LM (A Child) (Interim Welfare Arrangements)

When determining interim living arrangements for a competent child approaching 16, the court must apply the welfare checklist while giving substantial weight to the child’s clearly expressed wishes and feelings. A child should not be returned to a placement that is plainly contrary to their best interests merely to enforce an earlier arrangement. Where parental conflict has caused emotional harm, an interim placement providing emotional space from both parents may better promote welfare than either parental care or unwanted foster care. Rebuilding family relationships should be encouraged rather than coerced. A further specialist assessment should not be ordered where it is unsupported by the evidence and would be unlikely to affect the outcome.

LM, aged 15 years and 7 months, applied for interim arrangements after leaving his father’s care and refusing to return. Earlier child arrangements orders had provided that he live with his father and have no contact with his mother. The mother’s application to reopen those decisions was awaiting determination by the President of the Family Division.

Pending that determination, the issue was where LM should live. The alternatives were foster care, living with his mother, or placement with Ms W, a family friend and the parent of LM’s close school friend. LM strongly wished to live with his mother, but the local authority recommended a temporary placement with Ms W and gradually increasing contact with the mother.

1. Disposition. Applying the welfare checklist in Children Act 1989, the court ordered that LM live with Ms W and her family for the next few months, with gradually increasing contact with his mother. Contact was initially to be supervised by Ms W and was to progress towards unsupervised contact.
2. LM was competent and had expressed a clear, consistent and unwavering wish not to return to his father. Given his age, the changed factual circumstances and the effect of enforcing a return, it would be contrary to his best interests to compel him to do so. His wishes and feelings had to be balanced with his welfare, particularly as he was approaching 16 and would generally be entitled to exercise substantial autonomy over his life.
3. Foster care was a poor option. LM was palpably unhappy, had experienced several placement moves and would remain there against his will. Although placement with his mother reflected his strongly held wish, the evidence showed that both parents were emotionally engaged in longstanding litigation and parental conflict. Direct placement with the mother risked exposing LM to substantial emotional pressure and repeating the harmful movement between parents experienced by his sister.
4. The preferable interim arrangement was therefore one giving LM emotional space from both parents while allowing his relationship with his mother to be rebuilt gradually. Ms W was not wholly neutral, but the emotional risks of placement with her were considerably less than those of unwanted foster care. Rebuilding LM’s relationship with his father should be encouraged, not coerced.
5. The court declined to order a psychological or neurodevelopmental assessment. No school or other professional had raised neurodiversity as a concern; LM was hostile to further professional assessment; and, even if traits of neurodiversity were identified, the assessment was unlikely to affect the outcome because his strong views were sufficiently clear.