England and Wales Family Court Decisions (other Judges)

IN THE FAMILY COURT SITTING IN CHELMSFORD

		20th November 2014

Overview of the applications

1. This judgment follows a contested hearing before me in which the parties to the proceedings sought a variety of orders from the court all of which related to the present and future welfare of a boy J who was born in 2001 and is now aged 13 years 8 months. The mother is married to Mr S. Mr S played an active role in J's upbringing prior to his reception into care and he has been an active participant in these proceedings on behalf of the mother. Another relevant family member in terms of these court proceedings is J's paternal grandmother.
2. J was made the subject of a final care order on 5^th January 2012 following the judgment and order of Her Honour Judge Harris (HHJ Harris). He lives in a foster placement and has been with the same foster carers (Mr and Mrs H) since March 2011 when he was removed from the home of his paternal grandmother. His sister, S (who is now 19 years old) lived with him in the foster placement from March 2011 until December 2013 when she left the placement to live with her boyfriend. These current proceedings do not concern S as she is no longer in the care of the local authority having attained the age of 18 years. However, it is clear from the judgment of HHJ Harris that her appraisal of the evidence in January 2012 –when S was 16 years old – identified and assessed the welfare needs of both children even though S was of an age when her wish to remain in foster care would be determinative of where she would remain living and made final care orders in relation to both children.
3. The threshold document, which was agreed by the parents in January 2012, identified the emotional abuse to which both children had been exposed as a result of the complex dynamics of the family. HHJ Harris approved a revised threshold document produced by the local authority at the conclusion of the hearing. She expressed the hope that with threshold conceded and both parents having reflected on the outcome of the court hearing, there could, after a period of family therapy, be a reunification plan put in place between J and his mother which would enable the father (who was then living in France) to see his son more regularly than had been possible in the past. In her judgment, HHJ Harris was at pains to identify the issues, which needed to be addressed by the parents in family therapy if a planned reunification programme stood any chance of success.
4. Although cautiously optimistic about such a plan, HHJ Harris made it clear that actions on the part of the parents spoke louder than words. Significantly she said in her judgment that the parents needed to understand that even if they felt that nothing had gone wrong at home while the children had been living in the mother's household, this had not been the childrens' perception. She also noted that the father agreed to DNA testing in relation to S.
5. The first application in time before the court in these subsequent proceedings was made by the paternal grandmother on 8^th January 2014. She sought an increased level of contact to J under the provisions of s34 of the Children Act 1989. The history of the grandmother's involvement in J's life was well documented in HHJ Harris' judgment and I would reaffirm that the relationship between J and his grandmother remains a significant relationship and a relationship which should be promoted during the remainder of his minority. The grandmother was unable to attend the final hearing in October/November 2014 as a result of a hospital admission and surgery but it was clear from her position statement (drafted by her counsel) that she believed that her contact to J had not been properly promoted by the local authority in the period following the making of the final care order. In those circumstances, she sought a defined order in relation to her contact with J in the event that J remained in the care of the local authority and required the local authority to extend the contact which had been agreed at a court at a hearing on 11^th April 2013.
6. At a directions hearing on 4^th March 2014 in relation to the grandmother's application, the parents both attended court (unrepresented) and indicated that they too were dissatisfied with the arrangements, which had been made by the local authority for J's welfare since January 2012. The parents' grievances were subsequently crystallised by each parent making an application to discharge the care order in respect of J on the grounds that J had suffered harm by remaining in the care of the local authority for an extended period following the order of HHJ Harris in circumstances where he should have been returned to the home of one or other of his parents. At the final hearing before me, it was clear from the documentation produced by the parents that they were convinced that the reunification of J to the home of his mother and stepfather had not come about because the local authority had not supported the principle of the reunification plan. The parents submitted that the local authority had paid only lip service to the plan and had been far keener to promote a plan whereby J remained in long term foster care.
7. The thrust of the parents' case in October 2014 was that the dynamics of the family (highlighted by HHJ Harris in her judgment) were now far less complex in that there was now meaningful communication between J's parents combined with a unity of purpose that J should be removed from the foster placement and returned to the home of one or other of them. It was also asserted that there was now far less tension and confrontation between the paternal grandmother and any of the other relevant adults in the case and that she no longer sought to impose her views on various of the family members. The grandmother was not seeking to care for J and she now fully supported the parents' applications to discharge the care order. She sought only increased contact to J. The parents asserted that having regard to the clear purpose and intention of the reunification plan, the only appropriate order from J's welfare perspective was to place him now with one or other of his parents.
8. The local authority responded to the parents' application to discharge the final care order by seeking an order from the court under s91(14) of the Children Act 1989 restricting any further applications to the court by any of J's family and requiring any applications to be made only with the leave of the court. The local authority submitted that applications which had been made since 2012 had not been conducive to J's welfare and that any future applications (particularly having regard to his age) would serve only to undermine the stability of the foster placement and would be inimical to his welfare. As the hearing progressed, I was also invited by the local authority to consider (in the event that I did not accede to the parents' applications) making an order under s34(4) Children Act 1989 permitting the local authority to refuse to implement the contact arrangements specified in the final care plan if these arrangements did not accord with J's welfare.
9. The parents were not legally represented for the final hearing in October 2014 (although they had been previously represented at the hearing before HHJ Harris) and it is clear to me that these further court proceedings have laid bare some residual wounds and an air of mystery about past events involving the lives of the parents and the children.
10. One example of this was an event in court on the 4^th day of the hearing when the father was being cross-examined and was asked specifically about his refusal to honour his agreement to HHJ Harris that he would undertake DNA testing in relation to S's paternity. As the father began offering excuses for not undertaking the test, the mother suddenly interrupted the proceedings to state that she had been raped during her relationship with the father. Although this had never previously been mentioned to any professional in the case, the mother said that this was why there remained possible doubt about S's paternity even though she believed that the father was S's biological father. The mother confirmed that all this information was already known to the father.
11. After the mother had made this disclosure, the father started groaning in the witness box and rushed out of the court room wailing very loudly. When he returned to the witness box he appeared upset and distracted but confirmed (without offering any appropriate explanation) that he had no intention of undertaking a DNA test. No further questioning of him that day could proceed. When he returned to the witness box on the final day of the hearing he made it clear that he was not prepared to answer any further questions on the subject of S's paternity.
12. The father's behaviour seemed on any view to be an overreaction to information given to the court by the mother, which was already known to him. It was unnecessarily extreme behaviour and as the father refused to be asked any further questions on the subject, I was left no wiser about the father's motivation for refusing to undertake the DNA test. At the conclusion of the parents' evidence, I felt that the court had received only evidence (and most of it entirely self-serving), which the parents had wanted to put in the court arena and that other important evidence which had impinged on their lives and the lives of their children had not been brought to the attention of the court.
13. Both parents - with Mr S asking questions on behalf of the mother with the court's permission – cross-examined Dr Hessel Willemsen (the child and adolescent psychologist whose report the parents had sought unsuccessfully to exclude at the outset of the hearing), the current social worker in the case and the previous social worker who was now Team Manager for the case at length. The social workers were criticised for having failed consistently to make decisions, which were in the best interests of J. The parents clearly articulated that the social workers (and particularly the Team Manager) had been unprofessional in their dealings with the parents since the first substantive hearing in January 2012.
14. The parents placed all the blame for the failure of the reunification plan firmly at the door of the social services. They maintained that a grave abuse had been inflicted on J in March 2011 when he had been removed from the care of his grandmother into foster care. In their considered opinion, there had been no basis whatsoever for J's removal from his mother's home (in October 2010) nor for his removal into foster care in March 2011. The parents' view was entrenched.
15. I am clear that the need for the parents to vent their anger towards the local authority in general -and the social workers in particular – has completely disabled the parents from being able to reflect upon the fact that whatever mistakes may have been made in the past (and the manner of J's removal in March 2011 was clearly most unfortunate) the court is now dealing with the welfare needs of an articulate 13 year old boy who has repeatedly expressed his wishes and feelings to professionals over a long period of time.
16. In the light of the parents' stance within these proceedings, I am bound to deal with the events since January 2012 as these are relevant to their serious criticisms of the way in which the social workers have handled the case in the intervening period and the decisions which (the parents say) have changed the focus of the case and have been inimical to J's welfare. Before doing so, I should record that J has, at no time since January 2012, expressed a wish to return home to his mother and stepfather nor has he expressed a wish to live with his father. The family therapy foundered in 2013 because J refused to participate in the therapy with his parents and was adamant that he wanted to remain in the foster placement. The more recent evidence –including the analysis by Dr Willemsen who saw J in October 2014 – confirmed that J would not contemplate the possibility of living with either of his parents. His views were expressed with the same conviction to his guardian during the progress of these proceedings and to his own solicitor who was appointed by the court shortly before the final hearing.
17. J's wishes and feelings were also expressed to me at court on the first day of the hearing (27^th October 2014) when, at his express request, I saw him with his independent advocate and his solicitor. He told me that he was happy living with his foster family and he did not want anything to change. He had no particular wish to see his mother at all (but would go along with this if everyone thought he should) and there was no question of him returning to live with her and his stepfather. Although he wanted to see where his father lived in Wales, he was not prepared to go to Wales if his father used the visit as an opportunity to try and persuade him to leave the foster home. I was left in no doubt after my meeting with J that his wishes were genuine, were expressed in an age appropriate manner and reflected his determination and commitment to remain in the current foster placement. He was mature in his speech, thoughtful in his presentation and, in my judgment, a credit to the care, which he has received in his foster placement since March 2011.
18. Chronology of events since January 2012

Efforts made to implement the "more robust" care plan identified by HHJ Harris in her judgment involved the appointment of a new social worker, a new Team Manager and an experienced social worker/therapist who had been identified to carry out the family therapy. HHJ Harris referred specifically to the local authority being guided by the therapist as to whether J would need further work. She concluded that the process might take some considerable time and that the parents had to be patient. She also said that the best chance of the reunification plan working was for the children not to be placed under undue pressure and for the family therapy to be conducted in a way which was in pace with the children's needs.

19. It is clear that there was some delay in agreeing the letter of instruction to the original therapist and that acrimony quickly developed between the parents and the newly appointed social worker (now the Team Manager). By April 2012 the parents had learned that the foster carers intended to take the children on holiday to Turkey in the summer and that the renewal of J's passport was required for this purpose. In an email of 13^th April 2012 from the mother to allocated social worker she complained that she had had to find out from S rather than from the allocated social worker about the proposed holiday in Turkey and she hoped that the allocated social worker would "eventually start to treat me with a little more respect in the future". On 17^th April 2012 the allocated social worker emailed the mother apologising for any breakdown in communication with the mother.
20. By 24^th May 2012 the mother complained bitterly to the allocated social worker about the delay in setting up the family therapy outlined in the judgment and the apparent lack of flexibility on the part of the original therapist to make appointments with family members outside office hours. The email continued: "to suggest that we are not committed to reunification is both cruel and low especially considering the lack of attention you have paid to our case until now which has had a far more negative impact on the situation. I illustrate this by the example of you waiting until two months after J's birthday before passing on his presents from me. Why would you do this? It is hurtful to me and reinforces the false view that we don't care about him which could not be further from the truth –we are not your "normal" clients and do not expect to be treated as such…I can assure you we are still pursuing redress for the wrongs you have committed through legal channels and we will not stop until this is recognised"
21. By 4^th July 2012 the parents had identified an alternative therapist, Mr Les Johns, who had the requisite qualifications in social work and counselling to undertake the family therapy. The local authority agreed to his instruction. In an email dated 4^th July 2012 the allocated social worker stated that the immediate priority was to put in the family therapy for the adults before any work commenced with the children. The email continued: "from a professional point of view, I think it is critical that you both continue to respect the children's wish for no contact. This will help them to see that you are considerate of their views and feelings in respect of this. I hope this will go a long way towards helping the children feel stable towards wanting to then have some form of contact with you and then building on that. If we try to rush this or if the children feel pressured by us, they are likely to withdraw".
22. The family therapy started in August 2012 with meetings between Mr Johns and the mother and the stepfather, the grandmother and three meetings with both children when they were seen together and separately. Mr Johns also spoke to the father and the foster carers.
23. On 9^th August 2012 there was an unfortunate incident at Grays Beach Park when J was assaulted by a group of boys. The foster parents were present on the beach and although they did not witness the assault, they were on the scene very quickly. As J had suffered injuries to his face (and there was initial concern that he might have broken his nose) he was taken to hospital by the foster mother. The foster mother was upset about what had happened. The mother visited J in hospital and insisted that the foster mother had told her that the boy who assaulted J was the son of a friend of hers. According to the Team Manager (the allocated social worker), the foster mother had never said this. The father questioned where the foster mother had been at the time of the assault. After this incident, there seemed to be some suggestion on the part of the parents that the foster mother was wilfully obstructing their contact with J.
24. At the time of the incident on 9^th August 2012 J was having no direct contact with his mother. From a note of a skype contact between J and his father on 11^th July 2012 he had not wanted to explain to his father why this was the case.
25. On 16^th August 2012 (the day before the children were due to fly to Turkey) there was a court hearing before HHJ Harris when the judge ruled that as there was a final care order in place, the court did not have jurisdiction to prevent the children from going on the proposed holiday. The Team Manager told me in evidence (and I accept) that the children were resentful of the parents applying to court to stop them going on holiday with the foster carers and were cross that they had been brought to court to tell the judge that were keen to go on a holiday which their parents opposed. Whatever the concerns of the parents about the location of the holiday –which would seem to have been exaggerated –I am satisfied that the application to prevent the holiday taking place was perceived by the children to be unreasonable and unfair. I also suspect that the parents wanted to assert their parental authority over the foster carers bearing in mind the unfortunate events of 9^th August 2012.
26. On 17^th August 2012 the Team Manger (then allocated social worker) emailed the mother as follows: "Regarding this plan for reunification, I have provided my professional advice on numerous occasions that this is likely to be hampered by continual attempts to contact S and J against their expressed wishes". He also confirmed that J had not broken his nose during the assault.
27. On 29^th August 2012 and after J had returned from holiday in Turkey, the foster carer informed Team Manager (then allocated social worker) that J was considering contact with the mother. The Team Manager (then allocated social worker) said that this was "good news". He also asked the father to confirm the date of his arrival in the UK to arrange contact with J and when the DNA testing was going to be carried out. On 3^rd September 2012 the Team Manager (then allocated social worker) referred in an email to the father to his "well intended motivation to promote a relationship between J, and his mother and stepfather" but felt that this might be misinterpreted by the children and be counter-productive to reunification. He said this: "it is important to recognise that I believe we may be at the point of breakthrough regarding J's contact with mother as J has finally agreed to have some contact with his mother. It is something that I have been addressing over time and I know that mother is very pleased about this".
28. By 4^th September 2012 (and after the family therapy had started) J agreed to supervised contact with his mother and the stepfather in a contact centre once every 6 weeks for 45 minutes. J and S agreed to meet the therapist. I have seen a note of the contact, which took place on 13^th September 2012. It was not a particularly successful contact meeting with no hugs or kisses (at J's request) and J was described as playing roughly and not engaging in conversation with his mother. However, contact between J and his mother did improve to such an extent that by the end of the year it had increased to weekly supervised contact for 3 hours each time.
29. After the Christmas period 2012 J was seen by Mr Johns for a third meeting. According to Mr Johns, J had, by this time, "set himself against the idea" of returning home to his mother. Mr Johns could not ascertain the reason for J's adamant stance but after he had made this clear, J refused to attend for any family therapy sessions with his mother and the stepfather. Mr Johns also noted that the antipathy between the grandmother and stepfather was "fixed". In a skype link the father made it clear to Mr Johns that he wanted the children to be reunited with the mother and stepfather. At this time he was having once a month supervised telephone contact with J which he found unacceptable.
30. In his oral evidence, Mr Johns said that by the time of his third meeting, J was not open to discussing why he could not go home. Mr Johns said that this was a "forbidden area" of further discussion. He said that in his view there had been no evidence of the local authority putting obstructions in the way of rehabilitation with the family and no evidence of parental alienation.
31. It is self-evident to me that once J realised that stepping up the contact with his mother was part of a plan for him to return to her care, he resiled from regular contact with his mother and stepfather and withdrew from the process. This was particularly unfortunate because I am satisfied from my reading of the contact notes during December 2012 and seeing photographs of a particularly successful meeting between the mother, the stepfather and the father in December 2012 that there was some excellent contact during this period leading to the hope and expectation that J would be returning home to his mother. I am clear that J's sudden change of heart about seeing his mother was deeply distressing for all the family members. Nevertheless, I am satisfied that no pressure was placed on J either by the foster carer or the social worker to refuse to cooperate further with the family therapy. Although J had clearly enjoyed seeing his mother and stepfather (and on an occasion his father as well) in a safe setting, he quickly became anxious and fearful when he realised that the plan was for him to return to his mother and stepfather's home. I cannot explain why this was but I am clear that this was J's motivation for shutting out his mother from his life at this time.
32. In February 2013, the local authority acknowledged that the family therapy had failed. There was therefore no means by which the local authority could implement the care plan unless there was a significant change of heart on J's part. Contact to the mother and stepfather was replaced by twice yearly supervised contact. For several months during 2013 the mother was hospitalised and unable to see J for contact.
33. I am satisfied that the local authority kept the care plan for reunification alive from February 2013 onwards not, as the parents suggested, as a means of preventing the parents' further engagement in the reunification plan but because the Team Manager (then allocated social worker) genuinely hoped that there might still be a prospect of J returning home despite the drastic reduction in the contact to the mother. Contact to the father was more flexible but it remained supervised. Having heard the oral evidence of the Team Manager that the presence of another child in J's foster placement in the early part of 2013 had unsettled J, I do not find that this was why J no longer wished to have contact with his mother.
34. On 3^rd June 2013 the local authority convened a Legal Planning Meeting and the final care plan for both children was changed to long term foster care. An email sent by the mother to the Team Manager (then allocated social worker) on 8^th June 2013 was not only self-serving and vitriolic but (as I find) naive in terms of the mother's understanding of the events both before and after the children's' reception into care. The following extract gives a flavour of the mother's attitude towards the local authority:

"We are now 3 years into this case and we are still HONESTLY none the wiser as to why the children were removed and why they are not being returned. All parties know and accept that we did not commit any physical abuse of the children and any supposed emotional problems are not of our making, Please answer me: why are the children in care and why are they not being returned?...J was never at risk when living with us and should never have been removed…J himself has been given too much power to determine what happens to him especially having passed through a traumatic and brainwashing period with his grandmother and subsequent carers; the decisions he is being asked to make are too much for a boy who was only 9 years old when he was ripped away from his parents"

35. I have already referred to the grandmother's application for increased contact to J which was heard by HHJ Harris on 11^th April 2013. I have read the guardian's analysis in relation to this application and note the reference to the grandmother having been "fighting a cause for a very long time" and her "campaign for J" that his wishes and feeling were not being heard. The guardian also commented that whilst the grandmother continued to hold the view that she alone acted for J (and other children and families in the care system) she was "unlikely to hear other views" and would not hear any positives from her conversation with the guardian having convinced herself (erroneously) that the guardian would not be supporting contact between her and J.
36. I note from the statement of the Team Manager dated 3^rd March 2014 in response to the grandmother's application that he referred (at paragraph 37) to the grandmother having sent no less than 80 emails to the local authority since April 2013, the vast majority of which suggested that J's human rights were being breached, that he was being mistreated or locked away by the local authority and describing him as a "silent witness" about whom the grandmother alone knew his true wishes and feelings. I also received an email from the grandmother dated 12^th November 2014 in which she referred to the local authority making false allegations against her which represented an emotional abuse of her grandson who had "continually cried out for me". For my part, I am clear that future contact between J and his grandmother will be promoted by the local authority, that J wants this contact (he told me so in no uncertain terms) and that he wants future contact to be unsupervised. I have read the final care plans in relation to the local authority promoting contact between J and his grandmother and if the care order is not discharged, I approve the plan in the hope that during 2015, consideration can be given to contact move to overnight staying contact at the grandmother's home accompanied by his friend R.
37. On 5^th November 2013, the father emailed the Team Manager (than allocated social worker) asking for fortnightly contact with J (by Skype) on an unsupervised basis. The father was still living in France at this time. The Team Manager (then allocated social worker) did not agree such an increase (from monthly supervised skype contact) and asked the father (again) for dates when he would be back in the UK so that he could arrange for the DNA sampler to arrive to enable a sample from the father to be taken. In an email dated 11^th November 2013, the father accused the Team Manager (then allocated social worker) of cherry picking which wishes of J he chose to listen to and "ignoring any which could be construed as positive towards myself or his mother and stepfather". He also said that he had given the DNA matter more thought and that as S was now over 18 years of age "should she wish to discuss her parentage, I am happy for her to contact me directly". He said that he would not undertake any DNA testing. The Team Manager (then allocated social worker) expressed considerable concern about the father's attitude to testing (in the light of S's expressed wish in December 2011 that she wanted him to undertake the testing) reminding him that he had made a commitment in court that this would be done and suggesting that the father had "intentionally misled the local authority and S on this issue" and had deliberately put off the testing until she reached the age of 18. The Team Manager (then allocated social worker) indicated that as the care plan had changed and the mother's contact with J was now three times a year for 3 hours, it seemed sensible for the father's contact to be on the same footing.
38. On 18^th December 2013, the father emailed the Team Manager (then allocated social worker) saying that he disputed the reasons given for any change in his regular skype contact with J and was dissatisfied with his approach to the future contact arrangements.
39. During 2014 the contact between J and his mother has been infrequent and J has not been keen to attend the supervised contact sessions. He has however attended them with his current social worker. In advance of contact he has been anxious. Since these proceedings have been underway, he has, on occasions, soiled himself and wet his bed. The mother remains nonplussed by J's behaviour and attitude towards her. She cannot understand why he cannot reciprocate the love, which she feels for him. However, J's attitude towards his mother was clearly demonstrated during the last contact meeting between J, his mother and stepfather on 15^th August 2014. This meeting was curtailed prematurely by the mother. On this occasion J berated his mother for putting restrictions in the way of doing things, which he wanted to do (e.g. ride his bike to school and go out with his friends) saying to his mother and stepfather in an angry tone "let me have a life". The current social worker's note of the contact visit on 15^th August 2014 referred to J's apparent non-engagement with the contact and showing no emotional warmth towards his parents especially towards the mother.
40. After this encounter, the mother wrote to the team Manager and the current social worker expressing her (and the stepfather's) concern about J's behaviour at contact saying "we find it extremely convenient that J has been told these things by someone just 2 weeks before we are due back in court and on the day we were contacted by J's solicitor to tell us he would like to be separately represented so that his "voice" can be heard in the proceedings. It appears that everything is being tied into a neat and tidy package, which will give the judge no choice but to agree to J remaining in care…This will all be included in our statement …I am not going to stand for being lied about again and again. There have been 4 years of lies against me, which have been told to tear our lives apart but they stop here. J should be back home and he should be back home now…why does it give you pleasure to see families ripped apart? Is it really only to save your own jobs?"
41. On 2^nd September 2014 and at the request of the guardian I agreed that J should be separately represented in order for him to put his own evidence before the court. I also agreed to the instruction of Dr Willemsen whose expertise was necessary to advise the court in respect of the complex issues raised in the case. I also provided in my order that J should visit the father's home in Wales in advance of the final hearing in order for me to have an update of the situation (and particularly an update in terms of J's wishes) at the start of the final hearing. In fact the visit to Wales in advance of the final hearing did not take place –much to the consternation of the father –on the grounds that there were practical difficulties about making the visit including some funding issues and also because, according to J's guardian, he did not want to see his father's home in Wales until a decision had been taken about whether or not he was going to remain in the foster placement on a long term basis.
42. Dr Willemsen met the mother and stepfather, the father and grandmother. Further separate meetings between J and his parents were cancelled by J. Dr Willemsen saw J twice. In the conclusion of his report he referred to J's confrontation with "defiant" parents who do not accept his wish to remain in foster care. This caused J to be anxious and to feel bad about himself. He concluded that J wanted to see his grandmother and that it was unfortunate that the grandmother retained her hostility towards the local authority when the local authority had facilitated increased contact to her. He referred to the case needing to be "restored to the authority of the local authority" and for the parties to begin to think about their own role in J's life. He felt that J's placement needed to be protected from the "intrusions of the parties" and that all communication from adults with J would need to go through the local authority. Significantly, Dr Willemsen said this:

123 "It is important that J feels empowered in his wish that the court proceedings come to an end. J may continue to feel short changed, I am concerned that he will have low self-esteem and at other times anger management problems. He will have the view that the important people in his life cannot listen to him…."

124 "In my view, there should not be a question as to where J lives. I think the parties would support J tremendously if they would withdraw their respective applications for residence. I think that J will feel calmer and very relieved if he would hear that his parents have decided not to apply for residence but by agreement decided that the best place for him is with his foster family. J's confidence would be boosted if his parents could make such a decision. This position will give J and the parties a beginning to renewed contact which could develop positively"

43. When he gave evidence, Dr Willemsen was reminded of the fact that in advance of his report, he had received an initial letter of instruction on behalf of the guardian, which had not been agreed with the parents and which, on their case, contained important factual inaccuracies about the background to the care proceedings. Subsequently an agreed letter of instruction had been agreed but the parents were troubled that Dr Willemsen had approached his assessment from an inaccurate factual perspective. Dr Willemsen made it very clear in his evidence that he had used the judgment of HHJ Harris as the backdrop for his assessment and that he had not focussed on allegations made by the children in 2010 of physical violence or excessive chastisement (which had not been proved to the judge's satisfaction) but had concentrated on the judge's findings concerning the volatile relationship between the mother and the grandmother and the father's apparent realisation at the earlier hearing that he needed to be attuned to his son's emotional needs if the reunification plan to the mother stood any chance of working.
44. At the third meeting, J had spoken naturally and easily to Dr Willemsen about his wishes and had been really clear that he wanted to remain in the foster carers' home. Dr Willemsen described J as being "terrified" of having to leave the foster placement. He wanted to see more of his father as he didn't know him that well. He did not really want to see his mother but he felt it right that he should see her. In oral evidence, Dr Willemsen said that there remained an insecurity in the placement while the decision of the court was pending and that the foster mother could not say to him that the placement was secure. J's security had been taken away from him by his parents' application to the court. J's soiling in the recent past related to the uncertainty of the outcome of the case and J's fear that he would lose the connections and attachments which he had made in the placement. Dr Willemsen said that this was not a case of parental alienation and that J was trying to communicate with his parents but they would not listen to him. The parents needed to try and understand why J felt as he did as very few children did not want to go back to their parents. The mother and the stepfather were introspective and unable to reflect on the past and appeared to dismiss J's wishes and feelings. The stepfather was focussed specifically on the fact that the mother missed her son very much and he was therefore unable to see J's point of view.
45. In relation to the father, Dr Willemsen said that he had spent over 2 hours talking to him (the father had declined the second appointment when J had cancelled the observed contact) but felt that he still knew very little about him. He felt that the father was unable to reflect on his own contribution to the present state of affairs and his relationship with J both now and in the past. Dr Willemsen felt that the father had stepped back after being told that J would not come to the meeting with him.
46. In Dr Willemsen's view, neither of the parents had shown any self-reflection in their statements (and had had an angry response to the contents of his report) and no awareness of other peoples' views and positions. J felt that his parents' applications threatened his home and it was important for them to understand that he needed to remain in the home where he felt he belonged. Dr Willemsen felt that the basic bricks for building on contact with both parents were there (particularly with the father) but that this could not happen until J felt secure in his placement. While J continued to feel antagonistic towards his parents for making the court application, contact could not really develop as he remained fearful of them and angry towards them. He felt a hatred towards his mother for intruding into his life but it was not parental alienation because he was prepared to see his mother and his views were not rigidly fixed. In his professional opinion, the parents had a blind spot about what J was telling them.
47. Dr Willemsen said that the foster mother was protective of J and she worried about him. There was a lot of trust between her and J. She worried that J had started soiling at home once these recent applications had been made to the court. In Dr Willemsen's opinion, J's behaviour was a reflection of the humiliation which he felt about the court process. J saw his parents as colluding to bring about a return to the mother's home. He did not want this and in Dr Willemsen's opinion, this may have been the reason why he cancelled the meeting with his father, which Dr Willemsen was going to observe. He felt that the way forward was for the father to build a relationship with J once he (J) knew that he had his parents' permission to remain living in the foster home on a long term basis. J had described to Dr Willemsen a "summer of hell" as a result of his parents' application to the court.
48. J's guardian prepared an analysis of the case for the final hearing. She did not support the parents' application to discharge the final care order citing various expectations which she would have before consideration could be given to discharging such an order. The minimum expectation was that the young person was enjoying unsupervised contact with the parent on a regular basis, which was promoting their emotional welfare. Secondly, that contact had progressed to visits to the home of the parent who was making the application and the young person was comfortable with these visits. Thirdly, it was necessary for the young person to agree to the application and to support a reunification plan, In her written analysis she said that "none of these expectations have been met and most importantly J is making his views very clear that he will not support a plan which requires him to leave his current placement". She commented on a recent contact visit between J and his father in late August 2014, which had been an enjoyable experience for J. She had given the father and J some space to be alone together. J had been responsive to this and had chatted happily to her all the way home. She did not support any change in the current placement and believed that this could not be secured in this particular case without an order preventing further applications. She had supported J being separately represented so that the parents could hear his own voice. His statement and views had been clearly set out in his statement before the court.
49. The guardian commented that this was a family who had struggled to "let go" of the battle with social care. She supported the view of Dr Willemsen that if the parents could have withdrawn the applications, J would have felt that that his wishes had been heard. In her opinion, if the parties concentrated on improving contact, this "could well be a successful outcome for all".
50. In her oral evidence, Mrs Hayward said that after due reflection, she supported orders being made under s 91(14) and s34(4) of the Children Act 1989. She said that the parents had refused to acknowledge J's feelings and that any further applications to the court by family members would be "highly detrimental" to J. She said that J had needed to know in early 2013 that the purpose behind the therapy was with a view to him returning home to his mother and stepfather. When J had learned that this was the objective, he had "shut the door on his parents". In her opinion, there would be serious risks to J's emotional welfare were he to be returned to his mother and stepfather or relocated with his father to Wales.
51. She said that the parents had refused to listen to any advice from professionals and even after J had been given his own advocate in these proceedings, they had still refused to listen to him. This had created a barrier, which would now be difficult to overcome. She said that the parents wanted to remove the secure attachment, which J had in the foster placement and believed that all would be fine once he returned to his family. In her opinion, if the secure attachment which J has with the foster carers were to be taken away, J would be emotionally harmed. Neither of the parents had been able to consider the whole picture. They had focussed all the time on how everyone else had behaved in the case. The guardian felt that if they had listened to J this would have made a significant difference to his relationship with them.
52. In her professional opinion, the parents' applications to discharge the care order in respect of J were premature and did not address J's needs. The father had never contacted the guardian about making a trip to Wales with J before the final hearing and had preferred to wait until the hearing to complain that, in breach of the directive from the court, the trip had not taken place. The guardian said that she had originally been enthusiastic about taking J to Wales but there had subsequently been issues about funding the trip in advance of the final hearing. She conceded, however, when giving her oral evidence that ultimately she had responded to J's wish not to go to Wales when he had learned that his father had not agreed that he could remain living in the foster placement.
53. The guardian said that the father always found fault in the actions of others without ever reflecting on his own behaviour. Even when she had commented positively on the contact between J and his father at the end of August 2014, he had wanted to complain about aspects of the way in which the guardian had managed the contact on that occasion. In her opinion, the father did not have a secure attachment to his son. He saw the court proceedings as a "battle to remove his son from the claws of the local authority" and in her opinion, the mother did not focus on J's emotional needs. The guardian could not understand why the father believed that J would suffer no trauma if he were now to be removed from the foster placement when everyone in the case had conceded that he had suffered trauma in March 2011 by being taken into foster care. She said that nothing she had heard from the father gave her any confidence that he could think about his actions from the standpoint of the children.
54. Findings

I am very well aware of the strain and stress which this case has imposed upon the parents, grandmother and stepfather who are determined to redress a perceived miscarriage of justice and are determined to bring J back into the family fold. The thrust of their submissions to the court at this further hearing was that had been no basis whatsoever for J's removal from his grandmother's home in March 2011 and that the manner of his removal had been wrongful and hugely traumatic for J. In the parents' opinion, the conduct of the local authority since March 2011 had been wholly inimical to J's welfare. Although the parents were reminded that a revised threshold document had been conceded by them at the conclusion of the earlier hearing in January 2012 which had provided the legal justification for J's continued placement in foster care, the parents persisted with the argument that the legal process and the involvement of the social services in their lives had always and detrimental to the welfare of the children. Such is their grievance now towards the local authority that they were (as I find) very polarised in their thinking about the best outcome for J. Their mindset remained in the past even though J had been 9 years old in March 2011 and is now a 13 year old teenager.

55. That these parents have pursued a tireless campaign against the local authority since the conclusion of the previous hearing is well demonstrated by the contents of various emails from them to the social worker from 2012 onwards. some of which I have referred to in this judgment. In my judgment neither of the parents seemed able to accept the two significant conclusions of HHJ Harris: firstly that whatever did or did not happen to the children while they were living with their mother and stepfather, the children had felt that there had been big concerns in the mother's household which had caused them distress and secondly that there could be no "real movement" in the case until the parents were able to acknowledge the extent of the children's anxiety while living at home with their mother.
56. Having listened to six days of evidence in the case, I am satisfied that the wise words of HHJ Harris fell on completely deaf ears. The mother and stepfather remain quite unable to fathom why the children were so unhappy at home and have refused to accept that they had lived as anything other than a "normal" family when the children were at home. As for the father, he believes that the circumstances of J's removal from his school in March 2011 into foster care (set out in some detail in HHJ Harris' judgment) was so traumatic for J that the local authority could not thereafter be trusted to implement a care plan which met his son's welfare needs. The father remains adamant that it cannot be in J's interest for him to remain in foster care.
57. The father's position was that if the court did not support J returning to live with the mother, then J should live with him in Monmouthshire where he has purchased a property in an idyllic rural location. The father submitted that having made major changes to his lifestyle and having relocated from France to Wales at considerable emotional and financial upheaval, the court should not hesitate to place J in his care as this had to be a better outcome for J than continuing to live in the foster placement. When pressed during cross-examination about the fact that J has repeatedly said that he not want to live with him (or with his mother and stepfather) the father insisted that J would "adapt" to a changed home environment.
58. The father also argued that J is only 13 years old and that it was wrong in principle for him to be allowed to dictate where he wanted to live particularly in circumstances where he could not be expected to understand the lack of security associated with a long term foster placement. The father said that the dynamics within the family had changed markedly since 2012 and that as he was now on good terms with the mother and stepfather, issues of contact in the future in whichever of the parents' home J was placed would be capable of amicable discussion.
59. In analysing the issues in this unusual case, I start from the obvious premise that children should if at all possible be raised by their parents and that the parenting of children should not be a matter of intervention by the state. Parents are invested with parental responsibility on the birth of a child and this should be exercised by both parents with appropriate judgement and discretion during the minority of the child. Only if a child is at risk of suffering significant harm (or has suffered significant harm) in the care of a parent –or both parents - is the state permitted to act to protect a child and if necessary to remove the child from the care of the parents. The court must approve the removal of a child on the basis that a threshold for the child's reception into care has been made out by the local authority.
60. The revised threshold document which was approved by the court in January 2012 referred to the children suffering emotional harm in October 2010 (when proceedings were issued by the local authority)as a result of a high degree of conflict within the family. The document referred (a) to J being very afraid of the continued conflict between his mother and his paternal grandmother and (b) to the fact that while S had retracted allegations of physical chastisement meted out to her by her mother, J had not withdrawn his allegations, which had become a "serious impediment to a healthy relationship with their mother".
61. As the threshold for the children's reception into care was met and agreed in January 2012 it is not part of my decision-making process to determine whether, in the light of events since the last hearing, the threshold criteria would now be met. The local authority do not have to prove threshold again. My task in determining the applications made by the parents to discharge the care orders is to assess, from the perspective of J's welfare, whether or not the care proceedings should now be terminated which would entail him leaving the foster placement and living henceforth with one or other of his parents.
62. In making my decision, I remind myself that the paramount consideration of the court is J's welfare during his minority (s1 Children Act 1989). However, I am also required to consider the impact on J's family life if I do not accede to the parents' application, remembering as I do that the parents and J have a right to a family life and that any interference with this can only be sanctioned if such an order is a proportionate response to the evidence which is before the court.
63. Having regard to the grievances expressed by the parents and their vocal criticisms of the social workers in the case (and particularly the Team Manager who was J's social worker from January 2012 until early February 2014) I think it important that I offer my own appraisal of the extent to which –if at all -the local authority has failed J while sharing parental responsibility with the parents since the conclusion of the previous proceedings in January 2012.
64. I have seen many communications between both parents and the Team since the last hearing and almost all of them are in an angry and aggressive tone attributing blame to the Team manager for failing to promote contact between J and his parents, failing to promote the reunification plan and failing to heed the voices of the parents. I noted that there was little mention of the needs, wishes and feelings of J (and/or S) in the communications which were sent nor any attempts to understand the anxiety which the children must have felt after the conclusion of the earlier proceedings. The parents seemed almost oblivious to the impact of the children refusing to return home without being able to explain why. HHJ Harris invited the parents to reflect on this and to accept that the children had had "big concerns" while living at home. However, instead of pausing and considering the evidence, which had been before the court, the parents stubbornly refused to address the points made by the judge in her judgment.
65. It seems to me that because the children chose not to expand upon why they had been so unhappy when living at home, the mother (supported by the stepfather and the father) began a "campaign" to remove J from the foster placement without ever confronting what had gone wrong in the past. In my judgment the mother has remained quite unable to address the emotional suffering, which J suffered while in her care. The mother, stepfather and the father all appear to have believed that the best way of dealing with past deficiencies in their parenting of J was to put this firmly to one side and to concentrate their efforts on heaping blame on the social work team entrusted to promote J's welfare after he was received into care.
66. I can well understand that the traumatic separation of J from his grandmother in March 2011 led to a loss of trust on the part of the parents towards the local authority. However, things had moved on by the time of the hearing before HHJ Harris and she advised the parents how they should proceed if there was to be any chance of a successful reunification between J, his mother and stepfather. In my judgment, the parents could not move on and were unable to cooperate with the Team Manager. Their conduct since January 2012 has been self-centred and devoid of any self-reflection. Having listened to the confrontational cross-examination of the current social worker and Team Manager by the parents at this further hearing, I am entirely satisfied that neither parent has responded to the earlier judgment and that in their dealings with the Team manager (and latterly the current social worker) they have been contemptuous of all social work involvement in J's life.
67. I was particularly impressed by the evidence of the Team Manager. I accepted his evidence that he had always tried to promote the reunification plan and that he had promoted the progression of contact between J and his mother during the latter part of 2012. I was satisfied that he gave an entirely accurate account of his involvement in the case. Moreover, I was satisfied that he acted at all times professionally and endeavoured to engage with the parents when making decisions concerning J's welfare. I am also clear that when the contact arrangements broke down and the family therapy failed in early 2013 he did not give up hope that J would go home even when faced with J's refusal to cooperate with a reunification plan.
68. The Team Manager was right to wait a few months and in this case, I do not criticise the delay until June 2013 when the final care plan changed after J had made clear that he was not willing to return home. The Team Manager was berated by the mother for not reinstating contact during the early part of 2013 (even though she seems to have been unwell for several months at this time) and he received many complaints from the father for not increasing or facilitating his contact with J. From all that I have read and heard in this case, I am entirely satisfied that in making the decisions he did, the Team Manager was listening to J and acted professionally at all times. The problem was that the parents refused to listen to the Team Manager and refused to listen to J.
69. In all the circumstances I wish to record that the parents' persistent criticism of the Team Manager's handling of this case as J's social worker after the final care order was made in January 2012 was both unfair and misconceived. In my judgment, the persistence of their complaints demonstrates their inability to accept any responsibility for the children's circumstances before and after they were removed from home. I am equally satisfied that any criticism of J's current social worker since March 2014 in his management of the case is also misdirected and that he has done his best to promote good relations between J and the parents.
70. J is now a young man whose welfare needs appear have been subsumed to the insistence of his parents (supported by his grandmother) to somehow set the record straight. I have explained above why the parents' conduct in this regard has not been conducive to J's welfare. He is an articulate and mature 13 year old who has achieved confidence and emotional security while living with his foster carers. The foster carers treat J as part of their family. He feels that their home is his home and that they understand him. The foster mother, in particular, appears very attuned to his anxieties and concerns. She wants to continue to care for J until he is 18 and J wants this to happen. I pay tribute to the foster carers for the care which they have given J for well over 3 years and I accept the evidence from the social workers that there is every reason to believe that this placement can and will continue during the remainder of J's minority.
71. Of course, J's wishes and feelings are only one aspect of the welfare checklist in s1 of the Children Act 1989 which I have to apply in determining the best outcome for J in these proceedings. However, while not determinative, they must be accorded significant weight when the court is dealing with a child of 13 years because if the wishes are genuine, they are a reflection of the emotional health of the child now and in the future. By refusing to acknowledge his wishes, both parents have dismissed J as someone whose views are not important to them. I consider that this represents a serious deficiency in their respective parenting capacity because they wish to impose a plan on J (that he should leave the foster placement) which meets their need to be viewed as fit and responsible parents rather than considering J's happiness and the uncertain outcome for him were he to leave the foster placement.
72. Looked at from that perspective, I have concluded that the parents' attitude towards J has been demeaning. The parents have refused to listen to J and to all the professionals in the case and have insisted on pursuing an objective which (as I find) is not only demonstrably at odds with J's future welfare but is now perceived by him as being unfair and unreasonable. I agree with the guardian that the parents' stance within these proceedings has set back the future progression of their relationship with J because he can no longer trust them. In my judgment, the parents and only the parents are answerable for this.
73. I also feel that the intransigent attitude of the parents' throughout this further hearing has made me question the extent to which J's emotional needs were ever addressed by his parents –and particularly his mother -when he lived at home. I suspect (but I can go no further than this) that the conflict within this family before he left his mother's home was so significant that he was not nurtured appropriately by his mother as a much younger child and that, as a consequence, he was left feeling insecure, helpless and unhappy.
74. The recent contact in August 2014 between J, his mother and stepfather was at best superficial and at worst meaningless. J is very angry with his mother and he will continue to be angry with her until he can trust her not to undermine the security which he has found in the foster placement. Whether the mother can do this is questionable because (like the father) she wants to control J's future and she does not listen to him. As he has matured J has questioned the extent to which she can play a meaningful role in his future life. The father's support for J's placement in his mother's home inevitably calls into question his own lack of understanding about where things went wrong in the past when J was living at home and his failure to take on board the very poor relationship between J and his mother at the moment. I am in no doubt that J would be most unhappy if he were returned to his mother's care and I would be failing in my duty as a judge if I ordered him to return to the care of someone with whom currently he has a relationship which lacks any meaning and trust. I am satisfied that the mother cannot replicate the security which J has found in the foster placement and I am equally satisfied were he to return to her care, the placement would break down very quickly causing J significant emotional harm.
75. The father is an intelligent man but, in my judgment, he has little emotional intelligence. His true character and personality is difficult to read because he gives away so little about himself. He is on a mission to save J and throughout the hearing he did not shift from the position that J's best interests lay in his removal from the foster placement. In my judgment, the father has shown arrogance in consistently rejecting any advice given to him by professionals about J's needs. The father hears what he wants to hear and does what he wants to do. He could not begin to contemplate why it was that J had not visited his home in Wales in advance of the hearing and insisted that this was part of a conspiracy between the guardian and the local authority to prevent his case being fully explored. It never occurred to him to accept that J was not prepared to go to Wales until he knew that his father was no longer trying to remove him from his foster home.
76. Looking at the father's position I am entitled to consider as part of the overall circumstances of the case the fact that he has refused to have a DNA test to establish his paternity of S. I am satisfied that he never intended to undertake a test despite his assertion to the contrary to S and to HHJ Harris in January 2012. He is now estranged from S who specifically wanted him to undertake the test. She is entitled to be angry with him for refusing to honour his commitment to her. S lives in Essex and visits the foster placement periodically to see J and the foster carers. In my judgment, she is a significant person in J's life and it would be inimical to J's welfare if he lost contact with her. I cannot see, in the present circumstances, how contact between J and S could be promoted by the father if J lived in Wales. Furthermore, I am satisfied that the father has not thought through the implications of J living with him in Wales in terms of continuing contact to his family (and to friends whom J would leave behind in Essex) because, from the father's perspective, all of this can wait until J is safely reunited with him in Wales.
77. Although the father has been committed to these proceedings, I am satisfied that the father has little real understanding of his teenage son's needs. He has not been able to stand back and look at the outcome from J's perspective. He could not understand that J might find a move to a remote area of Wales to live with a father whom he has seen relatively infrequently in the last few years a daunting and unappealing prospect. The father believed that as he could provide a good home for his son this was a good enough reason for the court to discharge the care order. This attitude –combined with the anger demonstrated by the father during the course of this further hearing –convinced me that I simply could not trust the father to respond to J's emotional needs and concerns were he to leave Essex to live with him in Wales.
78. While the contact notes of J's contact with his father are very positive, these do not provide in themselves a clear indicator of parental capacity. I am, however, satisfied that the father has given up a great deal to fight this case and that he loves his son dearly. I believe that if and when J learns that his father respects the judgment of the court, J will want to see his father and to have a proper relationship with him which will involve visits to see his father in Wales.
79. In the light of my findings, it is clear that the parents' applications to discharge the care orders must be dismissed. I am saddened that the parents could not find the courage to withdraw their applications during this long further hearing because J would then have received the message that they had his best interests at heart. However, rather than make a decision themselves in J's interests, they preferred to attribute blame to others, to ignore the evidence which pointed firmly in one direction and to pass responsibility to me to make the final decision for J's future.
80. I am satisfied that the contact arrangements in the final care plan reflect J's welfare needs at the present time including the proposed contact arrangements in relation to the grandmother which respect the application she has made to the court for increased contact. I am confident that the current social worker will do his very best to implement the contact arrangements and to explain to J when and how contact with all family members will occur. In view of J's age there will need to be some fluidity in the future about these arrangements which must be respected by the family and the local authority. However, as I am satisfied that the local authority will promote contact between J and his family and that J will cooperate with arrangements once he knows the outcome of this hearing, I do not propose making any defined contact orders in this case with the consequence that the grandmother's formal application for a defined contact order is dismissed and likewise the parents' oral applications for defined orders are also dismissed. I note that the guardian supports this view. I have no reason not to trust the local authority to carry out its statutory duty by implementing the contact proposals set out in the final care plan.
81. In this particular case, I am satisfied that there should be no further applications to the court by any of the family members without the permission of the court. Although this is not a case where the parents or the paternal grandmother have repeatedly made unreasonable applications to the court, they have nevertheless sought to use the court as a sounding board for their antagonism towards the local authority's management of the case. Although the grandmother was unable to give evidence at the hearing, she clearly sees herself as a campaigner for justice on behalf of J and I am satisfied that, following this comprehensive judgment, she should be deterred from making further court applications. As for the parents they have pursued their applications from the same motivation. They have been unable to focus on J who is now a young man and someone who clearly articulates to professionals what he wants to say but who retains a residual sensitivity about telling his parents directly that he does not wish to live with either of them. I am sure that this was the reason why J cancelled the appointments which Dr Willemsen organised with the parents and in my judgment this is a telling aspect of the lingering anxiety which he continues to feel about communication with his parents at anything other than a superficial level.
82. The parents have refused to accept that the present foster placement is the best place for J in the long run and I am far from convinced that they will now recognise the benefits for J of the placement continuing even after this further hearing. Having heard evidence from Dr Willemsen and the guardian, I am satisfied that J would suffer emotionally –with potential consequences for the stability of the foster placement -if any further applications were made by the parents in the foreseeable future to remove him from the foster home.
83. Accordingly, I am going to provide a restriction on any further application being made to the court by the mother, the father and the paternal grandmother. In relation to the grandmother I should say that I listened with care to representations made on her behalf about the appropriate orders to make in this case and have taken these into account in the orders, which I make today. I am well aware that an order under s91(14) of the Children Act 1989 should be made sparingly and should be the exception and not the rule (see Re P (Section 91(14) Guidelines [1999]2FLR 573] but in my judgment there are very cogent welfare reasons (set out in the body of this judgment) why such an order is entirely appropriate in this case. Having regard to J's age I propose to make a restriction on any further applications to the court limited in time to 3 years from the date of this order in order to ensure that the long term foster placement is safeguarded
84. The parents and grandmother are not, of course, barred from making further applications but they need to understand that such applications will only proceed with the leave of the court and that any further application which seeks to destabilise the current arrangements for J is most unlikely to find favour with the court. I was struck by the evidence that while the determination of these applications have been pending J has, on occasions, soiled and wet himself at the foster home and the expert evidence from Dr Willemsen that this behaviour is likely to have been caused by the foster mother being unable to reassure J that he can remain in the placement with her on a long term basis. In my judgment, J should not be put through the emotional upheaval of further court proceedings again unless there is a very good reason for further proceedings and a reason which satisfies the court at a preliminary stage that an application should proceed.
85. As for the application made by the local authority for an order under s34(4) of the Children Act 1989, this is not an order which I propose to make at the present time even though I understand the reasoning behind seeking such an order. Although an order under s34(4) is a permissive order I am satisfied that the parents' perception of such an order would be that the court is prepared to sanction any changes which the local authority may wish to make in the future in relation to contact arrangements between J and his family. Although the parents have lost a lot of ground by pursuing this application to judgment, I consider, nevertheless, that it is important now for the relationship between J and his parents to be actively promoted rather than restricted. Equally the increased contact arrangements to the paternal grandmother set out in the revised final care plan appear to meet J's wishes. I hope that there can be unsupervised contact in the future between J and his grandmother provided that she can be trusted to behave appropriately. In my judgment, J should not be given a message that he can now choose not to attend for contact with any members of his family.
86. Although the court retains the jurisdiction to make a s34(4) order at a future date, I am satisfied at the present time that the application is premature and risks derailing the proposed contact arrangements set out in the final care plan prepared by the local authority.
87. Having set out my judgment in some detail, I dismiss all the applications, which have been made by the mother, father and paternal grandmother. I make an order under s91(14) of the Children Act 1989 limited in time to 3 years from the date of this order.

HHJ Staite

20^th November 2014

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