AS (a child), Re

Where a party accepts that the court would make the same findings after a contested fact-finding hearing, the court may determine the facts without conducting that hearing. The decision must reflect the overriding objective, including fairness, proportionality, expedition and the saving of expense. Dispensing with a hearing is appropriate where it offers no material advantage and would cause unnecessary distress or expense. A finding that threshold criteria are established does not, by itself, determine the appropriate final welfare order.

Care proceedings concerned a seven-year-old child with Type 1 diabetes. The local authority alleged fabricated or induced illness, including the administration of excessive insulin, together with emotional harm arising from the mother’s false claims that she had cancer. The mother denied inducing illness but accepted that the evidence made adverse findings inevitable and agreed not to contest an amended threshold document. The court therefore had to decide whether a contested fact-finding hearing remained necessary, and recorded the resulting threshold findings pending a later welfare hearing.

1. Fact-finding procedure. The court approved the parties’ course of proceeding without an eight-day contested fact-finding hearing. The mother accepted that, on the balance of probabilities, the court would reach the same conclusions from the papers and expert evidence. A hearing would have caused substantial emotional distress and expense, without providing any material forensic advantage.
2. Overriding objective. The court emphasised that cases must be dealt with justly, expeditiously, fairly and proportionately, with regard to the need to save expense. Those considerations justified determining the facts on the agreed basis where the outcome of a full hearing was inevitable.
3. Findings. The threshold criteria were established. The child’s recurrent, prolonged and unusual hypoglycaemic episodes had no identified organic cause, ceased after contact with the mother became supervised, and were attributable to additional insulin administered by injection beyond the prescribed doses. The mother’s deception about cancer was also established, including that she had told the child she was very unwell.
4. Consequences. The findings became the factual basis for the remainder of the proceedings and for the mother’s psychiatric assessment. They did not make a final care order inevitable. The court reserved the welfare decision for the later hearing, to be determined by reference to the child’s best interests.

First-instance care proceedings. The judgment records that interim care orders had been made since 6 September 2013 and that a later welfare hearing was fixed for May 2014.