J (Child)

In care proceedings, the statutory threshold is assessed at the date of the local authority’s application. Later improvements in a parent’s circumstances bear on the child’s best interests and the order to be made, rather than on whether the threshold was crossed.

A judgment need not reproduce all the evidence. It is sufficient if it identifies the evidence accepted, the conclusions drawn from it and the resulting findings, so that the parties can understand why the order was made. A court may refuse further assessment where existing evidence addresses present and foreseeable parenting capacity and delay would be contrary to the child’s interests.

A mother appealed from orders made by His Honour Judge Bromilow concerning her nine-year-old child. The orders included a care order, delivery of the child’s passport to the local authority and an injunction restricting the mother’s proximity to the child’s school and foster home.

The child had previously been subject to a supervision order. Following continuing parenting difficulties and a serious incident during which the mother drank alcohol, injured herself in a fall and was emotionally unavailable to the child, an interim care order was made and the child entered foster care.

The appeal concerned the management of witnesses and expert questions, the absence of a further assessment of the mother, the statutory threshold, the adequacy of the judge’s reasons and the mother’s access to the case documents.

1. Appeal dismissed unanimously. Black LJ held that none of the grounds demonstrated error in the judge’s approach, reasoning or result. Rafferty LJ and Floyd LJ agreed.
2. The judge was entitled to control the evidence. The detailed records already available contained the relevant information that oral evidence from the social work assistant might have produced. Other proposed witnesses concerned matters overtaken by events or already covered by substantial evidence. Requiring the psychologist’s permitted questions to be submitted in writing, and excluding questions unlikely to assist, fell within the judge’s discretion.
3. A further assessment of the mother was unnecessary. The judge recognised her improved health and wellbeing, but the existing psychiatric, psychological and social-work evidence addressed her capacity to meet the child’s needs both presently and in the foreseeable future. Further assessment would also have delayed a decision about the child’s future contrary to his interests.
4. The threshold under section 31 of the Children Act 1989 was established. The judge did not find that the mother had attempted suicide. He was entitled to find that the serious incident, inadequate supervision, the school break-in and the incident of physical chastisement formed part of circumstances in which the child was suffering, or was likely to suffer, significant harm. The threshold fell to be assessed when the authority applied for an order. Subsequent improvements were relevant instead to the welfare decision.
5. Applying section 1 of the Children Act 1989, the judge was entitled to make the care order. The professional evidence established that the mother could not then, or in the foreseeable future, provide the safe, stable care required by the child. A supervision order had already failed to prevent deterioration. Long-term foster care under a care order therefore followed from the evidence.
6. The brevity of the judgment did not make it inadequate. A judge need not reproduce all the evidence, provided the judgment sufficiently identifies the evidence accepted, the conclusions drawn and the resulting findings. Read as a whole, the judgment disclosed why the orders were made. The mother had also failed to establish that she lacked documents needed for the hearing.

1. Court of Appeal (Civil Division): The mother’s appeal was dismissed unanimously. The court upheld the care order, passport order and injunction.
2. Taunton District Registry: His Honour Judge Bromilow made the challenged orders on 20 March 2013 after concluding that the statutory threshold was met and that the child required long-term foster care.