England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Decisions

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM THE MANCHESTER COUNTY COURT
(Her Honour Judge Eaglestone)

		Royal Courts of Justice Strand London WC2 Wednesday 6th June, 2001

1. LADY JUSTICE HALE: This is a father's application for permission to appeal against orders made by Her Honour Judge Eaglestone in the Manchester County Court on 13th July 2000 in care proceedings relating to his three sons: K, who was born on 30th October 1987 and so is now 13; C, who was born on 25th May 1993 and is now just 8; and J, who was born on 14th February 1999 and is now over 2, but was then only 17 months old.

1. The judge placed all three boys in the care of the local authority. She also authorised the local authority to refuse to arrange contact between all three boys and their father. She also authorised the local authority to refuse contact between J, the youngest child, and his mother. Those orders reflected care plans that the older boys would remain in long-term foster care, once a placement was found for them, and have contact monthly with their mother and with their older sister, S. S was not a party to these proceedings. She was born on 12th December 1985 and so she is now 15. She was at the time living by choice with a maternal aunt and uncle, having made allegations of physical assault against her father. The plan was that J would be adopted.
2. The mother and father had lived together from about 1985. The father is some 20 years older than the mother, who was extremely young when they began their relationship. She has a learning disability and also, sadly, a history of being sexually abused as a child. They married in August 1988, only a month after the father's arrest for a number of offences of indecent assault upon young girls dating back over many years, one of them the mother's own sister. Subsequently, in November 1999 the father pleaded guilty to some of those charges and was sentenced to a total of 4½ years' imprisonment for offences relating to four girls, but not including, as I understand it, S. He had been in custody since April 1999 because of breach of his bail conditions and shortly after that, in about May 1999, the mother had begun a relationship with a Mr Richardson who was a Schedule 1 offender with a record of convictions for domestic violence and physical and sexual offences against children. He has a brother who is also a Schedule 1 offender. After that the mother's care of the children gave increasing cause for concern, together with her relationship with Mr Richardson, and these proceedings were begun in November 1999.
3. The father's case throughout, and he has put it particularly clearly before me, is that, they may have had their difficulties as a family, particularly with S who was provoking to say the least in her behaviour and conduct - and he agrees that he did hit her as a result. But nevertheless things were not bad. They were a loving home and the boys were doing all right until his arrest. Once he was removed from home the mother began this highly unsuitable relationship with a man who he agrees is a risk to children, things deteriorated and that is why his children were taken into care. He firmly believes that any hostility that the older boys are showing towards him now is as a result of the later events and the false understandings that they have been given of the circumstances which led to the break up of the family, and not anything to do with him personally. He denies, as he has always denied, that he is in fact guilty of the offences to which he pleaded guilty.
4. Returning to the proceedings. The so-called threshold criteria were agreed between the parties in the course of the hearing and they were signed by everyone. There is a copy of that document in the bundle. There is no need for me to quote at length from it. The mother agreed that all three boys had suffered significant harm in the form of impairment to their social, emotional and behavioural development and that J had suffered impairment to his health. She also agreed that there was a likelihood that they would suffer significant harm in the future in the form of impairment to their social, emotional and behaviourial development and sexual abuse which includes living in a household where sexual abuse takes place and is tolerated.
5. The father signed that document and he agreed that the criteria were satisfied in respect of the children. He understood that this meant that the provisions of section 31 of the Children Act 1989 had been made out, in that the children had suffered significant harm and were likely to suffer significant harm, and that the harm suffered or likely to be suffered was as result of the care given or likely to be given to the children, not being what it would reasonable to expect from a parent. But in making those concessions the father made the following points. Firstly, he did not accept that the children had suffered harm as a result of any act or omission on his part; secondly, he did not accept that he represented a risk or likelihood of harm to the children in the future; and thirdly, he did not accept that he was properly convicted of the sexual offences to which he pleaded guilty in November 1999. He was appealing against those convictions on the basis that he was improperly advised and was coerced into entering pleas of guilty.
6. The threshold criteria which have to be established before the court can make a care or a supervision order in these proceedings having been conceded in that way, the judge went on carefully to consider what would be best for each child. She concluded that despite the close relationship which there was between the mother and her children, they could not go home to her. There was an overwhelming body of evidence that she loved them, and indeed that they loved her, but that she did not have the ability to care for them or to protect them from the risks of physical and sexual abuse by others. She was herself a very vulnerable person who was likely to be exploited by others. She engaged in relationships with unsuitable men, in which the judge perforce had to include not only Mr Richardson but also the father, who presented a danger to children, and there was concealment of those relationships in the history.
7. Having reached that conclusion, there was really no choice but to make orders that the children should be placed in the care of the local authority.
8. As far as the father was concerned, she refused his application for an adjournment for six months. The father was trying to appeal against his convictions. He had sought leave to appeal against his sentence which had been refused. He was advised that he could not apply to appeal against his convictions because of his guilty plea. He tells me that he has subsequently consulted solicitors who advised him that he did not have sufficient grounds to challenge his guilty plea, which of course he says was on the basis of bad advice. He is therefore seeking by other means to clear his name. He has written to his Member of Parliament, he has written to the Lord Chief Justice, he has written to the Lord Chancellor and, as a result of that, has made complaints to the Bar Council about those who represented him in the criminal proceedings. He is therefore still trying to overturn those convictions. Nevertheless, the judge did not assess his chances very highly in the circumstances and I am bound to say that nobody could criticise her for reaching that conclusion.
9. The father also applied for an adjournment because he had to represent himself during the hearing. Legal aid had been withdrawn shortly beforehand because his solicitors had reported that he had no reasonable prospect of success in the proceedings. The judge described him as an able intelligent man, who gave evidence and asked questions and had been assisted in making his points by the solicitor for the children. Having had the benefit of meeting the father today, reading the excellent papers which he has prepared, including his submissions for today's hearing and hearing what else he had to say, I thoroughly endorse the judge's description of his abilities.
10. The judge, however, had, as do I, to accept the convictions as they stand. She concluded that it was not safe for any child to live with him after his release. She put it in this way:

"It is right to say that the father has on the basis of his conviction a propensity to indecently assault young girls. There is no evidence that he has indecently assaulted boys. However, if sexual abuse of children is going on within the home the damage to the boys would be first of all that they may witness the sexual abuse or secondly that they may become actively involved in abusing young girls themselves, being encouraged to do so by their father. Of course, at the very least to witness sexual abuse is an extremely damaging experience for children."

11. Hence she gave permission to refuse contact with the older boys. This was principally because they did not want any contact with him, but also because the father did not accept that their long-term future lay away from him. He would have the ability to manipulate their feelings, and thus to destabilise any placement. She pointed out that an order that allowed the local authority to refuse to arrange contact between the boys and their father would not rule out all contact for the future, if there was a change of heart either by the children or by the father. She gave permission to refuse contact with J because of the overriding need to find a secure placement for him now. The care plan for such a young child who cannot go back home is adoption, and it would take too long on the evidence to find the adopters who were prepared to agree to any contact with the family, let alone with the father. In any case, the same objections to contact with the father existed in relation to J as existed in relation to the older boys.
12. As far as this application is concerned, I have first to consider whether there is any reason to give the father permission to appeal out of time. His Appellant's Notice was filed on 6th December 2000, a very long time after the deadline for making an appeal. Of course there are difficulties for any litigant in person, and those difficulties are made much worse if he is in prison. Nevertheless, there are time limits. There always are time limits in appeals, as I am sure the father understands, and where young children are concerned any delay in determining their future is likely to be detrimental to them. There is therefore a special duty on all to avoid it. I would not therefore regard the reasons given by the father for the delay in making his application as sufficient to justify giving permission to appeal out of time. But part of that is because of the difficulties that he would face in any appeal in any event.
13. He asks for a retrial. Part of his reason for that is that he had to represent himself at the hearing and was refused an adjournment. He does acknowledge that he was assisted during the hearing, and both the judge and I have acknowledged that he had the ability to represent himself despite those difficulties. It was well within the discretion of the judge to refuse an adjournment in those circumstances. Firstly, there was the harm to the children likely to result from delay, especially to J. As far as the other two are concerned, there are no irreparable consequences from the orders that she made. Secondly, the father's own communications had shown how familiar with the arguments he was and how well able he was to present them to the court. Thirdly, the guardian ad litem had a duty to ensure that the case was properly put before the court, and she did assist. Fourthly, the chances of his succeeding in resisting the applications in the circumstances had been correctly assessed by his representatives.
14. The father argues that there were no sufficient grounds for interfering with his right to respect for his family life under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights because he does not present a risk of harm to the boys. I have already explained what his basic stance on the proceedings is. He points out that the report of the paediatrician on the children's health found no evidence that the older boys had suffered ill health because of their parents' care.
15. I am afraid that that leaves out of account the risks which the judge dealt with so very clearly in the passage that I have quoted. The court had to approach this case on the basis that the convictions were correct. The risk was clear for boys growing up in that sort of household, that they would begin to believe that such behaviour towards young girls was appropriate. There was a very real risk of their learning such behaviour themselves, and that risk is compounded if it is not acknowledged by the person concerned. In any event, of course, the judge could not ignore the fact that even on the case before her, back in July 2000, the father was not going to be out of prison before September 2001. In those circumstances the local authority would have to have parental responsibility for the boys in the meantime. I now learn that in fact his earliest date of release is in June 2002.
16. In those circumstances, it is impossible to say that the judge was plainly wrong in reaching the conclusion that the welfare of all three of these children, who could not live either with their father or with their mother when she was deciding the case or indeed now, required that they be placed in the care of the local authority, together with the contact orders which she made. She dealt with the whole case very thoroughly and very carefully. Although the father has put his case before me so very clearly, for the reasons I have tried to explain at some considerable length he would have no prospect at all of a successful appeal to this court. There is therefore no point in my giving him permission to appeal.
17. So the applications must be refused.
ORDER: Applications for permission to appeal and an extension of time refused. (Order not part of approved judgment)