C (Child), Re

A court may make an interim reduction in child contact where a parent’s conduct risks exposing the child to hostility, criticism or emotional conflict. Contact may be regulated by conditions and reviewed later, with expansion if the parent demonstrates improved conduct. Each parent must protect the child from being placed between them; alleged misconduct by the other parent provides no justification. An appellate court should not interfere with a discretionary contact order merely because it would have made a different decision. Where the order was one the first-instance judge was entitled to make, there is no arguable appeal.

Following the parents’ separation, the father had contact with his six-year-old son under successive court orders. The Croydon County Court had reduced contact to one weekend in four, imposed conditions concerning punctuality and remarks about the mother and maternal grandmother, and directed a further hearing after a period of observation and a supplementary CAFCASS report.

The father sought permission to appeal against the order of His Honour Judge Coningsby QC dated 3 April 2002. He challenged the reduction in contact, the length of the adjournment, and the CAFCASS officer’s report. The central issue was whether the judge had acted within the proper scope of his discretion in regulating contact pending review.

1. Permission refused. The order was within the judge’s discretion. It reduced contact temporarily, preserved regular contact and provided for a review in November, when contact could be expanded if the father’s conduct and attitude had improved.
2. The judge was entitled to rely on evidence of erratic timekeeping, derogatory remarks about the mother and maternal grandmother which the child might hear, and the father’s continuing hostility. The purpose was to enable contact to take place without acrimony and to prevent the child being emotionally drawn away from his mother.
3. Each parent must refrain from conduct which places the child in the middle of their conflict. If the mother had made similar remarks about the father, that conduct would have been equally inexcusable. One parent’s alleged misconduct did not justify the other’s.
4. The delay until November was regrettable, but the judge was entitled to adopt the CAFCASS officer’s recommendation and to retain the existing officer for the further assessment. A different officer would have had to begin the assessment again.
5. An appellate court cannot substitute its own view for a discretionary order which the first-instance judge was entitled to make. The judge’s strategy was directed to restoring contact, not terminating it, and there was no arguable ground for permission to appeal.
6. The mother’s unilateral termination of contact in November 2001, without applying to the court to vary the order, was criticised as wrong. That observation did not support the father’s wider allegation that the mother intended to sever his relationship with the child.

1. Court of Appeal (Civil Division) — On 4 July 2002, the application for permission to appeal was refused.
2. Croydon County Court — His Honour Judge Coningsby QC made the contact order on 3 April 2002, reducing contact, imposing conditions and directing a review hearing.