W (A Child), Re

Applications for parental responsibility and direct contact are legally distinct. A refusal of direct contact, based on the welfare assessment and the difficulties of establishing safe contact, does not by itself justify refusing parental responsibility. Parental responsibility principally concerns the status and responsibilities of fatherhood. Where the absence of contact is attributable largely to the other parent’s difficulties, rather than conduct by the applicant warranting refusal, the parental responsibility application requires separate and careful consideration. The child’s welfare remains paramount, including the value of developing a favourable image of an absent parent. A parent granted parental responsibility acquires responsibilities, not an unrestricted set of rights, and must act with discretion, moderation and regard for the child’s welfare.

The father appealed to the Court of Appeal from a decision of His Honour Judge Vincent in the Truro County Court, which had dismissed his appeals against the refusal by the Cornwall Family Proceedings Court to make orders for direct contact and parental responsibility. The magistrates had accepted that the mother’s subjectively based fear made direct contact likely to cause harm, although they made no adverse findings against the father. They treated parental responsibility as closely linked to contact and refused it on the basis that its exercise might adversely affect the child’s stability. The central issues were whether the contact decision could be disturbed on appeal and whether the courts had wrongly treated the two applications as effectively identical.

1. Disposition. The appeal was allowed only in relation to parental responsibility. The refusal of direct contact was upheld, and a parental responsibility order was made.
2. Direct contact. The magistrates had investigated the evidence carefully and were entitled to accept the mother’s sincere and powerful anxiety, despite its lack of objective foundation, as creating a risk of harm which made direct contact inappropriate at that stage. The appellate court should not interfere with that factual assessment. The contact appeal therefore failed.
3. Separate applications. Applications for direct contact and parental responsibility are wholly separate. Parental responsibility is directed essentially to the status of fatherhood. The approach in Re C & V [1998] 1 FLR 392 emphasised that distinction and the importance, where possible, of a child developing a favourable and positive image of an absent parent. The magistrates misdirected themselves by treating refusal of contact as necessarily supporting refusal of parental responsibility. The alternative reasoning that the father had no relationship with the child beyond biology was also insufficient on the facts identified.
4. Welfare and responsibility. The child’s welfare was paramount. The father’s persistent pursuit of acknowledgment of paternity supported granting him the status of a father with parental responsibility. That status did not confer a licence to interfere with schooling, medical treatment or religious upbringing. He was expected to behave with discretion, moderation and good sense; irresponsible conduct could count against any later application for expanded contact.
5. Additional observations. Lord Justice McFarlane stressed that, where contact difficulties arise principally from the mother’s incapacity to contemplate contact rather than from conduct by the father, the parental responsibility application deserves particular prominence. Both parents share responsibility for addressing difficulties in establishing safe and beneficial contact, although the dispute was ultimately one of human relationships requiring cooperation and, potentially, wider family assistance.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division) — allowed the appeal in relation to parental responsibility, upheld the refusal of direct contact, and made a parental responsibility order.
• Truro County Court — His Honour Judge Vincent dismissed the father’s appeals against the magistrates’ refusal of direct contact and parental responsibility.
• Cornwall Family Proceedings Court — refused orders for direct contact and parental responsibility, while making an indirect contact order.