West Glamorgan County Council v P. (No. 2)
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 1992 |
| Year | 1992 |
| Date | 1992 |
| Court | Family Division |
RATTEE, J
Contact – child in care – local authority deciding child should be placed for adoption – applying to court for order authorizing refusal of contact between child and mother – mother opposing application – court refusing local authority's application and ordering contact – whether decision of court could stand – factors to be taken into account.
The child, a boy, was born in May 1989. The parents were not married and the father had played no part in the child's life. The mother suffered from varying degrees of mental illness as a result of which she was unable to provide satisfactory emotional care of the child. In August 1991 the mother's home was visited. It was in an artificially spotless condition but contained no food whatsoever. The child was found to be weak and listless and was taken to hospital. A place of safety order was obtained and on his discharge from hospital the child was taken into care and placed with foster parents. Care proceedings were commenced, interim care orders were made, and a full care order was made on 17 December 1991. From the outset, the local authority hoped to rehabilitate the child with the mother and made strenuous efforts to achieve contact between the mother and the child. The mother did not respond to those efforts and had no contact with the child after he was placed with foster parents on 7 August 1991. Further, the mother failed to attend any of the hearings in the care proceedings and refused to speak to the guardian ad litem. By March 1992 the local authority reached the conclusion that there was no chance of rehabilitating the child with the mother and that the child's best interests lay in his being placed with long-term foster parents with a view to adoption. By s 34(1) of the Children Act 1989 the local authority were required to allow the child reasonable contact with the mother. In view of their decision as to the child's future, the local authority applied to the family proceedings court under s 34(4) of the Act for an order authorizing them to refuse to allow contact between the child and the mother.
On being served with that application the mother sought contact with the child. The family proceedings court decided it had no jurisdiction to make an interim order authorizing refusal of access but this decision was overturned by the Divisional Court and an interim order made pending the substantive hearing: see West Glamorgan County Council v P[1992] 2 FCR 378.
At the substantive hearing, the mother opposed the application and the family proceedings court refused the local authority's application and instead made an order that there should be weekly supervised contact between the mother and the child,
The local authority appealed.
Held – allowing the appeal: Where a care order had been made, the decision as to the long-
term future of the child was within the exclusive jurisdiction of the local authority so long as the care order subsisted. It followed that when considering an application under s 34(4) for an order authorizing refusal of contact, the court was bound to consider the effects of refusing or making any such order on the long-term plans of the local authority for the child's future. Only the local authority had the duty and power to decide whether a child in care should be placed for adoption. As the terms of the Children Act 1989 disabled the court from taking any part in that decision, the court, when exercising its powers in relation to contact, must start from the premiss that the local authority had made an unimpeachable decision. The court should not exercise its powers to allow contact when it was aware that this would be incompatible with the decision of the local authority in relation to the child's long-term care unless satisfied on cogent evidence that the welfare of the child required it and the local authority had disregarded such evidence or was acting capriciously. In the present case there was no such evidence before the family proceedings court. From the magistrates' reasons it was clear that they did not think that the local authority's decision as to placement of the child for adoption was justified and this led them to order contact. That was a fundamentally wrong approach. There was no cogent evidence that the local authority's decision was wrong or that they were acting capriciously. Therefore, the court should have started from the premiss that the local authority had made a unimpeachable decision to place the child for adoption. Starting from that premiss, there was no evidence that any future contact between the child and the mother would have been of such benefit to the child as to justify an order incompatible with the local authority's long-term plan. The appeal would be allowed and an order made under s 34(4) of the Act authorizing the local authority to refuse contact.
Re S (Child in Care: Access) [1991] FCR 82 followed.
AppealAppeal from Swansea family proceedings court.
Magistrates' Reasons1. That the child was born on 2 May 1989 and is now 3 years old.
2. That the family became known to the social services department shortly after the child's birth, when the general practitioner noted a strange relationship between the [mother and her sister] and the [grandmother].
3. Advice was tendered at that stage that family members make separate housing applications so that sisters and parents could obtain separate accommodation for the sisters and parents.
4. Social services became actively involved in October 1989 when the child was 5 months old as a result of a visit by a housing official who had been verbally abused.
5. A social worker and the health visitor made efforts to establish contact with the mother. When they did so they observed that the child was well cared for physically but living in an emotionally unhealthy atmosphere in that the [mother and her sister] along with the child were living in a bedroom in isolation from the rest of the family with no contact between him and his grandparents or wider community.
6. That as a result of a case conference, a consultant psychiatrist visited and he concluded that neither sister needed admission to hospital for treatment. However within two weeks the situation had deteriorated to the extent that both sisters were hospitalized under s 2 of the Mental Health Act 1983.
7. As a result of separation both girls improved rapidly and the mother returned home with the child after two weeks.
8. That the health visitor continued to visit, although with some difficulty; however, the child appeared physically well cared for and always spotlessly clean.
9. That in August 1990 the grandparents were re-housed and had no contact with their daughters, whilst the sisters and the child remained in the family home isolated from the outside community.
10. As a result of this isolation a case conference was called in October 1990. An assessment by Dr Alison Stone recommended that outside stimulation through a playgroup be obtained but this was refused by the mother.
11. The situation remained unchanged throughout 1991 with a consistent pattern of problems in gaining access to the child.
12. On 2 August 1991 a neighbour reported that neither the child nor the sisters had been seen for two weeks. The social worker investigated. He could not gain access but later returned and with the aid of the police gained entry. On inspection, there was no food in the house and that the house was spotlessly clean. The child appeared listless and had difficulty in standing. The child was still being breast fed.
13. As a result the child was admitted to hospital. On 6 August 1991 a place of safety order was obtained as it was believed the child would be at risk if returned home.
14. The child remained in hospital for five days during which time he was examined by a consultant paediatrician. He was found to be pale and thin but not unduly wasted.
15. The child was then placed with foster parents and efforts to promote contact were met with no success.
16. That a care order was made by the Pontardawe juvenile court on 17 December 1991 at which the mother did not appear nor was she represented and the result of which she was notified in writing on 19 December 1991.
17. That by letter of 10 January 1992 the mother was informed of the local authority's long-term plans for the child and that if nothing was heard or received from her by 31 January 1992 these plans would be put into effect.
18. That on 27 February 1992 the mother was admitted to hospital under s 3 Mental Health Act 1983 for treatment for her psychotic condition.
19. That when served with the local authority's application to refuse contact between herself and the child, the mother mentioned having contact with the child which has led to her subsequently contesting these proceedings.
20. During the 10 months since separated from his mother the child has been placed with three different sets of foster parents and has had two different social workers.
We then went on to consider all the evidence as it was presented to us.
Firstly, we considered the evidence of the child's social worker. We found his evidence mainly to be factual in relation to the history of the case. Initially, he was working towards the rehabilitation of the mother and the child suggesting that contact take place on a twice weekly basis and that he was prepared to assist with transport in this respect. He further made numerous attempts by letter to contact the mother however without success.
During this period he had initiated contact between grandparents and the child. Nevertheless after the conclusion of the care proceedings he apparently came to the view that adoption would be in the child's best long-term interests. However, we are somewhat concerned that having come to this conclusion contact with the grandparents was then terminated although a bond had been established. Further having reached the decision to place the child for adoption...
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