Filed 9/10/20 In re Matthew P. CA2/5

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IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION FIVE

In re MATTHEW P., et al., 

Persons Coming Under Juvenile 

Court Law.

_______________________________

LOS ANGELES COUNTY 

DEPARTMENT OF CHILDREN 

AND FAMILY SERVICES,

Plaintiff and Respondent,

v.

A.P., et al.,

Defendants and Appellants.

 B298103

 (Los Angeles County Super.

 Ct. Nos. 18CCJP08047A and 

 18CCJP08047B)

APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Los 

Angeles County, Emma Castro, Referee. Affirmed.

Joseph T. Tavano, under appointment by the Court of 

Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant A.P. 

Robert McLaughlin, under appointment by the Court of 

Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant D.P.

Mary C. Wickham, County Counsel, Kristine P. Miles, 

Assistant County Counsel, and Peter Ferrera, Deputy County 

Counsel, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

________________________
2

Mother and father appeal from the juvenile court’s 

dispositional order removing their 14-year-old son and 7-year-old 

daughter from parental custody. Father argues that evidence he 

sexually abused several other children and had involved father’s 

older son in the abuse was insufficient to show that his younger

children were at risk of abuse. During the pendency of the 

appeal, the children were returned to mother’s custody, and the 

Department of Children and Family Services (Department) 

argued her challenge to the removal order was now moot. We 

agree and dismiss her appeal. We affirm as to father.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Mother and father have three children: an 18-year-old son 

(older son), and the two children at issue in this petition, younger 

son and daughter. In December 2018, the Department received a 

referral alleging the police were investigating father for sexually 

abusing children at the daycare he and mother ran. A two-yearold girl who attended the daycare told law enforcement that 

father had touched her vagina and it hurt. The child’s 

grandmother told the Department that the two year old had 

returned multiple times from daycare with her vagina inflamed.

An investigation of the daycare found an immediate risk to the 

safety of the children there; mother’s license to provide daycare 

was suspended. 

When a social worker interviewed daughter, daughter said 

she believed father had sexually abused the two-year-old girl at 

the family daycare. Daughter said she had seen mother standing 

by the door of a bedroom while father and the two-year-old girl 

were inside. Daughter heard screaming and crying coming from 

inside the room. Father then came out of the door with a diaper 

in his hand and gave it to mother who threw it away. Daughter 
3

did not know why father had changed the child’s diaper in a 

bedroom, as the children’s diapers were usually changed in the 

daycare room. Daughter said the child’s unusual, high-pitched 

screams made her think father was sexually abusing the child. 

The social worker found daughter’s statements alarming “as 

normally a 7 year old would not assume a sexual relationship 

between her father and a minor unless she has been exposed to 

it.” 

The Department filed a petition alleging younger son and 

daughter were at risk of serious physical harm and sexual abuse 

under Welfare and Institutions code section 300, subdivisions (b) 

and (d) as a result of father’s sexual abuse of other children.1 

The juvenile court ordered younger son and daughter

detained from parental custody, and they were placed in the 

home of a non-related extended family member. The caregiver 

reported that the children exhibited sexualized behavior. When 

the children wrestled they positioned themselves in a sexual 

position, and younger son inappropriately touched daughter’s 

groin. The caregiver also witnessed daughter engage in a 

“sexually explicit” “stretching routine” she said father taught her. 

Lastly, the caregiver once saw daughter with her pants pulled 

down, coming out of the bathroom where younger son was, and 

younger son then refused to open the door or explain what they 

had been doing. 

At the jurisdiction hearing, two of father’s relatives

testified that father had sexually abused them as children. 

Father’s niece testified that father had molested her four times 

when she was six or seven years old. In 2007, father had put his 

1 All further statutory references are to the Welfare and 

Institutions Code.
4

penis on her vagina when she was naked, and had taken photos. 

On another occasion, father had showed her and older son

pornography, and then asked them to touch each other while 

watching the video. 

Father’s cousin testified that father had sexually abused 

her when she was between seven and ten years old on multiple 

occasions. She had slept over at father’s house, and he had 

rubbed her vaginal area while she was in bed between him and 

mother. On one occasion, during a party, he raped her in the 

garage. Mother walked in during the rape and asked father what 

he was doing. Father then stopped the assault. The cousin had 

first reported this abuse in 2004 or 2005 to a counselor.

Daughter testified that, on multiple occasions, she had seen 

mother and father naked in their bedroom having sex. According 

to younger son’s testimony, daughter’s bedroom was her parents’ 

“walk in closet space” and there was no door separating her room 

from her parents’ bedroom. Father denied that the reason 

daughter was in the adjacent room was for him to watch her 

without her clothing on. 

Father denied the allegations of sexual abuse. The juvenile 

court found father not credible, and his niece and cousin 

“credible, compelling, and forthright. . . . They were both 

reliable, unbiased, honest witnesses who had no reason to

fabricate allegations against” the parents. The court found 

“father’s behavior to be aberrant in the extreme, sexually preying 

on young female children, and including [older son] in this 

egregious sexual conduct.” The court sustained the petition, 

finding that younger son and daughter were at substantial risk of 

serious physical harm. The court removed the children from 
5

parental custody, and ordered reunification services. Father and 

mother timely appealed.

DISCUSSION

1. Mother’s Appeal

Mother appealed from the court’s removal order, arguing

there was no substantial evidence the children would be at risk of 

harm in her custody, and there were reasonable alternatives 

short of removal. While her appeal was pending, the juvenile 

court returned the children to mother’s custody.

2 The 

Department argues that in light of the return of mother’s 

children to her care, her appeal is moot. Mother did not file a 

reply or raise any opposition to this argument. We agree with 

the Department and dismiss mother’s appeal as moot. (See In re 

Jessica K. (2000) 79 Cal.App.4th 1313, 1315–1316.)

2. Substantial Evidence Supports the Removal Order As 

to Father

Father contends the juvenile court erred in removing his 

younger children from his custody because there was no evidence 

they had been abused or neglected, and reasonable means to 

protect the children short of removal existed. We disagree.

Under section 361, subdivision (c)(1), a juvenile court may 

remove a dependent child from a parent’s custody when it finds 

by clear and convincing evidence that “[t]here is or would be a 

substantial danger to the physical health, safety, protection, or 

physical or emotional well-being of the minor if the minor were 

returned home, and there are no reasonable means by which the 

minor’s physical health can be protected without removing the 

minor from the minor’s parent’s . . . physical custody.” 

2 We hereby grant the Department’s request for judicial 

notice of the juvenile court’s October 9, 2019 order. 
6

Stated otherwise, the juvenile court may remove the child 

from her parent only if it finds, by clear and convincing evidence, 

(1) a “substantial danger” to the child’s well-being if he or she 

were returned home, and (2) “no reasonable means” short of 

removal to protect the child. We review the juvenile court’s 

findings underlying its removal orders for substantial evidence. 

(In re M.M. (2015) 240 Cal.App.4th 703, 719–720.) When

“presented with a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence 

associated with a finding requiring clear and convincing evidence, 

the court must determine whether the record, viewed as a whole, 

contains substantial evidence from which a reasonable trier of 

fact could have made the finding of high probability demanded by 

this standard of proof.” (Conservatorship of O.B. (2020) 9 Cal.5th 

989, 1005.)

“ ‘A removal order is proper if it is based on proof of 

parental inability to provide proper care for the minor and proof 

of a potential detriment to the minor if he or she remains with 

the parent. [Citation.] The parent need not be dangerous and 

the minor need not have been actually harmed before removal is 

appropriate. The focus of the statute is on averting harm to the 

child. [Citations.]’ ” (In re Noe F. (2013) 213 Cal.App.4th 358, 

367.) 

Here, the juvenile court found that father had molested

multiple young children, and had involved older son in “egregious 

sexual conduct.” In making this finding, the court deemed father 

not credible, and the victims who testified, credible. There was 

also circumstantial evidence father’s abusive behavior had 

continued until recently, as a two-year-old at the parents’ daycare 

told law enforcement father had touched her vagina. 
7

Father contends that his niece’s and cousin’s sexual abuse 

allegations were “uncorroborated and unsubstantiated.” This 

argument suggests that a victim must provide some evidence 

beyond their own testimony in order to substantiate a claim of 

sexual abuse. That is not the law. The testimony of a single 

witness is sufficient to substantiate their allegations of abuse. 

(See In re Sheila B. (1993) 19 Cal.App.4th 187, 200 [“The 

testimony of a single witness is sufficient to uphold a judgment 

[citation], and an appellate court may not evaluate that 

testimony as a basis for reversal.”]; People v. Jones (2013) 

57 Cal.4th 899, 963 [“ ‘unless the testimony is physically 

impossible or inherently improbable, testimony of a single 

witness is sufficient to support a conviction’ ”].) Here, the 

juvenile court found father’s niece and cousin credible, and father 

not truthful. This finding was sufficient to substantiate their 

claims of sexual abuse. 

There was also evidence younger son and daughter had 

been exposed to inappropriate sexual behavior in the family 

home. Daughter testified about seeing her parents having sex on 

multiple occasions, and younger brother testified there was no 

door between daughter’s bedroom and their parents’ bedroom. 

The children’s caregiver witnessed younger son and daughter 

engaging in inappropriate sexualized behavior. There was also 

evidence father had sexually abused a child at the daycare in the 

family home while daughter was at home.

The combined events of father’s egregious sexual abuse of 

multiple children, his involvement of one of his own children in a

child’s abuse, and his children’s exposure to inappropriate sexual 

behavior provided substantial evidence supporting the court’s 

finding that father’s younger children were at risk of harm if not 
8

removed from his custody. (See In re I.J. (2013) 56 Cal.4th 766, 

778 [“ ‘It is of course impossible to say what any particular sexual 

predator . . . is likely to do in the future in any particular 

instance. But in our view that very uncertainty makes it 

virtually incumbent upon the juvenile court to take jurisdiction’ ” 

over the predator’s children].)

Father contends safe alternatives to removal existed, such 

as allowing the children to return to father’s care under stringent 

conditions of supervision or conditioned upon his participation in 

sexual abuse and mental health counseling. However, visits by 

the Department would not protect the children from father when 

he was unsupervised. Mother, for instance, could not be relied on 

to protect the children from him: the court found that mother 

was complicit in father’s abusive behavior, and was not a credible 

witness.3 It was not unreasonable for the juvenile court to 

conclude that, after years of abusing children, father would not 

immediately reform simply upon starting treatment for sexual

abusers or participating in counseling. 

Father analogizes this case to In re Hailey T. (2012) 

212 Cal.App.4th 139, In re Ashly F. (2014) 225 Cal.App.4th 803,

and In re A.E. (2014) 228 Cal.App.4th 820—in each of these 

cases, the appellate court reversed the juvenile court’s removal 

order. Those cases are readily distinguishable. In In re Hailey 

T., a four-year-old child was removed based on a head injury

inflicted on her infant brother by an unknown perpetrator. (In re 

3 As referenced above, while mother’s appeal was pending, 

the juvenile court returned the children to her custody. That the 

court later found mother was capable of protecting the children 

does not mean this was a safe alternative at the time of 

disposition.
9

Hailey T., pp. 142–144.) The Court of Appeal reversed the 

removal of the four-year-old, and concluded the child would be 

able to articulate any abuse, and there was “abundant evidence” 

the parents were good parents. (Id. at p. 147.) Here, by contrast, 

the juvenile court found abundant evidence that father was the 

perpetrator of severe sexual abuse, and that mother did not take 

action to protect his child victims. 

In both In re Ashly F. and In re A.E., the Court of Appeal 

reversed a removal order in part due to an abusive parent’s 

acknowledgment of abuse and expression of remorse, and 

evidence that the other parent was committed to protecting the 

children from abuse. (Ashly F., supra, 225 Cal.App.4th at 

pp. 806–808; A.E., supra, 228 Cal.App.4th at p. 826.) Here, by 

contrast, father took no responsibility for the abuse, and the court 

found mother could not be relied on to protect the children. 

Lastly, father argues the juvenile court did not state 

sufficient facts to support its removal finding. (See § 361, 

subd. (e) [the “court shall state the facts on which the decision to 

remove the minor is based”].) We conclude any error was 

harmless. (See In re Diamond H. (2000) 82 Cal.App.4th 1127, 

1137 [“[a]lthough the court did not state a factual basis for its 

removal order, any error is harmless because it is not reasonably 

probable such findings, if made, would have been in favor of 

continued parental custody”].)

The court found that niece’s and cousin’s “sworn testimony 

confirmed a history of multiple incidents of sexual abuse at the 

hands of [father] when they were children.” The court further 

found that mother had witnessed husband’s sexual assault of 

cousin, and father had urged niece and older son to reenact 

pornography. The court concluded that “father’s behavior [was] 
10

aberrant in the extreme, sexually preying on young female 

children, and including his young son in this egregious sexual 

conduct. . . . [The] weight of the evidence presented . . . leaves no 

room for a judicial determination, other than the petitioner has 

met its burden of proof, establishing that both [daughter and 

younger son] are at substantial risk of harm of sexual abuse by 

father, and mother’s failure to protect the children from father’s 

sexually aberrant behavior.” Given these factual findings of 

father’s unresolved history of child sexual abuse, there is no 

reasonable probability the children would have remained in his 

custody had the court expressly made findings as to the factual 

basis for its removal order.

DISPOSITION

The judgment is affirmed.

RUBIN, P. J.

WE CONCUR:

BAKER, J.

KIM, J.