W (Children), Re

In determining child contact, a judge must keep the central issues in focus and engage properly with the professional welfare evidence. A decision is inadequately reasoned where the judge accepts a welfare officer’s overall assessment but rejects the central feature of the recommendation without recognising or explaining that rejection.

On appeal, the court may exercise the discretion itself rather than remit the matter where the relevant evidence and positions are clear, and a rehearing could not reasonably produce a different result. Contact arrangements should be assessed by their practical effect on the children and parental conflict, rather than by unexamined assumptions about the involvement of schools or handovers.

The father applied for permission to appeal against an order made by His Honour Judge Peter Latham in the Barnet County Court on 26 March 2001. The order maintained monthly staying contact from Saturday morning to Sunday evening during term-time, with holiday contact continuing as previously directed.

The father sought increased contact. The mother opposed any increase and had sought contact-centre arrangements. A court welfare officer recommended that the monthly contact should ordinarily extend from Friday after school until Monday before school, particularly because the children wished to spend more time with their father and the father had moved nearer to them. The central issues were whether the judge had properly exercised his discretion and whether the Court of Appeal should remit the matter or make its own order.

Mr Justice Wilson gave the main judgment, with which Lord Justice Thorpe agreed. Permission to appeal and an extension of time were granted. The contact order was varied, the proceedings were transferred to Watford County Court, and future hearings were directed, if practicable, to be listed before the designated family judge.

1. The judge had allowed the proceedings to become dominated by numerous minor incidents and detailed factual disputes. This created a risk that the central issues would lose focus.
2. The judge had broadly accepted the welfare officer’s assessment but had misunderstood or failed to recognise the central recommendation that the children should have at least three nights of staying contact each month during term-time. The judgment gave no reasons for rejecting that recommendation.
3. The reasoning against collection from and return to school contained a substantial logical difficulty. The evidence did not establish that the proposed arrangement, particularly where the father attended alone, would involve the school in significant or damaging conflict. Extending contact from Friday after school until Monday before school would also reduce the need for difficult parental handovers.
4. The requisite discretionary exercise had therefore not been properly performed. The Court of Appeal considered that a rehearing was unnecessary. The mother’s position and the welfare officer’s recommendation were clear, and no judge conducting a rehearing could reasonably reach a different conclusion on the duration of monthly term-time contact.
5. The Court accordingly substituted its own order: monthly term-time staying contact from Friday after school until Monday before school, on the third weekend of each month.

• Barnet County Court: On 26 March 2001, His Honour Judge Peter Latham maintained monthly term-time contact from Saturday morning to Sunday evening and continued the existing holiday arrangements.
• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): Permission to appeal and an extension of time were granted. The term-time contact provision was varied to provide contact from Friday after school until Monday before school on the third weekend of each month. The proceedings were transferred to Watford County Court. [2001] EWCA Civ 1335