C & Anor. v A Local Authority & Ors.

In care proceedings, an appellate court may set aside findings of fact where material defects in case management or reasoning undermine the reliability of the fact-finding process. This may be so even where the evidence was capable of supporting the findings and the trial judge had the advantage of seeing the witnesses.

Where a child’s credibility is central, the court must engage with significant inconsistencies and explain why they do not prevent the findings made. Arrangements for a child’s evidence must be tailored, but must also permit focused and fair questions that challenge the core allegations and put a materially different account.

The parents appealed findings of physical abuse by the mother and sexual abuse by the father, a final care order concerning P, and interim supervision orders concerning the other children. The allegations originated in P’s accounts to her school, social workers, police and an Achieving Best Evidence interview.

The Central Family Court accepted P’s account. It found the allegations proved and found that the mother had failed to protect P. The parents contended that P’s accounts contained important inconsistencies, that they had been unable fairly to challenge her evidence, and that the judge had not adequately addressed their evidence or the reasons for the findings.

The central issue was whether the conduct and reasoning of the fact-finding hearing had rendered its findings unsafe.

1. Appeals allowed. The findings of fact and consequential final care order could not stand. The case was remitted for a fresh fact-finding hearing before the Family Court. A final care order for P was replaced by an interim care order, and the interim supervision orders for the other children continued.
2. Although P’s evidence and her earlier accounts were capable of supporting the findings, the appellate court was satisfied that material defects had undermined their foundations. The usual restraint concerning primary findings of fact did not prevent intervention where there was a material error of process.
3. P’s credibility was central to both the allegations against the mother and those against the father. The judgment did not sufficiently engage with the significant discrepancies, inconsistencies and contradictions identified in P’s accounts, or explain why they did not affect the findings. It also relied materially on matters concerning P’s Romanian history and the clinic assessment despite restricted exploration of those matters at trial. The father’s substantial evidence was not addressed or explained as rejected. The supplementary reasons for the finding that the mother failed to protect P added little.
4. The judge was entitled to adopt special measures and was not required to permit adversarial questioning. However, under Re W (Children) [2010] UKSC 12, the arrangements had to permit focused and fair questions which challenged the child’s core account and advanced an alternative explanation. The severely restricted questions did not enable a meaningful challenge to the serious allegations, particularly against the father. That failure also affected the assessment of P’s credibility generally.
5. The refusal to require the social worker, Mr Blake, to give evidence was unfortunate, although it carried less weight than the other deficiencies. The court further stressed that important case-management orders, especially those governing a child’s evidence, must be formally and accurately drawn up.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): Allowed both parents’ appeals, set aside the fact-finding conclusions and consequential final care order, and remitted the case for a fresh fact-finding hearing.
• Central Family Court: Her Honour Judge Wright made findings against both parents, a final care order for P, and interim supervision orders for the other children on 20 November 2017.