FL (A Child), Re

In a decision about a child’s future, the judge should identify the realistic options and evaluate their respective advantages and disadvantages through a global and welfare-focused assessment. A failure to set out that comparison expressly does not, by itself, justify appellate intervention. The appeal court must be satisfied that the decision was wrong or unjust because of a serious procedural or other irregularity.

Adoption is a last resort. Where the judge has properly found a family placement under a special guardianship order to be viable, a placement order for adoption is not appropriate. The trial judge may depart from professional assessments if the conclusion is supported by the evidence and adequate reasons are given. An appeal court should be particularly slow to interfere with the judge’s evaluation of prospective carers seen giving evidence.

The child, F, was the subject of care proceedings after his mother’s serious postnatal mental-health difficulties and misuse of alcohol and drugs meant that she could not care for him. The local authority and the children’s guardian supported a care plan for adoption and a placement order. F’s maternal grandmother proposed that she care for him under a special guardianship order.

Following a seven-day final hearing, Mr Recorder Ullstein QC rejected the professional recommendations against placement with the grandmother. He dismissed the local authority’s applications, made a special guardianship order in her favour, and made a six-month supervision order. The child’s guardian appealed, principally contending that the recorder’s reasons and analysis of the competing placement options were inadequate.

1. Appeal dismissed. The recorder’s failure to set out a detailed side-by-side comparison of special guardianship and adoption did not make his decision unsafe. Judges should identify realistic options and summarise their advantages and disadvantages before deciding a child’s future: Re J (Children) [2019] EWCA Civ 2300 and Re G (A Child) [2013] EWCA Civ 965. That discipline guards against overlooking a material benefit or detriment. It does not follow that every judgment which does not follow that structure must be overturned.
2. The appeal court could intervene only if the decision was wrong or unjust because of a serious procedural or other irregularity. The recorder had found, after evaluating the evidence, that placement with the grandmother was viable. Adoption was consequently not appropriate, because it is a last resort, to be selected only where nothing else will do: Re B (A Child) [2013] UKSC 33. The absence of a detailed analysis of adoption’s advantages and disadvantages was therefore not, by itself, a ground for intervention.
3. The recorder had correctly applied the relevant statutory and case-law principles. The threshold under Children Act 1989 s.31(2) was agreed; the live issue was the welfare order. His reasons sufficiently showed that he had taken account of the family history and the professional concerns.
4. Assessment of the evidence and the weight to give it are primarily matters for the trial judge. This is especially so where the judge has assessed the credibility, character, strengths and weaknesses of proposed carers in oral evidence. Expert evidence must be considered, but the judge may reach a different conclusion if it is supported by evidence and the reasons are explained. The recorder had done so, and there was no compelling basis to interfere with his assessment of the grandmother’s capacity to meet F’s needs.
5. The local authority’s late technical challenge also lacked merit. Under Children Act 1989 s.14A(6)(b), a court may make a special guardianship order without a formal application. The report requirement in s.14A(11) was met because the independent social worker’s report fully assessed the matters in s.14A(8).

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division). The child’s guardian appealed against the special guardianship order. The appeal was dismissed.
• West London Family Court. Mr Recorder Ullstein QC dismissed the local authority’s applications for a care order and placement order, made a special guardianship order in favour of the maternal grandmother, and made a six-month supervision order.