Wakefield Metropolitan District Council v R & Ors

In a fact-finding hearing concerning suspected abusive head trauma, the court must determine disputed facts on the simple balance of probabilities. Serious allegations do not impose a heightened standard of proof, although inherent probabilities remain relevant. The court must assess medical and non-medical evidence together and must not treat the inability to identify an individual perpetrator as a reason to strain the evidence. A party’s deliberate lie may support the case against that party only where the principles in Lucas are satisfied; a lie is not itself proof of guilt. Where the actual perpetrator cannot be identified, the court must consider whether each proposed person had the opportunity to cause the injury and whether there is a likelihood or real possibility that the person was involved.

Wakefield Metropolitan District Council applied for care orders concerning four children, following the hospital admission of the youngest child with extensive brain injuries. The local authority alleged abusive head trauma, failure by one or both parents to protect the child, and delay in obtaining medical treatment. The parents denied causing the injuries. The medical evidence supported a traumatic shaking mechanism, but the court could not determine which parent was responsible. The central issues were whether the threshold conditions under Children Act 1989, section 31(2), were established and whether both parents should be included in the pool of possible perpetrators.

1. The court found that the child had suffered acute multi-compartmental intracranial bleeding and hypoxic ischaemic brain injury. The expert evidence established that the injuries were highly unlikely to have resulted from ordinary handling, a seizure, a minor accident or any identified medical condition. The causative shaking involved inappropriate and unlawful handling.

2. The court assessed the medical evidence alongside the parents’ evidence and the wider family circumstances. The parents’ accounts contained significant inconsistencies and deliberate lies about the father’s movements, the video recording and the events during the night. Applying the principles in Lucas, the lies were capable of supporting an inference of responsibility because they were deliberate, material and motivated by fear of the truth. They were not treated as direct proof of guilt.

3. The burden remained on the local authority throughout. The parents were not required to establish an alternative explanation. The possibility of an entirely unknown medical cause was acknowledged but was unsupported by the evidence and did not displace the clear medical conclusions.

4. The court could not decide whether the mother or father alone inflicted the injuries. It therefore considered whether each parent had the opportunity and whether there was a likelihood or real possibility that each was a perpetrator. Both parents were placed in the pool. The parents’ failure to obtain earlier medical assistance was also found to have placed the child at significant risk.

5. All threshold findings sought by the local authority were established. The court deferred the question of the children’s future placement, including the proposed placement with a paternal aunt in another European country, to a later hearing.