CD v Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council (adoption set aside) (Rev 1)

The High Court may revoke an adoption order under its inherent jurisdiction, but the remedy is subject to a very high threshold. A lawfully and properly made order may be set aside only in highly exceptional and particular circumstances. Mere mistake, miscarriage of justice, parental distress, or disagreement with earlier welfare and fact-finding decisions is insufficient. The court must consider whether the order was lawfully and properly made and the effect of revocation on the child. The inherent jurisdiction is not a substitute for an appeal or a means of reopening matters that were, or could have been, raised in the original proceedings. A person refused permission to oppose adoption has no right to be heard at the final adoption hearing under rule 14.16(2) of the Family Procedure Rules 2010.

Final care and placement orders were made in June 2019, followed by adoption orders in April 2020. The mother had unsuccessfully challenged the earlier proceedings and had been refused permission to oppose the adoption. She later applied under the inherent jurisdiction to revoke the care, placement and adoption orders, alleging procedural unfairness, breach of Articles 6 and 8, inadequate consideration of medical evidence, and insufficient assessment of wider family members. Four relatives separately sought to participate and to obtain reassessments as potential kinship carers. The central issues were whether the orders could be reopened and whether the alleged defects met the stringent legal threshold for revocation.

1. Applications dismissed. The mother's application and the wider family members' applications were without merit. The court was satisfied by a very wide margin that neither the care, placement nor adoption orders should be disturbed.
2. Under the inherent jurisdiction the High Court has power, in an appropriate case, to revoke an adoption order. Revocation restores the status quo ante. The applicable threshold is that an adoption order lawfully and properly made can be set aside only in highly exceptional and very particular circumstances. An order made without procedural irregularity, breach of natural justice or fraud cannot be set aside for mere mistake, and not even for a miscarriage of justice.
3. The application was a substantive final application, not a permission or filtering stage. The mother did not require permission to apply, but she had to satisfy the stringent test identified in the authorities.
4. The making of the adoption order during the first Covid-19 lockdown did not render it void. Under rule 14.16(2) of the Family Procedure Rules 2010, a person whose application for permission to oppose under section 47(3) or (5) of the Adoption and Children Act 2002 had been refused was not entitled to be heard on whether the adoption order should be made. The judge was entitled to excuse the mother's attendance. Any challenge should have been pursued by appeal.
5. The complaints about service, assessments, medical theories, welfare analysis and kinship carers either lacked evidential foundation, had been considered in the original proceedings, or were matters that should have been raised then or on appeal. The inherent jurisdiction could not be used to re-litigate them by a back-door challenge.
6. The children's Article 8 rights had to be balanced with those of the mother, and the children's rights prevailed. They were settled, stable and happy with their adoptive parents; reopening the proceedings would be highly damaging.
7. The relatives' applications were also too late. Their negative viability assessments pre-dated the trial, they knew or could have established the outcomes, and the original judge had rejected kinship placements. The later applications did not justify further assessments or reopening the orders.

This was a first-instance decision. The judgment records that the mother had previously been refused permission to appeal against the care and placement orders on 24 September 2019, and the Court of Appeal dismissed her application for permission to appeal against refusal of permission to oppose adoption on 26 March 2020. The present court dismissed the subsequent substantive applications to revoke the orders.