Case Summaries

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.

This is a judgment of Lord Justice Jackson written in plain English. It concerns a successful appeal of the lower court’s decision to sanction removal of O, a newborn baby, from his mother, V, who has learning difficulties.

Appeal against the making of a placement order. Breach of the Adoption Agency Regulations 2005. Placement order set aside.

The case concerned children living in the London Borough of Barnet (LBB) about whom the LBB had serious concerns. In January 2020 the 6 children were aged 5, 9, 14, 17 and (twins) 18. Safeguarding referrals were received in November 2019 and January 2020. The children’s parents were a diplomat and his wife, and in November 2019 refused consent for the children to be spoken to at home or at school, relying on diplomatic immunity. After the January 2020 referral the police informed the LBB that diplomatic immunity prevented a police investigation. LBB spoke to the children at school, and the children made allegations of significant physical mistreatment, on occasions requiring medical treatment. The parents claimed that diplomatic immunity prevented the LBB from placing any information about them before the court.

The local authority was granted leave to withdraw care proceedings where the children had been unlawfully abducted to Pakistan and were not likely to be returned. The court however had made the children wards of court and ordered that they be returned to the jurisdiction. The wardship was continued and the judgment passed to the police and Interpol.

Application by the mother to terminate the father’s parental responsibility pursuant to s 4 (2A) of the Children Act 1989 granted. Permission also given to change the child’s surname

The court was concerned with O who was born in 2007 and thus 13 years old at the time of judgment. She is a citizen of the Democratic Republic of the Congo ('DRC') and arrived in the UK around 2nd August 2020. It appears that O’s father died in prison in 2018 and in July 2020 O, her brothers and mother were arrested. O evaded detention and was cared for by a friend of her mother’s K, who eventually brought her to the UK and left her at a bus stop.

This case concerns the legal framework and circumstances in which an application under the inherent jurisdiction for the revocation of a lawfully made adoption order will be granted.

Permission for publication of substantive judgment in financial remedy proceedings refused, reporting restrictions order to remain in place