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 LUTON COUNTY COURT
(HIS HONOUR JUDGE FARNWORTH)

		Royal Courts of Justice Strand London WC2A 2LL Thursday 2 May 2002

1. MR JUSTICE SUMNER: Mr E applies for permission to appeal against the judgment of His Honour Judge Farnworth, given at the Luton County Court on 7 January 2002. It was listed before me at 9.45am. Mr E has not turned up during the course of the morning and now, shortly before 2 pm, I propose to deal with this application.
2. On reading the papers alone, it is clear to me that Mr E has no reasonable prospect of succeeding were permission to be given to him in relation to his present application. I propose to say a few words in support of that conclusion.
3. The case concerns contact to his daughter, L, born on 29 June 1998. She is now three years of age. She lives with her mother, Miss S. Both parties live in the same town. The father's case is that at that hearing he misunderstood what was being proposed. By the time he had understood it, it was too late. The judge went ahead and gave judgment without giving him a sufficient opportunity to argue effectively against it.
4. Despite a considerable degree of acrimony between the parties, contact was established and developed to the extent that in December 2001 a CAFCASS reporter concluded that contact had gone very well. Its history is shown by the court orders with the papers. In September 2000 contact was ordered to the father every Saturday for two hours. Only three months later in December 2000 that contact was ordered to be increased to six hours per week from February 2001 and 8 hours a week from June. The matter was then listed to come before the court in January 2002.
5. In her report in December 2001 the CAFCASS reporter noted that staying contact was largely agreed. In paragraph 18 of that report she set out what it was she understood the parties had agreed. The transcript shows that the learned judge started on his judgment. The applicant interrupted. It became immediately apparent that the applicant thought that the weekend contact, recorded as being agreed every other week from Saturday morning to Sunday evenings, to be in addition to contact on every Saturday inbetween. He considered it would be detrimental to his daughter if she did not see him every week. The applicant however then understood what was being suggested and wanted to have a longer weekend in due course.
6. In the course of discussions with the applicant, the learned judge pointed out that contact had progressed. Alternate weekend staying contact was an order frequently made and was a natural development from what had already been taking place. That led the applicant to ask whether in six months it might not progress to two rather than one night at weekends. The judge concluded by suggesting to the parties that they see how the new proposals worked out and that they should give it a chance to make it work.
7. This did not meet with the applicant's approval and in due course he made the present application. In his arguments in support, he made the point that fortnightly contact would confuse and disrupt his daughter. In fact there was no agreement that had been reached and the judge declined to listen to his arguments and closed the proceedings. He then raised a separate matter in relation to the respondent's mobile telephone number. I regret I have not been able satisfactorily to follow that because I note that in the judgment the learned judge said that the respondent mother had offered to give that number and to make it available to the applicant. Whether that has or has not taken place I do not know, but it is plainly open to the applicant, if he wishes, to go back and seek further orders in relation to the Respondent's mobile phone.
8. Having read the papers, considered the judgment and examined the arguments and the grounds for appeal put forward by the applicant, I can see no prospect that, were I to give leave to appeal, this appeal would be successful. It would mean that, with L now at nursery school, she would be seeing her mother one day in two weekends. It may be in due course that the father's proposals to increase contact to two nights at the weekend might be a natural development. But, I am quite satisfied that the learned circuit judge clearly had in mind the concerns raised by the applicant father. He saw it as a natural development of contact which indeed is what it is. I do not see that his conclusion can in any way be faulted.
9. In my judgment there is nothing in this application. Accordingly it will be dismissed.
Order: Application dismissed