England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Decisions

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE
COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM NEATH COUNTY COURT/SWANSEA REGISTRY
(HIS HONOUR JUDGE HUGH JONES)

		Royal Courts of Justice Strand London WC2
		Tuesday, 12th June 2001

1. LORD JUSTICE THORPE: This is a renewed application by Mr and Mrs L for permission to appeal an order made by His Honour Judge Hugh Jones sitting in the Family Division as a deputy judge in Swansea. He made his order on 30th March 2001.
2. There is a fundamental divide between the way Mr and Mrs L look at this case and the way I look at the case. That is because I look at the case as a judge of the Court of Appeal whose job it is to exclude from the Court cases that have no place here. Mr and Mrs L are desperately concerned about the future of this little girl, N, who was born on 16th February 1986 and who has been in the midst of all sorts of storms since she was about ten years old. I fully understand the anxiety and the distress of both Mr and Mrs L. They have very deep convictions that the medical management of N's various conditions has been either bungled or, alternatively, covered up by individuals within the chain of medical responsibility. But there have been investigations within the family justice system and there was a fundamental hearing conducted by Sumner J which led to a judgment which has not been appealed.
3. The proceedings before Judge Hugh Jones were of a limited character -- an application for contact brought by the family. Before Sumner J the family had been represented but by the time they came before His Honour Judge Hugh Jones they were unrepresented, and all that he conducted on 30th March was a directions hearing in preparation for a fixture on 8th and 9th May.
4. The order that he made on 30th March was the sort of order that judges make up and down the country day in and day out to ensure that cases are properly prepared for final hearing. He directed that the local authority file a further statement by the social worker by 6th April and that, in addition, they should serve on the family not only that statement but also copies of earlier statements made by the same deponent. He directed that the local authority serve on the family a transcript of the judgment of Sumner J of November 1998. He gave the family permission to file further statements by 20th April. He gave the family permission to file and serve statements from Dr Avery and Mr Dare by the same date. He ordered the guardian to file an updated report by 30th April and to serve on the family a copy of her report of 8th January 2001. He varied the order of Sumner J, so far as was necessary, to permit compliance with these directions. He then made an injunction to ensure that this further material was not disseminated outside the proceedings. He directed that the fixture should proceed on 8th and 9th May.
5. When the family applied for permission to appeal this absolutely standard directions order, it was on the basis that Judge Hugh Jones had exercised his direction wrongly in refusing the family leave to issue witness summonses against something like twenty-seven persons. Within the list was a judge of the Court, a director of social services, Mr Justice Sumner, Professor Walker Smith, Professor Booth, many doctors, all the witnesses who might be involved in some sort of inquiry comparable to a medical negligence action.
6. When I looked at the papers, I provisionally refused the application on 3rd May shortly before the fixture, pointing out that the order of 30th March was only a directions order in preparation for a hearing. I said that when judges make such directions order they have a particularly wide discretion because it is trial judges who are responsible for case management and this Court almost never allows into its lists any review of case management decisions taken by trial judges. I said that the directions were within the ambit of the judge's discretion.
7. We do not have a transcript of what the judge said on 30th March but we do have a note of his judgment which indicates that he had a proper sympathy for the family's position. He said that the concerns expressed by the local authority and the guardian ad litem were the very concerns that Sumner J had expressed, but he said since November 1998 there had been a fundamental change in that the family previously legally represented were now before the Court without lawyers and obviously struggling to understand the proper boundaries of the case that was being prepared for trial on 8th May. It was in those circumstances that he ordered the local authority to take these various steps. They were intended to facilitate and to support the family in preparing for the final hearing. He recognised the difficulty that the family had in understanding what were the bounds of relevance in relation to the long list of witnesses that they wanted to call, and the judge said that the family had not satisfied him that the witnesses had the necessary relevance.
8. Today Mr L has very helpfully told me of the outcome of the trial on 8th and 9th May. The application for contact was preceded by an application for adjournment which the judge refused, and then at the end of the case he refused the applications for contact and he said that there should under section 91(14) be a direction preventing the issue of any further application for contact without leave. So from the family's point of view that was a very final end.
9. I know that it is difficult for the family to understand how the Court system operates, but this is not an application for permission to appeal the order of Sumner J nor is it an application for permission to appeal the order of His Honour Judge Hugh Jones of 9th May. It is only an application for permission to appeal the standard directions order made on 30th March. If you were to trace the development of this case, the big mountains are the hearing of November 1998 and perhaps a lesser mountain the hearing on 8th and 9th May 2001, but the hearing on 30th March was, comparatively speaking, but a pimple or a molehill. It was entirely within the judge's discretion to make directions, such as he did, in order to advance the case towards trial, and it can be seen that a number of the directions that he made intended to be made in favour of the family.
10. So these applications for permission to appeal the order of 30th March are manifestly misconceived. I would be doing no favour to this family were I to give them permission to appeal a directions order which is now a dead letter. It is simply part and parcel of the development of the case towards the hearing and towards the order of 9th May. What has been done in that regard cannot now be undone. The orders that survive are the orders of 28th November and 29th May. The order of 30th March is simply an incidental and now historic step. Therefore, those are the reasons why these applications are refused.
(Application for permission to appeal refused)