Case Summaries

An appeal and cross appeal following the judgment of Cobb J in the Court of Protection, in which he made declarations regarding the mental capacity of the subject, B, to make decisions to use social media, consent to sexual relations and to decide where she resides.
Decision: The OS’s appeal was dismissed and the Local Authority’s appeal was allowed on the basis that there was a direct conflict between the decision made as to B’s capacity in some respects and lack of capacity to make decisions in others.

A mother’s unsuccessful appeal against an order for the summary return of a child to Israel

Application for committal for contempt. MacDonald J held that there was no breach of the protective injunction; a narrow interpretation of ‘towards’ was favoured. Useful summary of the strict procedural requirements for committal applications.

The case concerned a child, M who was aged 13, and whether she was deprived of her liberty in her current placement in Scotland, and how this was to be lawfully approved.

An application by mother for return of a ten year old boy, with special educational needs, to this jurisdiction from Ghana. MacDonald J found that the father had wrongfully retained the child and ordered the father to return him. Child made a ward.

Application for a 17 year old at risk from gang violence to be placed into secure accommodation against his mother's wishes.

A request by the Slovakian Central Authority (SCA) to transfer proceedings to the Slovakian courts pursuant to Article 15 of Brussels II Revised Regulation (BIIR) was refused by His Honour Judge Dancey sitting as a section 9 judge, primarily on the basis of the children being settled in their foster placement in England, the need for a fact-finding and police investigation here, and the ability through Member State cooperation to undertake assessments of the wider family in Slovakia.

Application for the return of a child to Israel under the Child Abduction and Custody Act 1985.

Where P’s views prior to incapacitation can be ascertained with sufficient certainty, they should generally prevail over the very strong presumption in favour of preserving life.

A father’s (1) application for permission to appeal the continuation of interim care orders and (2) appeal concerning the power to order electronic tagging. Application and appeal dismissed. Guidance on ‘academic appeals’ and permission to appeal decisions.

Appeal against a finding that a grandmother was in the pool of possible perpetrators of an injury to a young child. Appeal allowed on the basis that the judge’s finding went further than the evidence allowed. Court of Appeal clarifies the test for permission to appeal.

The Court of Appeal allows the Husband’s appeal following financial remedy proceedings and remits the case for a re-hearing. The questioning of the Husband by the judge went beyond assisting a litigant in person wife to present her case. The process at Final Hearing was therefore inadvertently unfair because the husband had no advance warning of the point then raised and so was unable to present his own case in order to meet it.

Appeal in care proceedings, allowed by consent. Reference made and guidance given in relation to ‘clarification’ of judgments and fresh evidence.

Appeal by a father against the dismissal of his application to vary a s.91(14) order.

An appeal dealing with the issue of designation of a Local Authority in the rare cases in which the child, having been removed from the parents at birth, has no ordinary residence either in its own right, or by way of deemed ordinary residence by reference to his or her primary carer.