F v H & Anor

In determining contact arrangements, the child’s welfare and safety remain paramount. The statutory presumption that parental involvement furthers welfare is subject to involvement occurring without exposing the child to a risk of harm.

Contact should not be used experimentally to obtain evidence about a parent’s likely behaviour where there is a history of harmful conduct and abduction, particularly when professional assessment and intervention have been identified as necessary preconditions. Professionals advising the court must fully inform themselves about the history and read the relevant judgments. A court may order no direct contact in exceptional circumstances where there are cogent welfare reasons and no safe alternative.

The father appealed against an order made by the Central Family Court on 9 August 2017. The order provided for fortnightly direct contact between the child, B, and her mother, supervised by the child’s guardian.

The parents had a prolonged history of disputed contact, repeated allegations of abuse, medical examinations of the child, the mother’s abduction of B to Israel, and subsequent criminal conviction. The lower court had previously required psychiatric assessment and professional intervention before contact was reconsidered. The father argued that the judge had wrongly reversed that approach on inadequate evidence and without properly applying the child’s welfare needs.

The central issue was whether supervised contact should proceed before the outstanding professional assessment and intervention had taken place.

1. The appeal was allowed. The order of 9 August 2017 providing for contact was set aside.
2. The statutory presumption that parental involvement furthers a child’s welfare, introduced by the Children and Families Act 2014 into section 1 of the Children Act 1989, was not an entitlement to contact. It remained subject to the parent being involved in a way that did not expose the child to a risk of harm.
3. The welfare of the child was paramount. Applying the guidance in Re J-M (A Child) [2014] EWCA Civ 434, contact was ordinarily beneficial and the court had to consider available alternatives, but contact could be terminated, or withheld, in exceptional circumstances where there were cogent reasons and no safe alternative.
4. The lower court had previously decided, on the evidence, that contact should not resume until the mother had undergone independent assessment and received professional intervention. There was no adequate evidence justifying reversal of that decision. The decision to “try out” contact to obtain evidence about the mother’s reaction was flawed because it exposed the child to risks which the prior assessment and intervention were intended to address.
5. The judge had focused on the mother rather than B. The guardian had undertaken only a cursory investigation, was not qualified to assess the mother’s psychiatric state or ability to control her behaviour, and had not adequately analysed B’s welfare, resilience, or ability to cope with renewed contact. The contact arrangements were also insufficiently scrutinised as to venue, frequency, duration, supervision and safeguards.
6. Professionals advising the family court must fully inform themselves about a complex case and, at the least, read the relevant judgments before making recommendations. In accordance with the child-centred approach discussed in ZH (Tanzania) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2011] UKSC 4; [2011] 2 AC 166, the focus had to remain on the individual child’s best interests.

• Central Family Court: On 9 August 2017, made an order for supervised direct contact between B and her mother.
• High Court (Family Division): The appeal was allowed and the contact order was set aside.