A (A Child) (Error of Fact in Judgment), Re

An appellate court may correct a material factual error in a judgment where the record inaccurately states a person’s convictions or background. The correction may be made even where the error concerns only a minor passage and does not affect the essential findings or order. Accuracy of the judicial record is itself a proper reason for allowing an appeal on that limited point. The remainder of the decision remains intact where the error had no effect on the substantive determination.

The appeal concerned proceedings about contact between a fourteen-year-old child and her father. The Reading Family Court declined to order direct contact and instead ordered indirect contact with the paternal family. It also made an order under Children Act 1989, s.91(14), restricting further applications under s.8 without permission for two years.

The father did not challenge the contact decision. He appealed only against a sentence stating that checks revealed convictions for serious violence towards his partner. The safeguarding material showed old convictions for theft and assault occasioning actual bodily harm, but no conviction for violence towards a partner and no conviction for violence since 1988. The central issue was whether the inaccurate sentence should be removed or amended.

1. Appeal allowed on the limited issue. The evidence in the safeguarding letter established that the father had convictions for theft and assault occasioning actual bodily harm in 1988. The assault did not involve a partner. The subsequent police information recorded allegations and criminal investigations, but no conviction for violence involving a partner and no conviction for violence of any kind since 1988.
2. The sentence in the first-instance judgment was therefore mistaken. The court amended it to record that the father had a conviction for assault occasioning actual bodily harm in 1988, that he had since been the subject of allegations, and that he had not been convicted of any offence of violence.
3. The accuracy of the judicial record justified appellate intervention, notwithstanding that the point was minor and did not affect the substantive decision. The father was entitled to have the record corrected, including because the child might read the judgment in future and be given an untrue account of his background.
4. The correction did not undermine the first-instance judge’s essential findings or her decision concerning contact. The order for indirect contact and the other directions therefore remained intact.

• Reading Family Court: HHJ Owens declined to order direct contact, ordered indirect contact with the paternal family, and made a two-year restriction on further applications under s.8 of the Children Act 1989 without permission.
• High Court (Family Division): The appeal was allowed only to correct the inaccurate factual sentence. The substantive contact decision remained intact.