L (A Child)

Permission to appeal may be refused where the challenged order has become stale, has been overtaken by subsequent events, and an appeal would provide no practical benefit. The court should determine the live issue before it and need not express a view on wider criticisms of the proceedings. A party may later seek permission to widen an appeal and apply for an extension of time where that becomes necessary.

The applicant maternal grandmother sought permission to appeal orders made in proceedings concerning the care of a child who had lived with her maternal grandparents. The proposed appeal challenged an October 2011 order providing for unsupervised contact between the child and her mother and appointing NYAS as guardian.

By the hearing before the Court of Appeal, only one effective contact visit had occurred and the order had been overtaken by subsequent events. A later interim care order removing the child to foster care was the subject of a separate proposed appeal. The issue was whether permission should be granted in relation to the stale October 2011 order.

1. Application refused. Permission to appeal the October 2011 contact order and the appointment of NYAS was refused.
2. The challenged order had produced no more than one effective contact visit and had been overtaken by the subsequent development of the case. An appeal concerning whether the order was correct when made would therefore profit nobody and was effectively stale.
3. The court was concerned only with the narrow appeal identified in the existing notice. It did not determine the merits of the applicant’s wider criticisms concerning the conduct of the proceedings, wardship, or the Family Court’s approach at successive hearings.
4. If the applicant’s legal advisers later considered it necessary to challenge the wider process, they could seek permission to widen an appeal and apply for permission to bring that challenge out of time. The court would consider any such application when made.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): Permission to appeal was refused in relation to the October 2011 contact order and NYAS’s appointment. The court expressly left any wider challenge open for a later application.
• Principal Registry Family Division: Mrs Justice Parker had made the challenged orders on 18 October 2011 and subsequently made an interim care order on 14 December 2012.