England and Wales Family Court Decisions (other Judges)

MEDWAY FAMILY COURT

		Anchorage House, 47-67 High Street, Chatham.
		21st July 2016

RESERVED JUDGMENT (As Approved)

HER HONOUR JUDGE CAMERON:

INTRODUCTION

1. The Court has conducted a Forensic Fact Finding Hearing in relation to a very worrying catalogue of injuries sustained by two year old M, born on the 12^th December 2013, while in the care of her mother, NS, and the mother's boyfriend, LS. It has appeared from the evidence that the Court has received during the 5 day Hearing that there was a particularly fraught and febrile atmosphere between this young child's carers from sometime in October 2015 or earlier, through M's second birthday on 12^th December 2015 and through Christmas, very much until the 2^nd January 2016, impacting on her safety and wellbeing. She was taken to hospital by her maternal grandparents, MS and KS, on that date, so concerned were they at her physical appearance.
2. So as not to detain the parties while I drafted this Judgment on Day 5 I gave the Court's Brief Findings and Decision at the end of Day 4 and arranged to hand down this Reserved Judgment today.
3. Proceedings were issued on, and the relevant date therefore is, the 15^th February 2016, the child being released to the care of her grandparents upon her discharge from hospital on the 3^rd January.
4. The injuries seen and found on this lively little girl's face and body are very shocking, both when the Schedule of Injuries is read and the photographs are viewed. She had multiple bruises on different areas of her body including the forehead, both cheeks, the jaw, the back, her upper chest, her arms and trunk. She had also a healing fracture to her left radius and ulna and three healing fractures in both anterior and posterior ribs. Both the excellent Social Worker here and the maternal grandmother have each commented that the dreadful photographs that the Court has seen do not actually do full justice to the physical state of this child when they observed her. Happily M has recovered well from her several weeks' ordeal in the obvious devoted and loving care of her experienced grandparents and there are no late sequela anticipated. However, even now, six months or more on, she still remembers about her arm being hurt and refers to it to her grandmother.
5. The father of the child is NM. He has taken really little part in these proceedings. Accordingly it was not necessary for his Solicitor to attend beyond the Court's first reading and housekeeping day and she was released at that time. He and the mother were together until the child was about six months of age. He did have contact with M but that had stopped on the 12^th March and he has not been in touch with the grandparents since then to restart that. He had also stopped paying the Child Maintenance that he previously had paid, as I read in his statement to the Police, as he was aware that the mother was spending the money on drugs.

THE MOTHER'S CONCESSIONS AND HER AND OTHERS' BEHAVIOUR

6. Realistically and sensibly in view of the overwhelming nature of the evidence here the mother admitted and conceded on Day 1 of the Trial that she had indeed failed to protect the child from being assaulted by a person or persons she knew or ought to have known posed a risk to M. The Court gave her an appropriate warning in relation to self-incrimination in view of the fact that the Police investigation has not yet closed and the outcome of these Civil Family Proceedings is being awaited. In essence the medical evidence has not been challenged by the mother but she denies being a perpetrator of all or any of the collection of injuries.
7. In relation to LS, he has successfully evaded service of papers on him and has not availed himself of the intended Intervener status and right to be represented and to see the papers and to challenge the Local Authority's case. Accordingly he has not attended the Hearing to give his own evidence to assist the Court in understanding exactly what befell this active little girl, and when, and why, and where, and how, and at whose hands she was so injured.
8. Although her damaged child had been removed from her care and the mother must surely have had concerns about LS's temper and behaviour, it is very clear that she has continued to live with him until probably sometime in March this year and beyond and certainly has had ongoing contact with him. That is entirely certain. Whether or not there was an ongoing sexual relationship between them is wholly irrelevant.
9. Indeed, mother was arrested in LS's company on both the 24^th April of this year and again even more recently on the 30^th June in relation to criminal activity in May 2016. She told the Court that he had telephoned her last weekend on the Saturday 9^th April to find out what was happening in relation to the case this week, who was going and what would happen if he did not turn up. He is a very violent man and a bully as I have found. He has been cowardly and left his girlfriend, whether past or present, to deal with all these issues of liability that arise here.
10. I am satisfied that the Local Authority has done its level best to serve LS but he has chosen deliberately to make himself scarce. I am satisfied also that he knows that he could and should have been here and put in a statement and co-operated with the Police and Local Authority investigation. Accordingly, I have felt it entirely appropriate to hear the case and make findings of fact in his absence.
11. I am also satisfied that, although she had tried to deny it and said that she had no number for him LS's mother, JR, an Intervener joined late in the proceedings as a result of what the mother had said has been easily able to contact him via the mother's own mobile phone number. As recently as a week or two weeks ago she saw him, she fed him, she washed his clothes and was asked to arrange a lift to the Police Station for him. She and her husband also told the Court they delivered LS and the mother back to an address in Queenborough.

THE EVIDENCE

12. The Court has read two lever arch files of detailed Chronology, Statements, Medical Reports and also received further pieces of written evidence during the second and third days of the Trial.
13. When I inherited the matter on the 22^nd June in relation to the Pre-Trial Review I made it very plain that the mother's Statement was wholly unsatisfactory and lacking in any fine grain of detail at all. She simply referred to her Police interview. She was ordered to produce a fully detailed Statement by the 6^th July. Very regrettably that Statement was not received until Friday 8^th July giving precious little time for it to be considered and still not in fact containing the further detail required. That resulted in the mother giving copious live evidence-in-chief from the witness box and the belated chance to reveal facts and matters never ever mentioned before over all the intervening weeks and months.

A CONFLICT ARISING

14. It was a matter of concern for the Court that the mother's Solicitor was actually the same person who had represented LS during proceedings involving his own young son, F, and had also actually been a neighbour of the couple and witnessed with her own eyes some violent behaviour by LS to the mother.
15. Because a conflict of professional interest really seemed to have been generated by all of that it was agreed that a new firm of Solicitors for the mother needed to become involved forthwith and that occurred.
16. The mother assiduously had not pointed the finger at anyone at all during the Police investigation bar another two year old child as I will deal with shortly. The Police report on the 25^th April 2016 recorded this:

"Mother states that the child is predominantly with her and gave some account of the bruising, i.e. child pinches herself, little friend hurts her in play, rough and tumble on the site. She denies deliberately hurting her child and DOES NOT seek to put any other person forward as a suspect, inclusive of her partner. Officer in Charge has canvassed those on site and has gained no information to progress these matters that have come to light. The hypothesis is there could be an element of protecting each other."

17. It was only as late as the Advocates' Meeting, just prior to the trial, that the mother started implicating both LS and also his mother JR as being people who had had care of M. In relation to JR that was for several hours mother had said.
18. That then inevitably resulted in a very late application for JR to be joined as an Intervener. The mother stated in her second statement that she cannot completely rule out JR because she would have M perhaps on a weekly basis for a good few hours. That was resoundingly denied by JR.
19. It is noteworthy that on the 29^th January 2016 the mother had said to the Police that nobody ever babysits M and she was always with her mother.
20. The mother denied seeing and worrying about the panoply of bruises on her own daughter's body. She said this in her cross-examination by the Local Authority:

"I know it did not happen in my care. I can't say to you they done it. It must be those two. If not me, who else? They asked me to blame someone…."

I interpolate there meaning the Police and/or the Local Authority as I understand it:

"….. as there is no one else to blame."

I found the mother's evidence throughout to be very guarded and self-serving, leading to Miss Burt for the Local Authority understandably to comment at one point:

"To this Court you are saying nobody injured her?"

21. The high calibre Social Worker in this case, Miss Hannah Taylor, involved from the 4^th January 2016, plainly and understandably was emotionally affected by the state of this little girl, as was the grandmother, and indeed as any right thinking person would be. She told the Court that the size of the bruising was shocking to her as someone who deals with injuries to children in her usual employment. I have referred already in fact to her comment that in her view the pictures simply do not do justice to the injuries on a two year old little girl who was covered head to foot in bruises. The grandmother echoed that sentiment.
22. Plainly Miss Taylor was haunted by this case which will stay with her for some time. I think that is true of other professionals in this case as well. That is all despite the mother seeking to say to the Police that she had changed her child just before she was taken away and saw no bruises. That was a most extraordinary assertion. The mother may think that she has pulled the wool over her own eyes but she certainly did not impress any other person involved in this highly worrying case.

TURNING TO THE MEDICAL EVIDENCE

23. Doctors Yadav and Johnson both gave evidence by video link speaking to their respective reports. Each of them confirmed at the beginning of their testimony that all the additional evidence which had been provided to them, the mother's statement and so on and so forth, had not changed their reports and their conclusions whatsoever.
24. Dr. Yadav had said in relation to the chin injury in his report that:

"Extensive bruising with the scratch marks could be caused by a fall on the front. This can also be caused by pressure from finger-tips using significant force and the scratch marks could be from finger nails. It is a large bruise and in my opinion a usual carer will be aware of the injury which caused the bruise. The force needed to cause the injury would have been significantly more than that using usual playful activity with children. In my opinion it can be accidental, or non-accidental injury, although a usual carer would be aware of the event which caused such a large bruise and with no plausible history it is likely to be a non-accidental injury.

The bruise on the left cheek, this is the area which is the soft part of the cheek, and less likely to be injured in accidental falls, it can be caused by blunt trauma, finger-tips, using significant force which was more than that used in usual playful activity with children.

Bruise C and D could also be caused by a squeezing injury to the face where the fingers can lead to injury on the right side of the chin and the thumb can cause blunt trauma to the left part of the cheek.

Facial injuries on the soft part of the face are unusual in accidental falls and in my opinion on the balance of probability the bruises on the right cheek, left cheek, and the right chin, are likely to be non-accidental injuries caused by blunt trauma with force significantly more than that used in usual playful activity and handling of children."

25. Dr. Karl Johnson, the well-known Consultant Paediatric Radiologist, explained that he does not examine children himself and could not comment therefore on the extensive bruising seen in the photographs. He limits himself to comments on the radiological evidence in the context of his own long clinical practice.
26. In relation to the arm fractures, which he opined can be regarded as a single dramatic injury, asked about the blow, bending or snapping mechanism he described, he said that the blow would be from a relatively hard object. A fist could do it as long as the impact was relatively significant. He could not comment if it would be one hand or two used and it depends on the size of the hand. Potentially one large adult hand.
27. The initial fracture would be the result of significant force. That would be then repeated during normal handling and playing because the fracture would continue to move and reform rather like continually picking at a scab and disturbing the healing mechanism. When the arm was broken the body starts to heal itself and in a vast majority of cases a child is of course presented to hospital and the limb is immobilised and put in a cast or sling. Here the arm had not been kept still and the healing had started and been stopped and then restarted on repeated occasions.
28. In relation to the rib fractures again this would be an impact against a relatively unyielding hard surface. An isolated rib fracture is one thing from impact but in his experience here the multiple fractures seen to the ribs would be due to a very severe squeezing, compressing and constrictive force applied to the chest. An isolated fracture could occur but it would be a significant event to cause that fracture and you would be applying an excessive amount of force to the chest beyond the level of reasonable force. 3 to 8 weeks as at the 6^th January 2016 was the likely timeframe here.
29. Grasping to save the child was raised by the mother as a cross-examination question. The doctor commented that if you were removing the child dramatically from a life threatening event that would be a matter for the Court to decide about. No such event has been raised here at all.
30. He reported that the amount of force required to cause these rib fractures is significant and greater than that used in the normal care and handling of a child. Rib fractures very rarely occur even in life saving cardiac massage for example where the chest is forcibly compressed by a third of its diameter. Such fractures do not occur from over exuberant play or rough inexperienced parenting or bashing or pressing the chest.
31. Just relating back to the arm for one moment he said that in his clinical inexperience an independently mobile child – which M was at some 20 months of age, walking from 12 months as the grandmother reported – could potentially suffer a fracture of the forearm from a fall. It would be painful until immobilised. Indeed he had had his own experience in the last year of his son breaking his arm and that had been very painful until immobilised.
32. He considered that if the arm and rib fractures had been caused together during a single trauma that that would be a very severe and very significant traumatic episode and event applying force to two separate areas during that event.
33. In relation again to the arm while covering the walking, an independently mobile child who falls on to the arm can cause that fracture but he said that "bashing into things in the caravan", which was the mother's phrase, or around the site, would be unlikely to cause a fracture, but her falling over would be more likely to cause this injury which does require significant force. Pressure and manipulation of a child's arm using reasonable force would not cause these fractures. The arm fractures were unexplained and could also be the result therefore of non-accidental injury. He said the original arm fractures were in the region of 3 to 7 weeks old on the 2^nd January 2016.
34. Dr. Johnson was clear that unexplained rib fractures in the absence of any suitable history in a child of M's age do raise real suspicions about possible inflicted injury.
35. Dr. Yadav, Consultant Paediatrician, said that in relation to the different parts of the face that were injured here that it was possible that they occurred during one single episode or during multiple episodes. Of course it is known from the grandparents' and maternal aunt's statements that they had seen bruises earlier.
36. He had highlighted that if a child falls on to her front the chin of the bony prominent part is likely to be hurt and injured whereas here the site of the bruising was not on the chin directly, but on the right hand side and therefore less likely to occur in a fall. He stated this:

"Without a plausible explanation and where here there were multiple injuries, and the injuries were on the soft part of the face, and due to the sheer number of them, they are likely to be non-accidental and arise from blunt head trauma."

37. He said that it was difficult to correlate the bruises on the skin to the rib fractures found. With an older child of her age at two such rib fractures are rare and are usually seen in a fall from a significant height or actually in a road traffic accident. They see rib fractures in young children under six months of age and usually they see no bruise at all. The rib fractures in a two year old are rare and mostly they occur after significant trauma. Significant force must have been used for these ribs to fracture he told the Court.
38. In relation to the large two centimetres across bruise on the right arm he had noted the significant area of clearing in the middle which classically and clinically means that it is likely to have been caused by pinching. It is a large mark and he doubted that a two year old child (such as K) would have the ability with the size of his fingers and his strength and his grip at two to cause such a large bruise. The force needed would have been significantly higher to leave such a large bruise on the arm. If caused by an adult it was likely to be inflicted non-accidentally.
39. He agreed that a fractured arm was a common type of fracture and could be from an accidental fall which do occur or from a deliberate injury inflicted to this little girl. He too said that the child would be in pain from the day the fracture occurred up to the day it was treated in hospital by splinting or supporting or the like. Within the first week after injury the child will be distressed and crying and screaming. Certainty for the first three or four hours after the injury is caused she is likely to be crying and very upset. Of course the mother described nothing like that at all. The arm was tender on the day it was examined and it was angulated too and the child had been lifting it and showing it.
40. I took from Dr. Yadav's evidence that what the doctors do not see are bruises with a fracture. They cannot really be correlated or joined together as he put it. That therefore speaks to the Court of more and separate incidents resulting in this child's series of injuries.
41. It was highly unlikely in his professional experience that it would be possible for someone to cause bruising by manipulating or massaging the arm after fracture as JR and the mother say they have done. The fractured arm would be extremely painful and anything like that would be a significant force to the child. He noted that on the day of presentation – and I have referred to that already -- on 2^nd January, so some days or weeks after an unknown event, the arm was still tender. He felt that the child would be reluctant to use the arm because of the pain.
42. Bruises he confirmed are extremely unreliable to date by colour and they can occur together or at different times. He could not comment if all the bruises seen on this little girl's face and body had occurred on the same occasion. He could not comment either if the bruises came before the fractures.
43. In relation to the multiple bruises on the trunk and chest his opinion was that these are likely to be non-accidental injury, as were the cluster of bruises on the left forearm. Overall the mother's explanation of M being a very active girl who falls frequently simply does not explain the multiple bruises seen on various soft parts of the body was his conclusion. Indeed a usual carer would notice multiple bruises on her child he said and be significantly alarmed by them and seek medical advice as spontaneous bruising can be associated with very severe and serious medical conditions. For example, it could indicate meningitis, leukaemia and blood disorders which of course have been ruled out here as result of blood tests, but which might have arisen in the mother's mind if she had been seriously and innocently concerned about bruising appearing on her child's face and body which she was not here.
44. The mother had said that she just washes M in the bath and does not look for things like that, meaning injuries and bruises. I am afraid I found that to be a very glib and particularly dismissive and uncaring comment.
45. Generally, Dr. Yadav told the Court that the child would have been in significant pain and distress which a perpetrator would have known and realised, or a non-perpetrator who was present would also be aware that an injury had been caused to this little girl.
46. Dr. Williams from the Medway Maritime Hospital was the Paediatrician in-house there who examined M and reported on the 3^rd January. When asked by the Police about an alleged familial hip deficit, and the mother saying that she herself looks as though she has got one rib missing, and she wondered if M had the same, Dr. Williams had said this:

"He advised me that it is very unusual to see fractures to a child's rib and advised that for this to have occurred accidentally M would have needed some significant trauma to her body and he would have expected other significant injuries. He advised that this trauma would include things like a fall from a significant height or an accident such as a road traffic collision.

I asked Dr. Williams about M having protruding ribs and bumping into things in her caravan as a possible cause for the rib injury. Dr. Williams advised that this response from M's mother as a possible cause for this fracture was 'bullshit'."

THE LAY EVIDENCE

47. I found the mother, NS, now aged 24, to be a very vulnerable, damaged young woman but sadly also well able to lie and dissemble and to concoct and make up stories as she went along. She has changed her position a number of times but has sought throughout, it still seems to me, to protect LS. It is plain from the Social Work history, the chronology and her family's statements that she had used and prioritised drugs within her life and had received support during both her teenage years and her early twenties when residing in Crayford. Between 2009 and 2011 she was co-operating at times with the Drug Service Support in Bexley.
48. Whilst living in Medway she had disclosed to her Health Visitor that she was continuing to use cannabis. In her oral testimony to the Court, during which understandably she was upset and emotional and very distressed at times, she admitted that she had used all sorts of drugs including cocaine in previous years. Very regrettably, given her responsibility for a young dependent child, her continued cannabis usage and the people with whom she associates thereby has continued to run and wreck her life and wholly impacted on several months of M's life.
49. Her behaviour has led to her losing her relationship with her family and abusing their kindness and financial support and also coming before the Criminal Courts at an early age. In 2009 she had committed four offences of shoplifting and subsequently failed to comply with the requirements of her Community Order in December 2010. The Court understands those to be theft offences in order to fund a drug habit. In December 2010 there were three serious offences of being found in possession of both Class A and Class B drugs with intent to supply. She avoided immediate imprisonment in a Young Offenders Institution but was sentenced by the Crown Court to 12 months therein suspended for 12 months. Finally, she accepted a caution for a burglary of a dwelling house in November 2009. That is a shocking criminal record for a young woman.
50. Her parents clearly have been very long suffering but her father, Mr. S, in particular has had more than enough and has perforce characterised his own daughter, the youngest of the couples' four children, as very manipulative, wholly dishonest and a psychopath. In his statement to the Police made on the 4^th February 2016 he refers to the significant sums of money, running into several thousands of pounds, that his daughter had stolen from him and other family members. She had stolen his bank card at the age of only 15 and taken £2,000, purportedly to buy her boyfriend a car she said when challenged.
51. She has abused her sister C's generosity when she stood as a guarantor for her in relation to a tenancy that they had arranged for her and also funding the deposit. She left the family with a debt of £4,000 that they had to discharge to protect C's own ability to get her own mortgage.
52. The mother deviously had contacted the Council and arranged for the Housing Benefit to be paid directly to her and then spent this money and did not of course pay the rent, rendering herself voluntarily homeless through those arrears.
53. Mr S, who did not need to be called to give oral evidence, told the Police that from about 14 or 15 years of age NS would always allow her boyfriend to come first to the degree that she would do anything, including committing crimes, for these boyfriends. His view is that in her world nobody else matters, including M, as long as she gets what she wants. She will do anything to achieve that and does not comprehend what other people's problem is with that attitude.
54. He referred to her as truly believing everything and convincing herself something is true when she knows that it is not. She is unable to understand other people's emotions or the effect that her behaviour has on others. In her mind nothing has happened and she just cannot comprehend what she has done.
55. At the hospital she had become more and more angry and blamed her father for taking M to hospital stating:

"I couldn't take M to the hospital because if I did they would blame me and the Social would have taken M off me."

That showed an appalling willingness for her child to continue to suffer.

56. The Court received a full flavour of what her parents had experienced seeing the mother's demeanour in the witness box for some hours. She had pretended to be terrified of LS, and petrified of coming to Court because of him, and worrying about her personal safety -- and she had referred in her witness statement, which was signed at Court on Day 1, the 11^th July, as the time spent with LS being a "very dark period", and dating him as being a "very rude awakening" for her. However, it is the case that she has continued to live with him at times and has certainly carried on being in his company right up to days or weeks before this critical hearing. The Social Worker in fact had prophesised as much in her oral evidence to the Court stating that:

"Throughout the entire period of time she has denied even seeing LS. I think it is very unlikely that they are not together. I think she is still in a relationship with him."

Indeed the grandmother felt very much the same and they were right.

57. Although it was said that the mother had left the caravan and LS on the 12^th February 2016, and she had been given that temporary accommodation, it is known from paternal grandmother's statement, and indeed the mother's own evidence to the Court, that the mother was right back with LS in the March. She said that was for a couple of days. Then she said she would stay there three times a week if she had nowhere else to sleep.
58. The child's father, NM, perfectly properly had tried to help, taking the mother and M to friends in London at one stage to get her and the child away from LS. C too had tried to help her as the mother had gone to London with nothing. She took the mother and the child clothes and toiletries and visited them every day. The family bent over backwards to try and assist and protect the child. Her sister noticed that the mother had lost a large amount of weight. C said this in her statement and again there was no need for her to be called to the Court to be challenged in the witness box:

"I tried to get her to a domestic violence place but she refused. I told her if she goes back to him I won't be helping her again. This was her chance to have a new start. Within the week she went back to him. I haven't had much contact with her since."

The family's disappointment and regret about all of this is palpable from their statements.

59. Later the mother had been furious with her sister too for taking pictures of M's bruises and showing them to the Police. All of that demonstrated how little she was actually concerned about the fear and discomfort her child had suffered and was suffering. I completely accept C's statement as highly credible, compelling and truthful evidence and attach full weight to it as if she had given it on oath from the witness box. I do the same in relation to Mr. S's evidence.
60. In the witness box the mother admitted to smoking four to five joints of cannabis a day while M was in her care certainly 90% of the time in the caravan. That usage she told the Court would cost between £10 to £15 a day, so £70 to £105 per week. She admitted when asked directly by the Court that, yes, LS was her drug supplier and dealer in essence and also that she would steal things to pay for her drugs. LS would use even more drugs than her, £20 to £25 worth per day when M was with them in that small caravan environment. She also told the Court that she went up to triple that amount or level with LS when M was taken from her.
61. Such use of course is utterly incompatible with the care of a young defenceless dependent child and would result in the mother not only being a "switched off", demotivated and uncommitted carer, but the child passively being impacted by the drug too in the cramped caravan environment in which she had lived for some months with the mother barely going out as she said. Cannabis of course lingers on the clothes and hair and even if smoked outside would have been brought straight in to that environment by the mother.
62. The mother had said this in her second statement, accepting that she and LS had got together probably in May 2015, and then rapidly living together by the June, her lifestyle becoming very erratic at that point:

"It was not long into us living together that the violence stated. He could be of a fiery nature and I certainly would learn very early on that it was not going to be a good day if he run out of drugs. He pretty much was on a high level of drugs and whilst I have used drugs before in the past I have not used them to the extent he would and certainly did not use all the drugs that he would use except that I found myself increasing my drug taking even when I was just doing it passively. In hindsight this was still not a good enough environment for myself and my child and I should have left probably then. Nonetheless I was still not realising just how far gone LS was and when it came to controlling me and the violence that would then ensue relatively quickly into our relationship. To be quite honest he did not care what people thought of him or what they saw. If he was in a mood then I could cop it."

His own mother, JR, said to the Court from the witness box that:

"If its not about LS he doesn't care," very much confirming the positives.

63. JR was aware of the physical violence but had not seen the mother being dragged out of the caravan by her hair. That had been witnessed by somebody else. Certainly though JR had witnessed this young mother with two black eyes. She had also seen M with two marks she told the Court, one on her forehead and one on her cheek. JR said she did not suspect her son in relation to the bruises as she had never actually seen him hit the child. That is a really extraordinary lack of interest given that she too was the mother of a two year old. She it was who had apparently suggested to the mother that the bruising was due to a blood disorder and that the child should be tested, totally side-stepping the obvious reality of the situation here.
64. JR, having been joined very late in the day to the proceedings having been put in the frame as somebody who had had sole care of M for some hours, then gave her evidence. That allegation lays wholly disproved in my judgment by the oral evidence. I accept that for short periods of time only each woman baby-sat each other's child and that the children were happy to play together. I accept that K never pinched M in the vicious way that the mother asserted to cause the level and extent of that deep bruising shown.
65. Moreover, when it came to actual oral evidence about the extent of JR's involvement, the mother changed her tune and commented that she had seen JR with her own child and did not think she could or would have done that, meaning behaviour by JR which would have caused the serious injuries to M.
66. There is also this which I note. From about February of this year the Local Authority knew of the allegations against JR or some of them, but of course she was never investigated by the Local Authority or by the Police and there has been no assessment of her at all, although throughout the months she has had the care of her own two year old child, K being some four months older than M.
67. It is known that F was actually placed in the care of JR and hid father's care on 17^th August 2015 meaning in reality that NS and LS were caring for two very young children at one time completely in breach of what Medway Council had thought were the arrangements that they and the Court had sanctioned. All of that possibly raised the tense atmosphere between them when they were both ingesting drugs and there were two young children in a small environment. F was removed to foster care in fact on the 1^st October 2015. LS did not attend that hearing and did not oppose F being adopted.
68. On the wealth of evidence heard the Court had no hesitation in exonerating JR of inflicting any injuries to M at a time when she was in her care. She accordingly was discharged as an Intervener in these proceedings.
69. It was plain though from the tenor of her evidence that JR did not really want to be involved. Her stance was that things went on behind closed doors and therefore she did not see them with her own eyes and therefore she could not answer for that. That was the reason, she said, that she did nothing when asked by the Court why she had not alerted the Police, or the NSPCC, or the Local Authority to what was going on in relation to potential child abuse. She had indeed heard screaming and shouting but she did not actually see LS and NS fighting. Once she had intervened though. She had gone around and said to NS:

"Give me M. I will bring her back when it has all calmed down."

That was no more than 10 to 15 minutes later in her estimation when the fighting had stopped and she returned M. It was significant that she had said to her son:

"LS, you want to leave off."

Many times she had said to him:

"You are turning out like your real dad," who was a violent man, she told the Court.

70. Because M was not LS's child in JR's judgment he did not see therefore why he needed to be involved in these proceedings or to attend the Hearing.
71. Of course JR had been assessed as a potential carer in relation to F as recently as the 18^th December last year but Shelley Anne Auguste's report found her unable to prioritise the safeguarding of children issues over protecting her own son. JR had minimised the reasons that the Local Authority were involved with her family. She had feigned ignorance. She had withheld information and she showed no awareness, understanding or insight about risks to children. She was considered by Miss Auguste to be evasive and worryingly untruthful with a lack of honesty and openness.
72. The maternal grandmother, MS, in her own oral testimony to the Court, and whom I found to be an utterly truthful and honest and child focussed woman, confirmed that she had seen her daughter on three separate occasions with black eyes. The first of these seemed to be in mid-October of last year. She had mentioned it to her other daughter, C, about NS having bruises on her face and a black eye. The grandmother and C had actually tried to engineer a private meeting with NS and that was for her to pick up her birthday money in the October. They wanted to discuss their worries with her without anybody else being present, and in relation to M too, but those plans changed at the last minute and LS came to collect the money. The Court believes that hearing that the mother was going to go to her parents' home LS insisted that he should go there precisely to avoid there being that private discussion. C indeed felt in her statement that this was a way of keeping of NS away from them.
73. The mother had stated to the grandmother on a few occasions that LS had in fact caused the bruises on her face, but then she would quickly retract what she had said. The effect on M of seeing her pretty young mother, as she is as the Court saw, with these nasty facial injuries as an aftermath of repeated violence can only be imagined.
74. The grandmother was brave enough when he was there to ask LS about the bruises on her daughter and said she was not happy with the situation. LS responded that it was his ex (an ex-girlfriend) who had hit NS and that it had been reported to the Police. That does not seem to be the case at all. NS too at times had said that it was his ex-girlfriend who was responsible for her damaged face.
75. It is right to record, and it is a positive here, that prior to the relationship starting between NS and LS, there had been no concerns at all about this young mother's physical and emotional care of her daughter and no bruises had been seen. In those previous happier times the mother saw the grandmother up to three times a week and she would spend a day at the weekend at the grandmothers, sometimes two, but that had rapidly stopped pretty much completely when the mother met LS and he was on the scene. She would ask her mother to look after M for the night but would not stay herself. Aunt C was concerned that M often looked very grubby and dirty and unkempt, wearing old clothes that were too small for her and with her fingers and toe nails needing cutting. However, when this was mentioned to the mother it would immediately start an argument.
76. The grandparents and C never really knew where the mother and M were living. They seemed to be staying with different friends each week or month and NS would not let her mother actually drop her to an address or even see inside any of the caravans or wherever they were living.
77. On the 17^th October of that year NM had informed C that NS had a bad black right eye and that the mother's friend, KK, had said that NS's whole face and body were covered in bruises. NS had admitted on the phone that LS had beaten her up. She was advised to call the Police and was told that she could receive help with housing because of the domestic violence. The mother said that she was worried that if the Police did not take both her and M out that LS would kill her and that she wanted to get out of there.
78. Once the mother appreciated that there were fractures and multiple bruising found by the hospital on the 2^nd January of this year, she set about trying to produce glib and plausible explanations. Initially during her joint home visit on the 27^th January by Detective Constable Brown, and Hannah Taylor the Social Worker who was also carrying out the Parenting Assessment of her. NS advised that she and LS argue but, extraordinarily, given what had been seen by both her parents and her sister, denied any form of physical abuse or violence from him towards herself and M at all.
79. C had sent 19 pictures depicting injuries to M on the 29^th January to the Joint Investigation and advised that both she and her parents had started noticing bruising on M since the mother had formed that relationship with LS in the June of 2015. That suggested that the child had been subjected to physical harm for a sustained period of time. The grandmother in fact had noticed M being withdrawn and agitated suggesting both fear and perhaps also, the Court wonders, possible passive ingestion of cannabis.
80. The chronology had continued for the family. In her statement, which the Court fully accepts as accurate and compelling, C recalled that on the 24^th October she had arranged to meet her sister and to go out with their children for a nice day. She went to her mother's house to meet up but NS was not there, only M, although NS had not contacted her to cancel and was not contactable on the phone. When NS came to collect M that evening C saw another fresh bruise on her sister's cheek. Asked about it NS said she had done it herself and to "leave it", explaining that LS had taken her to Dagenham Market and she could not call her sister. That suggested again that LS was controlling and dictating her movements.
81. C, perfectly properly, worried about her sister, challenged her that she knew that LS had given NS the bruises, whereupon NS had put her head down and said nothing. She then said that she had to go as LS was waiting in the car and she did not want to go out crying. C said that she did not have to go out and could stay with them and also offered to take M home with her, but again NS insisted on going back to LS and so the violence continued.
82. On the 29^th October – so just a few days later – the mother had phoned her sister in the late afternoon in a very scared and upset state and said that she could just not cope with M, asking her to take M for a while whilst she sorted herself out. C said that she was not prepared to take M and leave without NS too. She had found that one moment her sister would say she was scared and wanted to leave and get away from LS, and the next she would say she was not yet ready to leave him. That essentially has continued to this day.
83. C explained that at that time she was in London and she would take time to get there, but she told her sister she was going to call the Police to help her. Again NS got very angry and told her not to get the Police involved and not to bother coming. In fact the Police did actually go to try to find NS throughout that night to see if she was safe and all right, but they were not able to locate her at all and she refused to meet them whenever they were able to speak to her on the phone. She was furious with her sister for involving the Police. She said she had wanted to have her help but not to bother now and not to deal with her any more at all.
84. In fact the mother had on that previous occasion just grabbed M and taken her to her mother with no clothes or anything and then returned herself to LS. That was the occasion though when, very regrettably, the Police and Social Services having been properly contacted by C – and I think the grandparents contacted them too – asking for advice on what they should do, were told that there was nothing they could do as the mother would not meet them and denied everything that the sister had told them. Social Services said that she had no right to keep and take the child as she was not the parent. Of course, she was fearful thereby of getting into trouble for kidnap. She perforce felt obliged to return M to NS later that night, 30^th October.
85. The Court has had occasion before to be critical about the Local Authority but also the Police not seeking to protect children when the parent is not there but a caring relative is very concerned indeed about a child's welfare.
86. There was then this gap of several weeks when the child was not seen by anybody. The mother gave various excuses to the grandmother that the child was sleeping or in the car, or was in the caravan, or she had left her with someone else as there was no room for her in the car. The Court gives the grandmother and maternal aunt full credit for all that they have attempted to do in these very difficult and emotional circumstances.
87. In December MS reported to her daughter that M kept on crying whenever the grandmother touched her arm and would not let her see it. In the weeks before M had had bruises on her body. When questioned about these the mother had said that it was from playing with the other children, but looking at the marks C immediately was suspicious feeling, as a mother of young children herself, that they were in places that children would not normally get bruises by accident or whilst playing. She took the photographs of the bruises which the Court of course has seen.
88. C actually held M and had a look at her arm and instantly told the grandmother that it was broken. She said that she could see clearly it had a lump which looked like the bone sticking out. The child also had scratches on her forehead and eye area. We know that now to have been on the 17^th December. MS's own evidence about this was that she had arranged to have M overnight having not seen her of course on her birthday, on the 12^th December, having simply dropped the presents off in advance. The very large bruise under the child's chin, and a further bruise on her forehead, could be seen clearly in the short clip of film that the mother had sent to the grandmother, I think on the 12^th December, with the child riding her birthday bike.
89. MS's evidence was that on the way to pick up the child on one occasion her daughter had telephoned her and told her not to come. The grandmother persevered as she was nearly there. When she undressed the child back at her house she had found her to be covered in bruises all over her face and body, some yellow in colour and faded, suggesting different occasions of injury. M flinched when her grandmother touched her arm and told her: "It hurts." The grandmother saw a big and visible lump.
90. Mr. S saw a very big bruise to the right side of the child's face. She screamed when he picked her up by the arms during play. They both noticed immediately the deformity to the child's arm, not swollen but with a hard lump on the outside halfway down the forearm with the arm and hand and wrist bent inwards. The grandmother telephoned the mother and questioned the bruising. We know now this was on the 17^th December. The mother said that the child falls over a lot and said that she would take the child to the General Practitioner. Previously she had said the child lives on a farm and bashes into things.
91. Later the mother asserted to her own parents that, yes, she had taken the child to the G.P. who had said it was a sprain. Those were two blatant lies told by the mother to her own caring parents. The word "sprain" may have emanated from JR, I know not, who told the Court that NS had asked her to look at the arm on the Boxing Day weekend. She noticed that there was a lump and she said to her it felt like a muscle, it felt flabby, but she saw the child using her arm and she did not seem to show any pain. It is right to say that of course M has had to carry on using her arm and she was seen in the video raising both of her arms up.
92. JR too though very sensibly said to the mother that she should take the child to hospital and get it checked. We know that not to have happened at all. JR told the Court that she had never seen her son, K, pinch M at all. They simply had the usual childish squabbles about sharing a toy. They used to play together nicely in her experience. She described M as a lovely bubbly little girl who never came across to her as a little bully or aggressive. Usually the mother would be there anyway when the children were playing together in her caravan and watching television and so on, sometimes three times a week. It was only in the December in any event that she had lived in the next-door caravan to her son and NS.
93. It was then on the 2^nd January when the grandparents next saw the child after Christmas that the further bruises were seen. The NSPCC were rightly contacted and the child finally was taken to hospital and X-rayed.
94. Extraordinarily, showing really the level of blinkers that the mother has put on herself regarding her child's welfare, she said to the Police that she had last changed M's nappy just before she was taken and she saw no marks or bruises on her at all. I have already referred to that. She also said that M does not cry or shout or come in upset when she has fallen. I am afraid that the reason for that is clear, as the mother finally accepted in the witness box. M has lost trust in, and respect for, her mother whom she has learnt cannot and will not protect her and with whom she simply did not feel safe. The mother said this:

"She did not want to be with me. She wanted to be with nanny. She was trying to slap me. She did not respect me as a mother. She did not even see me as her mother at that point."

She accepted also that the foul words coming out of this little girl's mouth were the words that LS used to her, the mother, and of course M picked them up and parrot phrased them back and used them in the grandparents' home.

95. M had witnessed her mother being hurt and having regular arguments with LS in the narrow confines of that caravan. The mother said from the witness box that M was there most of the time and she said this:

"She kind of knew what was going to happen. She would jump up on her bed and wait for me to get hurt."

That was an enormously poignant and terrifying thing to say about her own little girl.

96. The mother told the Court that in every single argument LS would pick up M and tell the mother to leave the caravan. The mother postulated that her squeezing the child tightly, so as not to let her go to LS, might have fractured the ribs, but as the medical evidence showed that simply will not do as a plausible explanation at all.
97. She said that the anger and violence escalated after F, who of course was not supposed to be in her care at all, was removed but said:

"I didn't really think about it to tell you the truth,"

That was when asked by her own Counsel how this would be affecting her young child. Sadly there was no prioritisation of her child's welfare at all.

98. The mother completely failed in her second statement to give any further explanation about what she now says is the unwitnessed bath incident injury as it came to be called. In her Police interview she had implicated immediately two year old K saying:

"I did tell him off and sent him home. He did hurt my child."

She stated that K had chucked at toy at M when she had pulled his hair and then he pinched her on the arm and gave her quite a nasty bruise. Other bruises must have been from that two year old pulling back by her clothes her own two year old. She then said that M had tripped over the lead of a radiator, her face smacked against the floor and the radiator smacked against her. M had landed on her front and her chin came up. Other than that, all the other marks she said she just assumed that M was doing it to herself and was bumping into things. She denied that M had ever fallen on to anything or had hurt her ribs and said it was "just her heritage", that she and M had the same ribs and one pokes out a little bit more.

99. She referred to the marks on the child's face as possibly being due to a fish game that she had used for many months she said, playing with her, but admitted that she had never seen any bruising at all coming up from that.
100. For the first time in the witness box the mother then indulged in a convoluted tale about leaving M with LS in the caravan and going into H's house for a bath. She then heard her daughter scream, got herself out of the bath, put on her pyjamas and went back. LS allegedly had then told his story about M jumping between two sofas and falling and landing on the radiator. She said because the radiator was on the floor she immediately accepted this.
101. In her second Police interview on the 8^th April, which the mother suddenly concluded early by walking out, she said simply that she had been told M had fallen over and she had a bruise on her left forehead. I find that her evidence from the witness box was a ridiculously late and elaborate concoction which really did this mother no credit at all. She denied when properly challenged by the Local Authority in cross-examination that she was making it all up as she went along, responding:

"I would not stand here and lie. I wouldn't."

102. The Court has found the mother to be a glib and an increasingly desperate and deliberate liar, well able to weave stories instinctively to try and exculpate herself and her boyfriend too. She deployed, I am afraid I have to say, all the hallmarks sadly of an inveterate drug user who cannot be trusted and who needs to protect that relationship. Bizarrely she was still seeking not to inculpate LS even at the very end of her evidence. She then said:

"I knew there was violence there. I knew there had to be something else and there were no answers for the bruising."

103. Asked directly whether she thought it was LS who had caused this damage to her child she said:

"Kind of. Everyone said you are being too rough, to stop."

She said also that LS does not feel he has to be here in these proceedings:

"Its not his child, so why should he care?"

104. In a short film on the mother's phone the child can be seen momentarily holding her left arm. I saw also -- and it is a very short clip – LS rather roughly grabbing hold of the child's arm to sort of yank her into view. However, the mother said she did not notice that at all and to her M was using her arm perfectly normally. However, in a truly irreconcilable manner she then said:

"I wanted to wait for it to calm down. I did not think it was a break as she was not screaming. A lump, maybe a bite, or banged it. Maybe it might go a bit swollen. It might get really bad and then I would have to do something but I did not want to get blamed."

She accepted that, yes, kind of, she was protecting herself. She said this:

"I was with LS. He was my boyfriend and I loved him and I did not want to think he had done it."

105. Obviously this violence was happening around her and she was in the middle "protecting me or protecting LS, so I know now what to do". As NM had commented, the mother needed LS as he provided a roof over her head and, as the mother accepted from the witness box, he provided her drugs too. They were two things she desperately needed in her sorry state. She also said to the Court that she just wanted and needed someone and he was the only person who had shown her some sort of interest.
106. The grandparents quite rightly, because of course they are experienced grandparents with six other grandchildren, had also been perturbed at their little granddaughter's strange behaviour. I referred to her being agitated and withdrawn and not mixing in well with the family. She had displayed that aggressive behaviour, fighting a lot and had actually hit the older grandchildren with sticks. MS said that they were petrified of her. She would also spit a lot everywhere and use very unpleasant words and particularly saying "F" and the "C" word if she dropped a toy. She also said "cock". When her nappy was full she would say "shit, shit".
107. Now her demeanour has totally changed. Happily she no longer displays that behaviour and she is more timid and a normal little girl in a good routine. More particularly she no longer displays any bruising, only small appropriate 5p size bruises in the right places as both the grandmother and Social Worker commented. Those were from when she has clearly fallen on a toy or tripped over something. There is nothing at all like the significant bruises she had when she arrived in her grandparents' care.
108. NM had recalled an incident in early January 2014 where the mother had punched him in the face during an argument about tobacco. He agreed later to change his original story to the Police as he did not want the mother to be taken to Court or Social Services to become involved with M at that time.
109. There was also an earlier relationship that the mother had with a man called I, which itself had involved some violence although she sought to effectively minimise that. She had an explanation about the tobacco incident and denied really what NM had said about that.
110. The mother had disclosed to the Police that she had let LS drive M in a car with him despite knowing that he had no insurance and no licence. When the child returned from that trip she said that there were no visible injuries but she had not actually examined the child.
111. Misuse of cars looms large in LS's history. He is 21 I believe and has three alias names. In October 2015 he had driven while uninsured and unlicensed. Then previously in February 2015 he had driven while under the influence of a drug without a licence and had failed to surrender to custody. He has a conviction for burglary of a non-dwelling in 2012 and a caution for possessing an offensive weapon. There is also a juvenile warning for common assault back in 2007.
112. It is known that the mother was involved in a dangerous car chase, she says for some ten minutes on the 26^th April 2016. Her evidence from the witness box about this was that, "We were bored" – so very plainly confirming that she was with LS – and they had wanted a lift. LS's brother, JE, had come with a car. Unlicensed and uninsured LS was not willing to stop when the Police chased them on the highway and the brother had actually jumped out of a window and ran off.
113. As recently as the 30^th June the mother, who said they were getting along well at the time and so she felt that she could just stay, was arrested yet again in the company of LS when his cousin, LL, was driving them. That was in relation to an allegation of theft from a dwelling. A sum of £60 was mentioned. There was insufficient evidence and so no charge was pursued against either of them.
114. JR was not the only person who would have heard the screaming and shouting among the relatively close together caravans. On Day 4 of the Hearing Mr. GI contacted one of the parties wanting to give evidence. He was good enough to travel straight down from London and arrived at Court within an hour or an hour-and-a-half and then made a manuscript statement. The Court of course is fully entitled to receive hearsay evidence in Children Act proceedings. In view of the fact that GI had made the usual statutory declaration at the top of his statement, and signed and dated it at the bottom of his statement, I accept it as wholly truthful testimony and give it full weight augmenting the Local Authority's case.
115. The only reason that GI did not come into the witness box was because of what I view as shocking witness intimidation, potentially by members of LS's family or associates. The Court was informed by Counsel for the Local Authority that although it had been planned to keep GI safe and contained as I specifically had requested before he came into the witness box at 2 p.m. that afternoon, it appeared that people had been summoned who then tried to grab him through a moving car window, this occurring just over the road from the Court. That car then tried to run down GI's girlfriend in the middle of the road. GI ran away and somebody gave chase to him and one man took a swing at him. That was witnessed I gather by a member of the Court staff.
116. Although GI was accompanied back to the Court House by one of the Court Bailiffs or similar, he was so terrified at that stage, understandably so by those events, that he was simply not able to come into the Court room to give his evidence and he left the area very frightened of reprisals. All of that is profoundly shocking and gives some idea of the desperate people with whom the young mother consorts.
117. GI's short statement reads as follows:

"I think they came to stay with me first in July 2015. During this time I noticed that they were verbally abusive to M, calling her a 'Dimlow' (which I took to mean stupid). There were also a lot of verbal arguments between LS and NS. I asked them to leave due to the arguments between them and I noted things were going missing from my home. A few weeks later they found themselves homeless again and I allowed them to come back to my chalet. During this time they stayed I observed: (1) arguing between LS and NS. LS threatened to punch NS. He also was verbally abusive to NS; (2) I saw LS grab M by the arm and yank her up and drag her through the air by her arm on many occasions, as many as ten times; (3) I saw LS slap M to the back of her legs. This was a full-on slap as if to an adult and not a tap. I saw this a couple of times. (4) NS was also verbally abusive to M by calling her a 'Dimlow'. She called her this a lot. However, I never saw her hit M. (5) When LS was hurting M NS used to tell LS to stop and leave her alone. NS was often in tears at these times. She had on occasions threatened to leave him and pack her bag but she never did leave; (6) I had also heard from four to five other people, including LS's brother and mother, that when they were living in their caravan that LS had fly-kicked M out of the caravan window. I did not witness this myself."

THE LAW AND THE COURT'S APPROACH

118. I have reviewed all the cumulative evidence here, and the medical evidence, and all the factors very thoroughly indeed over several days. I now summarise the appropriate and applicable directions of law that I give myself when considering the evidence in such cases as distilled from all the leading cases. Issues of fact and veracity and credibility are matters for me and me alone as was stressed in The President's Guidance in December 2010.
119. The case of T v T [2010] reiterated that the Court does not have to decide every small point that has arisen during the case and there have been many here. The Court of course must determine any factual issues that have implications for the decision that the Court has to take in relation to the child's welfare in the future, each case depending as ever on its own individual facts and circumstances.
120. I remind myself of the directions that the Court should always give itself as enumerated really by Baker J in Devon County Council v E B & Ors, a 2013 decision.
121. The balance of probabilities is the standard of proof that the Court applies, the burden of proof of course throughout being on the Local Authority that brings this case to establish that burden has been discharged. If the Local Authority proves on the balance of probabilities that the child has sustained non-accidental injuries inflicted by one or more of her carers the Court will treat that fact as established and all future decisions concerning her future will be based upon that finding.
122. I remind myself that the law operates a binary system in which the only values are nought and one. There is no room for a finding that something might have happened. That was stated by Hoffmann LJ in Re B.
123. The starting point is of course the threshold as set out in section 31(3) and the Court can only make a care order if it is satisfied that the child concerned is suffering, or is likely to suffer, significant harm, and that the harm or likelihood of harm is attributable to the care given to the child, or likely to be given to the child if the order was not made, that care not being what it would be reasonable to expect a carer to give to the child.
124. I remind myself not to indulge in unsubstantiated speculation or suspicion or guesswork about what evidence there might have been but has not been presented to the Court. So I proceed on the totality of the oral and written evidence that has been presented to the Court, including inferences that properly can be drawn from the evidence as I subject it all to critical scrutiny.
125. The President stated in Re A, a 2011 case, that the Court must view each piece of evidence in the context of all the other evidence, exercising an overview of the totality of the evidence. That was confirmed too by Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss (as she then was) in Re T, the old 2004 case. A Judge in these difficult cases must have regard to the relevance of each piece of evidence to the other when it comes to the conclusion of whether the case put forward by the Local Authority has been made out to the appropriate standard of proof.
126. In relation to credibility and veracity I remind myself particularly about the Lucas Direction which is given to jurors in criminal cases, that is that a person may lies for a variety of reasons. It could be out of guilt, or fear, or shame, perhaps not wanting to go back on a previous story. It can be out of misplaced loyalty or panic, or out of a desire to protect another or to implicate or exculpate someone else, or to buttress their own genuine defence or explanation and so on. It is of course well recognised that a witness may give truthful or false evidence about one matter without necessarily giving truthful or lying evidence about another matter. The Court recognises that there might be all sorts of reasons why a parent or carer might not tell the truth to the Court concerned with the future upbringing of their children. That arose out of the Lancashire County Council case. I have found of course throughout this Judgment that this mother has lied and lied again.
127. The Court has to be very wary indeed of the Local Authority seeking erroneously to reverse the burden of proof absent a clear and satisfactory benign explanation from the carers and ergo there must be a malevolent explanation as was said by Wood LJ in Re M [2012] EWCA Civ 1580. I remind myself of course that the burden of proof does not shift to the carers at any time.
128. These fact finding hearings must be child focussed and witnesses and perpetrators need to give evidence with absolute candour and frankness to assist the Court. The mother had her last opportunity to do that. Very disappointingly, as I find, that has not been the case on the part of the mother. She has not still told the entire truth I am satisfied. Very disappointingly LS did not avail himself of that opportunity of being involved in the Court's investigation at all.
129. I am also entitled to rely on evidence arising or coming to the Court's attention after the relevant date -- that of course arises from the 2001 Re G case -- if that evidence tends to show that the threshold criteria were met since the relevant date which is capable of proving the state of affairs at that date. I have to look at future risk.
130. I consider also the usual Welfare Check List and of course the parents' Article 8 rights in relation to respect for their and their child's rights also to a family life.
131. As was said by Coleridge J (as he then was) in B v Torbay Council, decided in 2007, I and I alone have had that unique and important advantage of seeing all the witnesses in the witness box and I have been able to gauge their demeanour, their credibility, their truthfulness and their honesty both during the time that they have been in the witness box and also in the Court room and generally. Deciding who to believe is a difficult task but it must be performed in the usual way without prejudices or preconceived ideas, guided by inherent probabilities and also any circumstantial or other evidence supporting one account rather than the other.
132. I echo and apply also the guidance of The President (as she then was) in the North Yorkshire County Council v SA case, a 2003 decision in relation to the test for inclusion in the pool of perpetrators which is not set high. She said this:

"It seems to me that the two most likely outcomes in uncertain perpetrator cases are as follows. The first is that there is sufficient evidence for the Court to positively identify the perpetrator or perpetrators. Second, if there is not sufficient evidence to make such a finding the Court has to apply the test as to whether there is a real possibility or likelihood that one or more of a number of people with access to the child might have caused the injury. For this purpose real possibility and likelihood can be treated as the same test."

133. That approach was then confirmed much more recently by the Supreme Court in the 2009 case of Re S-B (Children) UKSC 17. Accordingly there is a high improbability, albeit a possibility, that two separate people could have injured M. I have to strive to decide where the truth lies, however difficult that might be and what the legal consequences of that might be. What I am not permitted to do, I remind myself, is to find one carer the most likely perpetrator and then go on to include the other carer also as a perpetrator.
134. However, it is also the case that Judges in these sorts of Fact Finding Hearings should start from the premise that it would only be in an exceptional case that it would not be possible to identify someone.
135. Wall LJ in Re D [2009] remarked that Judges should not strain to identify the perpetrator of non-accidental injuries whilst stating also this:

"There will inevitably be cases where the only conclusion which the Court can properly reach is that one of the two parents, or carers, or both must have inflicted the injuries and that neither can be excluded."

That is exactly what I have found here and what I made plain to the parties last week.

136. However, what can be distilled from all the cases is that there is a fundamental need to try and identify the responsible perpetrator for all these injuries to M. That is crucial really both as a matter of public interest and legal policy and also to allow young M, who of course has been removed from her mother's care and the boyfriend's care for some time now, and who has been making an even stronger attachment to the grandparents, to know the truth in appropriate circumstances as to who harmed her and why as she grows through childhood and why she is not living with her mother.
137. The Court knows that that is a heavy burden for any child to have to bear and her future welfare is of course still to be determined, citing S v Nottingham City Council [2013] EWCA Civ 771. Of course it is also necessary as I have stressed already to inform the Court as to the likelihood of risk and protection from this in the future.
138. Where there has been a finding of harm to a child, as I have found here, and a pool of perpetrators has been identified, but it has not been possible to actually identify the perpetrator, the Court must proceed on the basis that each of the persons within the pool is a possible perpetrator. That arises from Re O & N and Re B [2003] UKHL 18. I have referred already to the fact that JR has been removed from that pool of perpetrators and as an Intervener.
139. Finally, I remind myself to not fall into the trap of ascribing percentages or anything like that as to whether it is more likely that one rather than the other carer is responsible. The Court of Appeal reminded Judges in Re S-B, that 2009 case, that:

"If there was a lesson to be learned from this appeal it seems to me to be this, that in future Judges should be cautious before amplifying a Judgment in which they have simply reached the conclusion that neither of two possible perpetrators can be exculpated. It is safer to leave it thus."

That is exactly what the Court has found here that both the mother and LS remain in the pool of perpetrators and that neither can be exculpated.

FINDINGS OF FACT

140. Having reviewed the medical evidence and all the other evidence and considered the very helpful closing submissions, the Court had already found as follows. In relation to the fractured arm injury the Court had its real suspicions. Therefore, the different accounts given by the mother of the so-called bath event, but bearing in mind that such a fracture can be a common type in a mobile child as M was and can be due to accidental falls, or indeed as a deliberate injury, as Dr. Yadav said, the Court necessarily must be cautious and not seek to switch that burden of proof. Just because there is no explanation, or in the absence of any clear indication from the mother explaining it as an accident, and M running to her for comfort for example, does not mean that the Court is entitled to make a finding of non-accidental injury, although I was wholly aware that the Local Authority would wish such.
141. I am highly suspicious, particularly in view of the cumulative injuries, but in the final analysis I have just accepted on the balance of probabilities that the arm fractures may have been due, and may flow from, an unwitnessed accidental fall. Accordingly I do not make any findings of non-accidental injury in relation to that arm injury. But I do find, as I was invited to do by the Local Authority, that there was a real lack of appropriate supervision by the mother. Of course she had conceded already at the outset that she failed to protect her child.
142. In relation to the other injuries I have made findings of non-accidental injury save and except for the bruises on the lower abdomen. The grandmother, whom I had found to be that utterly honest and convincing witness, detailed in her evidence about the child pinching herself when she was told off and becoming very agitated and pinching herself on her chest and belly at the front. That depicted just how much fear and emotional trauma this little girl was suffering while enduring a very frightening and febrile few weeks, certainly in November and December of last year, in the joint care of her mother and LS amidst their toxic relationship.
143. I am satisfied also to the requisite standard of proof that the mother failed to notify or to seek appropriate medical treatment for M whatsoever. She did that, I find, in order to protect herself from awkward questioning and also in order to protect LS. She really prioritised the maintenance of their relationship so needy was she to be with someone because he supplied her with drugs and the roof over her head.
144. Having found on the totality of the evidence heard and read, that the child did suffer non-accidental injuries the Court though is simply not able to identify definitively who caused those injuries and I do not strive to do so. Nor do I apportion or attribute percentages of likelihood. Accordingly, as stated already, neither the mother nor LS can be excluded as perpetrators of the non-accidental injuries and they stay within the pool and one of them at times, or both of them together, have injured this child.
145. The timings elicited from Dr. Johnson's evidence place the rib fractures as having occurred in that window between the 11^th November and 16^th December. It is known of course that the mother took the child to hospital perfectly appropriately on the 17^th November in relation to something like croup or asthma. She was happy to do that because at that time, as she knew, there were no visible bruises which would ring alarm bells and alert the authorities and she would not be blamed in anyway. That was her sole criterion really, avoiding blame, not protecting her daughter or advancing her daughter's welfare.
146. I accept that on that occasion, 17^th November, that the child was appropriately examined very probably without her top clothes and no concerns were recorded and appropriate medication was prescribed or recommended.
147. I am satisfied though that the time fracture for the arm fracture has been reduced thereby through that evidence to have occurred sometime in December, and possibly the rib fracture as well, but we will never know. The grandmother genuinely had forgotten that she did see the child in early December following on from that gap of several weeks when the child had been said by the mother to have been asleep or in the care of somebody else. The mother was using those high levels of cannabis which I find meant that she was certainly and simply not available enough or concerned enough to ensure her child's safety despite her endeavour to persuade the Court that she would never get herself to the state where she did not know what was going on.
148. She described taking her cannabis "to clear my head and feel better, not to mong out and go to sleep". Of course it is not a precise science at all in relation to the strength of the skunk or the cannabis or whatever it was she was ingesting. There is no guarantee here at all just how available and caring and protective she could be to M or just how fraught and intemperate at times she could be handling her own child. She had of course said that she could not cope earlier and the grandmother had thought that her daughter was very upset and not coping well because she was moving to various places and her head was "all over the place".
149. I am completely satisfied that there was an overwhelming desire here on the mother's part for self-preservation. She would have noticed over the weeks and months the severity of her daughter's injuries, but had decided to let her daughter suffer unnecessarily and risk further injury in that wholly troubling and hazardous environment for a little girl. She is still protecting LS and herself now desperately needing that relationship with somebody and wanting somebody to be interested in her, believing herself in love with him and no matter how treacherous that has been for herself and for her child.
150. I am satisfied also that LS is a very violent and uncontained young man operating on a short fuse with no regard to the child's welfare and well able to hurt her without compunction with his known capacity to inflict injuries.
151. M has been pinched and punched and poked. She has been admittedly smacked by the mother. She has been injured in a variety of ways by each of them, the precise mechanism and timing of which it is impossible still for the Court to determine.
152. Regrettably the Court has been left with a still incomplete picture, many pieces still missing and clear only that this little girl's second birthday and her second Christmas were remarkable and memorable for all the wrong reasons. The Court is still no clearer as to what incidents or fights happened, and when, and how and at whose hands.
153. It is abundantly clear, given the ongoing contact between mother and LS right up until Friday 8^th July before this Hearing started on Monday 11^th July, that she has done nothing to begin to address her substance misuse or anything to reassure the Local Authority, the Guardian, or the Court that she is making changes in her own life. JR indeed confirmed the Local Authority's suspicions that the mother and her son are still in a relationship telling the Court that:

"They were fine with each other two weeks ago."

They were living in that address at Queensborough where she and her husband had driven them back after giving them dinner, and doing their washing for them, and allowing them to have a bath at her home.

154. As Miss Taylor commented in her negative Parenting Assessment of the mother, she appeared still reliant on those around her to do things for her. In essence the history throughout her adolescence and adulthood thus far continues unchanged and she has a number of really fundamental issues to address when she becomes ready to do so. Given that continuing nexus with LS that time appears potentially a long way off.
155. There is no evidence before the Court to demonstrate that the mother can achieve let alone sustain any positive change within M's timescales. There are positives as I have read in the mother's contact and I give her credit for that. There are lots of smiles from her and exchanged with M. There is lots of eye contact. There is really good affection shown and there is good thoughtful anticipatory care shown for M's needs and all of that is very good indeed. Of course that is in the context of the artificial and safely monitored supervised contact which has been taking place.
156. It is telling and poignant indeed that the mother acknowledged on the 19^th February that M is different now because she knows that she is safe now, whereas when living in the caravan the child really had kept her distance from her mother, simply not being able to trust her.
157. Even now though, back in February, M was seen to kick a dolly in the chest and said "Owr, owr, owr" some five minutes later. Then a few minutes before that she had lain on the dolly and squashed it and pulled its hair, but things are much better now as the Court has read with M's entire demeanour and behaviour.
158. The anomalies on that occasion had been M suddenly becoming much more aggressive in her play. On two occasions when slipping over and once when a toy had suddenly come apart in her hand M had looked wide eyed and quite concerned and possibly surprised, possibly nervous of the response she would get, perhaps remembering back to life in the caravan. The mother had also appeared a little panicky when M had pulled something off a toy. That may have been because of concern that there would be repercussions as the toy belonged to Social Care.
159. It was noted also that the child was happy to be cuddled by her mother and went to her mother when she needed help, but that this was very much on M's terms and when NS has asked for affection M had said "No". Trust in her mother has been blown it seems to the Court.
160. However, over the months, between the 19^th February and the 8^th July, out of a possible 54 contacts and leaving out genuine medical reasons as I do, the mother attended on only 30 occasions meaning the child would be disappointed and confused and also inconveniencing not only the contact centre, being Green Porch Foundations, but also the grandmother who had expected her during the visits arranged there.
161. The mother had also given various excuses for cancelling including attending Incredible Years and attending hospital which were all shown to be untrue, so those lies continue, then being unwell on various occasions and then also no reasons given at all. At one stage she said that she was locked in a friend's home and could not move until she returned. One knows no more about that but it obviously raises real concerns and speculation.
162. On other occasions she informed the Local Authority that she was seeing M at her mother's home. Upon this being checked this had not been arranged with the grandmother at all. There had been other occasions when she had been said to have been unwell. On the 1^st July she cancelled saying she had been in custody for hiding LS when actually it is known of course she had been arrested with him in relation to that theft from a dwelling. Therefore, the lies have gone on unabated right up to date.

THE WAY AHEAD

163. It is obviously necessary, the Special Guardianship Assessment of the maternal grandparents being already in the pipeline as I was told, that that needs to be completed. The Court wishes to move swiftly to a Welfare Hearing without any further delay and to make Final Orders to safeguard M's wellbeing and her security throughout her minority and to equip her for life beyond.
164. It was helpful that the grandmother and her husband had already very much intimated the sort of level of contact that they felt appropriate going forward which chimed very much with the Local Authority's approach of reduction to once a fortnight given that on/off contact history. I approve that approach.
165. Further Directions, I know, have been canvassed as I asked to occur and they will be made today in order to prepare for the final chapter. That concludes the Court's Judgment.

AVTS REF: 6368/H5205