P (No 2): Welfare, Re

On a welfare appeal, an appellate court will intervene only where the first-instance evaluation was wrong in the sense that the decision was not reasonably open on the evidence. The judge must assess past incidents as part of the forward-looking evaluation of future welfare and risk, attributing such weight as the evidence warrants. A complaint about a missing step in a contact regime may be academic after the arrangements have been implemented. A welfare judge may adopt an unusual but legally permissible allocation of decision-making responsibilities between adults without formally attributing parental responsibility to each of them, where the child’s circumstances require a pragmatic order.

This was a supplementary judgment in conjoined appeals concerning children whose paternity and parental responsibility had been considered in the court’s earlier judgment, Re J, M and P (Loss of Parental Responsibility) [2026] EWCA Civ 344. The present judgment concerned only the welfare issues relating to P.

The Family Court sitting in East London had made child arrangements orders under which the children lived with their mother and spent regular time with both alleged fathers. It permitted each adult to take the children out of the jurisdiction for up to 28 days and discharged a previous order restricting Father 1’s removal of the child from the mother’s care. Father 2 appealed on the grounds that the judge had failed adequately to assess a prior removal incident and the effect of the arrangements on the child’s understanding of their family relationships. The central issues were whether the welfare evaluation was wrong and whether further orders, including parental responsibility, should be made on appeal.

1. Appeal dismissed. Father 2’s welfare appeal on Grounds 5 and 6 failed.
2. The welfare evaluation was forward-looking. Past events could inform assessment of future risk, but the weight to be given to a particular event was for the trial judge. The judge had considered the June 2024 removal incident and was entitled to conclude that a properly ordered regime meeting the children’s needs made repetition less likely. The conclusion was plainly open on the evidence. The appellate court could intervene only if the evaluation was wrong in the sense that it was not reasonably open to the judge.
3. The complaint that contact should have been reintroduced by a more graduated process did not justify intervention. The arrangements had been implemented for more than a year, making the point academic. In any event, the judge had provided for a transitional period and invited agreement on a stepped arrangement.
4. The judge had addressed the children’s understanding of their family relationships and the narrative by which their complicated paternity might be explained. The challenge was therefore to the weight given to re-establishing Father 1’s relationship with the child, not to an omitted welfare issue. No error of principle or evaluation was shown.
5. The first-instance allocation of decision-making powers was unusual but legally permissible. The judge gave the mother pre-eminent parental responsibility while identifying high-level matters on which Father 1 and Father 2 were to be consulted, rather than formally attributing parental responsibility to either alleged father. The appellate court questioned whether the paternity decision created any basis to reopen proceedings and declined to make an order requiring production of the court order with the birth certificate.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): In the supplementary judgment, Father 2’s welfare appeal was dismissed on both grounds. The court declined the further requests for parental responsibility and for orders concerning the birth certificate.
• Family Court sitting in East London: HHJ Reardon made child arrangements orders, including regular contact with both alleged fathers, permissions for each adult to remove the children from the jurisdiction for up to 28 days, and discharge of the previous restriction on Father 1 removing the child from the mother’s care. The court’s case number was ZE22P00939.