Peel J granted intended parents permission to withdraw their parental order application after DNA testing established that they had no biological link to twins born as a result of an international surrogacy arrangement. The intended parents were granted a joint ‘lives with’ order and leave to apply for an adoption order.
Application by an NHS Trust for a declaration authorising withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment from severely ill 8-year-old child.
Adoption application in respect of S, heard with applications by both birth parents and S’s maternal grandmother for post-adoption contact. The court made the adoption order but declined to make a contact order. The two outcomes were not inconsistent: S’s birth relationships remained part of the child’s identity, but the court was not satisfied that S’s welfare required the adoptive family to be bound by an enforceable contact arrangement.
This was a Fact-finding hearing in care proceedings following the death of a two-and-a-half-year-old child. Mrs Justice Judd found that the local authority had not proved physical abuse and that the remaining concerns did not cross the section 31 threshold.
Application by a mother to discharge a care order. All parties supported the application, and the court concluded that it was in the child’s welfare interests to discharge the order. The child was to live with the father and spend increasing time with the mother.
A case concerning a local authority’s application for care and placement orders, issued following concerns relating to the mother’s intellectual impairment.
An appeal by mother (‘M’) against decision of circuit judge regarding an order that father (‘F’) should spend three weekends in four with the child (‘ZZ’) on the grounds, inter alia, that the judge had treated alienating behaviour as a live issue, but not domestic abuse.
This was a decision of Catherine Cowton KC (sitting as a Deputy High Court Judge) granting applications by the local authority not to notify third parties regarding the birth and planned adoption of a child, D, under the High Court’s inherent jurisdiction.
Summary of an ex-tempore judgment made following application by a health trust for a declaration that it is lawful and in 16-year-olds best interests to receive transfusion of blood in the event that this becomes necessary during surgery for appendicitis.
Application by the husband for relief from sanctions to permit an appeal brought 10 ½ months out of time against a financial remedies order made in January 2025. Relief from sanctions was refused and the appeal was dismissed by Recorder Chandler KC.
MacDonald J declined the husband’s application for Letters of Request and directing that any oral evidence he was required to give at the final hearing should be given directly by remote video link from Russia.
This was an application by the father (F) for an adoption, regarding his son, N, who was born following a surrogacy agreement. Mrs Justice Judd refused the application on the basis that making an adoption order would not serve N’s lifelong welfare.
Mr Justice McKendrick held that a local authority was right to bring an application concerning a do not attempt cardiopulmonary resuscitation plan for a profoundly disabled child in its care. The judgment distinguishes between treatment that clinicians will not offer because it is clinically inappropriate and treatment that remains available but requires a best-interests decision.
Mrs Justice Knowles directed publication of an earlier fact-finding judgment in care proceedings concerning the death of a child and permitted the consultant neurosurgeon whose evidence had attracted serious judicial criticism to be named. The decision explains why open justice, professional accountability and the protection of future litigants outweighed the expert’s interests in anonymity.
The Court considered the father’s applications for a “Lives With” and “Spends Time With” Order in relation to the three Children X (aged 15), Y (aged 11 and with a diagnosis of autism) and Z (aged 8). An urgent hearing was listed to deal with the father’s concern of a threat of removal of the children by the mother. This was dismissed with no supporting evidence.
Father’s application for permanent relocation of three children, AA, BA and CA to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (“KSA”), and the mother’s cross-application for a s91(14) order to restrict the father from making further private law applications.
