Re S (Contact: Children's Views)
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | JUDGE TYRER |
| Judgment Date | 22 March 2002 |
| Neutral Citation | [2002] EWHC 540 (Fam) |
| Court | Family Division |
| Docket Number | NQ.FD01D04052 |
| Date | 22 March 2002 |
[2002] EWHC 540 (Fam)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
Royal Courts of Justice
His Honour Judge Tyrer (Sitting as a Judge of the High Court)
(In Private)
NQ.FD01D04052
MR. J. TOD (instructed by Messrs. Picton Smeathmans) appeared on behalf of the Applicant/Father.
MS. A. LYON (instructed by Messrs. Levison Meltzer Pigott) appeared on behalf of the Respondent/Mother.
In these proceedings a father is seeking contract to his three children. I have heard oral evidence over two days from both the father and the mother, the paternal grandmother and the children and family reporter and I have read a bundle of documents, including statements and exhibits, that have been sent with submissions and skeleton arguments. I have considered all the material, both written and oral in coming to conclusions on what is a sad and difficult case.
The children for whom I am concerned and whose welfare is my paramount consideration are a girl and two boys. In chronological age the eldest is V S, who was born on 12th February 1986 and is now 16 years and a month of age. Next is J, born on 17th July 1987. He is therefore aged 14 years and some eight months of age. Last is J. J was born on 18th March 1990. He was 12 on Monday of this week.
Their father is the applicant. He is S and Mr. S was born on…1954. He is currently living near Milan in Italy. He comes to this country frequently and when he does so is based with his mother, the paternal grandmother, who lives in Sarratt in Hertfordshire.
The mother is the respondent. She is DS and she was born on 23rd November 1958. She is 43 years of age. All three children live with her. Since they are the legitimate children of their parents' marriage, by operation of law under the Children Act, both mother and father have parental responsibility for them.
This is, in many ways, not merely a sad case but has elements of the tragic about it. I am dealing with three adolescent children caught in the middle of their parents' strife. It is plain, indeed it is not in dispute, that all three are being adversely affected by this strife and the affect is in different ways for each of them.
A word about each child. V is the eldest and she is 16. She is a pupil at a High School in Buckinghamshire. Buckinghamshire is a selective education county and although I was told V—did not go through the selection system, because the family lived abroad until, the marriage broke down, the fact is that she was deemed intelligent enough to be accepted to that school. It is a girls only grammar school. She is in her second year of the key stage four element of the national curriculum. She is due to sit her GCSEs in June of this year and, according to her mother, her expectations are good.
All three children suffer from dyslexia in one manifestation of gravity or another. V., I am told, suffers from dyslexia to a degree. Notwithstanding that, she is expected on her mocks and on her ability to attain eight A starred GCSEs and one each in B and C grades for her two languages. Those are, by any stretch of the imagination, good expectations. It is imperative that she gets her best chance, whatever it is that she intends to do in the long term. She has interests both inside and outside school.
An indication of her current difficulties, as they manifest themselves in her as a result of the pressures of this case, can be seen in a letter from Dr. Andrew Dean at p.75C of the bundle. True it is that Dr. D saw V—once in October 2001 and not since, but she was tearful, upset, not sleeping, lacking in motivation to eat and was referred to the child guidance clinic at Amersham and has seen the general practitioner's counsellor at the general practice medical centre in GC.
GC, I think I omitted to say, is where the family live in what, if I remember rightly, is the former matrimonial home.
The father's one wish (or one of his wishes should I more accurately say) is that if he is not permitted an order in relation to contact to V he would like a two hour session, supervised or unsupervised, for him to explain his position to her.
On his behalf, it was submitted to me that there would be no harm if it happened tomorrow. In the context of whether or not it should wait until after she had sat her GCSEs, I found the father's request and the submission in support of it amazing. Its potential to be utterly ruinous to this child at this stage of her life, in my judgment, is so obvious as to be beyond argument but it was within the argument.
The last significant contact that the father had with V was in February of last year, some 13 months ago.
In cross-examination, the father said to me that recently things between him and his daughter had been improving. There had been what he said were "nice phone calls". I have no doubt that if that is true—and I sincerely hope it is—it will be brought to an abrupt end if I allowed this submission to succeed. I am satisfied that any discussion would be one-sided and painful and would be the end of any reasonable prospect of a relationship between V and her father.
J is the second child. He is one year academically behind his older sister, therefore in his first year of key stage four, planning to take the main body of his GCSEs in 2003, save for one. He attends an all boys grammar school in Amersham. He is due to sit mathematics at GCSE level this year, so that that GCSE can be under his belt as an early credit with a view to concentrating on wider issues next year. He too has outside interests beyond the classroom, which include skateboarding, the occasional visit to London with friends and he has been through a particular phase of his life from which he has emerged, it seems, unscathed.
I was struck by a piece of evidence from his mother, namely that he is less biddable than V. His last significant contact with his father was in June of last year, now some nine months ago.
The youngest is J. Of the three, he is the most affected by dyslexia and, in the mother's view, dyspraxia. He goes to X School. X School is a school for those with educational needs. There J needs and is given an amanuensis and a reader for his educative needs. Dyslexia is a disadvantage that produces difficulties in reading and difficulties in writing, particularly in spelling. J's mother told me that his SATs (Standard Assessment Tests) were satisfactory and that his capacity to read, all other things being equal, is for an 11 year old.
He too has outside interests. There was evidence, which I accept, from the children and family reporter that J. finds support and confidence within his family setting, that is with his mother and his two elder siblings. I was struck by her description of how they helped him in focusing his mind on matters that he wished to discuss with the children and family reporter in a kindly, supportive and noninvasive way.
There are a number of issues in this case which underpin the decisions that I have to make. I take them in no particular order, although the first is probably the most important from the parties' point of view.
What I am asked to consider and to try and make findings about are what are these children's real views. Indeed, in so finding, who represents those views. There are three potential sources of representation: the father and the paternal grandmother; the mother; and the children and family reporter.
Central to that issue, what are the children's real views and who represents them, is the basic issue in this case, as I see it at any rate. That is whether or not this mother is influencing these children against their father or, as the paternal grandmother voiced it, poisoning their minds against their father.
Depending upon those not unimportant aspects, I have to consider, since it is not, at any rate on paper, in issue how best to help each of these children individually and collectively to promote some relationship with their father. The father clearly wants it; the mother says that she does not oppose it.
It is, in my judgment, not irrelevant to speak out as to a non-issue. There is not and there never has been any issue about residence. These children live with their mother; their father is based in Italy. Therefore, they live with and have their base with their mother and the stability and security of that base is not to be overlooked.
There are within the papers two chronologies, one more objective than the other. The father's has tried to paint a number of particular issues from his point of view; the mother's is more objective, as I say.
A short chronology can suffice. These parties met and married in 1983. The children arrived in 1986, 1987 and 1990 respectively. It seems that the marriage began to fall apart some time in 1989 or 1990 with the father being filmed in a sexually explicit way with two prostitutes. Part or one of the entries in the papers suggests that that was found in or about 1990. Elsewhere there is a reference to it being found in 1997. It matters not which.
In or around 1998, the parties separated for the first time. The mother had discovered father was having some kind of a relationship with a woman in Cheshire. She overheard the father talking in a sexually overt way either to that woman or another in the summer of 1998 and it seems that V.—had overheard the same or a similar conversation at or about the same time.
A reconciliation was attempted in 1999, which failed and the parties separated and have been apart for good, the father basing himself in Italy, the mother to the address in GC.
In May 2000 there was a...
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