X (A Child: Adoption No 2) (Rev 1)

In a step-parent adoption application, the requirement that a child has lived with the applicant for the preceding six months must be assessed in the context of the family’s actual life. For a child attending boarding school, term-time periods may be disregarded. A shared home is not confined to one fixed property and may include homes used by the family while travelling or on holiday.

The court must also assess the child’s lifelong welfare under the Adoption and Children Act 2002. The fact that parental responsibility will shortly end when a child reaches 18 does not remove the continuing emotional, practical and financial significance of a permanent legal parent-child relationship.

AB applied for a second adoption order in respect of his 17-year-old step-daughter, X. The earlier application had been withdrawn following a decision on a gateway requirement, but the court had not refused the application and therefore the statutory restriction in section 48 did not apply.

The issues were whether X’s father had parental responsibility, whether his consent was valid, whether X had lived with AB for the six months preceding the application, and whether adoption would promote X’s lifelong welfare. X’s mother and father consented. The local authority and Guardian supported the application.

1. The adoption order was made. The court was satisfied that the statutory gateway requirements and the consent requirements were met.
2. AB retained his domicile of origin in England and therefore satisfied the preliminary requirement under section 51 of the Adoption and Children Act 2002. The notice, investigation and home-environment requirements under sections 44 and 42(7) were also satisfied.
3. For section 42(3), the relevant question was whether X had her home with AB throughout the six months preceding the application. Her boarding-school term was properly disregarded, following Re B [1963] 3 WLR 471. The assessment had to reflect the family’s circumstances rather than treat a particular property as the only possible home.
4. The court applied the guidance in Re A (a child) (Adoption) [2009] 3 WLR 1169: the shared-home requirement exists to provide sufficient experience of living together for the court to assess whether the adoption is likely to succeed. X had spent sufficient non-school periods living with AB in family homes and while travelling or on holiday.
5. AB’s evidence and the professional reports demonstrated X’s integration into his family and their established father-daughter relationship. Her father’s consent satisfied section 47(2), on the pragmatic basis that he had parental responsibility.
6. Under section 1, X’s lifelong welfare was the decisive consideration. The court considered the benefits of legal permanence, British citizenship and her expressed wishes. The imminent end of formal parental responsibility at 18 did not make adoption unnecessary. The wider continuing support ordinarily provided by parents remained relevant, as illustrated by M,R (on the application of) v London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham [2008] UKHL 14.
7. The court concluded that adoption would secure and enhance an existing lifelong relationship and was better for X than no order.