K (Children: Placement Orders), Re

Adoption against parental wishes is a last resort. The court must rigorously compare every realistic option and explain why adoption is necessary and proportionate.

Parental dishonesty or disobedience may be decisive, but its likely effect on the child must be identified. When assessing future harm, the court should examine its nature, likelihood and consequences, possible safeguards, the comparative welfare merits of each option, and whether the risks justify adoption. The statutory welfare checklist provides essential structure, particularly in difficult or unusual cases.

Where adoption depends upon siblings being placed together and meeting distinctive identity needs, the court should obtain the best available evidence about the likelihood of a suitable placement before making a final order.

The mother appealed from care and placement orders made by Keehan J for three young siblings. The judge preserved extensive findings that the parents had repeatedly deceived professionals and the court, had removed or concealed children to avoid intervention, and would probably flee or refuse professional involvement if the children were returned.

The judge nevertheless found that the parents loved the children and could provide basic care. He concluded that adoption of all three children together was the only proportionate welfare outcome. Permission to appeal was granted on whether the risk of future harm had been properly identified and whether the resulting welfare decision was sound.

The appeal also exposed an evidential gap concerning the availability of one suitable adoptive placement for the sibling group, including provision for their Ghanaian and black British heritage.

1. Appeal allowed. The findings of fact and the conclusion that the threshold for care orders had been crossed were unassailable. The welfare decision could not, however, be sustained on the judge’s reasoning.

2. Adoption against parental wishes is a last resort, available when all else fails. A court must rigorously and rationally evaluate all realistic options before concluding that adoption is necessary and proportionate. The welfare checklist in section 1(4) of the Adoption and Children Act 2002 supplies important structure in difficult or unusual cases.

3. Parental lies and disobedience must be assessed by reference to their likely effect upon the child. Dishonesty and inability to co-operate may sometimes determine the welfare assessment, but the court must expressly connect that conduct with the anticipated harm. Here, the parents’ reprehensible conduct eclipsed other welfare considerations.

4. Assessment of future harm requires consideration of its type, likelihood and consequences, together with measures capable of reducing the risk or mitigating its effects. Those matters must then be placed alongside the comparative advantages and disadvantages of every realistic option. The ultimate question is whether the risks are sufficiently serious to make adoption necessary and proportionate.

5. The judge did not sufficiently examine the reality of the risks if the children were returned. Nor did he explain why those risks outweighed welfare considerations pointing away from adoption. His reasoning treated the risks associated with an unmonitored parental placement as self-evidently unacceptable and became circular at its critical point.

6. There was also a material evidential gap about the likelihood of finding one adoptive home for all three siblings. Their need to remain together and their particular identity needs meant that the court required the best available evidence about an appropriate placement before making a final decision.

7. The care and placement orders were set aside. The interim care orders revived, and the welfare decision was remitted for urgent reconsideration in the Family Division while preserving the existing factual findings. Simler and Underhill LJJ agreed with Peter Jackson LJ.

1. Court of Appeal (Civil Division): The appeal was allowed. The care and placement orders were set aside, the interim care orders revived, and the welfare decision was remitted for an urgent rehearing while the findings of fact were preserved.
2. High Court of Justice, Family Division: Keehan J made care and placement orders for all three children on 2 September 2020, following a fact-finding judgment of 29 March 2019 and a welfare judgment of 10 August 2020. No neutral citation is stated.