E (A Child : Contact)

Parental responsibility and contact arrangements for a child conceived through home donation must be determined by the child’s welfare and the individual circumstances. Adult intentions before conception are relevant, but they are not determinative and cannot displace the child’s developing welfare interests.

A parental responsibility order concerns legal status and responsibility. It is conceptually distinct from orders regulating contact or other arrangements under section 8 of the Children Act 1989. Relevant considerations include the parents’ capacity to cooperate, the established relationship between the child and the biological father, the father’s commitment, the likelihood of conflict, the child’s welfare, and the practical need to recognise the father’s legal status.

The father applied for contact arrangements and a parental responsibility order in relation to E, a child conceived by home donation to the respondent mother. The parties had experienced lengthy and contentious litigation, but by the hearing they had agreed the principle and progression of contact, including unsupervised contact and future holiday arrangements.

The remaining issue was whether the father should obtain parental responsibility. Because the birth was registered following a declaration of parentage and re-registration under section 14A of the Births and Deaths Registration Act 1953, parental responsibility did not arise automatically under section 4(1A) of the Children Act 1989. The central question was whether an order should be made on the facts of this family.

1. The court made a parental responsibility order and approved the agreed contact plan, which provided for the progression from supervised to unsupervised contact. The father’s name was to be entered on the child’s birth certificate following the declaration of parentage and re-registration.

2. The appropriate approach was welfare-based and fact-sensitive. The court should consider any pre-conception plans, but such plans are not determinative. Adult intentions may change in response to conception, birth and parenting, and the child’s welfare must remain paramount. The case could not properly be approached as though E had been born within a conventional heterosexual relationship.

3. Under section 14A of the Births and Deaths Registration Act 1953, re-registration did not itself confer parental responsibility because section 14A was not an enactment specified in section 4(1A) of the Children Act 1989. The court relied on Re M and others [2013] EWHC 1901 (Fam) for that proposition.

4. A parental responsibility order concerns status and responsibility. It is distinct from orders under section 8 of the Children Act 1989. The order would give the father a legal status reflecting his actual role and would entitle him to be consulted about matters such as schooling and serious medical issues, without making his views determinative. The court applied the reasoning in Re H (Parental Responsibility) (1998) 1 FLR 855.

5. The decisive features were the parents’ long-standing capacity to cooperate, their mutual respect, their shared aspirations for E, the positive relationship already established between E and his father, the father’s commitment and financial support, the low likelihood that he would use parental responsibility to undermine the mother, the father’s registration on the birth certificate, the Guardian’s support, and the undesirability of prolonging the litigation. These factors compellingly favoured making the order.

6. The court also observed that the description of the father as a donor was belittling and disrespectful in the circumstances.

The judgment was a first-instance decision. The litigation had previously included a District Judge’s order by consent for extensive contact. The matter came before the High Court on 14 November 2014, and the present judgment determined the outstanding parental responsibility issue.