W (Children)
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Lord Justice McFarlane,Lord Justice Jackson,Lady Justice Arden |
| Judgment Date | 12 August 2014 |
| Neutral Citation | [2014] EWCA Civ 1303 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
| Date | 12 August 2014 |
| Docket Number | B4/2014/0413 |
[2014] EWCA Civ 1303
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM THE COUNTY COURT
SITTING AT LUTON
(HER HONOUR JUDGE DAVIES)
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand
London, WC2A 2LL
Lord Justice McFarlane
Lady Justice Arden
Lord Justice Jackson
B4/2014/0413
Ms M Jones (instructed by Imran Khan) appeared on behalf of the Appellant
Ms P Jenkins (instructed by Bedfordshire Council) appeared on behalf of the Respondent
Ms S Bradley (instructed by Hepburn Delaney) appeared on behalf of the Interested Party
This appeal arises in connection with care proceedings that have been conducted before the Luton County Court in relation to no less than six children. Those six are the younger six of nine children born to the same mother. The group of children have two separate fathers, neither of whom played any significant part in the proceedings. The six children include a group of three older children, now aged 14, 10 and 12, who are not the direct focus of this appeal and a group of three younger children, all girls; D, aged 6, G, aged 4, and M, aged 2.
Though the proceedings ranged far and wide over issues of fact relating to the threshold criteria, issues of the arrangements for the care of the children, each of whom have now developed troubling presentations and behaviour, it is said, as a result of the experience of being cared for by the mother and then issues relating to the level of intervention that is justified in the case of each child, at the conclusion of the proceedings, the judge who conducted the final hearing, HHJ Davies, made care orders in respect of each of the six children. She went on to make orders authorising the Local Authority to place the younger three, D, G and M, for adoption. That order was made on 17 January 2014. In the course of the judge's conclusions, she held that the welfare of those three younger children required adoption. She, therefore, dispensed with the relevant parental consent of the mother and father. The mother seeks to appeal against the determinations made by the judge on that day.
Although the application for permission to appeal was made promptly, there were delays in processing the paperwork. The matter did not come on for hearing before this court as a permission application until 10 July 2014 when my Lord Jackson LJ granted permission to appeal on a limited basis. He refused permission to the more widely based challenge that the mother sought to bring to the care plans for the children. Permission was granted in order for the full court to understand in greater detail how it was that the judge had come to make the placement for adoption orders. I will explain in a moment why that decision was necessary.
First, it is appropriate to say something as to the background of the case, but given the narrow focus of the appeal, it is not necessary to rehearse all of the detail. The scale of the task of parenting these nine young children that was faced by the mother is striking. She was not only unaided by, but was thwarted by, her discharge of her duty by the choice of partners that she has made. The Social Services had been aware of the mother's difficulties from as long ago as 1999. It is plain that both Social Services and, as the children became older, the education authority noted various difficulties in relation to various of the children.
In particular, one of the older children, a boy, J, now aged 12, has been the subject of concern for some years, he having at a very early age of 5 or 6 having been diagnosed as being selectively mute. He went on to exhibit extremely challenging behaviour at school and at home. But no care proceedings were issued in relation to this group of children save that in 2013 a supervision order was made with respect to J.
Matters, however, came to a head at a meeting organised by the Social Services on 5 August 2013 to consider whether or not it was necessary to institute care proceedings. Against the guidance and understanding of the Social Services, the mother informed the father of the three eldest children, and he is the putative father also of the fourth eldest child, about this meeting. He attended and there plainly was a substantial altercation on that occasion with that gentleman removing the three eldest children from the Social Services' premises. The police were called. The children were brought back. They were removed again.
In the middle of this, the mother was present with all of the children. It became apparent to the Social Services that the mother's anger at the events as they unfolded with respect to the adults preoccupied her to the extent that she was unable to provide any effective parenting for the children, in particular the baby, M, who on one occasion fell out of a pushchair. The level of concern of the Social Services was that on the following day, these proceedings were commenced and the children were removed to various foster care arrangements.
So far as the three young children with which this court is concerned, the younger two were placed together in August 2013 in a foster home. The third youngest, D, initially was placed with some of the older children, but six weeks later she moved to join the younger two. Those three, D, G and M, have remained in that foster home since that time. Indeed, the potential for them to remain for the rest of their childhood and beyond in that foster home became progressively more of a factor in the hearing before the judge.
Pausing there, any reader of the history of these children in recent times can only be struck by how lucky they were to find the couple who are now looking after them. Following the time in the mother's home, which, following the removal of the children, it has become clearer was an emotionally highly damaging environment, these three children have found a safe haven where they can be together and be looked after by two carers who have ring fenced them from the unwelcome pressures that they had been exposed to in the mother's home.
It is also plain that these three young children each present a challenging prospect for any carer, both individually and together. The fact that these foster parents have stayed the course for the sake of the children and that there have not been a series of short term moves within the period of the last 12 months is of enormous benefit to the children. For my part, I cannot be as praiseworthy as is possible to be in saying how good these foster parents have been.
Moving on, the court was faced with the difficult task of developing a bespoke care plan for each of these six children. It was assisted by the Local Authority. The two social workers who had carried the case had only been appointed to the proceedings less than a month before the trigger event on 5 August, but the judge was plain in her judgment in endorsing the high quality of professionalism and commitment that these two individual social workers had displayed. I for my part also would endorse that on the basis of what I have read.
The court also had the benefit of expert opinion commissioned from a consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist, Dr Julet Butler. Dr Butler had been involved with the family on two previous occasions in 2011 and 2012. For the purposes of this final hearing, she prepared a very detailed report which runs to well over 100 pages and was based upon an extensive period of interviews with adults and with some of the children and with observations of contact. In addition, the judge had the benefit of a experienced children's guardian, Mr Kenny, who also provided a substantial report for the hearing.
The care plan of the Local Authority in the lead up to the final hearing had been to look for a placement for these three children together if possible, but away from the current foster home. It was accepted that because of the serious behavioural difficulties and emotionally challenging behaviour of the children, it may be difficult to find a placement for all three together and also because of the eldest child's age, now 6, she may be outside the age band typically sought by those looking to adopt. So the plan was to look for an adoptive placement for all three together for a period measured in months, but if that was not found, to prioritise the need for an adoptive placement for at least two of them, the younger two, together.
Prior to the hearing, the current foster carers had not put themselves forward, certainly in any overt way, as candidates for adoption. However, during the hearing and after the conclusion of the filing of written reports, the children's guardian remained in touch with the foster carers. It became apparent on the second or third day of the hearing that the guardian had had a telephone conversation with the foster carers and that they were prepared to contemplate either being special guardians to the children or becoming their adoptive parents.
Thus it was that the final care plan of the Local Authority was amended and was in the terms, first of all, that I have described that there would be a search for an adoptive placement for six months before a revision of the plan if a place to take all three could not be found. Then the care plan continued in the following terms:
..."The Local Authority will explore the current foster carers as prospective adopters for D, G and M alongside the current care plan. The Local Authority will organise a meeting between the adoption family finder and the current foster carers and will fund any application for adoption by the current carers if the assessment is successful."
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