Sir Andrew McFarlane P dismisses an appeal against a judge’s refusal to reopen findings of fact and gives guidance about instruction of unregulated psychologists as experts in family proceedings.
The Court of Appeal allowed an appeal against a judge’s decision not to order a further fact-finding hearing in long-running care proceedings.
Mostyn J had to decide whether the lower court had jurisdiction to order that a tenancy held by the parties jointly should be transferred to the respondent solely.
The Court of Appeal gives guidance as to how, in care proceedings, the rights of 3rd parties are to be protected when information such as messages are extracted from a mobile phone by an expert instructed in the proceedings, rather than disclosed following by extraction by the police.
Peel J considered the procedure for hearing an Inheritance Act 1975 claim in the Family Division, and ordered that a wife was entitled to reasonable financial provision under that statute amounting to half of her deceased husband’s estate.
Mrs Justice Morgan considered an application by K to adopt “Maya,” a girl aged 11. K had adopted Maya in country F in November 2019 and brought her to the UK in July 2021. Adoptions in F are not recognised in English law. The birth parents had not been served with notice of the proceedings.
On 15th February 2023 the Court of Appeal unanimously rejected a father’s appeal against the imposition of 2 concurrent 12 months sentence for contempt of court as ‘manifestly excessive’.
This case concerned the summary return of the subject children to the State of Texas, USA. The application dated 5 April 2022 was made by the Father pursuant to Articles 3 and 12 of the Hague Convention 1980.
Welfare analysis in an application for the return of a child to Nigeria, where the mother and child’s appeal against a refusal to grant them asylum was pending, and findings of domestic abuse had been made against the father.
The Court of Appeal allowed an appeal against a care and placement order where the court had erred in finding there was a risk of future sexual harm on the basis of unproven allegations.
Declaration under the court’s inherent jurisdiction allowing for the administration of anti-retroviral medication to a newborn baby.
A successful appeal against a DJ”s refusal to make a Forced Marriage Protection Order (FMPO) establishes that there is jurisdiction to make such an order in circumstances where the applicant is neither present in the jurisdiction nor a British citizen but the respondent is habitually resident here and a British citizen.
The Court of Appeal expressed concern about aspects of the process leading to production of a judgment accompanied by various annexes but refused the mother’s appeal against the findings.
Poole J was dealing with care proceedings relating to 3 families (previously unconnected), all based in the Yorkshire area. He had previously determined that the fact-finding aspects of each set of care proceedings should be heard at a combined hearing, as each case related to allegations of fabricated or induced illness, and involved the children in question being treated at the same hospital (Sheffield Children’s Hospital).
Judgment of Mr Justice Cobb in proceedings under the 1980 Hague Convention in which he dismissed the father’s application for summary return of the child and set aside the return order made in Re L (Article 13: Protective Measures)(No.1) [2022] EWHC 3427 (Fam), the father having not complied with the ‘condition – precedent’ within a reasonable time and having demonstrated insufficient engagement with the process of achieving it.
Mr Justice MacDonald refused to authorise restrictions on the use of P’s mobile phone, tablet and laptop and her access to social media in an order authorising the deprivation of her liberty for the purposes of Article 5(1) of the ECHR. The appropriate legal framework for the local authority to remove or restrict P’s mobile phone and social media use was S.33(3)(b) of the Children Act 1989.
