D (Change of Circumstances: Domestic Abuse Allegations)

A section 7 welfare report must address the statutory welfare checklist and comply with the court’s focused directions. A recommendation for a major change in a child’s living arrangements cannot safely rest on an unexamined assertion that the child is resilient.

Where a court has initially decided that no fact-finding hearing is required, but a section 7 report treats disputed domestic-abuse allegations as material to its recommendation, the officer and parties must draw that to the court’s attention. The court must then review whether fact-finding is necessary. A court must not determine child arrangements on a factual basis which has neither been agreed nor judicially determined.

This was the father’s second appeal in long-running private-law proceedings concerning D, aged seven. Deputy District Judge Loughridge had ordered that D move from her father’s care, home and school to live with her mother some distance away, with defined time with the father.

The order followed a section 7 report recommending an immediate transfer of residence. Although the Family Court had earlier decided not to hold a fact-finding hearing into the mother’s domestic-abuse allegations, the report’s recommendation substantially proceeded on the officer’s assessment that abuse had occurred. The report also failed to analyse the effect on D of the proposed change of home, school and household.

HHJ Willsteed dismissed the father’s first appeal against the live-with provisions, while allowing his appeal concerning time with the father. The central issue was whether the first-instance decision and the first appeal could stand despite the report’s deficiencies and the inadequate reasons given for the transfer of residence.

1. Appeal allowed. The deputy district judge’s child-arrangements order was set aside and the case was remitted for rehearing, initially to the Family Presiding Judge for the Western Circuit for reallocation.

2. The first-instance judgment was fundamentally flawed. It did not identify the material facts, issues, parties’ cases, relevant evidence or competing welfare arguments. It focused exclusively on the section 7 report and the officer’s oral evidence, without evaluating the evidence as a whole. Applying the guidance in Re B (A Child) (Adequacy of Reasons) [2022] EWCA Civ 407, evaluation and explanation were indispensable. The scale of the deficiencies could not fairly have been repaired by a request for clarification.

3. The report did not provide an adequate evidential basis for the order. Under Children Act 1989 section 1(3)(c), and rule 16.33 of the Family Procedure Rules 2010, the officer had to consider the likely effect on D of leaving her established home and school and entering a new household. That factor had been expressly directed at the FHDRA. The omission was not remedied by the officer’s unsupported view that D was resilient.

4. The officer was entitled to report observations about the parents and D, including the reported lived experience of alleged abuse. However, disputed allegations could not be elevated into factual findings. The assessment of harm and risk had to be based on an objective analysis of the evidence as a whole, in accordance with Re S-B (Children) (Care Proceedings: Standard of Proof) [2009] UKSC 17 and Re M and R (Minors) (Child Abuse: Evidence) [1996] EWCA Civ 1317. The officer’s recommendation substantially relied on a conclusion that abuse had occurred, and the deputy district judge adopted that conclusion despite there having been no agreed or judicially determined factual foundation.

5. Where no fact-finding hearing has initially been directed, but a section 7 report makes disputed domestic-abuse allegations material to the recommended child arrangements, the matter must be expressly brought back before the court. Under Practice Direction 12J, the court must then review whether fact-finding is necessary. The risk of delay did not justify making a welfare order on unproved allegations. HHJ Willsteed was wrong to dismiss the first appeal.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division) — In [2026] EWCA Civ 969 , the second appeal was allowed. The child arrangements order was set aside and the proceedings were remitted for rehearing.
• Family Court at Exeter (HHJ Willsteed) — The father’s first appeal was dismissed as to the provisions requiring D to live with her mother and change school, but allowed as to the arrangements for D to spend time with her father.
• Family Court at Exeter (Deputy District Judge Loughridge) — A child arrangements order directed that D live with her mother, attend a school near her mother’s home, and spend defined periods with her father. That order was set aside by the Court of Appeal.