A (a child), Re

A family judge may form, and even express, a provisional view during the hearing that a child should return to the family or be placed for adoption. That does not establish prejudgment or a closed mind. The Court of Appeal will not interfere with evaluative findings about a proposed carer unless the lower court was not entitled to reach them. Before approving placement outside the biological family, the judge must survey relevant evidence, but disputed material must not be treated as established merely because it was filed in earlier proceedings. Permission to appeal should be refused where the proposed grounds have no realistic prospect of success.

The maternal grandmother applied for permission to appeal against orders made by Her Honour Judge Carr QC in the Sheffield County Court on 19 April 2007. The orders included refusal of the grandparents’ application for leave to seek a residence order, a care order concerning their three-year-old granddaughter, and an order authorising placement for adoption.

The proposed grounds challenged the agreed threshold document under section 31 of the Children Act 1989, reliance on historical evidence from Crown Court proceedings, the judge’s assessment of the grandparents’ parenting capacity, and an alleged premature decision to place the child for adoption. The grandmother also required a substantial extension of time.

1. Application refused. Permission to appeal was refused because the proposed appeal had no realistic prospect of success. The application for an extension of time was also refused.
2. The lower court was entitled to assess the evidence concerning the mother and grandparents, including expert and social-work assessments. The Court of Appeal’s role did not permit it to substitute its own view for the trial judge’s evaluative conclusion that the grandparents were unsuitable for the child’s safe, long-term care. Intervention would have required showing that the conclusion was not open to the judge on the evidence.
3. Before taking the exceptional step of approving placement outside a child’s biological family, a judge must survey all relevant evidence. Evidence from earlier criminal proceedings could be considered, but the judge would err if she treated material filed in those proceedings as established merely because it had been placed before the Crown Court. The judge was entitled to rely on it if, after giving the grandparents an opportunity to contest it, she found the evidence to be true. The judgment disclosed no such error.
4. The mother’s agreement that the threshold under Children Act 1989, section 31, was crossed was not determinative of the proposed appeal. The judge had stated that, even without agreement, she would have made findings consistent with the threshold document after considering the evidence.
5. A family judge commonly forms a provisional, and sometimes confident, view of the likely outcome as evidence unfolds. The judge may articulate that view before giving judgment. That circumstance is not, without more, unjudicial or appealable and did not show that the judge had closed her mind to the grandmother’s case.

The formal order was: “Application refused.”

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): Application for permission to appeal refused. Extension of time refused.
• Sheffield County Court: On 19 April 2007, Her Honour Judge Carr QC refused the grandparents leave to apply for a residence order and made a care order and an order authorising placement for adoption. Permission to appeal was refused.