F (A Child)

In care proceedings, an appellate court should not interfere with a trial judge’s evaluation of parental capacity and expert evidence unless the conclusion was plainly wrong. A judge may adopt a safety-first course by continuing an interim care order to test whether a parent can care safely under a protective framework, although that remedy is exceptional. Physical chastisement may be unacceptable without justifying the disproportionate step of removing children from their family and placing them for adoption. At an interim stage, the judge may keep questions about the parents’ relationship and contact arrangements open where undertakings and supervised contact permit further assessment.

Three children had been voluntarily accommodated after disclosures of physical chastisement and injuries. Following a fact-finding exercise and a five-day hearing, HHJ Carr ordered that the eldest child, R, be placed in the care of the local authority and placed for adoption. He continued interim care orders for the two younger children, C and L, to allow further assessment of their mother’s ability to care for them, subject to the father’s absence from the home and supervised contact. The local authority appealed the refusal to make care orders for C and L. The central issue was whether the judge’s conclusion was plainly wrong in light of the evidence, including expert and guardian evidence.

Ward LJ gave the leading judgment, with which Tuckey LJ agreed. Permission to appeal was granted and the appeal was dismissed.

1. The local authority accepted that continuation of an interim care order was legally permissible, although exceptional. The judge had been entitled to adopt a safety-first approach while assessing whether the mother could care safely for C and L.
2. The judge’s conclusion could be expressed as a finding that the local authority had not discharged the burden of proving that a care order was required. That conclusion was open to him. He had understood Dr Kennedy’s evidence, addressed its reservations, and was entitled to place weight on the positive parenting assessment and the particular circumstances of the younger children’s injuries.
3. An appellate court should not substitute its own evaluation for that of the trial judge merely because it might have reached a different conclusion. Intervention required the judge’s conclusion to be plainly wrong. The reasons for departing from the expert and guardian views were sufficiently clear.
4. The judge was not required at that stage to determine finally whether the parents had separated or would reconcile. He could keep the father’s position under review through an undertaking that he would not attend the mother’s home when the children were present and through supervised contact.
5. The physical chastisement of C and L could not be condoned, but on the evidence then available it was not sufficiently severe, serious or persistent to justify the disproportionate remedy of removing them from their family and placing them for adoption. The judge’s refusal to make care orders was therefore correct.

1. Court of Appeal (Civil Division) — [2007] EWCA Civ 516: permission to appeal granted; appeal dismissed.
2. Newcastle upon Tyne County Court — HHJ Carr: care and adoption orders made for R; interim care orders continued for C and L pending further assessment.