I County Council v TD & Ors

Where the threshold for a care order is satisfied, the court must still decide which order best serves the children’s welfare. A care order should be made only where the stronger intervention is necessary for their protection. If a supervision order provides a proportionate response to the identified risks, the court should adopt that less interventionist order. The court may depart from the local authority’s care plan only for very cogent reasons, but must give full reasons when rejecting a Guardian’s recommendation. Domestic violence does not create an automatic bar to contact. Contact remains a welfare-based balancing exercise, in which the offending parent’s insight, responsibility and sustained efforts to change are important considerations.

The local authority applied for care orders concerning four children following concerns about domestic violence, the mother’s relationships with violent men and an initially suspected non-accidental injury to the youngest child. The injury was ultimately found to have been accidental and birth-related. The children were returned to the mother’s care during the proceedings.

The local authority sought twelve-month supervision orders, with arrangements for contact between two of the fathers and their children. The mother supported supervision orders but opposed direct contact between the youngest child and his father. The Guardian sought care orders and opposed immediate direct contact. The central issues were whether care orders were necessary and proportionate, and what contact arrangements best served the children’s welfare.

1. Orders. The threshold under Children Act 1989, section 31 was satisfied, but that did not determine the order to be made. The children’s welfare remained paramount, subject to the welfare checklist and the no-order principle under section 1(3) and section 1(5). The court made child arrangements orders under section 8, providing that the children live with their mother, together with twelve-month supervision orders in favour of the local authority. The local authority was directed to prepare a care and support plan under the Social Services and Well Being (Wales) Act 2014.
2. The relevant distinction between care and supervision orders concerned removal powers, parental responsibility, duration, and the availability of looked-after-child reviews and an independent reviewing officer. Those distinctions did not make a care order necessary. The mother had cooperated with services, had made substantial progress, and understood that renewed non-cooperation could lead to further proceedings. A supervision order allowed court oversight of any future removal and was a proportionate response to the remaining risks.
3. The court required very cogent reasons to depart from the local authority’s care plan. It also concluded that the protection of the children did not require the stronger order and that the least interventionist and proportionate approach was a supervision order. The Guardian’s contrary recommendation was rejected for those reasons.
4. Domestic violence was a significant factor in assessing contact but did not create a presumption against contact. The older child was to have reasonable contact with his father, initially indirect and later supervised direct contact. In the youngest child’s case, the father had to complete the Caring Dads programme, maintain monthly indirect contact, avoid further police involvement and demonstrate sustained commitment before supervised direct contact could begin. Contact was then to occur twice yearly, subject to compliance and any further court order.

First-instance proceedings were issued by the local authority on 28 July 2016. Interim care orders were made on 29 July 2016. The children were subsequently returned to their mother’s care, and this court determined the final orders on 23 February 2017.