P-G (Children) V

A challenge to findings of fact faces a high appellate hurdle. However, the reasons must permit scrutiny of the evidence on which each finding rests. Findings cannot safely stand where the trial judge materially relied on reports later shown to have been biased, non-objective and inadequately investigative, and the appellate court cannot identify untainted evidence supporting the conclusions.

In private law children proceedings, a fact-finding hearing should be confined to disputes that are necessary to determine welfare or protection. It should not be ordered where it adds little to the evaluative decision about contact but causes damaging delay to the child.

In private law proceedings under the Children Act 1989, the mother and father made competing applications for orders concerning their two daughters. At a split hearing, His Honour Judge Waine made nine findings against the father concerning his conduct towards the mother, the children and the family dog.

The father appealed on the ground that the findings were perverse. After the hearing below, the local authority accepted an independent review which found serious defects in the social worker's section 7 reports, including bias, a lack of objectivity and knowingly false statements. The central question was whether the findings could stand when those reports had materially informed the judge's assessment and his reasoning could not be scrutinised to identify an independent evidential basis.

1. Appeal allowed. The court admitted the new material concerning the independent review and the local authority's acceptance of it. It was unavailable below, materially significant and plainly relevant to the safety of the findings.

2. The court accepted that an appellant faces a high hurdle when alleging perverse fact findings, consistently with [2013] UKSC 33. Nevertheless, appellate scrutiny requires intelligible reasons showing what evidence was accepted or rejected and the basis on which each finding was made. Here, it was impossible to tell whether particular findings rested on direct evidence, an inference from the father's attitude, or the section 7 reports.

3. The accepted review findings created a strong prima facie perception of unfairness. The reports treated the mother's allegations as fact without adequate checking, analysis or presentation of the father's contrary case. Since the judge had relied on the reports in a manner that could not be analysed, the court could not be satisfied that untainted evidence underpinned the findings. The nine findings were therefore set aside.

4. The applications were remitted to the designated family judge for allocation to a different judge, urgent case management, an interim child arrangements hearing within one month, and judicial continuity. Ryder LJ added, as an observation, that not every parental factual dispute requires resolution before contact is decided. Case management should identify whether findings are necessary for protection, having regard to Practice Directions 12B and 12J of the Family Procedure Rules 2010. On the material before the court, a further fact-finding hearing might not be necessary.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): Allowed the father's appeal, set aside the nine findings of fact, and remitted the applications for case management and determination by a different judge: [2015] EWCA Civ 1025.
• Family Court at Northampton: His Honour Judge Waine determined nine findings of fact at a split hearing on 8 August 2014. No citation is stated in the judgment.