 August. The local authority was not identified in any of these reports though the reports did refer to the hearing having taken place in Coventry.
Shortly after the publication of these articles the BBC contacted the court asking to be put in touch with the parents. On 21 August, of my own motion, I ordered that no party should discuss the case with the media without the leave of the court. I had intended that order only to remain in force for a matter of days until full argument could be heard. In the event, that order has remained in force until today. It is that order which the parents now apply to discharge.
Recent events
I heard submissions on 5 June. I reserved judgment. On 9 July I received an e-mail from the local authority's solicitor informing the court that K had absconded. The e-mail reported that,
"K recently became aware that her story had been reported in the Daily Mail newspaper. This caused her significant distress and resulted in a decline in her behaviour and relationship with the workers at her residential home. K formed a relationship with a new young person at the home and on Friday 5 th July 2013 K and the other young person left the home."
In a subsequently filed written statement, the case accountable social worker indicates that news of the report in the Daily Mail was inadvertently disclosed to K by her therapist at her first therapy session on 24 June. Until then, for the past ten months K had been unaware of the press reporting.
It is clear from the social worker's recent statement that the local authority considers the deterioration in K's behaviour to be the direct result of her becoming aware of the Daily Mail article. The possibility that there may have been other causes or that K's discovery of the Daily Mail article was just part of a constellation of causative factors appears not to have been considered.
In a statement filed in response to the social worker's statement the parents challenge the local authority's assumption on causation. They believe that the problem is more complex than that. They point to the fact that transition at the end of the school year to the beginning of the summer school holidays has caused difficulty for K in the past. They list a number of factors which may have contributed to the recent deterioration in her behaviour including, for example, beginning a period of extended school holiday having completed her GSCE exams, waiting for GCSE results in August, moving into the sixth form in September, the commencement of therapy and the end-of-GCSE school prom.
It is in my judgment overly simplistic to make the assumption that K's discovery of the article in the Daily Mail was the single cause of the recent deterioration in her behaviour. I proceed on the basis that it was at least a contributory factor.
K was found on 9 July. She is now in a respite placement in a different part of the country.
The parents' application to discharge the order of 21 August 2012
The parents wish to be allowed to discuss their experiences with the media. They advance three reasons for being permitted to do so.
Firstly, they wish to raise awareness of RAD. For that purpose they have set up a charity called PATCHES (Promoting Attachment for Traumatised Children's Hearts and Education Society). They wish to promote their charity by discussing their own experiences of parenting an adopted child suffering from RAD. They also...
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