Case Summaries

Mostyn J gives guidance on applications for free standing port alert orders in the Family Court.

The Court of Appeal granted the mother’s appeal against an order of Mrs Justice Judd which required the mother to return the children to the USA, having concluded that the judge had not applied the guidance set out in Re E (Children) (Abduction: Custody Appeal) [2011] UKSC 27, [2012] 1 AC 144.

McFarlane P gives permission for GMP to hold a class of data in connection with cases determined in the Family jurisdiction.

The issue with which the appeal was concerned was the decision to join a child’s foster parents, who had a wish to adopt the child, to the care proceedings.

Application to circumcise a boy subject to an interim care order

Hertfordshire Local Authority (the LA) applied for a reporting restriction order (RRO) in proceedings concerning three children whose mother was murdered by their father.

Court of Appeal allows an appeal stating that the fact that an application is made by email or decided without a hearing does not mean that it should receive less careful scrutiny and there are limits to the use of flexible and informal decision making and the default position is that there should be a hearing, even if conducted remotely.

First instance judgment of Peel J following a final hearing in care proceedings in which a central issue was the level of risk to the subject child presented by findings of Fabricated or Induced Illness (FII) made within previous proceedings relating to other children 7 years earlier.

This case concerns the meaning of the term "associated person" in s. 62(3) of the Family Law Act 1996.

A rehearing by the President, the Right Honourable Sir Andrew McFarlane, in May 2021, , following a successful appeal in November 2020 of Keehan J’s welfare decisions in September 2020 for placement orders. At the rehearing, there was a concessions that Keehan J’s decision to make placement orders was correct. There was an additional psychological assessment of the parents and an expert recommendation for therapy and rehabilitation, but ultimately the President made the placement orders sought by the local authority and guardian, based on there being no realistic prospect of therapy producing sufficient enduring change.

MacDonald J granted the Trust’s application for a declaration that it was not in the interests of two-year old Alta for life-sustaining treatment to be continued and refused her parents’ application to move her to a hospital in Israel.

A father’s unsuccessful attempt to appeal against an adoption order in favour of the child’s step-father.

The case concerned an application by a father for return of two children to Spain under the 1980 Hague Convention.

Application by wife for non-recognition of Chinese divorce. Application dismissed

The Court of Appeal dismissed the mother’s second appeal relating to a fact-finding hearing. The criminal proceedings and the family proceedings had reached incongruent outcomes, in that the mother was in the family court’s pool of perpetrators but was exonerated of causing injury in the criminal court. Jackson LJ’s judgment upheld the lower court’s decision to refuse her application to reopen, and also helpfully sets out some differences between a reopening and an appeal of a fact find, as well as the proper approach when criminal and family court outcomes are incongruent.

The Court of Appeal sets out the tests to be applied on an application to discharge a care order and also considered the relevance of attachment theory in welfare evaluations. Mostyn J approach to these issues in GM v Carmarthenshire County Council [2018] EWFC 36, [2018] 3 WLR 1126 ('GM”) was overruled.