A Local Authority v K & Ors

In care proceedings, disputed facts must be proved on the balance of probabilities. A serious allegation does not attract a higher standard, although its inherent probability affects the strength of the evidence needed.

Expert medical opinion forms part of the evidence and does not determine the ultimate issue. The court must evaluate the whole evidential picture. It may reach a conclusion different from the experts’ preferred explanation where they recognise reasonable alternatives and the court gives evidence-based reasons. Suspicion and recurrence alone cannot establish the statutory threshold.

The local authority brought proceedings under Part IV of the Children Act 1989 concerning a three-year-old girl. At a fact-finding hearing, it alleged that the mother had caused the death of the child’s older sister, L, by compressing her neck. L had been alone with the mother immediately before her collapse.

The parents’ youngest child had also died while alone with the mother. The court heard insufficient evidence to determine that death and treated it only as part of the family history. The central issues were whether L’s death resulted from inflicted asphyxiation or one of several natural explanations, whether the mother was responsible, and whether the statutory threshold was established.

1. The threshold criteria were established. The court found it far more likely than not that L died because compression of her neck obstructed her airway and venous return. The mother, as the only possible perpetrator, inflicted the compression during events which also caused the cut to L’s forehead, bruising to her back and marks on her neck.

2. The applicable standard was the balance of probabilities. The seriousness of the allegation did not raise that standard, although the court had to consider the event’s inherent probability when weighing the evidence. Findings had to rest on evidence, facts proved to the civil standard and reasoning from those facts. Suspicion was insufficient.

3. Expert medical evidence was important but formed only one part of the evidence. The experts advised on medical and scientific knowledge; the court decided the ultimate factual and statutory questions after considering the entire evidential picture. Medical and non-medical evidence therefore had to be evaluated together.

4. A court may reach a conclusion which differs from the medical experts’ preferred cause without rejecting their medical reasoning. It may do so where the experts recognise other reasonable possibilities and the court’s conclusion rests on those possibilities, the remaining evidence, factual findings and further reasoning. Because the local authority carried the burden, the court did not have to make a positive finding identifying an alternative cause before deciding that an alleged cause had not been proved.

5. The natural explanations advanced for L’s death were reasonable rather than fanciful possibilities, but were individually and collectively much less likely than inflicted compression. The constellation of neck marks, extensive petechial haemorrhages, back bruising and the forehead injury supported a single inflicted cause. The mother’s materially inaccurate and inconsistent accounts strengthened that conclusion.

6. No inference could be drawn from the unexplained death of the other child. Recurrence was not itself probative, and the earlier death could neither increase nor reduce suspicion concerning L’s death.

not stated in the judgment.