Z & Y (Children : Care Proceedings) (Rev 1)

In care proceedings, the court may determine threshold and welfare issues without a fact-finding hearing where the parties agree the material facts and a trial would be unnecessary or disproportionate. A parent’s criminal convictions and established pattern of coercive, controlling and violent behaviour may demonstrate a serious continuing risk to children. Contact with an imprisoned parent should not take place where it would endanger the child or the accompanying carer and there is no identifiable welfare benefit. A parent who provides no care may nevertheless have contributed to a child’s harm under Children Act 1989, s 31, even if that parent claims ignorance of the child’s circumstances.

Public law proceedings concerned Y and Z, whose mother lived with FG, Z’s father, and whose other father was FR. The local authority applied under s 31 of the Children Act 1989 after serious criminal allegations against FG. FG was convicted of sexual offences and child cruelty and sentenced to 22 years’ imprisonment. The children were eventually returned to their mother under supervision orders. The parties agreed the threshold facts and accepted that a full hearing was unnecessary and disproportionate. The issues were the threshold in relation to FR, the risks posed by FG, and whether either child should have contact with him.

1. The court made supervision orders in respect of Y and Z. The agreed facts established the threshold under s 31 of the Children Act 1989. In the circumstances, a full fact-finding hearing was unnecessary and disproportionate. The court could determine the remaining issues from the agreed evidence, the agreed threshold document and FG’s criminal convictions.
2. FG posed a serious and continuing risk of significant harm to any child in his care or in a household of which he formed part. His convictions for child cruelty, together with his aggressive, coercive and controlling behaviour, followed the pattern of conduct demonstrated in his previous family relationships.
3. There was no safe or welfare-based justification for Z to visit FG in prison. Z was an infant and the visit would require her mother to accompany her, despite the risk that FG would again seek to control or coerce her. M could not be compelled to take Z to prison against her own safety. No contact should occur unless and until FG was released, completed substantial therapeutic work, and the results had been thoroughly assessed.
4. There was to be no contact between FG and Y. Y was not FG’s child, had lived with him only briefly, and there was no conceivable benefit in reintroducing him to a man who had been abusive and controlling. FG’s insistence on contact itself raised concerns about his continuing wish to control the family.
5. FR had failed to provide Y with any care and had abdicated parental responsibility. That absence of care contributed to the harm Y suffered. Under s 31(2)(b)(i) of the Children Act 1989, ignorance of the child’s circumstances did not absolve a parent who had failed to provide care which it was reasonable to expect a parent to give.

Not stated in the judgment.