P v B

In determining contact arrangements, the court must treat the child’s welfare as paramount and give appropriate weight to the child’s wishes and feelings, having regard to age and understanding. A parent’s unilateral termination of established contact requires sufficient justification. Where contact has broken down because of entrenched parental distrust, the court may adopt a staged arrangement that supports renewed contact while avoiding measures likely to be counter-productive. A penal notice may properly be deferred where its immediate use would obstruct progress, with liberty to apply if contact does not resume.

The applicant father sought the resumption of contact with his 10-year-old daughter, who lived with the respondent mother. Contact had taken place regularly but stopped in August 2002 after the mother alleged that the father had behaved inappropriately and had previously taken the child to an optician without prior notice. The mother did not attend the hearing, although her solicitor explained her opposition and sought an adjournment.

The court considered the child’s clearly expressed wish for monthly contact, the evidence of the CAFCASS Reporter, the father’s evidence, and the history of repeated litigation and parental distrust. The central issue was whether contact should resume and, if so, on what terms.

1. Contact resumed. The court held that it was in the child’s best interests for contact with her father to resume. The mother had not shown sufficient justification for stopping it. The court gave significant weight to the child’s wishes because of her age, her understanding, the circumstances in which she expressed them, and her loyalty to her mother.
2. The court took account of the wider context, including the long history of proceedings, the mother’s entrenched distrust, the father’s imperfections, the child’s relationship with her half-siblings, and the CAFCASS Reporter’s assessment. The father’s past offences had been addressed in expert reports, which concluded that he was no longer a risk to young children. The immediate dispute did not justify preventing the child’s relationship with him.
3. Contact was to restart within one month, on a date suggested by the CAFCASS Reporter. It would take place monthly until the Reporter had seen the mother twice or two months had elapsed, whichever was sooner. Thereafter it would take place fortnightly. The father’s proposal that staying contact should not be raised with the mother for a year was accepted as helpful.
4. A penal notice was not imposed immediately. The court accepted that allowing it to hang over the mother while she discussed support and treatment would be counter-productive. If contact failed to take place, the father could apply for a penal notice on written application, with submissions from both parties and, if possible, the Reporter’s views.
5. There was no need for the matter to return to the judge unless the parties or the Reporter considered that appropriate. Further applications were to be listed before Judge Davis.

First-instance decision. No appellate history was stated in the judgment.