England and Wales Family Court Decisions (other Judges)

IN THE KINGSTON UPON HULL COUNTY COURT

		The Combined Court Centre Lowgate Hull
		5th June 2014

NORTH EAST LINCOLNSHIRE COUNCIL -v- G and L

5th June 2014

APPROVED JUDGMENT

JUDGE JACK: The Local Authority were seeking originally a final care order with a view to placement for adoption in relation to J. He was born on the 2nd of July 2011 and is therefore now approaching three years old. I am not going to set out the whole history of the case; it is not in dispute. It is not in dispute that his mother who regrettably has since died was not in a position to care for J because of her difficulties with substance abuse. There are also allegations of violence between herself and her partner, JL. I do not have to deal with those issues. It is accepted that J could not have remained with either of his parents. The contest in the case that came before me was between the local authority, represented by Ms. Chapman, and effectively two sets of grandparents, one set, Mr. and Mrs. G, represented by Mr. Priestley; and the other set, Mr. and Mrs. C represented by Mrs. Collins. JL is represented by Mr. Wilson and the guardian is represented by Ms. Crossley. I should make it clear from the outset that the guardian supported the local authority's application for a final care order with a care plan for placement for adoption.

The local authority effectively ruled out both sets of grandparents. They did so, on the following basis. So far as Mr. and Mrs. C were concerned, it was said that they had problems with drink and domestic violence. So far as Mr. and Mrs. G were concerned it was said that they already had too many problems on their plate because they had older children, I and C, who had difficulties which I need not deal with in detail. They were also caring for J's elder sibling, R, who had problems which were set out in the evidence. It was also said during the course of the evidence, though this was not so apparent in the papers, that J had behavioural problems which would need particular care and that given all the other matters that Mr. and Mrs. G had to deal with that they would not be able to give J the care that he needed.

I heard evidence over two days. I heard in particular from Neil Swaby who had been the social worker for a substantial period, and also from Rachel Olley. During the course of that evidence the local authority's case was severely undermined. Neil Swaby seemed very reluctant to accept that anything positive could be said about either set of grandparents. When he was referred to positive things said in the papers about them, he would say things like, "Well, I suppose you could say that". He was very begrudging indeed in his evidence and I had the clear impression that he was, for whatever reason, whether it was his own inclination or instructions from above, that he was intent on saying only things which supported the local authority's case and was very reluctant to make any concessions which would undermine that case.

I then heard evidence from Rachel Olley whose evidence was totally discredited in my view. She sought to make it a substantial plank of her evidence that J was a child who had real behavioural problems, and had had them throughout his placement with foster carers. That, unfortunately, conflicted very strongly with not only what she had said in her own statement but what was said in the adoption social worker's statement. Again I had the very strong impression that the local authority witnesses were intent on playing up any factors which were unfavourable to the grandparents and playing down any factors which might be favourable. In those circumstances I found it very difficult to give any weight at all to their evidence.

In particular, so far as Mr. and Mrs. G are concerned, it did emerge during the course of the evidence that although, yes, I and C may have had some problems in the past there was no recent evidence of their conditions causing any significant difficulties to Mr. and Mrs. G.

So far as R was concerned I had the clear impression that although he is clearly a lad who is suffering a serious sense of grief and loss because of the death of his mother, that on the whole Mr. and Mrs. G were dealing reasonably well with that. So far as J was concerned my impression, having heard the local authority case, was that he is not a child who has any real behavioural difficulties which are going to present problems to whoever has to care for him.

So far as Mr. and Mrs. C are concerned, may I say, I deplore any form of domestic violence and I deplore parents who care for children when they are significantly under the influence of drink. But so far as Mr. and Mrs. C are concerned there is no evidence that I am aware of that any domestic violence between them or any drinking has had an adverse effect on any children who were in their care at the time when it took place. The reality is that in this country there must be tens of thousands of children who are cared for in homes where there is a degree of domestic violence (now very widely defined) and where parents on occasion drink more than they should, I am not condoning that for a moment, but the Courts are not in the business of social engineering. The courts are not in the business of providing children with perfect homes. If we took into care and placed for adoption every child whose parents had had a domestic spat and every child whose parents on occasion had drunk too much then the care system would be overwhelmed and there would not be enough adoptive parents. So we have to have a degree of realism about prospective carers who come before the Courts.

Having heard the evidence of Neil Swaby and Rachel Olley I took the view, as I have already indicated, that the local authority's case was wholly undermined. Their concerns appeared to be grossly overstated in order to try and achieve their ends. I have never, in over ten years of hearing care cases taken the view, as I did in this case, that the local authority's witnesses were visibly biased in their attempts to support the local authority's case. It is very unfortunate and I hope I shall never see that again.

I therefore gave an indication; having considered the papers as a whole I took the view that there were many positive things to be said about both Mr. and Mrs. G and Mr. and Mrs. C. I took the view that on the balancing exercise that I would have to undertake in accordance with the case of Re. BS then the positives for J in remaining within his own family far outweighed the negatives which would follow from adoption, and far outweighed any negatives which would be brought about by him remaining within his family. I took the view that it was incumbent upon the local authority, rather than seeking to place J for adoption, to seek to support a placement within the family so as to give J all the benefits which flow from remaining within his birth family and growing up knowing who he is. That was the reason for my indication and the parties took that on board. The guardian made it very clear that she did not support my view, but the matter progressed towards a plan for rehabilitation.

I now have before me a statement from Peter Nelson, the new social worker, who has been brought into the case and he has gone in a completely different direction. In fact he goes, as Mr. Priestley has pointed out, in the same statement in various different directions, but his final direction is certainly different from the one which he set out in. He is now suggesting, at the conclusion of his statement that the best way forward, if there is to be rehabilitation within the family, is that J should go to Mr. and Mrs. C. That is an approach which as I understand it is not supported by the guardian. The guardian, does not accept my original view that J should be placed within the family, but says that, if he is to be placed within the family, then he should be placed with the G's as soon as is reasonably possible in accordance with the rehabilitation plan which had been prepared.

Dealing with Mr. Nelson's report I find it is significant that Mr. Nelson seems to try to revive at least one aspect of the local authority's case which had been discredited. For example, in relation to I who from the papers I had read, appears, despite his problems, to be a nice lad, Mr. Nelson sets out the history of the problems that I has had and concludes in paragraph 3.5 by saying, "At the time of writing this report I's problematic behaviour is not known". There is the clear implication in that sentence that there must be some problematic behaviour from I but Mr. Nelson does not know what it is. That smacks to me of the same bias that I regrettably have to say I saw from Neil Swaby and Rachel Olley. Mr. Nelson also raises issues which it seems to me are not serious issues. For example he raises an issue about the sleeping arrangements. Now, I accept, of course, that in an ideal world each child would have his own - his or her own bedroom and certainly you would not have children of different sexes sharing at least beyond a certain age. But we live in fact in a world where probably the majority of families all sleep in the same bedroom and so it cannot be said that the fact that a child may have to share a room is a significant problem.

Mr. Nelson concludes by going off at a tangent. He stresses to a great extent R's problems. I accept that R does have problems. I remain of the view that on the whole Mr. and Mrs. G have coped well with those problems. They are understandable problems given the recent loss of R's mum. I accept that R's situation needs to be dealt with sensitively and I accept that it would be desirable for Mr. and Mrs. G to accept any professional advice which is offered as to how R's problems should be dealt with. I accept that there may be times when R needs space; but it seems to me that that is precisely the kind of area where Mr. and Mrs. C come in because they are there; they are still in the wings prepared to provide support. I do not accept, for the reasons that I have already outlined, that any contact that they have has to be supervised. I take the view that they are sensible people. They may have had some problems over the years in common with the vast majority of couples in this land, but that does not mean that their contact to their grandson has to be supervised. It seems to me that they are there as a valuable resource to support Mr. and Mrs. G if there are times when R needs more space.

Having carefully considered the statement of Mr. Nelson I take the view that it does not change my original view that the best way forward for J is placement with Mr. and Mrs. G. Care should be given of course in the way that that is dealt with. Care should be given in particular to making sure that that placement does not cause additional stress for R. I accept that that is not going to be easy but not everything in life is easy. I rely upon the local authority to provide as much support as is needed to assist in ensuring that that placement works.

I turn to consider whether it is desirable that the placement should go ahead on precisely the timescale that was originally planned.

I am not clear whether the guardian is suggesting that that precise timetable should be followed. Certainly I would be prepared to consider evidence about that, but it does seem to me that the placement should proceed with Mr. and Mrs. C perhaps being used for some respite care. I do take on board the suggestion that if the C's have too much involvement at too early a stage it may be confusing for J. That is a factor which will have to be taken into account. That may suggest that the original timetable is the best way forward. I am going to allow the advocates a little time to discuss whether there need to be any adjustments to the precise timetable for placement or whether it should proceed precisely as was originally planned.

Is there anything further that I need to deal with at this point? Mr. Wilson you are concerned about contact for your client. It seems to me that the priority is for J to be placed with Mr. and Mrs. G, and I would not wish contact with your client to disrupt that in any way. At the same time your client is J's father and there should be contact sooner rather than later.

MR. WILSON: Perhaps your Honour if that can be an issue discussed between the advocates.

JUDGE JACK: Yes, I think so. I will rise.

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