England and Wales County Court (Family)

Neutral Citation Number: [2010] EWCC 16 (Fam)

-----

2010

-----

Re:  G

-----

(Transcript of the Official Tape Recording

Official Court Reporters and Tape Transcribers.)

-----

JUDGMENT

(Approved)

-----

THE JUDGE: 

1. I am dealing today with an application by ‘x’ Metropolitan Borough Council for a placement order.  They seek that order in respect of a little boy called EJG.  E was born on the [date] 2006 and he is therefore some three years and a few months old.  E’s parents are AH and JG. 
2. AH does not take an effective part in today’s final hearing save that she has indicated through her solicitors to the court and indeed also to the local authority that she does not oppose the making of a placement order, although I accept, and it is quite a proper position for her to take, that she cannot actively consent to it either. 
3. E’s father JG appears before me today to contest the making of the placement order and asks the court to adjourn the application effectively for a period of time so that he can undergo a further independent social work assessment as to his ability to parent E for the future. 
4. This application is perhaps slightly unusual insofar as when the original care order was made in the family proceedings court, I think in April of 2008, the care plan was for rehabilitation to AH’s care.  Assessments carried out during those proceedings, including a psychological assessment, concluded that JG should not be considered as a carer for his son and, as I have said, there was a plan for rehabilitation to the mother. 
5. It is right, I think to say, that the mother had worked hard during the care proceedings to address some of her difficulties, including some grave difficulties with alcohol consumption, and there was sufficient optimism about her recovery and her progress for the care plan to be one of rehabilitation.  That rehabilitation plan was put into effect and E returned to his mother’s care. 
6. I will not rehearse what happened between the making of the care order and the breakdown of the rehabilitation plan but, to put it shortly, in December 2008 contact between the mother and father resumed and that led to volatility and the risk of detriment to E which led to the local authority seeking a recovery order recovering E from his mother’s care, and he has since then been placed in foster care. 
7. So this placement order application comes, if I can put it this way, down the line.  It is not a case where the local authority is seeking a placement order at the same time as they are seeking a care order.  JG seeks a further assessment and seeks an adjournment. 
8. I note that these proceedings for a placement order commenced as long ago as June last year.  They went along in the family proceedings court for some time but were transferred to this court and the court gave substantive directions about evidence being filed, I think in November and at that point the parents were asked to file and serve position statements by 7^th December in fact. 
9. JG’s statement was not served until the end of February, not long before today’s hearing.  His position in relation to seeking further assessment could have been made clear at the very commencement of these proceedings last June.  It could have been made clear in the family proceedings court, and had the court been minded to at that stage an assessment could have been ordered.  However, some seven or eight months since proceedings were issued very late in the day the court is now faced with an application for further assessment. 
10. The application is for an assessment by an independent social worker GS who cannot commence work for eight weeks and will then take a further 12 weeks to complete her assessment.  That means delaying these proceedings and leaving this little boy, who has already had a considerable amount of disruption to his life, in limbo for at least five months.  That cannot be in his best interests bearing in mind that the adopters are identified and I am told a panel can meet to deal with matching very shortly and introductions would then commence in May.  That is in some two months’ time. 
11. The delay factor to the child is one of the paramount matters which I consider and the delay issue militates against further assessment.  However, it would be right for me to say that even if the delay factor was not there the court would not be persuaded that further assessment is appropriate. 
12. JG tells me that he has done cognitive behavioural therapy during 2008, that he has been attending Addaction and that he has done anger management again in 2008.  There is no independent evidence as to this and indeed what physical evidence there is sadly indicates that certainly the anger management part of that work simply has not worked because JG has served a prison sentence for assaulting a police officer since then and is currently awaiting trial on another offence involving a police officer and is also awaiting sentence in respect of breach of Family Law Act injunctions. 
13. JG himself accepts that he has ongoing mental health problems which require him to turn to his psychiatrist and his community psychiatric nurse from time to time and there is some confusion in his evidence about his stopping drinking.  I noted from the evidence of the guardian that when she saw him in October he said he had had no alcohol since January 2009, in his statement he said it was no alcohol since July 2009 and in his evidence today he says that he drank over Christmas of 2009. 
14. JG has the sympathy of this court insofar as he has considerable difficulties of his own which he may well have tried to address but sadly the evidence before this court is that many of those difficulties are ongoing. 
15. In short therefore I am not persuaded that an assessment is appropriate, firstly because I do not see before me in today’s hearing sufficient evidence as to change to justify it, bearing in mind the previous assessments, but more importantly because even if I were to have thought about granting it the question of delay for E in making a final decision simply outweighs any prospect of further assessment of the father.  This court could not justify delaying a decision for this little boy for a period in excess of five months given the likely uncertain outcome of such an assessment given the lack of evidence about positive change in the father since the previous proceedings were concluded.  So I reject the application for an assessment and I shall make a placement order. 
16. I shall dispense with the consent of both the parents on the basis that E’s welfare demands that I do so. 
17. The other issue which the father asks me to consider is the issue of ordering the local authority to facilitate indirect contact post-adoption.  There is a history in this case of the father discovering where the child is.  He says the mother told him but it is clear in a document that I have seen that he found out where the foster placement was.  The greatest risk in any adoptive placement is the risk of breakdown due to disruption.  Information may be given inadvertently.  There might be mention of a school.  There might be mention of a locality.  There might be description of a school uniform.  The list is endless.  But if there is a risk of inadvertent disclosure of information which could lead to identification of a placement and thus to disruption that risk must be avoided at all costs. 
18. It is quite unusual for a court to sanction an adoption with not even indirect contact to a parent but given the history and the volatility which exists in respect of this father I am sad to say that I must agree with the local authority and also with the guardian that there should be no post-adoption indirect contact between E and his father.  Such contact has to be for the benefit of the child and in this case I see no benefit to E in ordering such contact. 
19. So I make the placement order and I make no order for costs save public funding assessment. 

-----