England and Wales Family Court Decisions (other Judges)

THE COUNTY COURT AT BLACKBURN

		64 Victoria Street Blackburn
		10th July 2015

APPROVED JUDGMENT
1. THE JUDGE: Late in the evening on 15^th January 2015, Lancashire County Council Children's Services duty social worker received a telephone call and the note she made reads as follows:

"Telephone call received from anonymous caller calling from Ireland. Caller advised his 22 year old daughter, Kt, was lodging with his cousin, Ch, and his partner, By, at (address given). Ch and By are parents to C and G.

Kt disclosed to caller today that both children are being used for pornographic material. Caller had no other details on this.

Caller also stated that she witnessed Ch encouraging By to perform sexual acts on both children. She did not witness any acts but assumes they went ahead.

Caller also stated that Ch encouraged his daughter, Kt, to perform sexual acts on both children which she did not participate in.

Kt came to stay with her father in Ireland for Chtmas and has only disclosed this information today. Caller states Ch is very persistent, continuous and aggressive. He bullies By, who is 'very quiet'. Kt lived with By and Ch for six months, until Chtmas, and states these incidents were happening the whole time she was there. Caller would like to stay anonymous but is willing to speak to social workers."

2. The social worker contacted the police and enquiries were set in train.
3. The telephone call was returned and it was established that the caller was Carl, the cousin of Ch. After a series of phone calls with Carl, the social worker was put through to Kt. Again, the note reads as follows:

"Kt advised that Ch forced By to touch up the children sexually.

[The next short passage does not make sense, so I am missing a bit out] She advised Ch tells By to perform oral sex on the children but she has never witnessed By commit these acts. Kt told me that although she never saw By do this that she believes they did take place on a regular basis but only when By wanted to do it.

I asked Kt if she was aware of Ch or anyone taking photographs of any of the assaults on the children but she advised she did not know.

Kt told me that Ch is a bully. She told me how he has told her to perform oral sex on the children on more than one occasion. I asked Kt if she had ever carried out Ch's requests to which she said, 'He forced me to do this to G.' I asked what he had forced her to do to which she said, 'I put my mouth on G's private parts. I know it was wrong. I know it was wrong'.

I asked Kt if she was prepared to share this information with the police to which she advised she would do. I note that during the whole of this conversation that Kt was very upset and distressed."

4. The following day, the police took protective action with the children being removed to foster care and the Local Authority issued care proceedings. Those care proceedings have reached the stage of a fact finding exercise to establish just what has gone on with these two young children and to establish whether the threshold for the making of public orders is crossed. It falls to me to decide what has happened.
5. G was born on 28^th March 2013 and C was born on 16^th July 2014. At this fact finding hearing Miss Bowcock has represented Lancashire County Council; Miss Wall has represented By, the children's mother; Mr Hart has represented the children's father, Ch; and the children, through their guardian, Mrs Westcott, have been represented by Miss Hobson. I am grateful to the advocates for their help with this case and I commend them for the quality of the advocacy and presentation of their cases.
6. I must remind myself of the law. It is for the Local Authority to prove the facts upon which it seeks to rely on a balance of probabilities. They do that by establishing that something is more probable than not. In considering the evidence, the findings of fact that I can make must be based on evidence, including inferences that can properly be drawn from the evidence, but not on suspicion or speculation.
7. In this case I have a wealth of documentation. In relation to all of those who have given evidence, particularly in relation to the children's parents, there is information held on files maintained by different Social Services departments which it has been suggested may help the court in this fact finding process. In relation to a lot of the material held on him, Ch has denied the accuracy of those records. The Local Authority have not sought to put before me the primary material relating to the incidents said to have occurred in many instances many years ago. I must therefore take no account of that material in arriving at my conclusions.
8. I must remind myself to try and look at the whole picture. Different phrases have been used by different courts over the years, encouraging judges at first instance to survey the whole canvas or to look at every piece of the jigsaw and put it in its rightful place. I have endeavoured to do all of that.
9. I remind myself that within our tolerant society there are many different standards of parenting and different ways of bringing up children. Many parents have their own failings, be they criminal, or in the way they think about politics or religion, or in many other ways. Their children are bound to be affected by the way their parents behave and the way they bring their children up, but this is a court of law, not a court of morals. The ultimate investigation that this court is carrying out is into what is in the best interests of these children. That is my paramount and only consideration.
10. I remind myself of the Lucas direction as to witnesses who tell lies. The experience of the courts is that people can tell lies for any number of different reasons. It may be that they think the truth will not be believed. Once a lie has been started it is often difficult to retract and people can very often convince themselves of the truth or what they are saying when it plainly is not right. The fact that someone lies about one thing does not necessarily mean that they have lied about everything.
11. To take a brief overview; Ch (born in 1984) had a relationship with By (born in 1992) which started when she was 15, at a time when he was engaged in a sexual relationship with her mother. She has now accepted, with the benefit of some distance and hindsight, that she was groomed. Their relationship was plainly not one of equals. G was born to them in March 2013. In January 2014, Kt (who is the daughter of Ch's cousin) came to live at Ch and By's home. Almost immediately she and Ch began a sexual relationship. By was told about that some months later but was accepting of it.
12. The history of By's relationship with Ch was that it was a highly sexual one, with Ch demanding sexual intercourse every day and she consenting. There may have been occasions when that consent was not entirely forthcoming. The police have recorded a complaint of a neighbour in the summer of 2013 which is suggestive of By not consenting to Ch's demands for sex at 4.30 in the morning. That would have been a short time after G was born. Both parents told me they could not recall this incident.
13. By's attitude to Kt's presence in her home was somewhat equivocal. She welcomed Kt's sexual relationship with Ch because it relieved the pressure on her to provide Ch with sex. Kt recognised that By was suffering from depression and needed help. By appreciated her concerns. The other side of the coin was that Ch striking up a sexual relationship with a woman of a very similar age made By feel inadequate and she felt at times that Kt, as time went by, became the more dominant female figure in the household, more dominant than her, and it appears from what she said she had difficulties dealing with that.
14. Kt's position in the household was more straightforward. Although she has yet to recognise it, she, too, was very obviously groomed. She accepts that within a very short time of arriving in the household (although she has been inconsistent on dates) she began a sexual relationship with Ch.
15. The two women described Ch and his sexual appetite in remarkably similar ways. I conclude that they are both telling me the truth. They found Ch to be highly demanding wanting sex every day. He would sulk if they did not agree to sex and so, in most instances, one or the other would give in. He asked both for oral sex and he asked both for anal sex. Both women, towards the end of 2014, appeared to accept the reality of their daily lives together, both helping with the children, although clearly the primary reasonability fell on By, and both responding to Ch's demands.
16. Ch clearly thought that this was an arrangement that could go on indefinitely. He bought engagement rings for both women. He had a plan either to marry both of them or, if that was not possible, to marry one and have the other change her surname by deed poll to his name. He accepts that he is sexually driven. He would spend a significant part of the day in bed. Whilst the women in his household looked after the children he would spend his waking hours on the computer, staying up long after everyone else had gone to sleep. He has throughout denied any suggestion that the two women with whom he lived have been groomed by him. He regarded his relationship with By as a love match and appeared to see his relationship with Kt in similar terms, although acknowledging the complication of them being related.
17. In December 2014 Kt went to Ireland to spend Christmas with her father. Her father had been released from prison in Ireland in October 2014 having served a prison sentence for having sexual intercourse with a 15 year old girl. It was whilst Kt was in Ireland that she had the conversation with her father, that led to the telephone call to the social worker with which I began this judgment.
18. The key questions I have to resolve are to establish just what was happening within this household where G and C lived, whether they were being abused, if so, by whom and in what circumstances, and if there was truth in any or all of the information provided to the social worker on 15^th January 2015.
19. All the people I have mentioned so far in this judgment have been interviewed by the police. Ch and By remain on bail, with the police investigation, as yet, incomplete. Social Services have carried out extensive investigations into this family in an effort to establish what, if anything was happening to G and C. Mr Farooq, the key social worker, has presented to the court comprehensive statements upon which the Local Authority rely. The children's guardian, Mrs Westcott, has carried out her own interviews and investigations. I have all of that material before me.
20. I heard evidence very briefly from Mr Farooq. There was no challenge to his evidence, although Mr Hart, on behalf of Ch, made clear that the assessment of the witnesses and the evidence was a matter for me and he did not propose to challenge Mr Farooq's assessments. I heard evidence from Carl, from Kt, from By and from Ch. Each was cross-examined.
21. Throughout the evidence there were many, many instances of inconsistencies. I have to work my way through that to establish what I accept as truthful evidence upon which I can rely and why I accept it. Mr Hart, very properly, focussed his submissions on the need for me to decide this case solely on evidence upon which I could rely, drawing, where appropriate, the necessary inferences. He was right to remind me of that and I will endeavour to carry out the task he has set me.
22. Where should I start? The police investigation has included an interrogation of computer equipment kept within the family home. The result of that interrogation is not challenged. One of the inevitable questions that arises on the account I gave of Ch's daily activities was what he was doing on his computer, particularly what he was doing on his computer when everyone else was asleep? All three adults have accepted that they had access to all of the computers in the house. It was By and Kt's case that they would use the Fujitsu laptop, which was usually kept in the living room, for conventional internet use, including such things as downloading books from websites such as Amazon. By was aware that Ch had an interest in pornography. Both she and Kt were aware that he had a large number of pornographic DVDs. Although he had invited By to watch pornographic DVDs with him as a prelude to sex, Kt said that had not been her experience. Ch had managed to gain some qualifications in computers. His case in evidence was that he was far more interested in the hardware side of computers, rather than the software side of computers, but he was familiar with the internet and its use. He was familiar with accessing pornographic websites.
23. The police interrogation of the computers revealed rather disturbing use of the Fujitsu laptop. It contained on it over 400 images of bestiality, much of it category A, which had been downloaded on 4^th January 2015 at a time when only By and Ch had access to the computer; Kt then being in Ireland. It was suggested to Ch in evidence that it was him that had downloaded that material. He denied it. He was invited to say who it was who had downloaded it. He was not prepared to say until cornered that if it was not him it must have been By. It plainly was not By and I have no doubt whatsoever that it was Ch who downloaded that pornography.
24. The interrogation of the computer also revealed that it had been used to search the internet. It had been used to search for something called "Animal Farm" and "Animal Sex Fat" with the word "animal" wrongly spelt. Ch's response to any suggestion that he had been searching on the internet for anything to do with animals was that he has dyslexia and cannot spell. Having listened to both By and Kt give their evidence, and knowing as I do that they are both keen readers, I find it difficult to imagine that either of them would have misspelt the word "animal."
25. Included in the search were searches for "BBW animal sex," and "BBW bestiality," but, more significantly, this phrase had been entered into the computer search engine - "Mom helps son cum". The police search reveals that that phrase was used on several occasions. Also present on the computer was an attempt to access "hidemyass.com". The police were able to explain to Ch in his interview that that was a website designed to allow people to eradicate their IP addresses so that they could not be traced by the authorities who might be watching a particular website, thereby indicating a sophisticated knowledge of computers and how to cover one's tracks.
26. The evidence points in one direction and one direction only. The use of that computer with all of those searches was by Ch. What is of particular concern, in the light of the allegations made to Social Services on 15^th January 2015, is the search for "Mom helps son cum." The only proper inference that I can draw from Ch's use of the computer to search for that phrase was that he had a sexual interest in his own children.
27. The primary evidence of sexual abuse of the children in this case comes from Kt. She has given a number of different accounts of what happened. Her father has given evidence of what he says she told him. That account was the first in time. The second account in time was to the social worker over the telephone; a note of that conversation I have already recounted. She made a statement to the police in Lancashire. That was, effectively, a "no comment" interview, accompanied by a statement. She prepared a formal statement within these proceedings and she attended court to give evidence and be cross-examined.
28. One difficulty that Kt's evidence presents, in my analysis of what I can rely upon of what she said, is that it is clear to me from what I saw in court that she remains significantly enmeshed with Ch. The second difficulty is that she told me she has now begun counselling and related to that that she is so disgusted with herself at what she did to G that she has attempted to erase it from her mind. As I have already said, a third complicating factor is that she has been inconsistent. No two versions of her account have been the same. The final difficulty is that when she gave her evidence before me, whilst accepting that she put her mouth around G's penis, the account she gave lacked any detail that might have given it a more truthful feel.
29. So, did Kt put her mouth around G's penis? If she did, in what circumstances and why? If she did not, why has she said that she did?
30. I am quite satisfied that an incident occurred, probably in the autumn of 2014, when Kt put her mouth around G's penis. I reject as wholly implausible the possibility that she has fabricated this incident. It was suggested by Ch that her reason for fabricating it was because she did not want to have to live with her father, who was putting her under huge pressure to make false allegations because he was unhappy, to put it mildly, about Ch having a sexual relationship with Kt. The effect of Kt making the allegation that she had sexually abused G would be that she would become a registered sex offender and would be unable to live with her father, who is a registered sex offender by reason of his conviction, and so she would have to live free of his influence. No other suggestion has been put forward as to why she might fabricate this incident.
31. So if such an event happened, how did it happen, what happened and, insofar as I can establish it, why? That requires me to analyse as best I can, on the evidence I have heard, the nature of the relationship between Kt and Ch. I indicated earlier on that it was clear to me that she has been groomed. Grooming is a kind of brainwashing. The effect of a young woman being groomed by an older man is often that she feels that the actions she is taking are all of her own freewill, all from her own innate desires and wishes, to the extent that she is quite incapable of seeing and realising how she is being manipulated. It was clear to me in her evidence that Kt was, at times, at pains to avoid placing responsibility on Ch. She was adamant that she was agreeable to having sex with Ch but was not able to say that she was agreeable to abusing G, but equally could not explain why she did it. She said that she found what she had done repulsive, but did not regard that incident as a reason either to leave Ch's household or not to return in the future. She was adamant that nobody had made her do anything. When she was pressed on the incident with G, she said this:

"I put his penis into my mouth. I was not forced. Ch didn't touch me in any way. He didn't tell me to do what I did."

She was referred to her statement in these proceedings and her account over the telephone to the social worker and she said this:

"To say 'forced' was the only way I could explain myself."

32. I do not think that Kt was giving in court an accurate account upon which I can rely. In my judgment, she was, at least in part, influenced by Ch and his behaviour at the back of the courtroom. Mr Hart took Kt through many of the inconsistencies in her evidence. Ch clearly enjoyed the way she was made to struggle in the witness box. He had a smirk on his face throughout. In my assessment, it was exceedingly difficult, nigh impossible, for Kt to say to the court what really happened.
33. In his statement to the court, Carl described what he said Kt had told him on 15^th January 2015 when she explained what had been happening. His statement says this:

"She said that she had on one occasion performed oral sex on G and said she had never done anything to C. She told me that she had finished changing G and she was forced by Ch to put G's penis in her mouth and she did so and quickly took it out. She said that Ch was pushing the back of her head. She also said he wanted to have sex with her as she was doing that."

34. Carl was challenged both about the accuracy of his account of what Kt had told him, but also about the fact that Kt had not said anything remotely like what he said she had said to him when she gave her evidence. He was very, very surprised that Kt had not given an account consistent with his statement and, in my assessment, his reaction was genuine.
35. So had Kt given an account of the incident to her father that was not accurate or in giving her explanation to her father had she introduced the element of coercion in order to explain why she would have done something that, no doubt, her father would have found difficult to understand. I am influenced in my conclusion here by Ch's search for the phrase "Mom helps son cum." I have already concluded that demonstrated he had a sexual interest in his two young boys. Nothing has emerged about Kt and her background to suggest that she had a sexual interest in young boys. It is, undoubtedly, the case that both she and By had had childhoods where sexual boundaries had been skewed, but nothing to suggest an interest in boys. So if it was Ch who was interested in boys, why would Kt engage in a sexual act with G? The answer, it seems to me, can only properly be that it was to satisfy Ch's sexual interest and not her own.
36. She described in her evidence Ch being in the room. She had no description to give of where he was standing or what he was doing. Ch's evidence was that he was not in the room at all but that he was outside with his dog. He purported to have some recollection of the incident. He purported to remember that the changing of G's nappy had taken place on the floor. It was Kt's case that she had changed G on Ch's bed. What they both agreed on, and what seems to be common ground, is that By was not in the house. It is possible that with Ch standing next to her and, as she has described, having asked her before and asking her on this occasion whether little boys turn her on that she might have sought to satisfy him by performing a sexual assault on G. Far more likely, in my judgment, is that she was pushed, physically pushed, and in her attempt to put this out of her mind she has minimised the incident so as to lose all the relevant detail. I can find no other way to explain why she should have so little detail to give, either of what she did and Ch's role in it.
37. When she gave evidence that she had been repeatedly asked by Ch if she had a sexual interest in little boys and whether little boys turned her on, I have no doubt she was telling the truth. That was a reflection of Ch's interest in little boys.
38. Kt accepted that the initial report to Lancashire Social Services had mentioned By's involvement in abusing the children. Kt's case now is that By had not been involved. There is no evidence to suggest that By has been involved in sexually abusing the children.
39. The Local Authority seeks wide ranging facts as the basis for the threshold in these public law proceedings. Many of those facts are not controversial. I have already referred to the two young women being brought up in circumstances where sexual boundaries around and with them were skewed. I have mentioned Ch's relationship with By's mother. I have mentioned Kt's father's conviction. Ch's background, too, contained worrying matters of a sexual nature. His brother, Gareth, has been convicted of multiple sexual offences against male children. Ch made clear that he has not believed and does not believe that Gareth was guilty of the offences for which he has been convicted. By maintained that she had accepted what Ch had told her about Gareth. In fact she and Ch have maintained contact with Gareth and his family despite his convictions and, more than that, both By and Ch have lied to the Local Authority about their contact with Gareth. Ch has lied about how often he had seen his brother and By originally said she had never met him. The truth was very different: they were having regular contact with him, including at their home.
40. As far as By's relationship with Ch is concerned, she accepts that Ch has been controlling and denigrating. They both accept that their sexual relationship started when she was 16 years old and that Ch had been having a sexual relationship with her mother immediately prior to this. By assesses Ch as having an obsession with sex, having sex and anything to do with sex, and she regarded his sexual demands of her as excessive. Within a short time of the birth of both children, C in particular, he was pestering her to have sex with him which was painful for her. He pestered her for anal sex which she found extremely painful.
41. I have already made findings about what happened when Kt Heaton moved into the family home. I am satisfied on the evidence I have heard from By and Kt that the Ch pestered them to have a threesome with him. Both refused. It was accepted by Kt and Ch that they had had sex while sharing a room when in Scotland with By and the two children, who they thought were asleep. Kt described Ch pestering her to have anal and oral sex with him but she refused and she regarded his demands for sex as excessive. If she refused to have sex with him he would sulk, he would denigrate her and he would threaten to publish her father's criminal history.
42. I have dealt with the abuse of G. Kt mentioned one other relevant fact, which I accept as accurate, that after the incident with G, and whilst he was having sex with Kt, Ch would ask her if he should go and get G to join in.
43. I have dealt with the technical search of the family computer. One matter I have not dealt with is the search for the phrase "Size of a baby's stomach." By said she typed that in. Miss Bowcock, on behalf of the Local Authority, sought to suggest that was a search of a sexual nature. There is no evidence that allows me to read into that phrase anything of a sexual nature. The mere fact that the police identified it is not evidence of it being sexual and if By says she searched for that because C was a big child, I have to accept what she says.
44. Looking at the way the case will go from here. It has been said of By that she has started on the road of recovery from her grooming by Ch. In my assessment of her, having seen her give her evidence and answer questions, she has a very, very long way to go. Whilst intellectually she can see that she was groomed, it was very obvious to me that emotionally she was having real difficulty acknowledging that and coming to terms with its consequences. She was the subject of further attempts by Ch to influence her across the courtroom. To use a colloquialism, I have no doubts whatsoever, he was playing with her mind, encouraging her to think that he has always loved her, that he still loves her, that he still wants her affection. Intellectually she may be able to see that that was what was happening. Emotionally I am not at all sure.
(End of judgment)