H and J (Placement Orders), Re

In deciding whether to make a placement order, the court must conduct a robust and rigorous comparison of the advantages and disadvantages of each realistic option. Existing sibling relationships, the likelihood of continuation and the value of continuation must be assessed, but sibling contact has no automatic priority. It may be outweighed by the child’s need for the permanence, stability and security that adoption can best provide. A placement order cannot carry conditions controlling the local authority’s choice of adopters. Agreed care-plan arrangements may instead be endorsed if they are not imposed as conditions. An incorrect reference to unreasonable withholding of parental consent did not invalidate the order where the operative order applied the statutory welfare ground.

A mother appealed care and placement orders concerning H and J, aged four and five at the final hearing. The central choice was adoption or long-term foster care. The boys had close relationships with three older half-siblings and regular direct contact. The recorder considered the benefits and risks of adoption, including the loss of family contact, and of long-term fostering, including uncertainty about permanence.

The recorder made placement orders and included recitals stating that the adoptive search should be limited to six months, that sibling contact should continue pending matching, and that therapeutic and life-story work should be undertaken. The mother challenged the evaluation of the sibling relationships, the evidential basis and balancing exercise, and the apparent limitation or conditioning of the placement orders.

Appeal dismissed. The Court of Appeal upheld the placement orders.

1. The recorder had undertaken the required robust and rigorous analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of the realistic options. The analysis included the boys’ sibling relationships, the likelihood of those relationships continuing and their value to the boys, consistently with the approach identified in Re B-S [2013] EWCA Civ 1146. The evidence, including the earlier sibling assessment and further analyses by the guardian and team manager, was sufficient. The recorder was entitled to conclude that the value of continuing sibling contact was outweighed by the permanence, stability and security which adoption could best provide.
2. Re T and R (Refusal of Placement Order) [2021] EWCA Civ 71 and Re N (Refusal of Placement Order) [2023] EWCA Civ 364 illustrated cases in which sibling contact led to refusal of placement orders. They established no general rule requiring that result. An appellate court should not interfere merely because a party challenges the weight given to particular factors where the first-instance judge has comprehensively evaluated the evidence and options.
3. Under section 21(1) of the Adoption and Children Act 2002, the court has no jurisdiction to attach conditions to a placement order or dictate the local authority’s choice of prospective adopters. Re A (Placement Order: Imposition of Conditions on Adoption) [2013] EWCA Civ 1611 was distinguished. The five recitals were endorsements of matters agreed by the local authority for inclusion in the amended care plan, rather than conditions imposed by the court.
4. Section 52(1) of the Adoption and Children Act 2002 permits parental consent to be dispensed with only on the statutory grounds identified there. The recorder’s reference to unreasonable withholding of consent was an inadvertent slip. The operative order used the correct welfare ground, and no party sought to set it aside. The remaining grounds of appeal had no merit; the issue concerning the former foster carers had also fallen away after that placement broke down.

1. Court of Appeal (Civil Division) — Dismissed the mother’s appeal against the care and placement orders.
2. Family Court at Barrow-in-Furness — Recorder Gough made care and placement orders for H and J, with recitals concerning the adoptive search, sibling contact and therapeutic work.