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
(Mrs Justice Bracewell)

		Royal Courts of Justice Strand London WC2 Tuesday, 10th September 2002

Tuesday, 10th September 2002

1. LORD JUSTICE THORPE: This is an application by Mrs F for permission to appeal orders made by Bracewell J on 9th July 2002. The order is to be found at page nine of Mrs F's very helpful bundle. It is a brief order to this effect:

"Both the mother's applications are hereby dismissed."

2. The application that was formal before the judge was an application issued by Mrs F on 17th June 2002. It is an application on the standard form appropriate for Children Act proceedings, and in section 2 the order applied for is specified:"Discharge of care order in relation to V", Mrs F's 16 year old son. That application was not open to Mrs F to issue in consequence of an earlier order made by Her Honour Judge Anwyl on 4th October 2001. By that order the judge imposed a restriction pursuant to section 91(14) of the statute prohibiting Mrs F from making any application in relation to the discharge of the care order until 8th October 2004. So, in effect, before she could proceed with an application for discharge of the care order she had to get leave to make that application.
3. Judge Anwyl treated both the application for leave and the application for discharge of the care order as being before her on 9th July and she dismissed both. She ordered her judgment to be transcribed at public expense. Accordingly I have a copy of the approved judgment. It is a useful document in that it records meticulously the history of the proceedings from their initiation on 14th October 1998 when the London Borough of Barnet applied for a supervision order and then, shortly thereafter, for an emergency protection order in relation to V.
4. The judgment only turns to the matter before the court on 9th July towards its very conclusion. The judge recorded that Mrs F had both made oral submissions and produced a document. The effect of the document was to attack the original care order which was made by His Honour Judge Downes on 26th May 1999 after a three-day contested hearing at which Mrs F was represented by solicitors and counsel. The document also attacked the order made by Wall J on 28th or 29th October 1998 when the local authority applied to the High Court in reaction to the fact that Mrs F had disappeared with her son after the emergency protection order had been issued. The document even asserted that the order made by Wall J was a forgery. Not surprisingly, Bracewell J placed little or no weight on these assertions. She said that the history shows that the matter had been litigated many times both at first instance and in the Court of Appeal. She said:

"The reasons that led the court to make [the care order] in the first place still existed. Indeed, as of the present time, the matters still remain unchanged. In those circumstances, I dismiss the application made by the applicant..."

5. On the face of it, it must be hard to criticise that inevitable judgment, but this morning on Mrs F's behalf again it has been said that there is either a fundamental miscarriage of justice or excess of jurisdiction in that the court has throughout concentrated on the terms of the Children Act 1989 and has not had due regard to the provisions of either the Education Act or of the Children and Young Persons Act. Accordingly the submission is renewed that the order made by Wall J was fundamentally flawed, as was the order made by His Honour Judge Downes.
6. As I have sought to explain, that submission cannot possibly succeed in this court today for the very simple reason that the legitimacy of the original care order was challenged in this court by an application for permission to appeal which was considered by this court and dismissed on 12th July 1999.
7. Accordingly, I am absolutely plain that Mrs F has no redress in these courts. In her application of 17th June 2002 (section 3) she says that she is awaiting a hearing in the European Court of Human Rights. That is no doubt her only remaining forum. It may be that she will succeed in that court in showing that the courts in this jurisdiction have failed her or have in some way breached her rights, but my task today is a very limited one. It is only to consider whether she has any realistic prospects of success in an appeal against the judgment of Bracewell J of 9th July 2002.
8. In my opinion she has no realistic prospects and the application for permission must be and is dismissed.
Order: Application dismissed.