H (A Child), Re

In determining an unmarried father’s application for parental responsibility, the court must distinguish that legal-status application from an application for contact. It must address the relevant guidance and explain the factors weighing for and against the grant. Parental responsibility is essentially an acknowledgment of parental status. Difficulties in the parents’ relationship do not, by themselves, determine the father’s legal relationship with the child. The court may grant parental responsibility subject to specific issue and prohibited steps orders. Such safeguards may reserve medical decisions to the mother and restrict attempts to discover the child’s address. A grant need not confer a role in day-to-day medical treatment. Applying [1998] 1 FLR 392, the Court of Appeal allowed the appeal on that limited basis.

An unmarried father appealed from Southend County Court, where His Honour Judge Yelton refused his applications for contact and parental responsibility. Contact had previously taken place but ceased after hostility between the parents. The child’s serious illness had also placed substantial demands on the mother, who feared the father and sought protection from disclosure of the child’s address.

The appeal did not reopen the refusal of direct contact. A proposed application for indirect contact by the father had not been ruled upon because it was not pressed to a ruling. The central issue was whether the refusal of parental responsibility had properly distinguished that application from contact and whether the father’s status could be recognised subject to protective restrictions.

1. Disposition. The application for permission to appeal was allowed. The appeal was allowed to a limited extent. The refusal of direct contact was a discretionary decision open to no criticism. An agreed recital requiring the mother to provide quarterly reports and photographs was inserted.
2. Error in approach. The trial judge’s brief reasoning did not make clear what considerations supported or opposed parental responsibility. He had failed sufficiently to distinguish the parental-responsibility application from the contact application and had not sufficiently reflected the direction in Re C and V [1998] 1 FLR 392. That deficiency justified a fresh exercise of discretion in the Court of Appeal.
3. Parental status. The development of authority was towards granting parental responsibility as an acknowledgment of status. The father’s conduct and difficulties in his relationship with the mother did not bear upon the legal relationship he sought to establish with his daughter. His parental status could therefore be recognised while protecting the mother and preserving her primary role.
4. Protective conditions. The order granting parental responsibility was subject to a specific issue order giving the mother sole responsibility for decisions about the child’s medical treatment and a prohibited steps order preventing the father from locating or attempting to locate the child’s address. Any unreasonable, intemperate or threatening exercise of parental responsibility could lead to further protective orders. The father was not entitled to involvement with the medical professionals comparable to the mother’s involvement. Quarterly reports were sufficient, although occasional major medical reports might be copied to him without imposing a burden on the specialist team.
5. Indirect contact. Although the judge should have considered the lesser option of indirect contact, that issue could not be opened on appeal because no ruling had been made and the point had not been pressed to a ruling.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): Appeal from Southend County Court allowed to a limited extent. Parental responsibility was granted subject to specific issue and prohibited steps orders, and the order was amended to include quarterly reports and photographs.
• Southend County Court: His Honour Judge Yelton refused the father’s applications for contact and parental responsibility.