Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council v M & Ors

A care order may be made for a child placed permanently with extended family where the order is necessary to protect the child and make the care plan effective. Guidance that care orders with children placed at home should be exceptionally rare does not apply with the same force to kinship placements, although it remains relevant by analogy. The court must decide the type of order while considering the local authority’s care plan. A care order is justified where continuing local-authority parental responsibility, oversight and intervention are integral to safeguarding the child and managing contact.

These were public law care proceedings concerning R, an infant who suffered deliberate salt poisoning and a shaking injury. The court considered the medical evidence, the parents’ ability to protect R, the risks arising from the wider maternal family, and the suitability of a permanent kinship placement with K and T.

The central issue was whether R should remain subject to a care order, rather than a supervision order or special guardianship order, while living permanently with extended family and having limited supervised contact with his parents.

1. Findings and placement. The court found that R had been deliberately poisoned with salt and had sustained a shaking injury. The medical evidence established that the hypernatraemia was caused by exogenous salt administration and that hypertension did not explain the pattern of intracranial bleeding. R’s permanent placement with K and T was approved. It offered safety, stability, continuity of family, culture and identity, while preserving carefully managed contact with both parents.
2. Parental capacity and risk. M posed an established risk of physical harm. F was unable to protect R because of his failure to recognise that risk and his profound dependence on the maternal family. A further assessment or adjournment lacked a cogent evidential basis. Contact was therefore to remain supervised where necessary and limited to meet R’s primary need for a secure placement.
3. Legal framework. Under Children Act 1989, s.33, a care order gives the local authority parental responsibility and power to limit the exercise of parental responsibility where necessary to safeguard or promote the child’s welfare. The statutory looked-after-child framework and kinship-placement preference under s.22C supported the proposed placement.
4. Choice of order. The court’s responsibility to determine the type of order is distinct from the local authority’s responsibility for implementing the care plan. The court must consider the care plan, but the order remains a judicial decision. The strictures in Re JW concerning care orders with children placed at home did not directly govern a placement with extended family, though they had some persuasive resonance by parity of analysis. On the facts, the placement required continuing local-authority authority, oversight and the ability to act swiftly. Nothing less than a care order was required.
5. Orders. A care order was made. R was to remain in the permanent kinship placement, with contact reduced and structured as set out in the care plan.