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 FAMILY DIVISION
(Mr Justice Kirkwood)

		Royal Courts of Justice Strand London WC2 Monday, 17th June 2002

Monday, 17th June 2002

1. LORD JUSTICE THORPE: Mrs F seeks permission on behalf of her father to appeal an order made by Kirkwood J on 20th February 2002. Mrs F has made the application this afternoon because her father is not so fluent in English as she is. All these proceedings relate to Mrs F's son, V, who is wrongly described in the transcript as L. So this case should be "In the matter of V", and not "In the matter of L". That is a point of detail but not a point of significance.
2. The appearance before Kirkwood J was by way of appeal from an order made by District Judge Maple on 3rd January 2002. The order made by District Judge Maple simply refused leave to Mrs F's father to apply for contact to V. So when the two of them came before Kirkwood J that was their due right of appeal within the family justice system. They have no right of second appeal, since section 55 of the Access to Justice Act 1999 makes plain that, where there has already been an appeal in the court of trial, this court must not grant permission to appeal unless the case reveals an important point of law or principle or there is some other compelling reason.
3. This is a very sad case. Mrs F has been in conflict with the local authority over their management of her son in care for many years, and she has often been an applicant in this court. It is, on any view, tragic that there is no contact between V and his family of birth, although I note from a letter handed in this afternoon that the social worker in the case is certainly contemplating a visit in August, albeit only on neutral territory.
4. But set that tragic background aside. Concentrate on the single question that is before me this afternoon. Can Mrs F satisfy the very high threshold created by section 55 of the Access to Justice Act 1999? The answer is, plainly not. The District Judge saw the application as a means by which Mrs F sought to circumvent a prohibition placed on her under section 91(14) of the Children Act 1989 on future applications. In those circumstances the exercise of his discretion to refuse permission is hardly open to criticism.
5. Even less is the decision of Kirkwood J open to criticism. He too exercised a discretion, but, above all, he had to respect the disposal by this very experienced District Judge, absent some evidence of error or demonstration that the discretionary conclusion was plainly wrong. There was no such evidence or demonstration laid before Kirkwood J, and the judgment that he reached was inevitable.
6. It has been Mrs F's ambition this afternoon to demonstrate that the judge was wrong on some points of detail in his summary of the history. That may well be, but insubstantial errors of that sort do not invalidate a discretionary review of the proceedings before the District Judge, nor do they invalidate a clear perception that the appeal brought to him was without merit. Mrs F has done nothing this afternoon that begins to undermine the security of the decision below. She simply seeks to extend this sad litigation indefinitely. She has commenced proceedings in the European Court of Justice, and if there have been administrative or judicial errors in the conduct of these proceedings, they will no doubt be revealed by the process that she has initiated in Strasbourg.
7. I must restrict myself to the only point before me for decision today, and, as I have already indicated, it is without the smallest hesitation that I conclude that this application for permission is without substance and must be dismissed.
Order: Application dismissed.