A Local Authority v A Mother & Ors (Radicalisation Welfare)

In determining a child’s welfare after the statutory threshold is crossed, the court must assess all realistic placement options holistically. There is no presumption in favour of a natural parent. Any order must be necessary and proportionate, and must be better for the child than making no order. A permanent placement with a positively assessed relative may be preferable to rehabilitation to a parent where identified risks remain inadequately managed. A special guardianship order is not to be replaced by a care order merely as a short-term means of regulating or supporting the placement. Religious and family-life rights remain important, but the child’s welfare is paramount. Any interference with those rights must be proportionate.

The proceedings concerned the welfare stage of public law proceedings involving an 18-month-old child who had been placed with foster carers after being brought from Turkey. The earlier fact-finding judgment had found that the parents had travelled to Syria, that the father had engaged in ISIL-related activity, and that the mother’s beliefs, dishonesty and lack of insight created risks of physical and emotional harm, radicalisation and removal from the jurisdiction.

The mother sought the child’s return to her care. The local authority and the child’s guardian supported placement with the paternal grandmother under a special guardianship order, together with supervision and regulated contact. The central issues were whether the risks could safely be managed, whether the grandmother’s placement was proportionate, how religious and family-life rights should be balanced, and which local authority should supervise the placement.

1. Outcome. The court made a special guardianship order placing J with her paternal grandmother, a 12-month supervision order designating Local Authority A, and a child arrangements order providing for the mother’s supervised contact once each month. The court directed that a single, clarified special guardianship support plan be produced.
2. Under Children Act 1989, s 1(1) and s 1(3), J’s welfare was paramount and the welfare checklist had to be considered. The court had to ask whether making an order was better for J than making no order, which required consideration of necessity and proportionality. The realistic placement options had to be assessed holistically rather than by a linear process which successively excluded alternatives.
3. Once the threshold was crossed, there was no presumption in favour of a natural parent. The mother was capable of providing good basic care and had engaged in therapy, but the continuing risks arising from her dishonesty, incomplete disclosures, limited insight and ambivalence towards the father could not safely be managed by supervision or injunctions. J could not wait for the mother’s potentially lengthy process of change to be completed.
4. The court applied the guidance in P-S (Children) [2018] EWCA Civ 1407. A care order should not be used as a short-term means of regulating or supporting a placement with a relative who had been positively assessed as a special guardian. Special guardianship provided a permanent family placement while preserving the legal relationship between the child and her parents.
5. J’s rights under articles 8 and 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights were engaged. The proposed placement would limit the extent to which her Muslim identity could be practised, but the paternal grandmother would inform her about her religious and cultural heritage and provide halal food. In the circumstances, the limitation was proportionate because J’s right to a safe and loving home prevailed.
6. The supervision order was appropriately designated to Local Authority A under paragraph 9 of Schedule 3 to the Children Act 1989. Its detailed knowledge of the case and commitment to provide specialist and financial support outweighed the ordinary advantages of designation to the authority in whose area J would live. Monthly supervised contact was proportionate to preserve J’s relationship with her mother while supporting the permanence and stability of the placement. No order regulating the father’s contact was necessary at that stage, but a risk assessment was a vital precursor to any future contact.

First-instance welfare determination. The judgment records an earlier fact-finding decision in the same proceedings, reported as A Local Authority v A Mother and Others (Fact-Finding) [2018] EWHC 2054 (Fam). No appeal from that decision was pursued.