Source: https://www.macmillanihe.com/companion/Standley-Family-Law-8e/updates/Chapter-14/
Timestamp: 2019-10-19 06:24:26
Document Index: 238691722

Matched Legal Cases: ['art 5', 'UKSC ', 'EWCA ', 'art. 8', 'EWCA ', 'art. 12', 'UKSC ', 'UKSC ', 'Art 8', 'art. 8', 'art. 8', 'EWCA ', 'EWCA ', 'EWCA ', 'EWCA ']

Standley Family Law 8e updates/Chapter 14 .button { text-transform: none; }
Updates for Chapter 14: Child protection
The crime of child abuse can include emotional abuse
The Queen’s Speech, delivered on 4 June 2014, included plans to criminalise the emotional abuse of children. The intention is to clarify the offence of child cruelty (in section 1 of the Children and Young Persons’ Act 1933), to make it explicit that the offence covers cruelty which causes psychological harm. This measure is contained in Part 5 of the Serious Crime Bill 2014-15 which is currently going through Parliament (see http://services.parliament.uk/bills).
14.3 The European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Child Protection
14.3 (iv) Procedural fairness and human rights
Procedural fairness and human rights were considered in the following case:
The mother had a history of drug and alcohol abuse and there had been local authority involvement with her seven older children, all of whom had been removed from her care. When the child who was the subject of the proceedings was born, the mother was living in a specialist treatment unit with the aim of addressing her substance abuse. The local authority successfully applied for an interim care order in respect of the child, as a result of which he was removed to foster care. At the contested hearing, the court heard evidence from an expert, who had conducted a paper assessment and did not support the return of the child to his mother's care until she had completed her recovery programme. Relying on this evidence, the justices decided to continue the interim care order with the care plan that the child remain in foster care. The mother appealed against the interim care order
Pauffley J allowed the mother’s appeal on the basis that there had been process failures that significantly interfered with the most basic requirements for openness and transparency to which every parent is entitled pursuant to article 6 of the ECHR. There was, apparently, an established but largely clandestine arrangement between the local authority and the family proceedings court which had considerable repercussions for justice and, equally importantly, the perception that justice would be done. Equally and just as importantly, it was difficult to view the justices as having been independent and impartial if, as had happened here, they simply adopted the local authority's analysis of what their Findings of Facts and Reasons might comprise. The speed, the manner and the ambit of the expert’s involvement was also alarming. It simply could not be right, fair or reasonable to commission an expert to provide what may turn out to be the pivotal evidence justifying separation of a child from his mother in the way that happened. It was quite simply unacceptable for an 'independent' expert to be instructed in the way he was and to have conducted such a scant inquiry in preparation for a hearing that was to have such wide ranging consequences for the child.
On the facts it was held that the mother and her child had been unfairly treated and the evidence justifying their separation was flawed. The child’s immediate safety could have been secured by remaining with his mother. Pauffley J set aside the interim care order, and ordered that the child be reunited with his mother forthwith.
Sir James Munby P referred to the above decision in his 10th View From the President’s Chambers stating that Pauffley J had to deal with circumstances which he hopes ‘will never recur’ in a judgment; and that the judgment would ‘repay careful consideration by all public law practitioners’.
14.7 Part IV of the Children Act 1989 – care and supervision
14.7 (a) Reducing delay in care cases
The 26-week time limit on the determination of care and supervision proceedings, which has been piloted since 2 July 2013, has been put into statute (by way of an amendment to section 32(1)(a) of the Children Act 1989 by section 14 of the Children and Families Act 1014). The time limit can be extended by 8 weeks up to a total of 26 weeks, but the court has to be convinced that each extension is necessary to enable the court to resolve the proceedings justly. Extensions are not to be granted routinely and are to be seen as requiring specific justification.
14.7 (d) The standard of proof in care and supervision proceedings
Cases in the Court of Appeal post Re B (A Child)
For an example of a case where the effect of Re B (A Child) [2013] UKSC 33 has been considered by the Court of Appeal, see Re V [2013] EWCA Civ 913.
14.7 (f) The local authority’s care plan
Section 15 of the Children and Families Act 2014 amends s 31(3A) of the Children Act 1989 so as to focus the court’s consideration (when deciding whether to make a care order) on the provisions of the care plan that set out the long-term plan for the upbringing of the child. The court is required to consider whether the local authority’s care plan provides for the child to live with a parent or any member or friend of the child’s family, or whether the child is to be adopted or placed in other long term care. These are referred to as the ‘permanence provisions’ of a section 31A plan. The court is not required to consider any other provisions in respect of a section 31A plan (other than section 34(11) of the Children Act 1989 which requires the court to consider the contact arrangements for the child), although the amendments do not prevent the court from doing so.
14.7 (g) Effect of a care order – obligations of the local authority
Placement of children for whom the local authority is considering adoption
The Government is reforming the adoption system to remove barriers and reduce delay so that all children for whom adoption is in their best interests can be placed quickly with adoptive families. In An Action Plan for Adoption: Tackling Delay published in March 2012 the Government set out proposals to speed up the adoption process, including by proposing changes to legislation. In July 2012, the Prime Minister announced proposals to introduce a new legal duty for ‘Fostering for Adoption’ to encourage local authorities to place children with their potential permanent carers more swiftly. These changes would reduce the time children have to wait for an adoptive placement and enable more children to be placed in stable, loving homes with less delay and disruption and improve their chances of leading full and happy lives.
These proposals are included in the Children and Families Act 2014 which has introduced a new legislative framework for ‘fostering for adoption’ by adding new subsections to section 22C of the Children Act 1989: sections 22(9A), (9B) and (9C).The aim of these new provisions is to encourage local authorities to place children (for whom they are considering adoption) more swiftly with their potential permanent carer(s). These new provisions are due to come into force in July 2014.
14.7 (i) Interim care and supervision orders
An interim care order or interim supervision order can now be made for longer than 28 days (see section 14(4) of the Children and Families Act 2014 which amends section 38 of the Children Act 1989). Where a court makes an order under s.37(1) directing a local authority to investigate the child’s circumstances and no application for a care or supervision order is made under s.37(4), any interim order made on giving the direction will end automatically after 8 weeks.
14.11 Challenging local authority decisions about children
14.11 (iv) A challenge under the Human Rights Act 1998
In the following case the mother made a successful challenge against a local authority with respect to the removal of her youngest child:
The mother (aged 18) applied for declarations pursuant to s. 7 HRA 1998 that her rights under arts. 6 (right to a fair trial) and art. 8 (right to family life) of the ECHR had been breached when her youngest child, aged 8 months, had been removed from her care by a local authority social work team shortly after her birth and been taken into police protection.
The trial judge held that the separation of a parent and child by any authority is ‘a most serious act’ and must be necessary and proportionate. The gravity and importance of that principle was all the more acute where that child was a newborn and it was magnified when the mother was herself a child. Protection of the child was a foremost priority but protection did not always require an enforced separation; there were a whole range of remedies before enforced separation which was the absolute last resort. Decisions as to whether that protection was necessary, and decisions as to what course was the least interventionist necessary, should have been made by a court and not by the local authority social work team.
Nickols D, ‘Fostering for adoption: progress, an unjustifiable ‘fait accompli’ or something in-between? Part I’ [2014] Fam Law 190.
Nickols D, ‘Fostering for adoption: progress, an unjustifiable ‘fait accompli’ or something in-between? Part II’ [2014] Fam Law 339.
14.1 The practice of child protection
14.1(a) Personnel involved in child protection
A revised Working Together to Safeguard Children (2013) guidance came into effect on 15 April 2013. In response to recommendations from The Munro Review of Child Protection: Final report - A child-centred system, the new guidance clarifies the legal requirements on individuals and organisations to keep children safe. It sets out the legal requirements that health services, social workers, police, schools and other organisations that work with children must follow and emphasises that safeguarding is the responsibility of all professionals who work with children. (See Department for Education www.education.gov.uk).
The total number of children in care in England and Wales in March 2013 was 68,110, an increase of 2 per cent on the previous year and an increase of 12 per cent since 2009. Of those in care, 51,000 (75 per cent) were in foster care.
New rules to improve residential care for children
The Government has introduced new measures to discourage councils from placing vulnerable children in residential care distant from their homes. These rules are due to come in at the end of January 2014. Following a consultation on reforms to residential care for children who have been taken from their families, Children’s Minister Edward Timpson said:
It’s totally unacceptable for local authorities to routinely place children miles away from their homes for no good reason. Far too often an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ culture prevails, and I’m determined to tackle it. In future, only senior council officials in charge of children’s services will be able to place children out of area and only when they judge it to be the right decision for a child to be moved away from their home area. There will be one individual in each local authority who is directly accountable for these decisions.
These reforms also include other requirements. Thus, care homes must tell their local councils when children move into and out of their area. Also, new residential homes must only open in safe areas; and homes which have already opened in less safe areas must show that they can keep their children safe, or otherwise face closure. All care homes must have staff who are suitably qualified.
14.7(a) Reducing delay in care cases
In Devon County Council v EB & Ors [2013] EWHC 968 (Fam), a complex fact finding hearing concerning twins born to parents who suffered from a range of medical conditions, Baker J took the opportunity to comment on the introduction of a 26 weeks time limit for the completion of non-exceptional care cases. He stated: ‘[T]his case demonstrates that, whilst it will be possible to conclude the vast majority of care cases within 26 weeks, as proposed by the modernisation reforms, there will still be a small minority of cases, exceptional cases, where the investigation takes longer. . . . Judges must be vigilant to identify those rare cases which require longer time. It is, of course, important that these cases are identified as soon as possible at the outset of proceedings and that any delay is kept to a minimum’.
14.7(b) Care and supervision proceedings procedure
A judge has the power to reverse his or her decision at any time before the order is drawn up and perfected.
The judge at first instance gave an oral judgment in which she found that the perpetrator of non-accidental injuries to a child was the father. Two months later, however, she handed down a written judgment in which she held that it was not possible to identify whether it was the mother or father who had injured the child. The Court of Appeal quashed the later judgment and ordered that the findings of the initial judgment should stand. The Supreme Court unanimously allowed the appeal. Lady Hale, who gave the judgment of the Court, stated that ‘it has long been the law that a judge is entitled to reverse his decision at any time before the order is drawn up and perfected’. The overriding objective must be to deal with a case justly. Contrary to the practice previously adopted by the courts, the exercise of this power is not reserved for exceptional circumstances and would in every case depend on its particular facts. Relevant factors in deciding whether or not to reverse a decision would be, on the one hand, the overriding objective of dealing with cases justly and, on the other, whether or not any party has acted to his detriment on the decision, and especially whether or not they might have been expected to do so.
14.7(b) Children can give oral evidence in care proceedings
A young person’s appeal against his refusal to be given the opportunity to give oral evidence in care proceedings was dismissed in the following case:
P-S (Children) [2013] EWCA Civ 223
A 15 year-old-child boy appealed against the refusal to give him the opportunity to give oral evidence in care proceedings. He and his half-brother had been placed in foster care due to neglect by their mother. On his insistence he had been granted a guardian and separate representation of his own. His wishes were to be returned to the care of his mother. The Court of Appeal examined the requirements of art. 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and referred to the Guidelines in Relation to children giving evidence in family proceedings. It held that his wishes had been clearly made out through his guardian and counsel and that giving evidence would not add to the court's knowledge of his wishes or alter the judgment given at first instance. Moreover, if he were to succeed in his appeal and give evidence that would be detrimental to his well-being. His appeal was therefore dismissed.
14.7(d) The standard of proof in care and supervision proceedings
Proof of likely to suffer harm
In Re J (Children) [2013] UKSC 9 the Supreme Court had to decide whether a child can be regarded as ‘likely to suffer’ harm if another child has been harmed in the past and there was a possibility that the parent now caring for them was responsible for that harm to another child. The main judgment was given by Lady Hale who reaffirmed that In re S-B (Children) UKSC [2009] 17 is authority for the proposition that a real possibility that a parent has harmed a child in the past is not, by itself, sufficient to establish the likelihood that the same parent will cause harm to another child in the future.
Significant harm and emotional or psychological harm
The following case, in the words of Lady Hale, raised ‘some profound questions about the scope of courts’ powers to take away children from their birth families when what is feared is, not physical abuse or neglect, but emotional or psychological harm’. The case is also relevant to the question of whether or not a child should be adopted and/or made the subject of a placement order (see Chapter 15).
The child had been removed from her parents shortly after birth and placed in temporary care under an interim order. The parents visited the child regularly and formed a relationship with her. When the case came to court the judge made a full care order for the child, with a view to her eventual adoption. He concluded that there was a real risk of emotional and psychological harm to the child if she was placed in the care of her parents. The mother suffered from various disorders that could result in the child receiving unnecessary medical treatments and both parents frequently presented a dishonest picture of the world, which could lead to significant confusion for the child. Extensive multi-disciplinary intervention would be needed to protect the child from such risks but the parents were unlikely to cooperate as they had a hostile and manipulative attitude towards social workers and other professionals. Accordingly, there was no other way in which the feared harm to the child could be prevented than by a care order with a view to adoption.
The Supreme Court by a majority of 4 to 1, Lady Hale dissenting, dismissed the appeal and held that the High Court judge had been entitled to conclude the threshold criteria had been satisfied in this case on the ground that a care order should be made to save the child from the risk of future psychological harm.
Determining whether the threshold criteria are satisfied
The majority held that the following principles applied to when determining whether the threshold criteria are satisfied:
1. A determination as to whether the threshold conditions for a care order have been satisfied depends on an evaluation of the facts of the case as found by the judge at first instance; it is not an exercise of discretion. An appellate court may interfere with such a decision only if it is ‘wrong’, but it need not have been ‘plainly wrong’. The appellate court must have regard to the significant advantages enjoyed by a trial judge who has seen and heard live evidence.
2. In determining whether the threshold conditions for a care order are satisfied and whether or not it is appropriate to grant a care order, an appellate court must have regard to the advantages which the judge at first instance had over an appellate court, including the judge's ability to assess what may happen to the child in the future on the basis of the oral evidence given by the candidates for the care of the child.
The threshold criteria and Art 8 ECHR (the right to family life).
The Supreme Court also held that the High Court judge was entitled to conclude that the making of a care order in relation to the child with a view to her being adopted was necessary and did not violate the rights of the child or her parents to respect for their family life under article 8 of the ECHR:
1. A high degree of justification is needed under art. 8 if a decision is to be made that a child should be adopted or placed in care with a view to adoption against the wishes of the child's parents. Domestic law runs broadly in parallel with art. 8 in this context: the interests of the child must render it necessary to make an adoption order. A care order in a case such as this must be a last resort.
2. Section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998 does not require an appellate court to determine afresh issues relating to Convention rights; an appellate court, including the Supreme Court, is required only to conduct a review of the lower court's decision. The making of a care order, however, is not a purely discretionary decision; a trial judge has an obligation under section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998 to ensure that he/she does not violate article 8 of the ECHR. Accordingly, it is not appropriate for an appellate court reviewing such a decision to apply the test normally used when reviewing a purely discretionary decision, i.e. whether the lower court exceeded the generous ambit within which reasonable disagreement is possible. The appropriate test is whether the lower court was ‘wrong’.
3. There are a number of features relative to the personalities of the child’s parents, and to the psychiatric conditions of the mother, which raised a real possibility that, in their care, the child would suffer impairment of her emotional development. The key feature of this case which justified the judge's decision not only that the threshold conditions for making a care order were satisfied but that such an order was appropriate was that the child’s parents were unable to offer the elementary cooperation with professionals that her safety in their home would require. Adoption was the only viable option for the child’s future.
Lady Hale, in her dissenting judgment, stated that the case was based solely on the mere possibility that the child would suffer psychological harm in the future. There was no risk that these parents would neglect or abuse their child. Even if this were sufficient to cross the threshold laid down in section 31(2) of the Children Act 1989, it had not been demonstrated that a care order with a view to adoption was necessary to protect the child. Lady Hale held that the family courts had not explored any alternatives to the care order and it had not been sufficiently demonstrated that it was necessary to bring the relationship between the child and her parents to an end. Her Ladyship stated that in the circumstances of the case, it could not be said that nothing else would do when nothing else had been tried. She said that ‘[t]he harm that is feared is subtle and long term. It may never happen’.
Lady Hale in Re B set out 5 helpful propositions for cases where the threshold is in dispute:
LADY HALE: ‘I agree entirely that it is the statute and the statute alone that the courts have to apply, and that judicial explanation or expansion is at best an imperfect guide. I agree also that parents, children and families are so infinitely various that the law must be flexible enough to cater for frailties as yet unimagined even by the most experienced family judge. Nevertheless, where the threshold is in dispute, courts might find it helpful to bear the following in mind:
(3) Significant harm is harm which is ‘considerable, noteworthy or important’. The court should identify why and in what respects the harm is significant. Again, this may be particularly important where the harm in question is the impairment of intellectual, emotional, social or behavioural development which has not yet happened.
(5) Finally, where harm has not yet been suffered, the court must consider the degree of likelihood that it will be suffered in the future. This will entail considering the degree of likelihood that the parents' future behaviour will amount to a lack of reasonable parental care. It will also entail considering the relationship between the significance of the harmed feared and the likelihood that it will occur. Simply to state that there is a "risk" is not enough. The court has to be satisfied, by relevant and sufficient evidence, that the harm is likely: see In re J [2013] 2 WLR 649. ‘
** See family law week (www.familylawweek.co.uk) for a useful pdf document which provides a table of what each member of the Supreme Court held in Re B (‘Re B (A Child): Who held what in the Supreme Court?’).
For some cases where the effect of Re B (A Child) has been considered by the Court of Appeal, see Re B-S [2013] EWCA Civ 813; Re G [2013] EWCA Civ 965; Re P [2013] EWCA Civ 963; and Re B-S (Children) [2013] EWCA Civ 1146.