Case Summaries

Father’s application for direct and indirect contact and for expert risk assessment. Mother’s application for permission to change the children’s names.

Care proceedings; assessment of mother’s ability to protect children from father found to be responsible for child’s death.

Court of Protection application for a best interests decision in relation to the issue of contraception for, and sterilisation of, a vulnerable adult. General Guidance given.

Supreme Court. Appeal by father concerning whether and in what circumstances a judge who has announced her decision in civil or family proceedings is entitled to change her mind. Appeal unanimously allowed.

Supreme Court. Appeal by local authority concerning whether a child can be regarded as ‘likely to suffer’ harm for the purposes of s 31(2) of the Children Act 1989 if another child has been harmed in the past and there is a possibility that the parent now caring for him or her was responsible for the harm to the other child. The Supreme Court unanimously dismissed the appeal. Lady Hale gives the main judgment, Lord Wilson and Lord Sumption disagreeing on one point.

Urgent application for injunctive relief under section 7 of the Human Rights Act 1998 to prevent the local authority from removing a child from a prospective adopter due to the prospective adopter’s loss of sight after an operation.

Appeal against a “relaxation” of restrictions to an interim contact order in the absence of a fact finding hearing.

Father’s appeal against an order granting the mother leave to remove the children permanently from the jurisdiction.

Mother’s application for summary return to Pakistan of child.

Application by local authority for wasted costs order against firm of solicitors acting in care and placement for adoption proceedings in the High Court and Court of Appeal. Application dismissed.

Application by the father pursuant to the Hague Convention for the return of two children, SK and AK, to Latvia. Held that the father had consented to the removal from Latvia of AK but that the removal of SK from that country was wrongful.

Appeal by the intervener against an order refusing to make a charging order over a property which was beneficially owned by the husband and which represented the only available asset which might be used by him to satisfy an order to pay a lump sum to his wife. Appeal dismissed.

Welfare hearing following from fact-finding hearing in which parents’ youngest child was found to have died as a result of non-accidental head injury and neither parent could be excluded as possible perpetrators – consideration of whether maternal grandparents could meet children’s needs or whether to make final care and placement orders

Judgment, in appeal by mother against residence order, relating to the decision of the district judge to visit the homes of the mother and the maternal grandparents in order to ascertain the veracity of the mother’s claims as to residence.

Fact-finding hearing into the cause of death of baby – finding that death was caused by non-accidental head injury and that there were further, earlier, non-accidental rib fractures

Factors which determine applications by “donor” fathers for leave to apply for s.8 orders where the children were born to, and cared for by, women who were recognised as joint parents pursuant to ss. 2, 45 and 48 of the Human Fertlilsation and Embryology Act 2008