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This judgment concerned an application by a local authority for permission to withdraw care proceedings in respect of two children, C and D. At the time of the hearing, both children were subject to interim care orders but had been living with their mother since 23 December 2025.
The Court of Appeal gave a unanimous decision to dismiss an application to appeal a dismissal of a mother’s application for leave to revoke a placement order.
Application by a local authority to withdraw its application to extend a deprivation of liberty order concerning a boy approaching 16 at a residential school. The guardian opposed withdrawal because physical restraint was used. Applying the Supreme Court’s revised Article 5 test, the court found no deprivation of liberty and refused an extension.
Mother’s application for direct contact with her six-year-old daughter living with paternal relatives under a special guardianship order. Direct contact refused; vetted indirect contact ordered, with a section 91(14) direction until the child was 13 and a two-year non-molestation order in favour of the special guardians.
Appeal by the mother against the refusal of her application to set aside or stay an order for the summary return of her child to Texas, made when she was in the third trimester of a pregnancy, with two treating clinicians advising that she was unfit to fly. The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, stayed the return order until after the birth, and remitted the set-aside application to be reheard.
Application by the father for summary return of his child, L, to Pakistan, where the child and mother had been granted asylum in the UK. McKendrick J refused the application, holding that a fact-finding hearing was not necessary to determine it and that the mother’s allegations could be resolved within the child arrangements proceedings.
The court considering the M’s Article 13(b) defence to a summary return of the children to Portugal based on ‘grave’ risks of harm leading to it being ‘intolerable’ and the children’s objections. The defence not engaged, however, a return order made conditional upon the M pursuing her immigration application in good faith, which was feasible especially due to the F’s protective ‘soft landing’ measures and undertakings given.
Whether a final decision can be made at a directions hearing following the findings of fact, despite objections. This is possible, however given the circumstances of this case being contradictions in the mother’s position and that she was determined to eradicate the father from the child’s life it was inappropriate to do so.
Mr Justice Cusworth made a declaration that s83 of the Adoption and Children Act 2002 did not apply on the facts of this case and made a parental order in favour of the applicants.
Application to stay the determination of divorce and financial remedy proceedings on the grounds that it was more convenient for the issues to be litigated in Florida.
The Court of Appeal allowed an appeal against the findings of fact made in care proceedings. The judge did not provide a sufficient analysis of all the evidence nor a satisfactory explanation for the conclusion reached that one or both of the parents inflicted injuries on two children.
The proceedings concerned four children, three girls aged 9, 7 and 5, and a boy aged 2½, who were living with the mother in a residential assessment unit. The father had disengaged from the proceedings. The mother had a diagnosis of Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder and was alleged to have made unsafe decisions for the children, including repeated unsubstantiated allegations of third-party abuse.
The court was asked to recognise, at common law, a Nigerian adoption order made in favour of W and H in respect of X, a seven-year-old child.
At a finding of fact hearing on the appellant mother’s allegations of abuse against the father, the Recorder not only dismissed her allegations but also found her to have fabricated them and to be guilty of ‘parental alienation’ in respect of both the parents’ twin children.
Appeal by a mother against a finding in care proceedings that she had inflicted a fracture to her 15-week-old son’s arm. The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, holding that the judge had been entitled to prefer the father’s evidence notwithstanding the evidence of his propensity to anger and aggression, and that a judge who identifies a perpetrator on the balance of probabilities need not go on to consider a pool of perpetrators.
The Court of Appeal dismissed a local authority’s appeal against the refusal of a placement order for a four-year-old girl whose realistic permanence options were adoption or long-term foster care. Although the judgment contained no side-by-side balance sheet, read as a whole, it adequately evaluated the competing options, and the judge was entitled to prioritise S’s settled placement and her need for frequent direct contact with her mother.
