B (a child), Re

Where an appellate judge has failed through administrative oversight to consider documents supplied pursuant to an invitation given at a reserved hearing, the documents should be considered and their materiality assessed against the issue actually decided. Further oral submissions are not necessarily required where the agreed procedure contemplated written consideration only. Welfare reports must be read as a whole. Favourable recommendations cannot be isolated from concerns about a parent’s hostility, motives, or attitude to the other parent. Documents that are irrelevant to the permission question do not justify revisiting a refusal of permission to appeal.

Mr David Bradford sought permission to appeal against an order made by His Honour Judge Hunt in Leeds County Court on 6 February 2006 concerning contact with his child, K. Wall LJ heard the permission application on 7 July 2006 and refused it in a judgment handed down on 25 August 2006. The present additional judgment arose because documents and four welfare reports supplied by Mr Bradford had not been placed before the judge through administrative oversight. The central issue was whether those documents materially affected the earlier refusal of permission.

Disposition. Wall LJ held that the four reports did not affect the earlier refusal of permission to appeal. The refusal concerning His Honour Judge Hunt’s order therefore stood.

1. The court acknowledged an administrative failure in not placing Mr Bradford’s covering document and reports before the judge. An apology was due. Further oral submissions were not required because the arrangement at the hearing had been that Mr Bradford would supply the reports for consideration when the reserved judgment was written, and oral submissions on the additional material had not been envisaged.
2. The reports had to be assessed in their entirety. The reports from 2001, 2002 and 2003 supported progressively less restricted contact, but the report of 29 March 2005 recommended day visiting contact and not overnight contact. It also recorded concerns about Mr Bradford’s continuing criticism of K’s mother, his failure to appreciate her contribution to K’s welfare, and his ultimate objective that K should live permanently with him.
3. The reports were unexceptionable but came nowhere near supporting the criticism that Judge Hunt had wantonly disregarded professional advice. Read as a whole, they supported rather than undermined the concern that Mr Bradford had developed obsessive, blinkered and distorted views of K’s mother. That concern had been material to the earlier contact decision.
4. The decisive issue was the question determined on 7 July 2006. The reports were wholly irrelevant to whether permission to appeal should be granted and did not alter the previous decision. The refusal of permission was maintained.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): Wall LJ heard Mr Bradford’s application for permission to appeal on 7 July 2006 and refused it in a judgment handed down on 25 August 2006, [2006] EWCA Civ 1199. The present judgment considered documents omitted from that earlier consideration and confirmed that the refusal stood.
• Leeds County Court: His Honour Judge Hunt made the order dated 6 February 2006 against which permission to appeal was sought.