J, G And H (Children: Supervision Orders)

In care proceedings, the threshold may be satisfied by a real risk of significant harm arising from a parent’s likely care, even where the feared harm is not probable. The court must assess that risk at the relevant date and then undertake a global, holistic welfare evaluation of realistic options.

Removal from parental care is justified only where necessary and proportionate. The court should prefer the least restrictive order sufficient to manage the identified risk. A Supervision Order may be appropriate where support and monitoring can protect the children, while a Care Order with placement at home requires exceptional justification.

The local authority sought final Care Orders placing three siblings in long-term foster care. The children had lived with their mother after their father had violently attacked her in 2013. In 2019, the mother brought the children to England and reunited with the father, who lived with them for several weeks before social-services intervention.

By the final hearing, the parties accepted that the statutory threshold was met because of the risk posed by the father and the mother’s earlier inability to protect the children from that risk. The central issues were whether the risk could be managed with the children remaining with their mother, and whether long-term fostering was necessary and proportionate.

1. Threshold. The court found that the father’s 2013 attack was premeditated and that he remained capable of serious violence. His closer involvement with the children also presented a significant risk of immediate emotional harm. At the relevant date, the mother had not adequately protected the children from those risks. The requirements of Children Act 1989, s. 31(2), were therefore satisfied. The statutory concept of likelihood meant a real possibility which could not sensibly be ignored, rather than probability.
2. Assessment of the mother. The mother’s cognitive and visual impairments had to be evaluated fairly and in context. Failures to attend appointments or engage with services could not be treated as culpable without accounting for the effect of her disabilities. With professional and informal support, she was capable of meeting the children’s physical and emotional needs and of keeping the father away from the family home.
3. Welfare evaluation. The court considered the children’s wishes and feelings, needs, the likely effect of change, their background, risks of harm, parental capability and the range of available powers under s. 1 of the 1989 Act. Long-term foster care would cause immediate emotional harm, risk sibling separation and might increase the children’s anxiety about their mother’s safety. It would not eliminate the risk of emotional harm from a future assault on her.
4. Proportionality and orders. The risk could be managed by keeping the father away from the family home and limiting contact to supervised indirect contact. A Care Order was not necessary or proportionate. Following the guidance that Care Orders with children remaining at home should be extremely rare, the court made 12-month Supervision Orders for all three children. The children were to remain with their mother, subject to protective orders restricting the father’s involvement.
5. The court also indicated that a Prohibited Steps Order could restrict the father’s exercise of parental responsibility, while a non-molestation order could restrain violence, threats and approach to the family home.

First-instance decision in the High Court (Family Division). No appellate history was stated in the judgment.