MR (A Child)

In care proceedings, further assessment aimed at rehabilitation is unnecessary where the evidence shows no realistic prospect of safe reunification within the child’s timescale. A parent’s continuing inability or refusal to acknowledge serious protective failings may mean that risk cannot usefully be assessed or reduced. The court must give proper weight to the child’s welfare, including the impact of parental contact and the risk of renewed trauma. Expert evidence is restricted to evidence necessary to assist the court. Where adoption is necessary to safeguard the child and no lesser interference will suffice, dispensing with parental consent may be proportionate under Article 8.

These were final-stage care proceedings concerning an 18-month-old child who had suffered life-threatening injuries at one month. He had lived with foster parents since discharge from hospital. The mother sought further psychological, risk and parenting assessments, together with advice about restarting contact, in order to explore rehabilitation. She continued to reject the findings made at the earlier fact-finding hearing and denied responsibility for failing to protect the child. The father did not contest the adoption plan. The central questions were whether further assessment was necessary, whether contact could safely resume, and whether care and placement orders were required to meet the child’s welfare needs.

1. Further assessment. Under rule 25.1 of the Family Procedure Rules, expert evidence is restricted to evidence necessary to assist the court. The amended test is materially more stringent than the former test of what was reasonably required. The proposed assessment would not advance the decision because the mother did not accept the findings against her, showed no developing insight into her protective failings, and therefore provided no basis for assessing or reducing future risk.
2. Child’s welfare and contact. The court should take steps to assess rehabilitation where there is a reasonable prospect of safe reunification. That principle does not require further assessment where the deficiencies are unchangeable within the child’s acceptable timescale. The child’s repeated extreme distress during contact, including crying, arching his back and hyperventilating, established a firm basis for concluding that renewed contact would cause further trauma. The mother’s proposed form of indirect presence showed insufficient regard for the child’s likely response.
3. Article 8 and adoption. Adoption would interfere with the mother’s and child’s Article 8 rights. The interference was nevertheless necessary and proportionate because the child’s welfare required security and protection from harm, and no lesser form of intrusion would safeguard his physical and emotional development.
4. Orders. The court adopted the local authority’s care plan, made care and placement orders, and dispensed with both parents’ consent to placement under section 52(1) of the Adoption and Children Act 2002.

The proceedings followed an earlier fact-finding judgment dated 16 November 2012 and an order dated 12 December 2012 refusing further assessment. Permission to appeal those decisions was refused on paper by MacFarlane LJ on 12 April 2013. At the final hearing, the High Court determined the welfare stage and made care and placement orders.