Local Authority 1 ("LA1") & Ors v AF (Mother) & Ors

Applications to revoke placement orders, discharge care orders and obtain further residential assessment require close attention to the statutory tests, the children’s welfare and the need for timely decision-making. A further assessment is permissible only where it is necessary to resolve the proceedings justly; it cannot properly be used to bring about parental change. In adoption cases, adoption may be authorised only where it is necessary and proportionate, meaning that nothing else will do. The court must compare all realistic options, including rehabilitation, long-term fostering and adoption, and must consider available family and local-authority support. Delay, the children’s need for permanence, risks arising from instability and abduction, and the sibling relationship are material considerations.

The proceedings concerned three siblings. The older two were subject to care and placement orders following earlier proceedings; the youngest was subject to an interim care order. After the parents abducted all three children abroad, the family returned to England and underwent a proposed residential assessment. The assessment ended after the mother disappeared overnight and returned having tested positive for cocaine, creating a crisis which neither parent could manage safely.

The parents sought leave to revoke the placement orders, discharge the care orders and obtain further residential assessment. The second local authority sought care and placement orders for the youngest child. A maternal grandmother sought permission to apply for a child arrangements order. The central issues were whether there had been a change of circumstances, whether further assessment was necessary, and which care plan best served the children’s welfare.

1. Change of circumstances. The parents had not demonstrated a real change in circumstances since the earlier placement orders. The mother had not undertaken the required psychotherapy, had relapsed into cocaine and alcohol use, and had not been consistently open. The father remained affected by alcohol use, had not shown that he could act as primary carer, and the parental relationship remained volatile and abusive. The parents therefore failed the statutory threshold for leave to apply to revoke the placement orders.
2. Further assessment. Under section 38(6) of the Children Act 1989, read with FPR 25.1 and section 38(7A), an assessment must be necessary to assist the court to resolve the proceedings justly. The power is directed to gathering information about present capacity. It cannot properly be used to bring about change in a parent. The statutory 26-week limit is mandatory subject only to the statutory exception, and an extension requires the imperative demands of justice or the child’s welfare. Further assessment would yield no necessary information and would add unacceptable delay.
3. Welfare and proportionality. The court compared rehabilitation, long-term fostering and adoption. It considered the children’s Article 8 rights, their close sibling relationship, their love for their parents, the benefits of family placement, the risks of further instability or abduction, the vulnerability of foster care to disruption and challenge, and the greater legal and emotional permanence of adoption. Adoption was necessary to protect the children’s interests: nothing else would do.
4. Orders. Leave to revoke the placement orders and applications to discharge the care orders were refused. Applications for residential assessment were refused. A care order and placement order were made for the youngest child, and the existing orders for the boys remained. No substantive child arrangements order was made for the maternal grandmother. Contact was reduced in accordance with the care plan.

The judgment records earlier care and placement orders made for CF and DF by Ms Recorder Ray on 8 March 2013. An application for permission to appeal was dismissed on paper by Ryder LJ on 28 June 2013. The present judgment determined the subsequent applications concerning all three children.