ES (A Child), Re

Wardship proceedings may properly continue where the child is abroad and previous orders have achieved little practical success, provided that continuation serves the child’s welfare. The child’s welfare remains the paramount consideration. Relevant benefits may include maintaining a forum in which the child’s future can be considered and applying lawful pressure on a person who remains able to influence events affecting the child. The court should assess realistically what further proceedings can achieve, but the prospect of only limited progress does not itself require dismissal. A parent’s continuing contempt and refusal to facilitate contact may support continuation where the proceedings retain a useful protective or relational purpose.

The father applied to discharge long-running wardship proceedings concerning his nine-year-old daughter, who had remained in Egypt with paternal relatives since 2011. The mother opposed the application, relying on the child’s prolonged separation from her and the absence of meaningful contact despite repeated orders for the child’s return and for indirect contact.

The court considered whether the proceedings continued to serve the child’s welfare, including whether they provided an effective forum for decisions about her future and whether the father remained able to influence her circumstances.

The application to dismiss the wardship proceedings was refused.

1. Welfare paramount. The court’s decision whether to continue wardship had to be determined by E’s welfare as the paramount consideration.
2. Assessment of the father’s position. The judge rejected the father’s evidence that he was powerless to influence his daughter’s future and entirely controlled by his family. The judge found that he could arrange the child’s return to England and could immediately resume indirect contact, if he chose to do so.
3. Meaning of the previous committal decision. The judge rejected the father’s interpretation of Holman J’s earlier decision. That decision concerned the statutory limits and coercive effectiveness of further imprisonment for contempt. It did not suggest that the father’s repeated breaches were acceptable, or criticise the earlier committal decisions.
4. Continuation of wardship. Although the proceedings had lasted several years, the child had had no recent contact with her mother and previous orders had produced limited practical results, the proceedings still served a useful purpose. They provided a forum in which the child’s future could be considered in this jurisdiction and applied pressure to the father, whom the judge found to remain in control of events, to restore the mother-child relationship.

The court recognised that only a minimal amount might be achieved, but concluded that it should continue to do what it could to assist the child. The father’s application for dismissal was therefore refused.