England and Wales Family Court Decisions (other Judges)

IN THE FAMILY COURT
SITTING AT NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE
IN THE MATTER OF THE CHILDREN ACT 1989
AND IN THE MATTER OF THE ADOPTION AND CHILDREN ACT 2002
AND IN THE MATTER OF: B (CHILDREN)

		The Law Courts The Quayside Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 3LA
		15th September 2014

His Honour Judge Simon Wood:

1. The court is concerned with the welfare of A, a girl born on 28^th February 2013 and so 3½, and her younger half-sister, B, born on 29^th November 2012 and so 22 months old. Sunderland City Council issued proceedings on 21^st February 2014 seeking a care order and it now presents a final care plan of permanence away from their birth family by way of adoption and, accordingly, seeks placement orders in addition to care orders. Although the Local Authority plans are supported by their children's guardian, Laura Grundy, they are opposed by the children's parents.
2. A and B's mother is M, born on 27^th June 1991 and so 23 years old. She seeks to care for her children. A's father is F1, a man who has played no role to date in her life and despite seeking party status has played no part in this litigation, notwithstanding a request to be assessed as a carer. At the request of his solicitor, I discharged her from any further part in this final hearing, F1 not having attended that hearing. Indeed, from recollection, I think he only attended one of the interim hearings, the sum total of his involvement. B's father is F2, born on 10^th June 1986 and so he is 28. He is the mother's full cousin, their mothers being sisters. He and the mother, M, separated in the late summer of 2013 and remain separated. He has played a full role in the lives of both of these girls and in this litigation. He does not seek to care for either child but, instead, asks that the children be returned to their mother's care.
3. Why do Sunderland City Council say that B suffered significant harm and that both children were likely to suffer significant harm attributable to the care that they were given or likely to be given, as appropriate, not being what it would be reasonable to expect a parent to give them? At 12:30, the middle of the day, on Saturday, 8^th February 2014, the mother took B to Accident and Emergency at Hospital A. She gave a history of her waking on Wednesday, 5^th February having bruising to her left ear, waking on Thursday, 6^th February having bruising to her right ear and whilst washing her hair in the bath on Friday, 7^th November, noting a larger area of bruising or swelling to the left side of her head. Despite B never having left her care at any material time, she could not explain to hospital staff how B came about those injuries.
4. Examination on that occasion revealed that B had indistinct yellowish bruising to the right side of her forehead. She had extensive bruising to the right ear along the outside of the ear, including a part of the pinna, with purple bruising along the edge of the right ear at the back with some evidence of purple bruising in the inner aspect of the pinna close to her head as well as a scabbed area just behind the right ear. There was also very extensive purple bruising to the left pinna, including the top and the back edge and the inner part of the pinna, with a small scab behind the left ear. Most seriously, there was very extensive boggy swelling measuring approximately ten by five centimetres just above her left ear, which extended behind the ear on the left side with extensive yellowish bruising over the boggy swelling and spreading into the left side of the back of her head and neck. There were two other minor injuries that the Local Authority would not invite the court to conclude were necessarily non-accidental injuries, but I mention them at this stage: a one centimetre bruise just above her right clavicle and a yellow rectangular bruise with indistinct edges over the left scapula.
5. B was admitted to hospital. As a consequence of this, police powers of protection for A were discussed, she being with her maternal grandmother, MGM, at the time and as it happened, there was apparently a warrant out for MGM from the police. It was in respect of an allegation of criminal damage so the view was taken by the police that she was not a suitable carer. The referral to the removal of the children caused a great deal of distress and some agitation. However, A was eventually handed over and was received into care. Both girls have remained in care together ever since B was discharged from hospital, a period now of more than six months.
6. Medical enquiries continued and a skeletal survey and a CT scan revealed what is now described as a complex branching parietal fracture involving the lambdoid suture and occipital bone due to an impact to the left side of B's head. Although this was the precipitating event, this was not a family unknown to the Local Authority and it says that this is not a single-issue case arising from that event. Therefore, quite apart from the injuries which the Local Authority says were caused in the care of the mother and/or B's father, F2, injuries that have no adequate explanation but would have caused B significant pain and distress which would have been obvious to any carer, injuries the Local Authority says were inflicted non-accidental injuries, certainly as the case was presented, caused by the mother or F2 and, finally, injuries in respect of which no prompt medical attention was sought, as a consequence of which it can properly be said that mother and or F2 failed to protect B. As I say, the Local Authority says that this is not a single-issue case. It further alleges that both girls were exposed to significant domestic violence between their mother and F2, that their mother failed to provide them with a safe and secure environment and that both parents have a history of criminal behaviour as well as alcohol and drug misuse, all of which has contributed to establish the threshold of significant harm or its likelihood against them both.
7. As I will explain, neither parent seeks to argue that B's admitted injuries were not inflicted injuries. The mother blames F2, alleging that they must have occurred in the course of unsupervised contact on Tuesday, 4^th and/or Friday, 7^th February. F2 not only denies inflicting any injuries, but denies, flatly, having had any unsupervised contact, asserting that his contact was supervised by the mother throughout. He does not in fact suggest that the mother herself caused the injuries, but alleges that they must have been caused by one of her associates or her brothers at a time whilst the children were in her care. He says that she knows perfectly well what has happened, but is not saying because she is seeking to protect whoever the perpetrator is. The mother, in particular, denies any blameworthy delay in seeking treatment.
8. Neither parent denies that there was domestic abuse to which the children were exposed. The mother denied providing the children with a safe environment, albeit I think she modified that position in the course of her evidence as I will come to, but she admits historic offending and alcohol and drug misuse, as does the father. In the event, neither seeks to deny that the threshold is in those respects proved on the basis of their admissions.
9. As a consequence, the Local Authority has over the past few months carried out various assessments. They involved the mother and the maternal grandmother and, despite their non-cooperation, F1 and F2. Those assessments are all negative and do not recommend either returning the girls to the care of their mother or placing them with any other family member. A number of additional members of the mother's family had been advanced as potential carers, but all were ruled out on the initial screening when police checks were carried out. None of those family members who were thus ruled out sought to challenge their assessment and, thus, the sad position is that if the girls cannot go home, the stakes could hardly be higher. Thus the issues for this hearing have been for the court to identify or attempt to identify the perpetrator of B's injuries and the role, if any, that either parent played if neither of them were personally responsible.
10. Next, absent culpability on the mother's part for causing the injuries, whether the other factors concerning the mother, whether as admitted or maybe further proved by the Local Authority, would by themselves be a contraindication to a return of the girls to her care. The welfare analysis itself, which the mother criticises as not fairly representing the many positives the social worker accepted that she could offer the girls, is subject to challenge on the basis that not all work that was intended to be done should have been done, leaving a gap in the evidence to which I will come. Finally, there is the question of care planning which at this stage is undecided as to whether A and B should remain together in the event that placement orders are granted because of behavioural issues which have emerged during their time in foster care.
11. I should note that this hearing has been a delayed and fragmented one. It commenced on 18^th August, but after the mother took to the witness box, she became unwell. She is in fact pregnant, her estimated date of delivery is 17^th October and she has suffered significantly from sickness during the course of her pregnancy. Having started her evidence, she became unwell and despite a number of abortive attempts during the week of 18^th August to conclude the evidence, she simply was not well enough to attend. That is not her fault at all. The court, of course, has a great deal of sympathy with her, not only for the fact that she was unwell, but for having to deal with such extraordinarily difficult circumstances at a time when she is pregnant. The earliest date that the case could resume, where all parties in court could accommodate it, was 11^th September. That was itself outside the 26 weeks that had been extended as a consequence of the case having been timetabled to be heard towards the end of the period to give the mother every opportunity to undertake the work that she had indicated at the initial case management conference she wanted to undertake.
12. The first stage, therefore, is to resolve the factual issues in order to determine the jurisdictional basis for the making of any public law order pursuant to s31(2) of the Children Act 1989.
13. Although the real issue has been to identify the perpetrator, it is nevertheless necessary to say a little more about the medical evidence, which has not been challenged. I received a report from the treating paediatrician, Dr Harvey, as well as from an independent paediatric radiologist, Dr Halliday. From it, the following can be distilled. Having given the medical staff no explanation as to how any of the injuries were caused and noting that no underlying disorder had been identified that might be relevant, Dr Harvey described the injuries as unexplained. The swelling to the left side of the head was associated with an underlying fracture and significant bruising. Of that he said:

"It would take a significant degree of force to cause a skull fracture involving swelling. The carer would be aware of the timing of the injury. I would expect any carer to be very clear about when such an injury had occurred and how it may have occurred. It could have been caused by a blunt trauma to the side of her head. That could either have been inflicted, that is to say hit with an object, or thrown against a hard surface. It could also have been caused by accidental means, such as a fall from a significant height onto a hard surface. However, no such history had been given. If the history was of accident, it would suggest that her presentation to hospital had been delayed and that her care had been neglected."

He emphasised the difficulty in timing the injury and it is fortunate that no underlying brain injury or bleeding was identified. He said that, "At the time of the fracture she may have shown signs of acute head trauma. That is to say headache, crying in pain or concussion." Of the bruising to both ears, he described it as, "Quite extensive, caused by a blunt trauma which would have been very painful and which would have been very clear to any carer as to when it had occurred." Those were, as I say, all lacking a suitable history.

14. Having identified the fracture that I have referred to, Dr Halliday said:

"The fracture has been caused by an impact to the left side of the head. This could occur accidentally, for instance as the result of a fall or non-accidentally if the head was struck with an object or the head was struck against a hard surface. There was no evidence of an organic cause."

Of the likely cause or mechanism, she said:

"There has been no description of an accident which could account for the fracture, which means it must be either due to an undisclosed accident or to have occurred accidentally. Simple parietal skull fractures can rarely occur as a result of low level, that is to say less than one metre, falls, but this facture is more complex, it branches and it crosses a suture. This implies a greater force and any accident causing this fracture would be memorable. This sort of fracture is more commonly due to abuse than an accident. In my opinion, the fracture is more likely to be non-accidental."

Asked about the time window for the injuries to be sustained, she said:

"There is soft tissue swelling present over the fracture. Soft tissue swelling starts immediately after the injury and increases over the next few hours. Normally, it gradually resolves in the following seven to ten days. I would estimate that this fracture was less than seven days old on 9^th February. If M is correct in her impression that the swelling increased overnight on 7^th/8^th February, this would imply that the fracture had occurred recently, most likely on the 7^th."

15. Dr Harvey agreed with Dr Halliday, confirming that B would have been very distressed at the time. He said:

"Blunt trauma to the ears leading to bruising and a skull fracture with overlying swelling would be very painful and immediately obvious to the carer. The injuries would be obvious to a subsequent carer, even if not present at the immediate time of injury and the skull fracture and associated soft tissue swelling may cause pain for some hours after the injury."

16. Having offered no explanation thus far, mother was seen in the hospital on 9^th February in the course of supervised contact, by which time the skull fracture had been discovered. During the course of that contact, a doctor attended upon her and broke the news to her of the fracture, to which she is recorded as saying, twice, "Okay, no bother." The duty social worker, who was struck at the mother's completely flat affect, that is lack of emotion, asked her if she was all right. The mother then volunteered that she did not know how it could have happened because she had been with B all the time and B had not been "any different." She did add that A was always picking B up and may have dropped her, but she could not think of any recent occurrence of this or, in particular, an event where B had been upset.
17. The mother was interviewed by the police a few days later on 12^th February and essentially confirmed that B had never been out of her sight in the preceding seven days, had had no accidents and had not been assaulted. On 26^th February, 17 days after B's admission, the mother contacted the social worker and arranged to see her the following day. There is no record of that meeting, but it is not disputed that she told the social worker that she had not told the truth when she said that B had not been out of her sight. In fact, she had permitted F2 to have unsupervised contact on each of Tuesday, 4^th and Friday, 7^th and she suggested that the injuries must have occurred then.
18. The police were notified and she was re-interviewed on 12^th March. We have a transcript of that interview and in it she said that she had left both girls with F2 on the Tuesday for a few hours, having met him at Burger King in Sunderland centre before handing them over, him saying that he was going to take them for their dinners to McDonalds. She said that he returned them about two and a half hours later and B was all right. Asked why she had not said this before, she said she was scared of F2 and he had been pestering her for unsupervised contact and she, effectively, had given in. On the Friday, she had met at their usual venue, public house B, and handed them over, she said, again, for two and a half hours. When she went to collect them, she said F2 was waiting outside the pub with B, who was crying. He said she was tired. That was an assessment with which the mother did not agree. Furthermore, she felt that F2 looked as if he was "on something". She described him as jumping a lot and rather than cause a scene, she did not challenge him, but walked away.
19. Although she acknowledged in her interview that her mother knew that she had not told the truth and had not come forward, it became apparent that her own mother is in fact central to the decision to lie because her account was repeated in some detail in her subsequent witness statement of 6^th March, justifying her fear of the father by reference to his violence towards her, his drinking and his use of cannabis and speed. Describing him as jealous and controlling, she said that she had separated in August or September 2013 and she said that although she had previously denied having been in a relationship with him, that was because she was embarrassed about the fact that he was her cousin.
20. She goes on to say that on the morning of 8^th February, before she went to hospital, there was a discussion. Her own mother asked her if she did not think that in fact F2 had done whatever had happened to B. She said that she had not thought of it until then, but it got her thinking and she quickly came to the view that there was indeed a link between the contact that B had had with her father and the injuries. She went on to say that one of her brothers, MU, did not like F2. He would not have agreed to her letting F2 have unsupervised contact. Since the arrangement that was made on the 8^th was to meet MU at hospital, her mother staying back to look after A and he was travelling from somewhere else, her mother told her not to tell either MU or the hospital that B had had this unsupervised contact. Accordingly, she said she did lie and, essentially, having lied, she felt trapped by it, particularly when the seriousness of B's injury became apparent. She apologised for it and eventually told her legal advisers; hence her contact to the Local Authority 17 days after the lie was told and also contact with the police.
21. Needless to say, F2 refutes her case on that issue entirely, pointing out that she had provided him in her first interview with the exact alibi, in effect, that he coincidentally had advanced. He points to other concerning pieces of information that would suggest that the mother is not just lying about this but also about her care of the children at this time, her relationships and the people, men in the main, to whom the girls were being exposed at the time. It is perhaps also worth mentioning at this stage that the mother says that her present pregnancy resulted from a one-night stand. Having taken drink and cannabis on the very night that A was first removed and B was in hospital, she went out and had this brief relationship with F3. He is said to have no on-going relationship with mother, but his carer is a man called X, who is another man who is mentioned in the story here, said by both mother and MGM to be a family friend and nothing more.
22. I was not asked to hear from either of the doctors, whose evidence was accepted. I heard in August from the present social worker, Emma Cullen. There have been two. She replaced Jackie Watson who prepared various assessments, but whose role was then taken over when she went on sick leave. As I indicated, I heard from the mother in part in August. I heard her evidence in chief and the first part of Mr Stonor's cross-examination of her about matters other than the injuries before she became unwell. On 11^th September, I heard the rest of the mother's evidence and that of her mother and on 12^th September I heard from F2 and the children's guardian.
23. At this stage, this is a case very significantly about honesty in which the mother, at least, admits telling very serious lies and her mother seeks to take the blame for putting her up to telling those lies. I am in the first instance going to make a finding about the injuries before looking at welfare issues, but the question of honesty does arise there as well, so I will have to touch on that in this context. The social work evidence was largely concerned with welfare issues and care planning. I record the fact that Emma Cullen told me that mother's engagement with her was good, that she attended every appointment, that the mother and the social worker had a good relationship and that whenever she needed support, she contacted her. That is all, as Miss Cullen said, to her credit.
24. However, there were honesty concerns related to the injuries and her drug use. The latter arose because due to historic issues within the course of assessment the mother had revealed that she had used cannabis as well as alcohol and had, again to her credit, referred herself to Turning Point, a charity that assists. A review of the tests that had been carried out in different contexts since April revealed that on 13^th May and 6^th June she tested positive for cannabinoids and that on 11^th July and 29^th July positive for amphetamines. What the mother said was that in January 2014 she reported that she had last used cannabis when she had been pregnant with A, but she went on to tell the court that she had used it again in January because she was stressed over the pressure being put onto her by F2 in relation to unsupervised contact. She said it was the first time she had used it for three years and that was that. Unfortunately, however, on 6^th March she described her use as historical, not admitting current use. She had gone on to admit using it on the night the children were taken into care and then again on 21^st March because she said she was anxious about coming to court.
25. More recently still, she said that she had not used it until three weeks ago, which would have been in mid-July, and she said that she had not used it for a while, but that occasion had been precipitated by being told by the Local Authority of its decision regarding the future care of the children. She had to go on to acknowledge that that explanation was contradicted by the May and June tests, which showed cannabis used then. Further, that it had occurred at a time when she was pregnant, with the obvious risks to her unborn child and in the face of denials. Still further, that the claim that she smoked in July, that is the report from Life Line on 7^th July in response to the Local Authority's plans, was contradicted by the fact that she was not in fact told of the plans until four days later on 11^th July. Thus, the overall picture one was left with was a picture of her smoking cannabis, which was apparently readily and easily available to her, every month in 2014 save for April, making her accounts throughout the course of this year with regard to her cannabis use misleading, as she acknowledged to Mr Stonor.
26. More problematic still are the positive tests in respect of amphetamines. Save for an admission that she used them briefly in her teens, she denies using amphetamines absolutely. She cannot explain why she would have had two positive test results and she denied F2's allegations that they used them together, amphetamines, when they were a couple and that after separation he continued to supply her with amphetamines. Indeed, according to him but denied by her, that was part of the purpose of their meeting for contact: to handover more amphetamines. She acknowledged that the drug use made her case more difficult as well as recognised the harm to her baby, which she accepted has not been a sufficient reason to stop her despite the advice and help that she had had from Turning Point.
27. Alcohol was perhaps less of an issue, but it was still not one to ignore completely because she denied it ever having been problematic. She was taken to five police records between 2007 and 2013. They pointed to problematic drinking in the sense that each of the occasions was an incident of disorder at a time when she was under the influence of alcohol, the most serious of those being an altercation at night on a bus with another passenger in 2011 when A was with her in her pushchair. Of that issue, she said to Mr Stonor, "I don't see it being a problem just every now and then on a weekend" and to Mr Armstrong she again had to be reminded of the bus incident in denying that she was capable of using aggression and violence and acknowledged that she was capable of such behaviour. These issues, as she recognised, reflected badly on her honesty and she accepted to Mr Stonor his proposition that she had in fact a significant track record of misleading professionals.
28. Another area of direct relevance was her relationship with F2. She acknowledged she had repeatedly lied to the Local Authority over the existence of it, even when from 2011 onwards everyone knew that it existed and the fact that he was her cousin, which, as I said earlier, was her explanation for lying as it might be thought that the close family relationship was embarrassing. Thus, she admitted telling the Local Authority more than once that she had ended the relationship in order to get it off her back at a time when she was suffering domestic abuse, twice in 2011 and again in 2013. By way of further explanation, she said that she did not want the Local Authority involved with her girls so she had lied for their sake. "It is what they needed. At the time I thought I was doing the right thing." When asked why anyone would believe her on any matter of importance, she insisted she was now telling the truth.
29. Therefore, to come to the injuries themselves, the accounts that she gave to the hospital were, first, that she had put B to bed on Tuesday night and when she awoke on the Wednesday morning, noted bruising to the left ear; when she woke on Thursday morning, she had the bruise to the right ear; and when bathing B on the Friday, noticed the bruising to the left side of the head. To Dr Harvey, she said that on the Wednesday night she had noticed bruising and swelling to the right ear and on the Thursday, bruising to the left ear and the boggy swelling on the Friday evening at about 7:30. She also, as I have mentioned, was adamant she exclusively supervised the children during this time. She also denied initially that there had been any social work involvement with her, but later accepted that the Local Authority had been involved previously following an argument between her and F2.
30. The contradiction as to when on the Wednesday she saw the first ear injury, that is to say the morning or the evening and whether it was the left or the right ear first, was explained by her as being a mistake. Asked why in her first police interview she asked which side the fracture was on in trying to identify the correct order of the emergence of the ear injuries, she said it was not because of seeking to associate the ear injury with the fracture. She said, "My head was in bits." Asked to contrast her taking B to Accident and Emergency on two occasions suffering from constipation with the serious delay in taking her with the head fracture, she said that because B was at all times well, she had no concerns. That was, of course, relevant to the evidence of Dr Harvey that the swelling would have started immediately and been obvious to a carer and to a carer subsequent to the happening of the injury who had not witnessed the event.
31. On her account of the period of contact on Friday, it was, therefore, that latter part, that was equally relevant. She acknowledged that history she gave did not fit in with Dr Harvey's opinion, which nevertheless she accepted. Insisting that her mother had told her to lie, she could not say why as she did not argue with her and denied that she had anything to hide. Asked time and time again by all advocates and eventually by me, she insisted that she had neither caused the injuries, nor could she explain them, not offering any alternative hypothesis than that F2 had caused them in contact in the community earlier in the day. She repeatedly denied protecting anyone else, which, as I have said, was F2's strong view based on his belief that she is in other respects a good mother.
32. Despite the concern about MU, her brother, finding out and acknowledging that he, like all his brothers, has a criminal record, in his case of some significance, she insisted that she was not frightened of him. She was not protecting him and nor did she think that he or any of the other brothers posed a risk to her children, despite saying that she would not let the children near him if they were to come home to her. She could not explain how in giving a false story she predicted F2's alibi with such precision, why she or her mother would give an account to protect him or they could in fact have spent time sitting round with a sick child discussing a false story instead of getting her to hospital. I could go on, but I am not going to at this stage because her account is also supported by her mother.
33. It is a fact that her mother filed her first statement almost six months to the day after the incident. Despite her case that she realised on the very day of B's admission to hospital that she had made a terrible mistake in telling her daughter to lie, she said she had not discussed it. She neither approached the Local Authority or the police, nor told the mother to go back to the Local Authority and put right the wholly false impression that F2 had had no unsupervised contact there and then. Her evidence was, rarely in my experience, frankly, embarrassing to listen to. Within a couple of minutes of going into the witness box her colour had dramatically heightened and the increasingly long pauses that characterised all her evidence, often preceding an answer "I don't know" when an answer was called out for, made me note the fact that I thought that she was making it up as she went along. She was quite the most unimpressive witness whose demeanour, long silences and when they came, responses, gave no confidence that they were remotely reliable. It was evidence which, when challenged, was riddled with contradictions.
34. Even in the sunny pastures of evidence in chief, with Miss Moulder being granted a degree of latitude that would have produced a fairly explosive reaction in some of my predecessors, she could not give a coherent account. Amongst the most painfully embarrassing moments was Miss Moulder's persistent attempt to lead her into repeating the statement set out in her witness statement that on seeing B's head, her immediate thought was that it was F2 because he had clearly been on drugs. I did not stop Miss Moulder, despite the very persistent and penetrating glances I was being thrown by Mr Stonor and Mr Armstrong, because where a witness has to be led to that extent, is, frankly, as revelatory, if not more so, than on the contradiction being pointed out in cross-examination. No one, it seems to me, was prejudiced other than the witness herself, whose credibility was straining to breaking point. Nor was her explanation that she had not said it, that is to say that she made the association, because it was written down in her statement remotely convincing.
35. Her level of insight was worrying in the extreme. Asked about F2's drinking, she said, "I knew he liked a few cans. That's about it." Of cannabis she said, "He liked it every now and then." Asked, "Did that worry you?" after a long pause she eventually said, "In a way, but he wasn't doing it in the house." Her evidence as to her knowledge of domestic abuse was all over the place with different accounts to the social worker, which contradicted with the mother's own accounts. Having said that on the Tuesday contact she thought that she smelt drink faintly, but had seen no concerning behaviour at handover, within almost the same breath she said that a report that she had made to the social worker of him being agitated, with his arms flinging all over the place, she felt that he was on something, was equally correct. As to why the children had been handed over in such circumstances, there was no answer. Her account to the social worker of B being collected from contact on the Friday, "Her normal little self, crawling about, not crying, bubbly, smiling all the time," in contradistinction to her later account of B being whingy and unsettled, was explained by the quoted passage referring to B after her bottle and sleep, despite the very clear context in which it had been put.
36. Ultimately, her explanation for lying or telling her daughter to lie was to protect F2, who is, after all, her nephew, from what appeared to be serious harm from her son, MU. Despite denying that she or her daughter were afraid of MU, implicitly recognising that MU is capable of inflicting serious harm, this was all at the price of the very serious injury suffered by her 14-month-old granddaughter. When Mr Armstrong put to her that she had a poor track record with the truth, like so much of her evidence, it was met with total silence.
37. Finally, on factual issues I heard from F2. He too comes with a significant warning, a lengthy criminal record, presently remanded in custody for a robbery that he seems likely on what he told this court to admit and the anticipated custodial sentence. He also has a long history of drug abuse. Indeed, as he was at pains to point out, his drug use during the relevant period was out of control to the point that he maintained he prioritised it over everything else, including his daughter.
38. All that said, his evidence was in several respects straightforwardly direct and balanced. Thus, first, he was insistent that the mother was a good mother to the children. He thought they should live with her and he conceded that he was in no position to care for B, something he much regretted. Second, the impediments to the mother caring for the children were in his view all the people in her house. He thought she should be left to get on with it herself. Third, he was clear that in his view the mother had not harmed B based on his longstanding observations of her care of both A and B. Fourth, he described the mother as gentle, shy, quietly spoken, calm and patient with her children, whom she loved to bits. He had never seen anything inappropriate. She had never smacked them or lost her temper. He described her as, "The best of mams." He could not have picked a better one for his child. He added that at all times the children were well looked after, always clean and always tidy.
39. He did have to go on to acknowledge that, his record aside, he had not covered himself in glory. First, he had not engaged in this hearing until the very end or with the Local Authority at all. Next, he failed to make enquiry at any time during the lifetime of the case as to how B in fact was. He acknowledged that his language in the contact that did take place was at times inappropriate, calling B variously "a cow" and "a wench", but said that that was just the way he spoke, there was no malice in it. He recognised that some of his play with the children might have been perceived as rough, but denied that it really was or that it would have hurt the girls. He took particular exception to the description of putting A in a headlock in contact.
40. He accepted that there had been domestic abuse but his take on it was that it was six of one and half a dozen of another. He denied being controlling. He denied that he had ever spat at the mother, as she said. Whilst he pushed her around, that was when she went for him and he had not done so when she had been pregnant, as she asserted. He insisted that they were both drug abusers. He told me that she had broken his jaw last year. This allegation came so late that it had not been investigated, but he certainly gave a convincing account of a fractured jaw that necessitated surgical treatment, whatever its cause.
41. He was insistent that his and the mother's first account of the contact that he had had with the girls was true, but he went on to reveal that prior to the Tuesday contact he had had "a line of whizz", but no drink, and he certainly had not hurt B's ears. On the Friday, he had no drugs so he had substituted two or three pints of cider and, whilst he denied that he was drunk, he accepted that he was merry and at one point, at any rate, appeared to accept the possibility that he may not have been completely in control of himself. He denied absolutely any unsupervised contact on that day and he said that the contact was cut short and although it was not discussed, he knew that that was because of his presentation. He denied absolutely any suggestion that he had changed B's nappy during the course of contact. He went on to volunteer that he was contacted by the police and he handed himself in because he was told he would be arrested if he did not and, essentially, he stuck entirely to his account given to the police.
42. The law is to be found in a serious of authorities beginning with Re H and R (Minors) (Child Sexual Abuse: Standard of Proof) [1996] AC 563 and ending more recently in 2008 with the House of Lords in Re B [2008] UKHL 35. I do not propose to set out the law in length because there is no need for me to do so, only so much as is necessary to indicate the standards by which I have to assess the evidence and, equally importantly, as to enable the parents to understand the legal principles by which they are being judged. I am entitled to and must have regard to all the evidence before me when coming to conclusions on matters of fact. The standard of proof was classically defined by Lord Nicholls and Re H and R (Minors) (Child Sexual Abuse: Standard of Proof) as:

"The balance of probability standard means that the court is satisfied an event occurred if the court considers that, on the evidence, the occurrence of the event was more likely than not."

43. If that was in any doubt, the House of Lords renewed it in Re B and, whilst disapproving of what had become the familiar formula, the more serious the allegation the more cogent the evidence needed to prove it on the basis that whilst inherent probabilities are something to be taken into account, there is no logical connection between serious and probability, Lord Hoffman said:

"If a legal rule requires a fact to be proved, a judge or a jury must decide whether or not it happened. There is no room for a finding that it might have happened. The law operates a binary system in which the only values are 0 and 1. The fact either happened or it did not."

44. Similar principles apply to the identity of perpetrators. As Lord Nicholls said in Re H and R (Minors) (Child Sexual Abuse: Standard of Proof), the question to be asked is, is there a real likelihood or real possibility that A or B or C was the perpetrator or a perpetrator of the inflicted injuries. The court must not strain to identify on the simple balance of probabilities the individual who inflicted the injuries.
45. If it is clear that the identification is not possible then the judge must reach that conclusion Re B. Also in 2009 in Re S-B [2009] UKSC 17 Lady Hale in the Supreme Court said this:

"If a judge cannot identify a perpetrator or perpetrators, it is still important to identify a pool of possible perpetrators. If the harm has been caused by someone outside the home or family, for example at school or in hospital or by a stranger, then it is not attributable to the parental care unless it would have been reasonable to expect a parent to have prevented it."

Finally, a person comes within the pool of possible perpetrators when the evidence establishes that there is a likelihood or real possibility that the given person perpetrated the injuries in question. Where a pool of possible perpetrators consists of a small number of people, it would be wrong to exclude one on the basis there is no real possibility that the individual inflicted the harm or caused the injuries. The court must be satisfied on the balance of probabilities that the other person inflicted the harm or caused the injuries.

46. Any witness who has to start their evidence by confessing to having told, and persisted with, a very significant lie, which had a direct and immediate impact on the welfare of a seriously ill toddler, begins with a disadvantage, as the mother herself recognised. However, I am reminded that, as was said in the criminal case of Lucas, a lie does not equate to guilt, as there are many reasons why people lie other than to conceal guilt. Furthermore, just because a person has lied over one matter, even a very important matter, it does not mean that they are not telling the truth about other matters or telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth now.
47. In a number of ways, the mother was an attractive witness. She has many positive qualities, as the social worker acknowledged, in terms of the good things that she has done to care for and to meet the needs of her children, who I accept she loves unconditionally. She had the insight and presence of mind to ask for help both before and after the terrible events of February and, as the social worker acknowledged, she has not always been provided with what she needed, recently, in particular, in terms of parenting work. That she has done as well as she has is, of course, to her credit. Given what is known about the criminality that runs through her family, her brothers in particular and her associates, it is perhaps even surprising. Miss Moulder invites me to contrast the gentle loving care of this mother with the careless care of the father who turned up drunk to contact and who, in contrast to the mother, has not engaged in any sense that would be recognised.
48. All that said, there are, I am afraid, an incredible number of problems. The big admitted lie aside, there have been a lot of other lies and they are not just in relation to the events since February. In answer to Mr Stonor in August, she frankly admitted, disarmingly so, the serial lies to the Local Authority about her relationship with F2, about the domestic abuse to which she was exposing herself and the arguments. She also had to admit that she had lied over her drug use. So far as cannabis is concerned, and having misleadingly sought to suggest that she had not used it since she was pregnant with A, she has in fact used it every month save for April 2014 and appears to have had such easy access to it that her claim that she had not been using it and had made serious attempts to stop using it rang rather hollow. No explanation has been advanced by her as to why she tested positive for amphetamines. The obvious one staring us in the face remains denied, but it seems to me that it is the only explanation and there is at any rate active support for it from F2, despite all the other positive things that he has said about the mother, in terms of his description in supplying her with it at contact.
49. Accordingly, before we get to the injuries to B, this is a witness who has to be treated with the utmost caution. Mr Armstrong characterised her account to the police on the first instance as variously ludicrous, ridiculous and nonsense. That she could, in considerable detail with positive endorsements of the success of these disputed sessions of contact, advance the circumstances of it on two occasions, accompanied by her mother for her own safety, reducing the chance of her being browbeaten into permitting unsupervised contact and thereby setting up F2's defence, occurred in circumstances where she is simultaneously frightened of him and owes him no loyalty is, frankly, incredible in the true sense of the word. I am not going to labour the point, but by the time she advanced the false alibi, she already believed the man she was alibiing to be responsible for the serious injury to her child. She has variously said she was not scared and was scared of F2, despite the considerable evidence of her frequent call-outs to the police to deal with him when he was causing her problems.
50. There is the persistence of the lies in the face of the seriousness of the injury and there is also the fact that her brothers appear to have been more than capable of sorting out any issue that she had with F2. Furthermore, the evidence of her mother, the grandmother, if anything, went to underline the incredulity that I have mentioned. She was not even a witness who had remembered the script, let alone stuck to it. Each of mother and grandmother when faced, as they were repeatedly, with the question why, repeatedly was silent and eventually said, "I don't know."
51. I have already said that F2 is a witness who has to be treated with caution. It is fair to say he did not come under police scrutiny until 13^th March when he handed himself in. He was a witness in respect of whom a Lucas direction must also be given. He came from the dock. He had not discharged his parental responsibility to his daughter. He has admitted scandalous behaviour, attending contact under the influence of amphetamine and having drunk cider. He thereby lent some support to mother and grandmother for his presentation on those two dates, albeit that in turn made the idea of giving him unsupervised contact in the face of sustained and quite longstanding opposition to it even more fantastic. Yet despite all these things, despite if his case is correct, the calumny of being accused of something of which he is not remotely guilty because he had been denied the opportunity to have that contact, he was generous in his praise of the mother.
52. F2 was not a sophisticated witness and I frankly doubt whether he had the wit to make up and sustain convincingly a false story. He was challenged about an anonymous letter that had been sent to the Local Authority in March describing very worrying circumstances within the maternal home. He denied being behind it, but quite apart from the improbability of him writing it or putting someone up to writing it and then signing it as from a professional person, he was angry that its author had unfairly described the mother as a bad mother in other respects. I formed the clear view that bluff and double bluff was beyond him and, thus, I do not consider that he could have built into a dishonest letter designed to cause problems for the mother matters with which he would so readily and easily have disassociated himself.
53. In saying he was not sophisticated, I have also in mind his fulsome praise for the mother and her insistence that she was a good one. I think that he has a fairly basic view of what is good in this context. It comprises loving the children, keeping them clean, dressed and fed. When asked about the fact that she had continually exposed the children to their domestic violence, which was concealed from or denied to the Local Authority, as well as the various other unsatisfactory extended family members and other men, the drugs that the mother took and the police call-outs, her inability to set boundaries and the fights that her brothers had, he did not deny that none of these things would have made for a safe environment for the children, but nevertheless continued to insist that she was still a good mother.
54. Where does all this lead the evidence about contact and the potential opportunity for the injuries to be caused then? Quite apart from the inherent improbability of B having been seriously injured in the community and the fact that the evidence of Dr Harvey would have pointed to significant upset in the child at the end of contact and for a period of time thereafter, I simply cannot accept the mother and her mother's evidence that this contact was unsupervised. The Tuesday contact is said to have caused bruising to emerge 24 and 48 hours later in a child who had not displayed any distress. It is, I am afraid, not just a case of preferring F2's evidence to the mother's on this and I do, but I think that the mother's account is a deliberate fabrication in order to pass the blame onto F2, a man of bad character about whom she obviously felt such a story might be accepted. Whilst that is very serious in itself, what it conceals is something even more serious.
55. We do not know what happened to B, a vulnerable toddler who cannot protect or speak for herself, who relies on her carer to protect her and to speak for her. Various theories have been put forward based on unverified other suggestions. The mother dismisses as a fabrication of F2 the anonymous letter I have just mentioned, received on 7^th March setting out concerning information about men in her house at a time when B was injured, her mother being threatened not to report what really happened or the presence of X, said to be a family friend who F2 says, but the mother denies, is in a relationship with and whose money she is after. It also describes very concerning information about the circumstances of the children generally in the form of neglect, drug and drink use and the presence of undesirable men.
56. For the reasons I have given, I do not believe that F2 is implicated in its authorship. There are also multiple hearsay reports passed around by mother and F2's aunt, I think, about some kind of fight having occurred within the house at a time when the mother was absent for a 36 hour period and left the care of the girls to it is not known who. In fact, Dr Halliday dismissed as an explanation someone falling on B in the course of a fight, but the account is nevertheless a concerning one if there is any truth in it. What struck me in the dogged insistence by mother and grandmother that the truth is now being told and in dealing with the frank absurdity of the need to protect F2 from MU if he had been responsible and I note that the mother said in evidence that MU would in fact kill F2 if he was, was the sense of fear that both mother and grandmother conveyed. I sensed that it was that fear that was the real concern as opposed to the immediate consequence of being found to blame.
57. I am, however, in danger of speculating. I am quite satisfied that F2 did not injure B. He has been named and blamed to conceal the true reason. Whilst Dr Halliday cannot exclude an accident, such as a significant fall from a height greater than a metre, the fact that no accident has been reported makes it in my judgment far more likely that this was an inflicted injury. The other factor it seems to the court that militates against an accident is the bruising seen on the Wednesday and Thursday which obviously preceded the fracture and I am quite satisfied that she did not have a fracture, for example, when F2 had his contact on the Friday. Whilst in his state he may not have noticed, that cannot be said of either mother or grandmother. I am also quite satisfied that quite apart from their understandable antipathy to giving F2 unsupervised contact, his presentation would have undoubtedly militated to it being on Friday when the grandmother states she smelled drink, in much the same way as his presentation on the Tuesday.
58. Despite A's behaviour in throwing toys and the like, I am quite satisfied that the injuries were caused by a blunt trauma that would have hurt B very much at the time, as anyone present would have known. I am left with the depressing conclusion that over the course of the week of 3^rd February B was subjected to repeated blunt trauma on at least three occasions. I cannot say if the mother did it. Like the father, I am hesitant to reach that as the sole explanation, but it occurred in her care and I cannot exclude her as a perpetrator however much I am suspicious that she is protecting someone else. If that is the explanation, by not disclosing it she has not protected her daughter and has exposed her to harm of a serious kind and whether through fear, embarrassment or whatever in her attempt to conceal what happened, it would be in my judgment the most serious dereliction of parental duty. Obviously, if she were herself responsible then the seriousness of the injury, the delay in treatment and the failure to disclose are matters of the upmost severity.
59. Therefore, reverting to the findings that the Local Authority sought, I am satisfied that they are made out as pleaded in the amended form by Mr Stonor to include the possibility that if the mother herself did not cause the injury, she knows who did, but has chosen to protect them rather than disclose. I exonerate F2 of any responsibility for the injuries being caused in his care by him or in the failure to seek medical treatment on the Friday. They were caused either by B's mother or by some other adult whom she has chosen not to identify.
60. Having made those findings, I need to make a welfare decision in respect of the children. In considering the options, I do, of course, have regard to the recent considerable jurisprudence on the subject beginning with the judgment of the Supreme Court in Re B (A Child) [2013] UKSC 33 and the more recent decisions in Re B-S (Children) [2013] EWCA Civ 1146 and Re W (Children) [2014] 14 EWFC 22 in which the President has said that the principles in those cases must inform practice in all care cases.
61. In Re B (A Child), a case where the Local Authority was indeed seeking to place a child for adoption, it was emphasised that such orders are orders of the highest level of interference with Article 8 rights to a family life and at the extreme end of state intervention removing a child permanently from its family and placing it for adoption against the will of the parent.
62. The Supreme Court was at pains to say, and it is best and most pithily summarised by Lady Hale in saying that in taking such an extreme step of interfering with Article 8 rights in such a way, the court can only separate a child from its parents if satisfied that it is necessary to do so and that nothing else will do. In Re B-S (Children) the President reminded courts faced with making such far-reaching decisions that it is not enough to show that the child will be placed in a more beneficial environment for his or her upbringing. He reminded courts of the striking languages to the degree of necessity required before such orders were endorsed as well as the need to explore and attempt alternative solutions. That in turn involves an assessment of the parents' ability to discharge responsibilities for the child taking into account systems that can be offered by the proper authorities. Finally, the need for proper evidence from the Local Authority and the guardian addressing all realistically possible options with a proper analysis of the arguments for and against assessed on a global holistic evaluation, as described by McFarlane LJ in the case of Re G (A Child) [2013] EWCA Civ 965.
63. The findings that have been made inevitably colour the approach to the welfare question significantly. They are very serious indeed and they are made against a background of a finding of serial and sustained dishonesty. As the mother recognised in her evidence, part of the process of cooperating involves being honest and not telling lies. The lies she told about matters such as drug abuse, quite apart from those told over the years about the domestically abusive relationship, are serious. Those concerning B's injuries transform them, I am afraid, into another league of seriousness. That said, there are a number of positives to this mother. Until B's serious injury, her seeking out help and medical treatment was good. These were never hidden children. She sought advice from the health visitor in respect of A's speech and behaviour. Although she minimised drink in the past, it was mainly in the past. She had asked at the case management hearing for as long as possible within 26 weeks to access help and take whatever steps she could to prove that she could meet the needs of her daughters. She had to an extent been frustrated in that in particular a delayed parenting referral had occurred, albeit she was then offered one to one help but the take up had not been complete with a missed appointment.
64. Her commitment to contact was good and its quality is said to be good and, indeed, that is evident from the records. So good was contact that it was moved into the community with beneficial results. There is evidence of good attachments and the emotional relationships are warm. She sought support for concerning behaviour from A. She attended NECA in respect of her drug use, albeit unfortunately failed to follow the advice not to use cannabis. She also attended all meetings, reviews and medical appointments. She worked well with professionals and acted on advice. Indeed, the social worker on being taken to the positive column in the balance sheet she prepared conceded that insufficient recognition of these factors had been given. She disclosed the domestic abuse more recently and engaged with Wearside Women in Need (WWIN), a charity that assists women in such important positions, thereby reducing the risk of another domestically abusive relationship in the future. It was said, and I do not doubt, that she has every intention of taking up The Freedom Project in due course.
65. Of the bruising to the ears, the social worker said that she would have recommended any parent to seek medical attention, but she acknowledged that the mother is not a doctor and she had responded to her daughter's presentation, which she said was fine. Nevertheless, more than six months on from the more serious injury, the social worker told the court that she is none the wiser as to how B was injured or who was responsible and indeed this hearing has not been able to reveal that either. Those are all concerning matters against a background of worries which pointed to an inability to the children returning home with her own mother, the maternal grandmother, not being a protective factor.
66. She was also concerned about the putative father of the unborn baby, a man with an extensive criminal background and a history of alcohol misuse in the presence of a brain injury. He has not engaged with the Local Authority. Although the mother denies that there is an on-going relationship, he is in fact cared for by the somewhat shadowy figure, X, another person with a concerning history of criminality, including violence and alcohol misuse, who by repute, albeit denied by her insisting he is a family friend, has been in a relationship with the mother.
67. Not only are we not any wiser as to what has happened to B, the other major concern has to be the delay in treatment. There is a complete lack of reliable or credible evidence as to how B was between being injured and the discovery of the injury, which she said she felt and she described it as more of a bump, it was "soft and squidgy." There is a gap in the evidence given Dr Harvey's views of B's likely reaction. I have to say that I am so concerned about the evidence in relation to that that I have considerable reservations as to whether any of what I was told about the emergence of that injury was correct. If, as the mother claims, B was fine, her normal self, it would suggest that she had been injured long before she found the injury. Her mother supports her account of making a telephone call on the Friday night and reassuring her because B was all right. F2's evidence was that he had spoken to the mother on the Sunday about contact and she had told him that she had discovered it bathing B on the Saturday morning, not the Friday night at all, adding further uncertainty as to the accuracy of what the court has been told.
68. Regardless, Miss Hunter on behalf of the children pointed out that since the maternal grandmother's reported reaction on the Saturday morning was immediately to say, "Take this child to hospital," the delay of three hours from her arrival on her account to the hospital raises the gravest concerns as to what was going on. Why was an ambulance not called? Why did they wait for X to get a lift and take so long about it? Why was it important that MU be at the hospital? This was, not to put too fine a point on it, a potentially life threatening injury, yet B was denied the treatment she needed. Even if the delay on the Friday was excusable, and it was not, the three-hour delay on the Saturday is completely unacceptable and inaccurately explained, heightening suspicion as to what the adults were doing at that time.
69. As I have said and as the Local Authority were at pains to point out, aside from these findings, the key to working in the future with this mother is honesty and that is something that is sadly lacking. The guardian told me that she was so concerned about the evidence that she heard that the injuries aside, the mother's lifestyle and her associates, including the people who are in her house and who represent risk, were so troubling that she did not think that the mother's ability to protect the children, to recognise risk or take appropriate action were at all demonstrated. As I say, her concerns have multiplied rather than diminished. She shared the Local Authority regret over the lack of the parenting work being done, but denied that a course of that nature against the background of all the other work would have made good the deficit or altered the decision making process that has occurred. This was, in her view, a mother with no real concept of risk, despite extensive help from a family support worker who was fully aware of the risks associated with substance abuse, but not only continued with it herself, but claims to have promoted contact to someone who was affected by it at the time. Thus, the parenting work would not have had such an impact that within any demonstrable timetable this mother could be shown to provide safe and stable care.
70. The Local Authority in recognising the positives argues that, sadly, they do not outweigh the serious negatives: lies, delayed treatment, drug use, abusive relationships (all three fathers fall into that category), the criminal brothers and dishonest grandmother, all the latter incapable of being protective factors and all pointing to this mother's lack of insight and inability to identify risk. Even the work she asked for has not been completed with unqualified success. She missed, unaccountably, appointments with WWIN, with Turning Point and Life Line. Although she attended the initial sessions, she had missed the whole of the group work, quite apart from ignoring the advice.
71. I have said little about A and B, but it is common ground that A, in particular, has demonstrated concerning behaviour, so much so that the Local Authority has more recently contemplated their permanent separation. There is a history of age appropriate tantrums from B, but with A, the concerns were felt to be more widespread. Having demonstrated significant developmental delay, the cause of which is not identified, the social worker's view is that A's problems are more deep-rooted than a simple reaction to contact. These are children who do not interact or play together. The mother had acknowledged she had struggled with their behaviour prior to them being removed. In the course of tantrums, she had to tell A to share and she described how she would throw things, which hit B. She accepted at times this behaviour had been extreme and involved her biting herself and others and she recognised that it went considerably beyond normal toddler behaviour. She said that this could happen three times a week. It had not been responsive to the health visitor's advice at all to calm her down and her own mother gave a very similar account and sought to attribute the behaviour to jealousy, her expression being that A would "slug" B.
72. A reference to the Children and Young Person Service, the factual basis of which was rightly challenged, identifies features which point towards its consideration of separation. That was inconclusive in August and it is inconclusive now, as I will return to. The fact that A in particular is demonstrating significant behavioural issues is not to be expected in a child of her age and they go beyond separation from her family. Indeed, a very recent cessation of contact, which arose through a misunderstanding following the adjournment in August, has pointed to positive benefit flowing from such a cessation. It is quite clear that A has been exposed to significant domestic abuse, alcohol abuse, drug use and the mother accepted that it had had an impact on her behaviour. She is on this view a child about whom it could be said that she requires better than good enough care now.
73. Accordingly, although the social worker accepted that there had been a delay in referral for parenting work and that that meant that this mother had not been given sufficient chance to demonstrate her parenting skills, that was regrettable and not good enough as she acknowledged. Like the guardian, she felt that that all had to be weighed in the balance sheet with the negatives she had identified, which excluded the injuries which now fall decisively against the mother.
74. In her characteristically thoughtful and concise report, this guardian identified the mother's obvious love for the girls and the material provision that was made for them. However, she set that against the lack of a safe and stable home, as is now evidenced by the serious injuries suffered by B. She could not support a return home, despite the work that the mother had done and noting the untested nature of the work that had been carried out in relation to safe relationships. In her placement report, she said:

"Domestic violence has been a feature of all of M's relationships and the children have been exposed to frightening adult behaviour and adults, including their mother being under the influence of alcohol or substances. A presents with considerable developmental delay, which is likely the result of the longstanding neglect of her need to have a safe and secure home which offers age appropriate stimulation."

She also goes on to make observations about delayed motor skills, which has been caught up now and may or may not be significant. She noted that despite the mother's commitment to the girls, her vulnerability and difficulty in managing behaviour, which in A's case she attributed to that frightening and odd behaviour.

75. The court is charged with deciding between realistic options on a holistic basis. It is not argued that this process has not been properly undertaken. There are only two realistic options before the court, a return home or permanence outside the family. There is no other family member presenting themselves. Despite what is said to be a gap in the evidence regarding the parenting, which is true as a matter of fact, but not, I accept, for the reasons that have been given by the Local Authority and the guardian, determinative, it is not suggested that any other alternative exists. There is no support that could be offered to make good shortcomings of this nature. It is not argued that fostering is a suitable alternative. These are young children who need to be claimed and it would, frankly, be intolerable for them to be placed in long-term foster care with all the uncertainty, intrusion and potential instability that accompanies it.
76. The decision of the court needs to be determined by reference to the welfare checklist and, indeed, the Article 8 rights of all concerned. I have no doubt that if these children were asked, they would like to be with their mother. They are, of course, very young and too young for their wishes and feelings to be determinative. As they are so young, in B's case, she has had her physical well-being seriously compromised and the emotional needs of each have been seriously harmed. Each of the mother and father acknowledges that A's behaviour arises from the things to which she has been exposed. Their ages are such that they have a need for stability, safety and consistent care. They have been denied that in a serious way. F2's concept of good parenting is, I am afraid, a very narrow one that ignores the risk and the harm to which they have been exposed. The harm that each has suffered is self-evident. A in her behaviour has demonstrated it and B in her injuries likewise. These shortcomings reveal just how wanting the care of this mother and, when he was there, F2 has been and the evidence gives no confidence that the future will in fact be any different.
77. Notwithstanding the fact that what is sought is draconian, it is one of those rare cases where the court is satisfied that nothing else will do because the risk of the history continuing to repeat itself is simply too great, with no confidence that the mother could or would work with services and be honest about such important matters affecting her children. The Local Authority, therefore, seek placement orders for each and that requires, in addition, consideration of the relationship each has with relatives and the likelihood of that continuing and the value to each of its doing so. It is, of course, necessary to consider their welfare lifelong in this context and it is acknowledged to be an extreme thing to do to separate a family by an order of court and it can only be done where it is necessary for the best interests of the child.
78. The failures of this mother, in particular, but also the father in respect of the findings that have been made, are of such an order that I am satisfied that this extreme step is necessary. The findings have a profound effect on this welfare issue, but a further issue arises and needs determination. A's behaviour is such that, as I said, separation of these half-siblings has been contemplated, a course which is opposed absolutely by the family and is a course to be avoided if at all possible, as the Local Authority and the guardian acknowledge. The reference to the Children and Young Persons' Service was flawed by factual inaccuracies and, although a correction has been sent, there has been no further consideration of this issue, despite attempts to arrange a meeting. The Local Authority originally contemplated permitting contact to continue following the making of an order until family finding was complete. However, it now advocates a cessation in contact within three weeks of an order and then a minimum three-month monitoring of behaviour followed by a professional meeting to decide whether these children should in fact be offered separately or together.
79. As I have indicated, since the August hearing, the unexpected termination of contact, which is not a criticism of the mother, inadvertently and unexpectedly was a revelatory experience because the foster carers reported a noteworthy improvement in A's behaviour. She is described as calmer, better able to respond to measures to deal with tantrums, which although they continued had decreased, as well as improved sibling interaction. That positive development then fell to be contrasted with a reversion into the extremely challenging behaviour that A had shown before when contact resumed. Neither the Local Authority nor the guardian had previously linked the behaviour to contact, but rather attributed it exclusively to the consequences of long-term harmful parenting. However, the guardian is certainly much more optimistic that separation will now not be necessary and the social worker is not just aware of the seriousness of separation, but has indicted that the Local Authority wishes to avoid it if at all possible.
80. I am pleased to note that the Local Authority intends during this time as well to facilitate contact between the siblings and their new half-sibling in order to assist with life story work during this period, which is obviously both appropriate and very humane. Not only do I endorse that view, I share the Local Authority's optimism that this is a situation which can be managed and I do pay tribute to the mother's ready willingness to foreshorten any post-order contact to ensure an outcome that keeps these two girls together.
81. However, it nevertheless gives rise to a problem. Miss Moulder says that a decision to split the children should be taken by the court and not by professionals alone and, hence, the plan is uncertain and should not be endorsed at this stage. Accordingly, I should not approve a placement order at this stage, but permit the course proposed to take effect and then come back for a determination if the Local Authority insists on separation. That is opposed by the Local Authority, which asks for final orders with amendments to the care plan if necessary. The very strong preference is for the children to be together and if it is clear that such can be achieved then even a delay of three months after contact ends may prove to be unnecessary. It is pointed out by the guardian and the Local Authority that the foster carers are strong advocates for the children to remain together and so they too will be heard in the decision making process.
82. Mr Stonor reminds me that Lord Nicholls said in Re S and Re W [2002] 2 AC 291: the fact that in particular many cases where important issues of uncertainty are known to exist before an order is made should not be an impediment to the making of an order. He invites me to the view that this is such a case and to make the order. Miss Moulder seeks to distinguish the case, noting its context was whether an interim care order should be made rather than a final order, and says that the outstanding issue is one of substance and not an administrative matter and, in any event, the delay will be slight or non-existent.
83. I have some sympathy with Miss Moulder's position given the importance of the issue and it is entirely understandable why the family would want court oversight on an issue of such fundamental importance. It is, of course, an issue falling directly within s1(4)(f) of the 2002 Act. However, I have to say that I am not nearly as pessimistic as she is as to how this will play out on the evidence before me. I am satisfied that the Local Authority want these children together and so do the foster carers. It would be hard to identify any professional, including an independent reviewing officer, who took a different view and, furthermore, the recent evidence suggests that the issues are perhaps not as difficult as had been feared.
84. Were the Local Authority care plan to say that these children were to remain together subject to review after three months, producing a professional consensus that these children need, for welfare reasons, to be separated for each to have the best prospect of finding a placement and being able to settle and maximise their potential, it seems to the court that this is exactly the type of uncertainty that Lord Nicholls had in mind in 2002 as he considered the older cases in the light of the Convention by then in force. As he said, cases vary so widely it is impossible to have a more precise test to see if the care plan is sufficiently firm and particularised for all concerned to have a reasonably clear picture of the likely way ahead for the foreseeable future.

"The degree of firmness to be expected as well as the amount of detail in the plan will vary from case to case depending on how far the Local Authority can foresee what will be best for the child at that time."

85. I endorse the view of the Local Authority and the guardian that these children ought to remain together unless, exceptionally, their welfare demands separation, something which seems improbable at this stage, but notwithstanding the uncertainty as to that, I am satisfied that the court should make a placement order now. Neither the mother or the fathers can consent to the making of such an order, but I am satisfied that despite the high price of permanent separation from their birth family, the welfare of each is such that I ought to dispense with their consent, exercising the power under s52(1) of the 2002 Act.
86. The mother will, of course, need to reflect on the findings that I have made because its impact goes beyond A and B. The overall picture is, it has to be said, a grave one, not just for A and B, but for the unborn baby too. This is a desperately sad case. There is little by way of consolation that can be offered to a parent in such circumstances other than that the order that the court has made in its judgment gives these children the best opportunity of growing up as emotionally secure and safe children and achieving whatever potential they may have. That may be a long way in the future, but I hope it is some consolation nevertheless.
87. As indicated, I will direct a transcript of this judgment to be paid for equally by all the parties and it will be anonymised in the way that I have indicated. That part that relates to the issue of sibling separation needs to be referred to the independent reviewing officer and all other professionals concerned with those decisions and an edited version can be prepared from the transcript once it is to hand.
[Judgment ends]