W (A Child)

Permission to appeal may be refused where an appeal would have no practical effect because the child will shortly attain 18 and the orders under challenge will then expire. It may also be refused where the grounds are legally unarguable, fail to engage with the substantive findings, and amount to an abuse of process. A clear caveat in a child-protection report explaining that an administrative date was fictitious did not make the Children Act process unlawful or undermine the report’s credibility.

The mother of J challenged 11 orders made by Reading County Court during care proceedings, including an interim care order authorising J’s removal and a final care order permitting the local authority to refuse contact during his minority. Her grounds alleged procedural defects, failures concerning J’s wishes and feelings, unlawful assessments, bias and a predetermined approach. She also relied on an apparent inaccuracy in a historic section 47 report.

The Court of Appeal considered whether permission should be granted, particularly when J was due to turn 18 within five or six weeks and the challenged orders would then end.

1. Applications refused. Lord Justice McFarlane held that permission had no practical utility. Any appeal was unlikely to be heard before J’s 18th birthday, when the orders made under the Children Act would come to an end.
2. Even if considered in a timely manner, the proposed appeals were totally unarguable. The grounds were lengthy, unfocused and largely concerned administrative features of the orders, such as the child’s name, printing and signatures. They did not engage with the substantive issue determined below: whether J was suffering significant harm in his mother’s care and required removal to a supportive and directive environment.
3. The court rejected the complaint based on the historic section 47 report. The report expressly explained that J had not been seen and that the date had been entered fictitiously because of an administrative requirement in the social-services IT system. The document therefore did not mislead the court, establish fabrication, render the process unlawful or destroy the credibility of later social-work evidence.
4. The attempt to challenge effectively every order through dense and un focused material, while failing to address the core findings, amounted to an abuse of process. Each application for permission to appeal was refused.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): On 16 January 2013, Lord Justice McFarlane refused all applications for permission to appeal.
• Reading County Court: Her Honour Judge Hamilton made the challenged directions orders, an interim care order on 28 November 2011, and a final care order on 10 February 2012.