England and Wales Family Court Decisions (other Judges)

THE FAMILY COURT SITTING AT OXFORD

Before Her Honour Judge Owens

                                                                                               CASE NO: OX18C00117

11 ^TH FEBRUARY 2019 TO 15 ^TH FEBRUARY 2019

OCC v CT

Ms Little, Counsel, for OCC

Ms Rodgers, Counsel, for the First Respondent Mother, M

Ms Pollock, Counsel, for the Second Respondent Father, F1

Ms Vaughan, Counsel, for the Third Respondent Father, F2

Ms Wilkins, Counsel, for the Fourth and Fifth Respondents, acting through their Children’s Guardian

 

 

This judgment is being handed down [in private] on 15 ^th February 2019. It consists of        61 pages and has been signed and dated by the judge. The Judge has given permission for the judgment (and any of the facts and matters contained in it) to be published on condition that in any report, no person other than the advocates or the solicitors instructing them (and other persons identified by name in the judgment itself) may be identified by name, current address or location [including school or work place]. In particular the anonymity of the children and the adult members of their family must be strictly preserved. All persons, including representatives of the media, must ensure that these conditions are strictly complied with. Failure to do so will be a contempt of court. For the avoidance of doubt, the strict prohibition on publishing the names and current addresses of the parties and the child will continue to apply where that information has been obtained by using the contents of this judgment to discover information already in the public domain.       

 

Introduction

 

1.       I am dealing with two children, A who is 14 years old and B who is 8 years old.  M is their mother.  F1 is A’s father and F2 is B’s father.  M is Brazilian and her first language is Brazilian Portuguese. She came to the UK in around 2000 and was granted permanent status here in around 2006.  F1 is Rwandan and met M in around September 2000.  They married in Brazil in 2005.  F1 came to the UK initially as an asylum seeker and was granted permanent leave to remain here subsequently.  F2 is British and began a relationship with M in 2009.  They were never married and separated in September 2015. Both F1 and F2 have parental responsibility for their respective children A and B.  These proceedings commenced with an application for care orders issued on 3 ^rd October 2018. 

 

Background and evidential summary

 

2.       There is a lengthy chronology of social care concerns around the care being given to the children in this case as set out in the initial social work statement (C6-C10). There has been intermittent social care involvement with the family since at least 2009. Initially, there were reports of domestic abuse occurring between M and F1 during their relationship. Subsequently, in around 2015/2016, M began making allegations about F2, that he had drugged A and/or was grooming her for sexual abuse. M also made other allegations of abuse – that she and A had been drugged and that F2 was filming her. When these allegations were investigated by the authorities, they were found to be unsubstantiated. In December 2016, M alleged that A was sexually assaulted in school. Despite A denying this, saying it was ‘another of her mother’s delusions’ (F31 police disclosure) and no evidence being found to corroborate the allegations following the police investigation, M withdrew A from school. It is then alleged that M purported to home-school A but did not follow a set curriculum or routine, causing A’s education to suffer.

 

3.       In May 2017, F2 made an application for a Child Arrangements Order to enable B to spend time with him.  Within his application he alleged that M was aggressive, exposed B to inappropriate sexual and violent media and that during a handover on 23 ^rd April M was aggressive during a contact handover and exposed her bottom in front of the children (PL3).

 

4.       In October 2017, M alleged that B was being made to perform oral sex on A. When this allegation was investigated by both police and social services, both children denied the allegation and no corroborating evidence could be found to substantiate the allegation. This allegation is part of a series of allegations M has since been making about the children having sexual intercourse with each other. The children have consistently denied this when spoken to by professionals.

 

5.       In February 2018, B was taken to hospital due to a bruise on his ear. At the time he said that the bruise was caused by an unknown male at F2’s girlfriend’s house. In March 2018, concerns were being raised as to B’s sexualised behaviour at school. B was using sexualised language and was displaying sexualised behaviour. He said that he watched ‘naughty videos’ at home. On the 28 ^th of March 2018, B said that he had been sexually assaulted when he was 6 years old whilst at F2’s girlfriend’s house by an unknown male who had digitally penetrated his anus. In July 2018, there were further concerns raised about B’s behaviour at school where he had strangled another child following an argument.

 

6.       Matters came to a head on the 16 ^th of September 2018 when A presented herself at a police station alleging that she had been physically assaulted by her mother. A stated that her mother had threatened her with a knife and had pinned her to the floor and kicked and grabbed her genitals. B was at home during this assault. The police attended the home, arrested M and placed A and B under police protection.

 

7.       On the 18 ^th and 19 ^th of September 2018, the children’s fathers signed s.20 consent for the children to be accommodated. M signed her consent on the 21 ^st of September 2018. The children have remained in foster placements to date.

 

8.       The Local Authority issued its application for care orders on the 2 ^nd of October 2018. On the 9 ^th of October 2018, the case came before the court for a first hearing and Case Management Hearing. At that hearing, interim care orders were made in relation to the children for the duration of these proceedings or further order.

 

9.       The matter was before the Court for a CMH on 8 ^th November (B41-45) at which DJ Wakem listed the case for a fact-finding hearing before me on 11 ^th February 2019 for five days, with the LA directed to file and serve “a schedule of findings it seeks the court to make in relation to the alleged abuse the children have suffered” (B42).  At a subsequent case management hearing before me it became necessary to widen the scope of this split hearing to consider not just fact-finding but wider threshold.  The Local Authority, supported by the Guardian, was of the view that M has a pre-occupation with sexual harm and that may necessitate a psychiatric assessment of her.  I did carefully consider whether assessments could be done on the not uncommon basis of two alternative possibilities, ie either M’s allegations are true or they are not.  However, the issues are so unusual and the implications of M making false allegations so complicated to assess, I concluded that there did need to be a split hearing to inform any necessary assessments.  M’s response to threshold also indicated that she did not accept any of the threshold in so far as it relates to her parenting of the children. As a result, this hearing needed to consider not just the specific factual allegations but also whether or not any findings made support a conclusion that threshold has been crossed for the purposes of section 31.  The case is then listed for a final hearing before me in June this year to consider what disposals may be in the welfare interests of the children after necessary assessments, including potentially expert assessment of M, have been conducted in light of the conclusion of this split hearing.

 

Copies of the children’s ABE interviews have been filed and served, and reviewing these, alongside the children’s views as recorded in foster-carer logs and contact notes led the Local Authority to conclude that the allegations about sexual activity between the children and in relation to F2 are not true.  The Local Authority case is that both children have been clear and consistent about lying at times about sexual matters out fear of reprisal from their mother (eg F95; F98). The Local Authority does not seek to prove these allegations and positively asserts they are not true.  Accordingly, the LA filed a revised threshold document dated 7 ^th December 2018 which is at A29-31.  This includes three allegations of physical harm (paragraph 5), including the assault on A on 16 ^th September 2018, in respect of which the LA seeks findings.

 

In the course of this hearing, I have read the evidence contained in the Bundle, viewed the ABE interviews of A and B and the police interview of M, and heard evidence from the previous social worker at the time that the allegations I am considering arose, M, F2 and F1.

 

Parties’ Positions

 

The Local Authority case is that neither A or B have been sexually or physically abused as alleged by M as I have already noted.  They have also not engaged in sexual behaviour with each other and have, out of fear of reprisal, agreed with M’s assertions at times.  As a result, the Local Authority contend that A and B have suffered significant emotional harm and have also suffered physical harm.  The Local Authority also alleges that M has discouraged the children from developing healthy relationships with their respective fathers, and has neglected the children by leaving A to care for B on her own for long period.  The Local Authority allege that the children have suffered significant emotional harm as a result of this as well.

 

M says that her allegations about the children’s sexual behaviour and them having been sexually and physically abused are not false, and that she has been relying on what the children have themselves said to her.  She accepts that B has displayed sexualised behaviour but denies that this is due to anything she has done. She also made allegations against both F1 and F2 in respect of domestic abuse, though she accepts that the children have been exposed to volatility in her relationships with F1 and F2.  She alleges that F2 also inflicted sexual abuse upon her.  In all she detailed 12 specific findings that she sought in her statement dated 17 ^th January 2019 (C101-106).  In her schedule of allegations produced for this hearing she identified 15 specific findings that she sought.  As part of my initial case management of this hearing, having only received the schedule of allegations on the morning of day one, I determined that in fact only 8 of her allegations were potentially relevant to the issues in the case, and were ones where it was proportionate to include them within the scope of this split hearing.  The result of that determination is that there are no relevant findings sought against F1 by M, and the remaining 8 allegations that she seeks findings on relate therefore only to either F2 or A.

 

F1 accepts that the children were exposed to conflict and volatility within his relationship with M (as apparent from his response to threshold at A50-53 and his statement C66-69).  It is also his case, as pleaded by the Local Authority in their threshold document, that M has sought to discourage A from developing a healthy relationship with him as her father (item 6 on the threshold document).

 

F2 accepts the final threshold as set out at A29-31 in his formal response document A32-35, though it is pointed out by his advocate Ms Vaughan that much of the document relates to M.  He accepts that the children have had to speak with the police about the allegations which will have caused them distress. F2 accepts that B has displayed sexual behaviour and is at risk of significant harm to his development of boundaries and relationships. F2 accepts that the children have been exposed to conflict and volatility in M’s relationships with each of their fathers and that M has sought to discourage the children from developing healthy relationships with their respective fathers.  He denies the allegations made against him by M in respect of domestic and sexual abuse.  He also seeks a finding that M has sought to discourage B from developing healthy relationship with him as his father.

 

The Guardian, as is usual in these sorts of split hearings, is largely neutral with regard to the findings sought save for pointing out that it is in the interests of the children to establish a factual basis from which to assess welfare and that the children have provided consistent accounts to all professionals since they were removed from their mother’s care.  The Guardian was also very concerned about the evidence that has emerged to show the differences in the way that A and B were viewed by their mother and submitted that great weight should be placed on the ABE (Achieving Best Evidence) interviews of the children and the consistency in their accounts to all professionals overall.  As set out in her initial analysis and recommendations dated 29 ^th October 2018, the Guardian is of the opinion that the threshold for making public law orders under section 31 is crossed (E3-5).

 

Relevant legal considerations

 

In addition to considering section 31 (2) of the Children Act 1989 with regard to threshold, I have had regard to the guidance of Baker J considering fact-finding in Re IB and EB [2014] EWHC 369 :

 

“ 81. The law to be applied in care proceedings concerning allegations of child abuse is well-established.

 

82. The burden of proof rests on the local authority. It is the local authority that brings these proceedings and identifies the findings that they invite the court to make.  Therefore, the burden of proving the allegations rests with them and to that extent the fact-finding component of care proceedings remains essentially adversarial. 

 

83. Secondly, as conclusively established by the House of Lords in Re B [2008] UKHL 35 , the standard of proof is the balance of probabilities.  If the local authority proves on the balance of probabilities that the injuries sustained by I and E were inflicted non-accidentally by one of her parents, this court will treat that fact as established and all future decisions concerning the children's future will be based on that finding.  Equally, if the local authority fails to prove that the injuries sustained by I and E were inflicted non-accidentally by one of her parents, this court will disregard the allegation completely. 

 

84. In this case, I have also had in mind that, in assessing whether or not a fact is proved to have been more probable than not, "Common-sense, not law, requires that in deciding this question, regard should be had to whatever extent is appropriate to inherent probabilities," (per Lord Hoffman in Re B  at paragraph 15)

 

85. Third, findings of fact in these cases must be based on evidence.  The court must be careful to avoid speculation, particularly in situations where there is a gap in the evidence.  As Munby LJ (as he then was) observed in Re A (A Child) (Fact-finding Hearing: Speculation) [2011] EWCA Civ 12 , "It is an elementary proposition that findings of fact must be based on evidence, including inferences that can be properly drawn from the evidence and not on suspicion or speculation."

 

86. Fourth, when considering cases of suspected child abuse, the court "invariably surveys a wide canvas," per Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, P, in Re U, Re B (Serious Injury: Standard of Proof) [2004] EWCA Civ 567, and must take into account all the evidence and furthermore consider each piece of evidence in the context of all the other evidence.  As Dame Elizabeth observed in Re T [2004] EWCA Civ.558, "Evidence cannot be evaluated and assessed in separate compartments.  A judge in these difficult cases must have regard to the relevance of each piece of evidence to other evidence and exercise an overview of the totality of the evidence in order to come to the conclusion of whether the case put forward by the local authority has been made out to the appropriate standard of proof."

 

87. Fifth, amongst the evidence received in this case, as is invariably the case in proceedings involving allegations of non-accidental head injury, is expert medical evidence from a variety of specialists. Whilst appropriate attention must be paid to the opinion of medical experts, those opinions need to be considered in the context of all the other evidence. In  A County Council v K D & L [2005] EWHC 144 (Fam) at paragraphs 39 and 44, Charles J observed, "It is important to remember (1) that the roles of the court and the expert are distinct and (2) it is the court that is in the position to weigh up the expert evidence against its findings on the other evidence.  The judge must always remember that he or she is the person who makes the final decision." Later in the same judgment, Charles J added at paragraph 49, "In a case where the medical evidence is to the effect that the likely cause is non-accidental and thus human agency, a court can reach a finding on the totality of the evidence either (a) that on the balance of probability an injury has a natural cause, or is not a non-accidental injury, or (b) that a local authority has not established the existence of the threshold to the civil standard of proof … The other side of the coin is that in a case where the medical evidence is that there is nothing diagnostic of a non-accidental injury or human agency and the clinical observations of the child, although consistent with non-accidental injury or human agency, are the type asserted is more usually associated with accidental injury or infection, a court can reach a finding on the totality of the evidence that, on the balance of probability there has been a non-accidental injury or human agency as asserted and the threshold is established."

 

88. Sixth, in assessing the expert evidence I bear in mind that cases involving a multi-disciplinary analysis of the medical information conducted by a group of specialists, each bringing their own expertise to bear on the problem, the court must be careful to ensure that each expert keeps within the bounds of their own expertise and defers, where appropriate, to the expertise of others (see observations of Eleanor King J in Re S [2009] EWHC 2115 Fam) .

 

89. Seventh, the evidence of the parents and any other carers is of the utmost importance. It is essential that the court forms a clear assessment of their credibility and reliability. They must have the fullest opportunity to take part in the hearing and the court is likely to place considerable weight on the evidence and the impression it forms of them (see Re W and another (Non-accidental injury) [2003] FCR 346)

 

90. Eighth, it is common for witnesses in these cases to tell lies in the course of the investigation and the hearing. The court must be careful to bear in mind that a witness may lie for many reasons, such as shame, misplaced loyalty, panic, fear and distress, and the fact that a witness has lied about some matters does not mean that he or she has lied about everything (see R v Lucas [1981] QB 720).

 

91. Ninth, as observed by Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss P in Re U, Re B, supra "The judge in care proceedings must never forget that today's medical certainty may be discarded by the next generation of experts or that scientific research would throw a light into corners that are at present dark."

 

92. This principle, inter alia, was drawn from the decision of the Court of Appeal in the criminal case of R v Cannings [2004] EWCA 1 Crim. Linked to it is the important point, emphasised in recent case law, of taking into account, to the extent that it is appropriate in any case, the possibility of the unknown cause.  The possibility was articulated by Moses LJ in R v Henderson-Butler and Oyediran [2010] EWCA Crim. 126, and in the family jurisdiction by Hedley J in Re R (Care Proceedings: Causation) [2011] EWHC 1715 (Fam) : "there has to be factored into every case which concerns a discrete aetiology giving rise to significant harm, a consideration as to whether the cause is unknown.  That affects neither the burden nor the standard of proof.  It is simply a factor to be taken into account in deciding whether the causation advanced by the one shouldering the burden of proof is established on the balance of probabilities."

 

93. Finally, when seeking to identify the perpetrators of non-accidental injuries the test of whether a particular person is in the pool of possible perpetrators is whether there is a likelihood or a real possibility that he or she was the perpetrator (see North Yorkshire County Council v SA [2003] 2 FLR 849). In order to make a finding that a particular person was the perpetrator of non-accidental injury the court must be satisfied on a balance of probabilities. It is always desirable, where possible, for the perpetrator of non-accidental injury to be identified both in the public interest and in the interest of the child, although where it is impossible for a judge to find on the balance of probabilities, for example that Parent A rather than Parent B caused the injury, then neither can be excluded from the pool and the judge should not strain to do so (see Re D (Children) [2009] 2 FLR 668, Re SB (Children) [2010] 1 FLR 1161).

 

I have also been mindful of the President’s reiteration of the basic principles governing these types of proceedings in Re A (A Child) [2015] EWFC 11 which re-stated that it is for the local authority to prove, on a balance of probabilities, the facts upon which it seeks to rely.  That burden of proof does not shift to the respondents at any point in respect of the Local Authority allegations, applying Lancashire County Council v D and E [2010] 2FLR 196 and Lancashire County Council v R, W and N [2013] EWHC 3064 (Fam).  However, in respect of the additional findings that M seeks in respect of her 8 allegations about F2 and A, M bears the burden of proof in respect of the specific findings she seeks and the respondents do not have any burden of proof to disprove those allegations. 

 

Findings

 

Final Threshold is as set out at A29-31 of the Bundle.  The criteria that are pleaded by the Local Authority are: “at the time protective measures were taken, namely on 2nd October 2018, the children A and B had suffered and were likely to suffer significant harm, the likelihood of harm being attributable to the care likely to be given to them, that care not being what it would be reasonable to expect a parent to give to them...The Local Authority asserts that the threshold criteria are met on the basis of the matters set out

 

Emotional Harm

 

1.       Whether by reason of her mental health or other motive, the mother has made a number of allegations that the children have suffered sexual abuse that has caused them significant emotional harm and risks harm to their development of relationships:

 

1.1.    In December 2016 the mother alleged that A was sexually assaulted at School [F8] and was engaging in sexual relationships with parents of her peers, which was not true [F46, ED50; F56].  As a consequence she withdrew A from the school, significantly disrupting her education and peer friendships causing significant harm to her emotional, educational and social development.

 

1.2.    Mother has repeatedly told A that she (A) had been abused by F2 when this was not true [ED50d//e]. 

 

1.3.    Mother’s behaviour towards B has led him to allege that whilst staying at his Father’s house an unknown man put their “fingers up his butt” when this was not true [FCR15; VRI 59:22;]

 

1.4.    Mother has openly discussed her allegations and used sexually explicit language in front of the children. [ED50g; F46; F50; B VRI 1:15]

 

1.5.    On a number of occasions Mother has accused A and B of having sexual intercourse with each other which is not true. [ED50c-g; FCR15; CNR7; CNR14;F46; F47; F50]

 

1.6.    The children have had to speak about the above allegations with the police and a number of professionals causing distress [eg October 2017 F30-31; current investigation].

 

2.       Mother has forced B to look at A whilst A was naked, telling him to look at her vagina [F46]

 

3.       A has endured humiliation by way of being stripped naked [F57]

 

4.       As a further consequence of his experiences, B has displayed sexualised behaviour [C11] and is at risk of significant harm to his development of boundaries and relationships.

Physical Harm

5.       Whether on account of her false beliefs or other reason, the children have been physically harmed in Mother’s care:

 

5.1.    Mother has hit B [F47; F50; CNR14; VRI] unless he has said this took place (which it did not) and hit A in the belief that it did [F50] causing B to feel guilt.

 

5.2.    A has been frequently slapped and grabbed [F57; CNR14].

 

5.3.    On Sunday 16th September 2018 the mother threatened A with a knife and then assaulted her by grabbing and kicking her genitals.  Mother placed her hand over A’s mouth when A screamed out [F56; ED50f].  A left the property via a kitchen window and went to the police station where she was found outside in a distressed state. B was present in the home whilst the assault took place and was aware of what was happening, describing A as “screaming like a horror movie” [F50; also VRI B] and crying out of fear for his sister.

 

Neglect/Emotional Harm

 

6.       The children have been exposed to conflict and volatility in the mother’s relationships with each of their fathers and the mother has sought to discourage the children from developing healthy relationships with their respective fathers.

 

7.       A spent long periods of time caring for B whilst the mother worked.

 

The findings that M seeks against F2 and A are:

1.c 2010-2014 When B became a toddler, F2 would smack him really hard on his bottom and sometimes it was hard enough to leave a red mark.  B would scream in pain and F2 would say he smacked B to make sure B was listening to him.

 

2. Dates uncertain but during their relationship F2 was sexual abusive to M on two occasions through forcing her to have anal sex.

 

3. c 2014 F2 gave A some tablets to drug her.

 

4. c 2014 F2 threw B against the wall and as a result B hit his head.

 

5. c September 2017 B was sexually abused in his father’s presence by two men, and an unknown man “putting his fingers up {B’s} butt”.

 

6. During the weekend of 26 ^th February 2018 M accepts B’s allegations that a man at F2’s girlfriend’s house twisted his (B’s) ear.  M believes that F2 knows who did this and what happened.

 

7. Date uncertain F neglected B in the swimming pool so that the child was at risk of drowning.

 

8. 2017/2018 A sexually abused B.

 

I have considered M’s allegations first because the Local Authority case against her is that the various allegations that she has made over a number of years are untrue.  If her specific allegations are proven on balance of probabilities, then this is relevant to the considerations that I must bring to bear when assessing whether or not the Local Authority allegations within the threshold document relating to (on their case) false allegations by the mother are proven by the Local Authority (items 1.1 to 1.6 on the Threshold document).  Where appropriate and necessary, I have linked the specific Local Authority allegations to M’s allegations and considered these immediately after assessing whether or not M’s allegations are proved.

 

The first allegation that M makes is against F2 in respect of inappropriate physical chastisement of B (item number 1 on her list of allegations).  Her written evidence about this is in her third statement dated 17 ^th January 2019 and simply says: “I thought F2’s parenting style was very harsh.  For example, he would leave B to cry and I did not like it.  I would want to pick him up but he would tell me not to pick him up.  When B became a toddler, I was upset as F2 would smack him really hard on his bottom and sometimes it was hard enough to leave a red mark.  B would scream in pain and F2 would say he smacked B to make sure B was listening to him.  I would smack him sometimes too but, very, very lightly compared to F2” (C104 para 14).   Her oral evidence about this was contradictory as she initially accepted that she had at times smacked him on his legs, but also at times said in answer to questions in cross examination that B was such an easy-going child that she did not have to discipline him at all.   Her acceptance in these proceedings that she has at times physically chastised B is also at odds with her insistence during the previous private law proceedings that she did not use physical chastisement at all as a means of disciplining B. 

 

At paragraph 7.4 of the section 7 reported completed by the then social worker in December 2017 (ED8), the social worker noted that both parents appeared to have different parenting styles, F2 having described himself as “firm but fair” and M as “too soft” .  At paragraph 7.5 (again ED8) F2 informed the social worker completing the report that in the past he had smacked B on the bottom as a way of disciplining him.  F2 went on to explain that he had not physically chastised B since he was little as B knew by the tone of his voice to stop and listen (7.5 ED8).  At paragraph 8.3 of the report M told the social worker that “F2 would smack B on his bottom if he did something wrong.  M said that she is ‘no angel’ but does not believe this to be the correct way of disciplining children.  She gives B three warnings and if he does not respond appropriately to her he loses privileges like going on his X-box” (ED11).  

 

A has also described to the Guardian that B would be safe with F2 (E6).  A has not alleged anywhere that she was aware of F2 hurting B beyond the allegation that relates to whether B was thrown on the bed by F2 and banged his head.  I will consider this in more detail later in this judgment as it is a separate specific allegation, but A’s account to the police is at F8 of the bundle and it was A’s view that it was accidental at worst and does not seem to have caused her to fear for B’s safety.

 

At no point within the private law proceedings did M raise the issue of F2 smacking B hard enough to sometimes leave red marks.  Given that she did raise allegations about F2 having allowed B to be sexually abused and that F2 had caused physical injury to B’s ear, it is puzzling in the extreme that she did not also raise this issue at the same time.  She even described F2 as a “good father” (PL65 para 8.6) in the addendum section 7 report completed in April 2018.  When M was asked in cross examination during this hearing why she didn’t mention this allegation at the time, her answer was that she “was not asked” .  She was not asked about quite a lot of the matters that she raised against F2, such as the alleged sexual abuse of B and injury to his ear, yet she still volunteered them, I note. The social worker at the time also told me in her oral evidence that she had observed contact between B and F2 and had never seen F2 inappropriately discipline B.  She described the parenting by F2 that she had observed as in fact very warm and loving and the social work evidence notes that B enjoys time with his father (C16).  I am afraid that M was simply not credible about this allegation in view of the absence of any mention of this earlier in the private law proceedings, and when I take into account all of the other positive evidence about F2’s interactions with B which undermine M’s credibility further.  I do not find this allegation proved on balance of probabilities.

 

The next allegation from M against F2 is that he was sexually abusive to her by forcing her to have anal sex on two occasions.  M’s evidence about this in terms of timing is as follows:

 

·     In her written statement at C104 it is “I think this was between April 2015 and when we split up in September of that year”;

·     In her oral evidence she said it was “the beginning of 2015”;

·     On her schedule of allegations, it “happened sometime in 2015” .

 

This allegation was not raised by M until 24 ^th April 2017.  The police logs in relation to this date appear in section F, specifically F25 and F26 with regard to the police recording of what M told them about this at the time.  F25 records “the agg?d (sic) has stated that she has been anally raped twice in 2015 by the suspect.  She cannot recall the exact dates but the second time was on or close to her birthday”.   At this point it is pertinent to note that M’s birthday is in March.  F25 records “in relation to the rape allegation, the agg’d has stated that during their relationship in Sept 2015 the suspect has asked the agg’d for anal sex, she has declined and has accepted that she has then stated that the suspect wanted her to wear a knee length black fur coat and that he rolled her over and started to penetrate her anus, she has then stated that she asked him to stop and he didn’t, and she stated it was really painful and that he started making strange noises which sounded like a dog barking.  She said she was crying and very upset but that the (sic) suspect was unaware.   It happened again on or around her birthday when she was asked to wear a full length white fur coat, it was similar circs.  The agg’d did not attend the doctor despite bleeding from her anus, she did not suffer any other injuries as a result of this”.

 

As was submitted by Ms Vaughan on behalf of F2 and Ms Little for the Local Authority, the timing of this allegation is potentially significant.  It coincides with M making an allegation the day before that F2’s girlfriend had threatened to throw acid in her face during a contact hand over when B was returning to his mother’s care.  It also coincides with M meeting F2’s girlfriend for the first time, a fact that is not in dispute.  F2 initially covertly filmed the encounter (after the first couple of minutes he recorded some of the exchange from his pocket so it is audio only for a few minutes before returning to video and audio when he removed the phone from his pocket) and then openly filmed the incident on his mobile phone despite objections from M.  All parties and myself have now had an opportunity to view the footage.  As has been said in previous cases (see for example Re C (a child) [2015] EWCA 1096 and M v F (covert recording of children) [2016] EWFC 29), recording of individuals in Family cases is far from ideal and quite often reflects badly upon the individual concerned.  This is particularly the case where the recording is covert.  However, no party has sought to argue against the admissibility of this recording and there is power under rule 22.1 of the Family Procedure Rules for a court to control the evidence in these proceedings so as to admit it. In the context of a case where the parents’ behaviour towards each other is a relevant issue and where specific allegations are made about what was said and done in the course of this handover, I have concluded that this video was necessarily included in the evidence before me and must form part of my consideration of the disputed issues.

 

M’s evidence about this recording is that F2 “set her up”.  She gave me no more detail than this in her oral evidence and this is not addressed at all in her written evidence for this case.  F2 gave evidence that he returned B to his home and met M at her door where she started making sexual references to his private parts and it was this that made him record the meeting between M and his girlfriend and that he “wanted to capture her behaviour…after continuous police calls wanted to show what happened, was capturing the truth”.  He accepted that recording would not help B.  It is clear from the later stages of the video that M directly asked F2 if he was recording her and asked him to stop more than once.  It is also clear to me that, given the level of acrimony between the parents which existed on any reading of the evidence, it was perhaps not wise for F2 to continue to film M when she asked him to stop.  From my viewing of the video it certainly did not help to calm M down after her requests to him to stop were ignored.  And although F2 did not at any point raise his voice in the video, I can see that remaining after M had clearly started to become angry and had made abusive comments to his girlfriend was perhaps bound to antagonise M further given his own evidence about volatile M could be.  As was put to him by Ms Wilkins for the Guardian, why didn’t he simply walk away and stop filming?  He did tell me that he was worried that if he drove away the police were being called and he did not want his car to be stopped by the police with his partner and the children in the car.  I can understand that perhaps he was not making the best of decisions under pressure and in the context of M having made numerous previous accusations to the police about him.  F2 can clearly be heard on the footage saying that he is filming “for his own protection”, I accept.  He gave what I find to be a credible and understandable explanation for why he thought it necessary to film the encounter, even if this was not putting B’s welfare first. However, with the benefit of hindsight and perhaps greater objectivity, I think F2 should have stopped filming once M started to walk away from their argument (and I am very clear that although he remained calmer than M he did enter a limited argument with M once she had become abusive towards his girlfriend).  He should really have left at that point, in my view, as his remaining clearly did not help to calm the situation I find.  Despite these reservations about how this video doesn’t cast F2 in an entirely positive light, on balance I find it does provide some extremely relevant evidence about M’s behaviour.

 

As can be seen in the video, M rang the police.  The police disclosure records that she called the police alleging that her ex partner “had turned up at callers property – threatening to throw acid on callers face” (F20).  At F21 the police log records “in the original call the caller reports that F2 dropped off their son and then has asked her to come to the car which was parked in the opposite cul de sac, M has walked to the car and states that F2 has set her up to make a fool of herself and this has angered her.  She states that after the introductions were confirmed, F2’s partner was upset that she got her name wrong and has then threatened to throw acid in agg?d’s (sic) face”.  The police viewed the footage at the time (F21).  The footage does not record any threat being made against M by either F2 or his girlfriend and certainly not in the terms that M alleged.  In fact, as was noted by the police at the time, the footage shows M approaching the car, meeting F2’s girlfriend, and after a tense but reasonably polite exchange of pleasantries with F2’s girlfriend, M becoming angry and being verbally abusive to F2’s girlfriend, dropping her trousers to expose the top of her bottom and in fact acting as the aggressor and trying to physically stop F2 filming her.  It also shows her using sexual language.  B is clearly present throughout this encounter and will have witnessed his mother’s behaviour, I note.

 

F25 in the police disclosure notes that M was challenged by the police about what is shown on the video (and that it doesn’t show any threat being made towards her).   What is very striking about this note is that it clearly records M telling the police before anyone apart from F2 had viewed the video the following: “23/04/2017 16:37 F2...has turned up at callers property – threatening to throw acid on callers face.  Sus has come to drop their son off and said to aggd my girlfriend is in the car waiting for you.  Aggd has gone to the vehicle and female has said if you come any closer then I will throw acid on your face.  Sus has then started videoing aggd… 23/04/2017 22:30 Agg?d (sic) reports that the suspect dropped off their son and then has asked her to come to their car which was parked in the opposite cul de sac, agg?d (sic) has walked to the car and states that sus has set her up to make a fool of herself and this has angered her.  She states that after the introductions were confirmed, the partner was upset that she got her name wrong and has then threatened to throw acid in agg?d’s (sic) face…Sus has shown police a recording of the encounter and there is no threat heard on the recording.  The recording is as described by the agg?d (sic) but there is no threat made as alleged.  When challenged, the agg?d (sic) stated that he started recording after the threat was made”. Having viewed the video, it starts with M meeting F2’s girlfriend (who is standing outside of the car) and this does seem to be the first time that they have met each other from the introductions that each gives to the other.  The only issue at first is that M seems to have somehow understood that F2’s girlfriend’s name was not what she is told at this meeting, with M suggesting that F2 told her something else though he can be heard saying that he did not tell her anything about his girlfriend.  For the first few minutes there is nothing of any real concern, apart from the obvious point about F2 recording M as I have noted.  Then M clearly becomes angry and agitated and starts swearing at F2’s girlfriend and making very derogatory and sexual remarks about her (the words “cunt” and “pussy” are used for example) and this all takes place in the hearing and sight of not just B but at least one other child.  At no point is any threat made by either F2 or his girlfriend to M.  M in contrast is clearly recorded as saying to F2 that he was in “deep shit” and then she walks away (having been walking backwards and forwards in an increasingly agitated manner) saying that she is going to call “ the law ”. 

 

When the police spoke to M later that same day, they noted her appearance and behaviour as being of concern: “slightly dishevelled on initial attendance, seemed drunk or under the influence of something as very animated and agitated.  Behaviour: emotional, erratic, went from very upset and teary to shouty and aggressive…Danger: concerns for the mental health of the agg’d” (F26).   It is at this point that M made her allegation that F2 had raped her anally in the terms noted at F25.  F26 to F28 then details the efforts made by the police to ascertain from M whether she wished to pursue a prosecution against F2 in respect of this allegation.  At some point in May 20127 it appears that M had indicated she wished to make a withdrawal statement but, despite repeated attempts by the police to get her to complete the statement, she did not in fact do so.  She was also given until the end of October 2017 to decide whether or not she wanted to pursue or withdraw the allegation (F27).  She asked the police for more time to consider but, as the police reasonably concluded (I find), she had had sufficient time by then to consider her position and was given until 10 ^th November otherwise the matter would be filed.  She then failed to engage further with the police in November and the matter was closed as far as the police were concerned on 24 ^th November 2017 (F28). 

 

F2 has been very clear and consistent in his evidence, both in his statement (C127 para 18) and orally to me, that he has never been sexually abusive towards M and that these allegations of anal rape are wholly fabricated by M.  Both he and F1 separately described that M appeared to be unduly preoccupied with sexual matters (F2 C44 para 6, F1 C68).  F1 did go on to explain in his oral evidence that this was more something that he was aware of from work colleagues who knew both him and M.  I also have an unchallenged statement in the Bundle from SM (C132-136) which details two occasions when M has referred to sexual matters during arguments with F2 in the presence of others.  F2 and F1 clearly told me that they did not really know each other, despite working at the same factory.  F1 told me that he knew F2 by sight in the works canteen but not to talk to him.  Both were credible and compelling witnesses about this and, despite the implication by M that they were somehow colluding to present M in a negative light, I do not find any evidence at all that they have colluded with each other.  I am satisfied that they do indeed only know each other by sight and only as a result of both working in the same factory and through having both been involved with relationships with M.

 

I do not find M’s allegations of sexual abuse of her by F2 to be proved on balance of probabilities.  Whilst I accept that a victim of a sexual assault may well struggle to recall all or many details of the assault, and after a lapse of time may struggle to identify a particular date and time for the assault, it is striking that the date ranges that M has referred to at various points for these assaults vary incredibly widely.  Initially she dated the alleged incidents to the early part of 2015 and certainly before her birthday in March.  However, she then dated the second alleged incident to September 2015 and in her oral evidence to me it was both “early in 2015” and “about two months before split up…around the time that the relationship was ending”.   It is also striking that none of her accounts provide the sort of sensory, contextual detail that is often seen in accounts of sexual assaults.  What detail there is around timings, what happened and how is contradictory in each version that she gives.  When this is coupled with the fact that she did not raise any allegation until approximately two years after she alleges that the assaults took place, and in the context of her making a false allegation of a threat to throw acid in her face and where she is clearly angered and upset about F2 being in a new relationship as he told me and as the video shows, I am afraid it further undermines her credibility about these allegations to the point that she is simply not a credible witness about them, I find.

 

The next allegation on M’s schedule that falls to be considered is that sometime in 2014 F2 gave A some tablets to drug her.  This allegation is first made by M on 8 ^th May 2016 when she called the police to report that A was being groomed over the phone (F7).  The police log records “caller informed police that she had heard her daughter having phone conversations at 5.30am several months ago.  She stated that she had heard the other person on the phone threaten her daughter, along the lines of? If you say anything, we will show the videos?.  This happened on three different occasions so caller questioned her daughter who stated that in October (not known if 2014 or 2015), caller?s (sic) ex-partner had taken her upstairs, given her a squash drink with a pill in it.  This made caller fall asleep.  When she awoke she couldn’t remember anything and had a pain in her legs”.  A was then spoken to by the police, both with her mother present and on her own.  On each occasion A denied that anything had happened and said that nothing had happened as M described.  The police also checked her phone and found nothing of any concern on it, noting it to be “a normal 11 year old?s (sic) phone!” (F8).   Somewhat bizarrely, M also appears to have alleged at about the same time as this that F2 was “stalking her by placing a camera in her loft.  Police attended on this occasion and no such camera was found and there was no further action” (F8).   At F9 it is also noted that on 9 ^th May 2016 M rang the police to chase action on her complaint of A being groomed and make allegations that the police were not acting appropriately by only sending one officer to her address rather than two and querying whether that officer was trained in determining that there was no evidence of crime, only to become “very abusive on the phone” when the police call handler attempted to explain that she had been dealt with by a properly trained officer.  It is also noted that M did not bring any of her concerns in this regard to the attention of the officer who had attended on 8 ^th May 2016.

A was asked about this allegation in her ABE interview.  She was asked very generally about her mother making accusations about her and as is recorded at F125 said “she would always tell me that F2 used to like abuse me when they were together and then she made me like, like I did tell it wasn’t true and she like, won’t say she made me lie but she made me go to the Police, I mean like she called the Police and the Police were round and then made me say that they abused me…And they did and I said they didn’t abuse me and like after said to her after they didn’t abuse me, they didn’t abuse me but she didn’t believe me, she still had it in her head”.  A is very clear in that interview that her mother told her that F2 would abuse her and that this did not happen.  A also explains in some detail in her interview (F125-126) that M accused A of using drugs and having inappropriate relationships with teachers and her friends’ parents. 

 

It was submitted by Ms Vaughan for F2, and it is part of the Local Authority case, that this allegation is in the context of M having made another allegation that A was being sexually abused at school and that allegation when investigated turned out to be unfounded.  That allegation was made to the police on 13 ^th December 2016 (F16) by M.  As is recorded at F17, M told the police that she was “basing her suspicions on alleged inappropriate behaviour by her daughter a year ago whereby when she sat down at a parents evening she did not shut her legs properly then earlier today she has noticed a dollar bill missing from the house and alleges to police that daughter admitted to taking this and when asked why said it was because of the issues at school.  She believes this to mean the daughter is being sexually abused”.  A was spoken to by the police at the time of this complaint and denied that any sexual assault of any kind had taken place “stating her mother has jumped to conclusions because of this alleged incident a year ago and that over the last year her mother has had multiple ideas and delusions about her and her brother being abused and that nothing anyone says or does can change her mind” (F17).  In her ABE interview A is very clear that she has not been sexually abused by anyone and that she thinks her mother has leapt to conclusions based on her sometimes coming out of school twenty minutes late because of talking to her friends (F126), thinking that she was “doing like sign language to the teacher’s (sic) during parents evening” (F126).  A also indicated that it may have been as a result of something said by F1 to M about her not sitting properly when wearing a skirt (F126). 

 

In her oral evidence to me, M said that A had “suggested” to her that A was having an inappropriate relationship with a teacher at school.  She also suggested both in evidence in chief and when cross-examined that A had made up this allegation because of an argument about bed-wetting, and because of an argument about stealing.  In her written statement she alleged that A may have made this up because of being challenged about stealing money by M (C28 paras 25 & 26).  Her evidence about this, frankly, lacks any credibility whatsoever.  She was vague about any details of what A said to her, even admitting that on her own account it appears to have been something that whatever A said was “suggested” rather than explicit detail.  Very bizarrely she also seemed to be telling me that this allegation came out because of an argument and implied that A may have been saying this as a way of countering the accusation of stealing.  As was properly submitted by Ms Little on behalf of the Local Authority, that would make it more likely than not that even if A did say what M alleges, it was made up to stop the argument about stealing.  A has consistently told everyone else, including the police at the time that the accusation was made in 2016, that what her mother has said about this is not true.  A has also told her foster carer that “her mum told her that he (F2) had sexually abused her (A).  She says that mum told her this on a daily basis for around 18 months and then not so much in the last 6 months.  A is unsure if she is having memories of this because of the continuous allegations by mum, or if they actually happened.  A is fairly sure that they are just awful memories because of what mum has said over and over again.” (FCA4).  F2 has also provided credible and consistent evidence that he did not abuse A as M alleges.  As a result of all of the evidence before me on this aspect, I am satisfied that M has failed to prove on balance of probabilities that F2 gave A tablets as she alleged.  I am also satisfied that the Local Authority has proved on balance of probabilities that in December 2016 M made a false allegation that A was sexually abused at school (1.1 threshold criteria A29).  I will return to consider the consequences of that false allegation later in this judgment.  I am also satisfied on balance of probabilities that that M has repeatedly told A that she (A) has been abused by F2 when this was not true (1.2 threshold criteria A39).  

 

The next item on the schedule of allegations made by M is that F2 threw B against the wall and as a result B hit his head.  This is said to have taken place sometime in 2014 and M did not herself witness this as she accepts.  F2 accepts that there was an incident when he described having difficulty getting B to go to bed at bedtime.  He told me that he repeatedly told B to go to bed and resorted to picking B up and taking him to bed, then dropping B onto the bed.  His oral evidence to me was that this was from sufficient height and with sufficient force for B to bounce on the sprung mattress and hit his head against the wall as a result.  I have carefully reviewed what he described doing in his oral evidence to me.  He demonstrated dropping B onto the bed from a height that appeared to be a little under a metre.  He described B bouncing off the sprung mattress and immediately he heard a bang as B hit his head on the wall.  He accepted that this was not a sensible thing for him to have done and that it resulted in B having a slight bump on his head.  This is, I find, entirely consistent with what A told the police on 8 ^th May 2016 when she was asked by them about the allegation: “when asked about the potential assault on her brother she stated that her brother had been misbehaving one day (thought to be June last year) and the ex-partner had thrown him onto a bed in the room they share.  Her brother hit his head on the wall as he landed but daughter wasn’t sure if this was an accident or deliberate but nevertheless believed the ex-partner did not intend to hurt the child” (F8).  In her oral evidence to me M accepted that B did not have serious injuries and did not require medical attention.  She also accepted that B had not told her about the incident himself and that this would suggest that it was not significant enough to B to cause him to tell her.  I do find that it is more likely than not that B simply banged his head accidentally on the wall as a result of F2 dropping B onto the bed in a way that was likely to result in B getting accidentally slightly injured.  This allegation by M is not therefore proved on balance of probabilities.

 

The next allegation that M makes on her schedule is that B was sexually abused in F2’s presence by two men and an unknown male “putting his fingers up his butt”.  This also links to item 1.3 on the Local Authority threshold criteria.  This allegation by M is first raised by B telling police officers on 28 ^th March 2018 that “when he was 6 years old when he was at his dads partners house that a man put a finger up his butt” (F40).  Again, M accepts that she was not present at the time of this alleged incident and that she is relying on what B has told her and the police.  As with M’s false allegations of sexual assault of her by F2, the timing of this allegation is potentially significant.  It was made during the previous private law proceedings and at a time when the social worker was preparing an addendum section 7 report for those proceedings.  M’s account to the social worker about this allegation is recorded in that section 7 addendum report as follows “B had told her last year that a man had sexually assaulted him.  M stated she did not report this incident to the Police.  B told her that there were two adult males who put Sellotape on his mouth and his father was there too.  M stated that B told her that this incident was recorded on a camera.  M said after B told her she checked his bottom for any injuries and there was ‘damage’ to B’s bottom.  M said that she put sudocream on the area which was ‘damaged’ but she did not seek medical attention.  M said she and B have not spoken to each other about the incident since.  M stated she regretted not reporting this to Police but didn’t because Social Care were not involved as they had just closed their assessment.  In addition, her relationship with F2 was not good at the time.  M stated she did not ‘see the point’ of contacting the Police as she was being accused by professionals of calling them unnecessarily” (PL64-65 paras 8.2 and 8.3).

 

What is very odd about M’s account, both above and in her oral and written evidence to me that she did not report this to the police at the time and this was because she had lost faith in them, is that the police disclosure clearly shows her reporting the other allegation to the Police in April 2017 about the threat to throw acid in her face and the sexual assault allegations.  The police log, as I have already noted, shows numerous attempts by the police to follow up her complaint about the sexual assault allegations and her lack of co-operation with them into November 2017.  It does therefore seem peculiar that if B told her about this allegation in around about March 2017 as she alleges, she didn’t mention this as part of her allegations made in April 2017.  It is also very concerning that, on her own account, she did not report what appears to have been a serious sexual assault resulting in injury to B and that she did not seek medical attention for him.  She has given absolutely no explanation for the failure to seek medical attention when one would expect a parent to do precisely that in the circumstances alleged.

 

B was asked about this in his ABE interview.  He is asked an open question by the officer after describing events on 16 ^th September 2018 about whether “anything like this has happened before?” and B says “well, one time when I was gunna visit, I was visiting my Dad…cos I see my Dad every 2 weeks…and um my butt was itching…and when I came back, Mum put some cream on it and she saw a scratch in my butt…She said um, did they put your finger in my in my bum, I said no and she said she will ground me forever if she, if he’s, if I don’t tell the truth and I was telling the truth so I had to say yes.  (officer)Right OK, so what happened to your butt? (B) I have no clue…But they didn’t do it (officer) But your Mum thought someone had is that right? (B) Yes (officer) But, OK but you had to say someone had but you had to lie is that what you’re saying? (B) Yes to not grounded forever” (F98).  B goes on to describe having to make up a description of a man who assaulted him and feeling “very sad” about having to lie “to not get hurt or not get grounded forever and not let my life be me doing nothing” (F98).   M told me in her evidence that B told her this had happened and denied forcing him to make up the allegation.  She also said that she believed this had happened to B because he used words that a seven year old would not know.  I am very clear from all of the evidence before me, particularly her language in front of the children in the video I have seen and her own admission that this sort of behaviour was typical of her arguments with F2 when the children were in the house, that she has used sexually explicit and inappropriate language in circumstances where the children could overhear this.  F2 also accepted that their arguments were typified by the sort of thing shown on the video and, as I have already noted, both F1 and F2 have provided credible evidence about M’s propensity to use sexual terms.   M herself also accepted in her oral evidence that despite her allegation B continued to have unsupervised contact with his father and that her only reservations about overnight contact recorded in the social services documentation between the first and addendum section 7 report were that she did not want it to take place at F2’s house without giving any details why.  She did suggest in her oral evidence that somehow this continued contact with F2 is what led to B changing his story.  However, B’s account in his ABE interview of being forced to lie by his M is extremely compelling, I find.  F2 has also given very credible and compelling evidence that this alleged sexual assault of B did not take place.  I do not find this allegation proved on balance of probabilities and am satisfied on balance of probabilities that it was M’s behaviour (forcing B to lie under threat of grounding or fear of being hurt and exposing him to inappropriate sexual language) which led to B making this false allegation.  Item 1.3 on the threshold criteria is therefore proved on balance of probabilities.

 

The next item on M’s schedule of allegations is that during the weekend of 24 ^th /25 ^th February 2018 a man at F2’s girlfriend’s house twisted B’s ear and that F2 knows who did this and what happened.  This allegation also surfaced at about the same time as the allegation in relation to B being sexually abused that I have dealt with above.  As the addendum section 7 report records at PL60 paragraph 5.1.4 the Emergency Duty Referral team received a referral on 27 ^th February 2018 stating that B had been referred to the hospital on 26 ^th February 2018 after M had contacted the out of hours GP due to B complaining of a pain to his ear and a bruise on his right ear.  B was seen by his then social worker at home on 27 ^th February 2018 who records that B told her “that the injury to his ear happened at his father’s girlfriend’s home on Sunday and had been caused by unknown male who lives in the house and whom he has seen ‘like six times before’.  Some details surrounding what B said were inconsistent to those outlined in the Emergency Duty Team Referral” (PL60 para 5.1.5).

 

F was spoken to about this by the police on 1 ^st October 2018 who record that “he became very cagy and said that he had a mark on his ear and his mum saw it he felt that it was felt tip but he went to the Dr’s who felt it.  It was harder to get detail from B but he stated that he didn’t know how it happened and it wasn’t his dad as his dad cares for him” (F50).  B also told the police in his ABE interview that he was forced by his M to lie about his ear (F99-100).  He is very clear that nothing happened to his ear but he was forced to lie about a bruise on his ear by his M who thought that something had happened to it having noticed a bruise on his ear as he was going to bed (F110).  It is very apparent from the evidence in the Bundle that no-one at school saw any bruise or injury to B’s ear on the Monday 26 ^th February 2018.  The complaint about the injury is made on the evening of 26 ^th February 2018 when M contacted the out of hours non-emergency medical number as she told me.  The social worker was very clear in her evidence to me that the injury to B was very apparent when she saw him on 27 ^th February 2018 as he had very short hair and his ears stick out.  As I noted when hearing closing submissions, I can take judicial notice of the fact that current medical opinion is that it is impossible to date bruises with any degree of accuracy.  The absence of any visible injury on the Monday at school alone would not therefore establish positively that the injury was not present at that point.  However, this is part of wider evidence which includes B saying that he was forced to make up a lie about this by his M who believed that F2 had done something, and in the context of M having made other manifestly false allegations about F2 by this point.  It is also in the context of a dispute about the amount of contact that B could have with F2.  I also have the credible evidence from A in her ABE interview that “when she (M) usually physical with e she usually twists my ear…like she would like just pinch and grip and twist” (F136).   The health professional view was that the injury was consistent with a twisting or pinching mechanism as recorded at the strategy meeting held on 16 ^th April 2018 (F36).  F2 has also provided credible and compelling evidence that this allegation is untrue.

 

As a result of B’s inconsistencies in his accounts of what supposedly happened, and his evidence in his ABE interview that M forced him to lie, as well as my earlier finding that she forced him to lie about the alleged sexual abuse of him by F2 and the fact that no injury at all was seen on B at school on Monday 26 ^th February 2018, I do not find that M’s allegation is proved on balance of probabilities.   However, I do not have sufficient evidence to be satisfied on balance of probabilities that this injury was deliberately caused by M as Ms Vaughan submitted in closing.  At best, I have sufficient evidence to be satisfied on balance of probabilities that the injury is more likely than not to have arisen when B was in the care of his mother after returning to her care from contact, but I cannot go further than that.

 

 The next allegation on M’s schedule relates to an incident in the swimming pool where she alleges that F2 neglected B who was therefore at risk of drowning.  Again, M accepts that she was not present at the material time.  It is common ground between the parties that there was an occasion when F2 took B swimming.  This is set out in the section 7 report completed in December 2017 at paragraph 7.9: “F2 reports that B fell swallowing water, he grabbed onto a person who he thought was his Father, but it was another man.  F2 said he did not tell M about the incident, as in his view it was not a ‘problem’.  In F2’s view this incident has been blown out of proportion by M” (ED10.  In his statement at C129 F2 describes “B running around …and went into the wave pool.  B was under the water for a couple of seconds at most and this was because he got water up his nose and panicked.  I had ‘told B off’ and he sulked for a short time.  Afterwards, we went for dinner at a Toby Carvery and B was happy, stating that he enjoyed himself.  B was not left to drown as is stated by M”. 

 

M’s account is in her statement at C105 and says that “B also told me that when he was swimming with his Father, he said he had been under the water and had to grab someone’s leg to lift himself up.  He was crying when he told me this.  He said his Father was near him and should have helped but did not.  I asked F2 about it and he said B was under the water for a few minutes and that nothing serious had happened.  I was very worried (para 24).  This incident is not mentioned at all in M’s first two statements in these proceedings, though it clear from the section 7 report at ED13 that she expressed concerns about this to the social worker then and described it as being described by B as nearly drowning.  F2 gave very clear and credible evidence to me about going swimming with three children and trying to watch all three between himself and his girlfriend.  He very fairly accepted that he may have momentarily taken his eyes off B and this is when B went under.  However, he described this as only being for the briefest of periods and in terms that made it clear to me that this was the sort of momentary immersion and panic that a child often experiences when learning to swim.  He was also very clear that B was absolutely fine afterwards.  I can see that by F2 not telling M about this (I find) very minor incident that this might feed into M’s fears and suspicions.  However, I can also see that F2 would not necessarily have thought to mention such a minor incident and, based on the other false allegations that M has made about him, can see that in some sense he was damned if he said something and damned if he did not.  In fact, what is clear on all the evidence before me including M’s own, is that this shows that M seems to have been determined to think the worst of F2 and at least has therefore exaggerated what she says B told her about this incident.  I do not therefore find this allegation proved on balance of probabilities.

 

The final allegation on the schedule produced by M is that A has sexually abused B.  This links directly with item 1.5 on the threshold document.  It is not disputed that M has accused A of this on several occasions.  M case is that the accusations are true based on what she says the children have told her and that she believes what the children have told her. M also accepts that she herself has never seen anything directly in terms of the children’s behaviour that has led her to suspect that this was going on.

 

The first time that these allegations surfaced for professional involvement was on 26 ^th October 2017.  It is not in dispute that on that date A herself called the police.  A was described by the police who attended as tearful, telling M “why don’t you tell them what you’re saying I’ve done” (F30).  As is set out in the police disclosure, they investigated the allegation at the time and both children denied the allegation.  They also could not find any corroborating evidence to substantiate the allegation.  When the police spoke to M she seems to have told them that she had “suspicions” (F30) that her son and daughter were engaged in sexual activity between themselves.  She did not allow the officer attending to speak to the children alone.  A social worker then spoke to the children but it is noted “got varying stories but no firm disclosures” (F30). 

 

M’s written evidence about this appears in her statement at C26-27 paras 16-18.  As she described there and in her oral evidence to me, she said that B told her “out of the blue, he said to me that he had been ‘giving’ A ‘head’” (C26 para 16).  She said that she challenged A about this and A responded that she did not care and “seemed dismissive” (C26 para 17).  This description of A as dismissive is wholly at odds with the upset and tearful child that the police see on arrival and this apparent change in her demeanour is not covered in M’s written or oral evidence.  M implied in her statement at C26-27 para 18, and was explicit in her oral evidence to me, that the children had opportunity to collude about their accounts before the police spoke to them and this explains the different accounts that they have given later.  However, having carefully reviewed the ABE interviews several times, as well as the accounts given to other professionals, there are some differences in the children’s accounts which support a conclusion that they are not colluding in making up what they are saying.  Those differences are not significant enough, in my view, to suggest that their credibility is undermined.  In fact, they are consistent about the main details and any differences are often due to differences in perspective (as well as age and understanding), for example when B was downstairs on 16 ^th September and A and M upstairs and he couldn’t hear everything that was said upstairs and didn’t know what everything he could hear meant such as what he describes as a “grinding noise” (F93).

 

The trigger for the current proceedings on Sunday 16 ^th of September 2018 relates to another of M’s allegations that A had been sexually abusing B.  This is also linked to item 5.3 on the Local Authority threshold document.  On 16 ^th September 2018 A presented herself at a police station alleging that she had been physically assaulted by her mother.  A stated that M had threatened her with a knife and had pinned her to the floor and kicked and grabbed her genitals. B was at home during this assault. A fled from the home (F44), then tried to contact her social worker (F46).  A was found by PC Gillingham slumped on the floor near the Police station (statement of PC Gillingham F56-57).  A was crying to the point of choking her words, PC Gillingham reports “she said that she was scared to go home because her Mum is poorly and had hurt her.  Her mum was saying she’s been doing stuff with her brother but her mum had also told police before that A has been sleeping with her teachers” (F56) .  He records A’s account of the assault at F57: “Her mother was also in the kitchen and was shouting at her, accusing her again of being a paedophile and accusing her of sexually assaulting her brother.  At one point A said that her mother pulled out a large kitchen knife from the drawer and told A that she was to stab her.  It was following by her mum saying she would let A ‘bleed out’ A wasn’t sure what this meant.  All the doors in the house on the ground floor were locked to stop A leaving the house.  As the verbal insults and accusation escalated, A told me that just by the foot of the stairs, her mother grabbed hold of her and pinned her to the ground.  Her mother was on top of her and grabbed her hard between the legs, hurting her privates.  After this, her mother has kicked her hard between the legs, again in her privates.  She said her mother wasn’t really saying anything as she was doing this because she was out of breath from holding A down…Today her mother told her to write down everything she eats and drinks, even if it is just tap water.  A believed this was possibly a control thing.  A used this as an opportunity to jump out of the open kitchen window.  Her mother had locked all of the doors.  She left her mobile phone and also her glasses behind.  A had been walking around for about two hours before coming to the Police Station.  My observations of A are that she presented as very genuine, very timid and emotionally exhausted.  She was not complaining she was in any pain after being assaulted and declined medical assistance.  I have been a Police Officer for nearly 13 years and have dealt with many challenging situations.  Very few interactions get to me, but I feel very sad for A and with what she has been through.  The best way to describe her was broken”. 

 

Police attended the home, arrested M and placed A and B under police protection.  Both children were spoken to (separately) and B gave an account of his mother believing they (the children) had had sex “it has not happened, I have told its not true but she doesn’t believe me, its crazy” ( pre-interview assessment F66).   He also stated that he has to lie so as to not upset mother.  B stated “she hurt my head today – she hit it hard -it nearly made me cry… She is really mean to my sister.  She forces her to come upstairs by smacking and punching her – it happened today.  She punches really hard – but mostly smacks.  Demonstrates – very hard (F67).

 

A, in her pre-interview assessment (F68-74) stated she had been thinking about telling for a while (F72).  On that day she overheard M asking B inappropriate things about her “she says you like it, like it a lot, states to him that he likes pussy…he says leave me alone, don’t want to talk about it, go away” (F73).    

 

Following her arrest, M was detained until interview at the police station.  The custody record shows that a mental health assessment (requested as a result of information from other sources F144) did not identify any mental health issues at the time and M was described as unconcerned (F150).

 

When interviewed by the Police, M gave a no comment interview (FOa-n).  In her first statement for these proceedings, M accepted that she lost her temper, used bad language and shouted at A and stated, “I think I tapped her on the shoulder” (C25 para 9), but denied any physical attack.  She alleged that the argument took place after B had said to her (M) “ I have been licking A again ” (C25 para 8).   M twice referred to A calling her (M) “delusional” and stated, “as far as I am concerned, nothing physical happened between A and I at all and she totally vanished” (C26 para 13).

 

On the 18 ^th and 19 ^th of September 2018, the children’s fathers signed s.20 consent for the children to be accommodated. The mother signed her consent on the 21 ^st of September 2018. The children have remained in separate foster placements.  Since A left the home on 16 ^th September, any contact between the children has been supervised.

 

Both children gave ABE interviews, B on 1 ^st October 2018 (F79-105) and A on 3 ^rd October 2018 (F106-137).  As I have said, I have viewed these videos several times in course of these proceedings, having first seen them for the purposes of an earlier Re W hearing to determine whether either child should be called to give evidence (no party in fact sought for them to give evidence so I did not have to determine this point in fact).  The demeanour of the children in each interview is, in my view, striking.  B has a palpable sense of relief at being able to tell someone what has been going on in his home.  A is quiet, restrained and does not appear to be exaggerating or dramatizing her account.

 

In her ABE interview A described hearing M talking to B “Because like would like say like, like how could you do this to me?  Everything I do and you do this to her and like she would say the ‘p’ word and the ‘d’ word and stuff over and over again saying like kinda like you do this to A and she does this to you and bla bla bla bla.  I don’t know if she like hit him in the room because I obviously couldn’t see it I could just hear it” (F112).   A described “then when she finished she started having a go at me….and then when she finished she pulled a knife on me…. That I’m gonna go to prison and that she’s gonna send me out of the house and I’m disgusting calling me names and stuff…. Paedophile…. And like child molester and stuff.” (F113).   

 

A described M starting to ‘fight’ with her because she wouldn’t go upstairs (F117) “She slapped me round the face, she kicked me, she grabbed me and she hair pulled me and she like, pinched me as well”(F118), “she only kicked me in the private area once and the legs was kinda like twice…..well she obviously meant to kick me but I don’t know if it was meant to be my private area because when I was on the ground she was like grabbing me in my private area really hard and I was like trying to scream but she was covering my mouth”(F119).   She went on to describe M grabbing her private area “she like gripped it with force” (F119).

 

A describes going to her room and M coming in and again kicking her in the private area (F121) and that she then attempted to lock herself in the bathroom and alleges M pretended to call the police to threaten her before unscrewing the door with a screwdriver (F123).  A stated M told her to write down everything she eats and drinks so M can control what she has in the kitchen; at that A jumped out of the kitchen window (F122).  She described attempting to find the social worker at the family centre but it being closed and eventually ending up at the police station.  When asked how she felt about her mother slapping her and fighting, A stated “I’m kinda like used to it, but it does make me quite upset and I feel I’m not like in a normal family” (F124).

 

During her interview A also repeats how her mother “told me like to get undressed completely”(F115-116) and recounts previous occasions when this occurred “well she like told me like this was when she pulled me out of my old school and then she told me to get undressed and she told, this was in our old house, then she told me to like get undressed, like completely naked and she called me into the bathroom and she made me open my legs like really wide….And then she made me like go to sleep naked and not in, not in my bed like a spare, like mattress thing with no duvet only like, a mattress sheet which you use to cover your mattress with” (F116).    A described M shouting to her to sit on the toilet lid with her legs open and that M and B came in (F116-117).  A dates M’s false accusations from the time of separation from F2 with physical harm from the beginning of 2017 (F125). 

 

B gave a what I find to be a fluent and convincing account of events on 16 ^th September from his perspective in his ABE interview: “That’s when my mum said ‘were you doing it to her?’ ‘cos she like saw me going in the room and she thought that, mum was, like my sister in the room, even though she wasn’t.  Then that’s when it happened, she was hurting me because she thought that I was doing it, I was doing it, even though we never did and never want to, and ummm, and then, I got liked punched two times here, one there and one there by my mum for no reason….and um, my sister got, she told to wait in my room and she closed the door and went to A and she started like pulling, I didn’t see her but I just heard her saying ‘stop it mum’ I heard her crying and she was downstairs with mum.  Mum told her to go upstairs and she said no, that’s when I heard a grinding sound?  A grinding…And that’s when I heard this screaming, and I was crying in my room, very, very quietly…. because I didn’t want my mum to think that I like doing it even though we never did and we never want to.  That’s when my mum wouldn’t stop it and my mum said go to her room, she did it and then, um um, I was downstairs and then so was my mum and we were talking downstairs about like I had to lie not to get in trouble and I feel really bad for my sister, that’s when I gave her the chance to leave and tell.  About what happened, I gave her the chance and um, that’s when she left the house,” (F81-96).

 

B described A’s scream as “ like a horror scream” described as “I think they’re going through a lot of pain, a lot of pain…. I thought it was very sad and very brutal” (F94).   He also described thinking that M was trying to kill A (F94-95) and is very clear that this is what he thought not what he has been told by A (F95).

 

B’s account in his ABE interview is of M first saying ‘are you doing it or not’ 1- 3 weeks previously and that he had been hit on a number of occasions as a result (F83).

 

During the interview B also stated, “I don’t know why, but I’m actually finding this fun….and basically I’m feeling grateful for myself because I’m actually saying it and not be feeling nervous basically” (F86).   It is this part of the interview that conveys the palpable sense of relief at telling someone what has been going on that I have noted earlier.

 

Three weeks later, B’s foster carer records that B told her the following: “21.10.18 I was asking R what did he enjoy playing at home apart from the IPad, he said sometimes telly but mostly IPad I said did you play With your sister, he said sometimes but not really because of what mum says we do, I said what do you mean he said you know what happened, my mum says I have sex with A I said did that only happen once he said no lots of times. But it’s hard because if I say we didn’t I get into trouble but if I say we did A gets in trouble so it hard because either Me or A would get hit. He said i don’t know why mum thinks that I have sex” (FCR15).  This is also entirely consistent with the account that B gave in his ABE interview.

 

M’s account of her allegations about A’s abuse of B are in her first statement at C26-27 and in relation to the 16 ^th September 2018 at C24-26.  At C27 she describes finding inappropriate material on A’s phone, indicating that it is “a clip of a young black boy who looks anything from 7 to 10 years old saying to the screen that he wants to have sex with someone.  It is totally bizarre and inappropriate and I challenged A and she was dismissive and said it was for fun…I screen shot the clip at the time and I attach a copy at FCT1”.  There is indeed a screenshot at C33 exhibited to her statement but this appears to be of a search of the NHS website about vaccinations and a URL relating to women’s trainers.  There is some image below that last search but the image is wholly blurred and simply does not corroborate what M alleges was on the phone, I find.

During her oral evidence to me about her allegations, M was less than forthcoming, I find.  I have made allowances, as Ms Rodgers submitted was appropriate, for the fact that English is not her first language (though she has never asked for or required the assistance of an interpreter in these proceedings).  Some of the questions she was asked, including those by her own advocate in eliciting evidence in chief, were at times simply too long and potentially structured in a way that might have made them less clear to someone who speaks English as a second language.  However, any questions that were causing her difficulty were simplified by the advocates and even then, M gave answers that either deflected from the question, for example saying that the questions needed to be put to A or B, or elicited allegations that police and social care records (including those of the foster carers) were either inaccurate or that the maker of the record in question was lying.  She lacked credibility as a result, I find.  She also gave conflicting accounts about if she had made physical contact with A during the argument on 16 ^th September 2018, at one point accepting that as she had put in her written evidence she had ‘tapped’ A on the shoulder, but also then going on to deny that she had touched her - “I never touched her”.  Again, I am afraid this made her a far from convincing witness.   Her allegation that the children have colluded about their later accounts given to police and other professionals is also wholly unsubstantiated, I find.  The children were not alone together for any significant length of time after the police were called on 16 ^th September 2018 (A having in fact gone to the police station at this point), and as I have noted their accounts do not sound like rehearsed stories that they have put together.  Their demeanour in interview when they give their accounts is also consistent with them telling the truth.  A in particular seems emotionally worn out by everything that she is describing, as was noted by PC Gillingham in his statement at F57.

It was also striking that M was initially emphatic that she believed what her children said and yet, when it was put to her by both Ms Little for the Local Authority and Ms Wilkins for the children that the children had consistently told everyone else that A had not sexually abused B, she completely refused to acknowledge this at first.  Eventually, in answer to a direct question from Ms Little, she indicated that she only believed what the children told her themselves and she would like the opportunity to have them tell her that it didn’t happen.  On the accounts given by M herself, A did deny that it happened when challenged by M so it is odd that she did not therefore believe A at that stage and preferred what she says B said to her.  Based on the lack of consistency and credibility in M’s evidence about this allegation, and the broadly consistent accounts of the children to all professionals and foster carers since the police became involved on 16 ^th September 2018, I am satisfied that not only has M not proved on balance of probabilities that A sexually abused B, but also that it is more likely than not that A was physically assaulted by her mother as A described happening on 16 ^th September 2018.  I therefore do not find M’s final allegation proved but do find item 1.5 on the threshold document proved on balance of probabilities.  I am satisfied on balance of probabilities that A and B did not say what M alleged they said in support of her allegation that they were engaged in a sexual relationship. 

 

Item 1.4 on the threshold document is that M has openly discussed her allegations and used sexually explicit language in front of the children.  The latter part of this allegation is amply proved on both the evidence of the video which I have dealt with earlier in this judgment, as well as on M’s own evidence that she would use sexually explicit swear words in arguments with F1 and F2 and that the children could have overheard this.  CNR1 clearly records B as telling the social worker prior to contact with his mother that “he hopes mum does not bring up the sex stuff”.  The children’s accounts in their respective ABE interviews and to other professionals during their investigations of M’s allegations also supports a conclusion that M has discussed the allegations with the children.  Even M’s own evidence, both written and oral, is that she questioned the children about the various allegations.  I am therefore satisfied on balance of probabilities that this threshold criterion is proved.

 

Item 1.6 on the threshold document is in part in fact a statement of undisputed fact, namely that the children have had to speak to numerous professionals and police.  Her response to the final threshold is less clear about this aspect, though, as she does not appear to address it at all.  Given the number of false allegations that I have found her to have made, and the consequent number of professionals and police that the children have therefore had to speak to repeatedly and unnecessarily as things have turned out, I am satisfied on balance of probabilities that this criterion is also made out.

 

Item 2 is the allegation that M forced B to look at A whilst A was naked and forced him to look at her vagina.  A gave a very clear and coherent account of this happening when she was interviewed by the police (F116-117).  It is something that is wholly consistent, I find, with what appears to be a very bizarre and worrying tendency on the part of M to expose the children to inappropriate and sexually explicit language, as well as her apparent need to exert control over A by forcing her to write down everything that she ate or drank.  This links to item 3 which essentially is that A has been humiliated by being forced to strip by her mother.  Again, A gave a very clear and credible account of this in her interview (F116) and this is consistent with A having told her foster carer that her mother hates her and favours B (FCA3 and FCA5 for example).  I am satisfied that threshold criteria 2 and 3 are proved on balance of probabilities.  Again, as I have noted above, this is extremely concerning in terms of what it says about how A has treated by her mother in comparison to B.

 

Item 4 on the threshold document is that, as a result of his experiences, B has displayed sexualised behaviour and is at risk of significant harm to his development of boundaries and relationships.  M accepts (C40) that B has displayed sexualised behaviour but disputes that this is because of anything she has done.  Given my earlier findings, I am satisfied that M has exposed B to inappropriate sexual language and, in her questioning of him about whether or not he and A have engaged in sexual activity has probably exposed him to inappropriate sexual language and ideas as is evidenced by B’s account in his ABE interview, supported by that of A in her ABE interview.  In addition, as M accepts that the children have spent significant periods of time on their own because she was working, and the children’s own evidence of looking after themselves for prolonged periods, it does appear more likely than not that B would not have been subject to appropriate boundaries and limitations on access to age appropriate material online.  I am therefore satisfied on balance of probabilities that this threshold criterion is also proved.   This also links to item 7 on the threshold document which is that A spent long periods of time caring for B whilst M worked.  M appears to largely accept this (C41) but seeks to qualify it by stating that she was working without family support and would check on the children in person and on the telephone.  Her evidence about this aspect of the case is somewhat unclear.  She seems to effectively be saying that she had no choice but, as was put to her by Ms Little, both children had fathers nearby and M’s own account is that she was prepared to allow some contact with each father.  Indeed, her case is that any limitation on contact arose because of the fathers choosing that.  However, she gave no clear answer as to why she did not use the fathers to help more with child care.  She was also very clear that she worked as much as she did to provide the children with discretionary extra items and holidays, rather than it being a case of her having to work as much as she did to provide simply the essentials.  I am therefore unclear a) why she was unable to slightly adjust her hours to reduce the time that the children spent alone and b) why she didn’t use each father to help more as she accepts that she left A and B with F1 at times for this purpose.  I do find this criterion made out on balance of probabilities.

 

Items 5.1 and 5.2 on the threshold document relate to M hitting B unless he admitted that he and A had been sexually active with each other, and hitting A in the belief that it did and causing B to feel guilt.  Again, given my earlier findings I am satisfied on balance of probabilities that as the children have consistently described in their interviews and to professionals since they were taken into care, this has happened.  B’s guilt about being in this invidious position in particular is compelling and touchingly described by him in his ABE interview, for example at FF92-93.  A has also been frequently slapped and hit as again the children have consistently and credibly described.  This is also supported by the evidence of F2 about how M would discipline the children, often lashing out unpredictably.  Items 5.1 and 5.2 are therefore found proved on balance of probabilities.

 

The final item on the threshold document which falls to be considered is 6.  M appears to accept that the children have been exposed to volatility in her relationships with each of the children’s fathers (C24 para 6 and C41 para 10).  However, she denies that she has sought to discourage the children from developing healthy relationships with their respective fathers. 

 

Given the findings that I have already made about M’s false allegations in respect of F2 and B, I am satisfied on balance of probabilities that this alone justifies a conclusion that she has sought to discourage B from developing a healthy relationship with his father.  In addition, I find that she has done so in an extremely devious, insidious and concerning way.  Much was made in her evidence and in her advocate’s submissions to me of the fact that M did allow contact with both fathers and this was not a case where she was refusing any contact.  However, as I have already noted, it is significant that whenever contact between F2 and B was due to increase, or assessed by the professionals involved as appropriate to take place in a way that M did not agree with such as overnight, M raised false allegations.  Some of her false allegations are, quite frankly, bizarre.  On 9 ^th October 2016 she contacted the police to allege that F2 was somehow involved in his ex-wife’s body being buried under a primary school and that he had married a sixteen year old girl and had a son with him.  There is simply no evidence at all to substantiate these allegations.  In addition, M clearly sought to force B and A to join in with the false physical and sexual abuse allegations against F2, as my earlier findings also demonstrate. 

 

F1’s evidence about contact was also striking in this regard, I find.  He told me that M would not allow him to be a hands-on father during their relationship and that when they separated he was not told about A’s life and schooling and only saw A where and when was convenient for M.  I found his evidence to be credible and compelling about this.  He was very fair when asked about his impression of M as a mother and described her as a good mother. When questioned by Ms Rodgers about why he had not done anything to seek to increase his contact with A, he told me that he didn’t know what to do and where to get advice.  He also accepted that, despite his concerns about M, he did not inform any of the authorities about her.  At worst he seems not to have thought to try to get any advice and to have been rather passive in relation to contact arrangements for A, I find.  He appeared to have been genuinely wary of ‘rocking the boat’ with M and therefore did not challenge the limitations she imposed on his contact with A, I conclude.  Considering the volatility that M has at times displayed with both partners and the way in which she reacted to F2 pursuing increased contact with B, this wariness is perhaps more understandable than it would have been otherwise. 

 

F2 also gave credible evidence to me about why he did not go to the authorities to report his concerns about M.  He was very clear that he thought her behaviour was mainly directed towards him or as a result of his being in the family.  He also gave very clear and compelling evidence about why he chose to reduce contact with B and then stopped it altogether in early 2018.  He explained that he wanted to move from weekly contact with B to fortnightly contact to help fit with his new relationship.  In fact, he sought contact per fortnight with an overnight stay, as the private law papers reveal.  It is perhaps therefore a moot point as to whether this represented a reduction in overall contact that B would have with his F and could, in fact, be argued that this would result in slightly less frequent but longer contact that was of better quality for B.  F2 agreed that he stopped contact altogether after the referral alleging that he had allowed B to be sexually abused at his girlfriend’s house (referral made on 28 ^th February 2018).  He told me that he made the difficult decision to stop contact to protect him and B from false allegations and because he was worried and had to protect his family.  This evidence from him was compelling and credible, I find.  He accepted that stopping contact may not have been ultimately in B’s best interests, but I find that considering the extremely serious false allegations that M was by this point repeatedly making about him, it is understandable.  It is also understandable that this would have been placing not only him but also his family under considerable strain. 

 

F1 described M leaving A and B in his sole care at times when it suited M.  This was not challenged by M and neither was his evidence that this took place even after he had been investigated for and cleared of rape.  M’s apparent reasons for restricting contact with him therefore simply do not make sense, I am afraid, and further undermine her credibility in relation to her evidence that any problems about contact between A and her father related solely to F1 being a “useless father”.

 

F1 and the social worker also clearly told me that F1 only had information about A’s schooling after these proceedings commenced and this came from social services rather than M.  This is consistent with what F2 also told me about not being given information about B’s sexualised behaviour at school or the meeting that was held to discuss that behaviour on 13 ^th July 2018 until the school told him.  He also told me that he had to find out the information himself from the school about B being removed from school and was not consulted about this before it happened.  F1, I find, was not only not told about A being withdrawn from her school after the false allegation of her being sexually abused at school in 2016, he was also not even consulted about whether she should be withdrawn from school or what schooling arrangements should then be put in place.  It should be remembered that both F1 and F2 have parental responsibility and are therefore entitled to information about their child and to be part of major decisions about the exercise of parental responsibility for them. 

 

I did not find M credible when she told me that the reason F1 did not have more contact with A was that he was not interested.  She gave one example of inviting him to attend a concert in London that A was participating in.  F1 accepted that he had been invited to this (though neither were very clear as to how much notice he was given) but told me that he couldn’t go because he was working.  He was adamant that he had not been invited to A’s birthday parties as M alleged.  He gave very convincing evidence that the only time M contacted him about A’s birthday was on one occasion to request that he bought A a guitar for a present.  M in contrast provided absolutely no detail about how and when she notified F1 of A’s birthday party arrangements and I am satisfied as a result that it is more likely than not that she did not in fact invite him as she said.  This, coupled with her restrictions on contact including her insistence on being present when F1 had contact with A (apart from when she left A and B with F1 to help her working arrangements), leads me to conclude that it is more likely than not that M did discourage A from developing a healthy relationship with her father and this aspect of item 6 of threshold is also proved.

 

Finally, as this hearing has also been concerned with section 31 threshold, I have considered whether my findings support a conclusion that the children have suffered significant harm as a result and as alleged by the Local Authority.  I am quite clear that the children have suffered significant physical and emotional harm as a result of the findings of what their M has done to them and exposed them too.  For example, because of her false allegation about A being sexually abused in school, A was removed from school against her wishes and spent about three months at home, socially isolated and without adequate schooling.  M told me in evidence that it was permitted to home school A but, given that she was at work for most of the time on her own account and does not appear to have hired a tutor, it is hard to see how she was ensuring that A was receiving appropriate education for her age.  M did not dispute that A did not want to leave her school either.  This will therefore have caused A significant emotional harm and potentially harmed her educationally as well.  The false allegations of sexual abuse and her humiliation of A as set out in items 1.1 to 3 will have caused A significant emotional harm too, I find.  Similarly, they will have caused B significant emotional harm, and in addition item 4 means that B has suffered and is at risk of suffering significant emotional harm because of his exposure to a lack of appropriate boundaries and inappropriate sexual language by M.  Both children have suffered physical harm because of M’s physically harming them as set out in items 5.1 to 5.3.  I also find that this physical harm will also inevitably have caused the children emotional harm as they clearly do love their mother and have struggled to understand why she would have hit them.  The evidence of F2 and the evidence from the police disclosure of M’s erratic behaviour at times and unpredictability will no doubt have also added to the emotional harm that these children have experienced as they would not have been able to predict when their mother would become angry and hit them.  It was also striking that M herself gave me evidence that she struggled to set boundaries for the children, particularly A, and tended to simply give them what they want.  Finally, items 6 and 7 do support a conclusion that the children have been neglected by their mother and as a result have suffered significant emotional harm.  Threshold for the purposes of section 31 is therefore crossed considering all my findings.

 

Conclusions

 

For whatever reason, I am satisfied that M has sought to convey an impression that A has engaged in inappropriate sexual activity and, extremely worryingly, has apparently based this on at what at its highest is normal teenage behaviour such as wearing shorter skirts and sometimes coming home slightly late from school.  It will be a matter for further expert assessment as to why M has done this, but I would put on record that this is, in my view, an extreme reaction and suspicion on the part of a child’s mother.  I am not clear from the evidence so far before me whether M does in fact believe that A and B have been sexually abused and have sexually abused each other.  The situation is complicated by her having made up allegations to frustrate B’s relationship with F2, as I have found.  It also links to what M herself told me about the different ways in which she views A and B, as Ms Wilkins for the Guardian highlighted in closing.  A was described by her as defiant and difficult and B as easy going and not a problem.  It is striking that on her own case M seems to have very easily thought the worst of A in relation to A’s alleged sexual abuse of B.  She also, on her own account, left the children on their own for prolonged periods even after she says that she first formed the view that A was sexually abusing B.  Why she would, as I have found, make up what she says A and B said to her about admitting the sexual abuse, is simply unclear to me at present and any further consideration of this aspect of the case would be leading me to inappropriate speculation.  It is also striking that M does clearly love her children and there is a clear bond between the two children, despite what M has put them through (E6 para 13 Guardian’s initial analysis and recommendations). R, in particular, shows emotional warmth towards his mother in contact and this is reciprocated from M (Contact notes CNR1-61).  They are also polite, well-mannered children who “have also clearly benefitted from some positive parenting as the Guardian noted in her initial analysis and recommendations (E5 para 11).  It is therefore even more puzzling as to why their mother should have behaved towards them in the way in which I have found that she has and in so doing should have caused them such significant physical and emotional harm.

 

I have before me an application by the Guardian in accordance with Part 25 of the FPR for there to be a psychiatric assessment of M.  This application is unopposed by any party.  In light of the findings I have made and the concerns about M’s motivation that I have noted above, I find that this is a necessary assessment to justly determine the remaining issues in the case which will relate to welfare disposal.  In addition, concerns about M’s mental health have been previously raised by the police and other professionals dealing with her, although there is no indication that any mental health difficulties were identified.  In terms of the draft questions for the proposed psychiatrist, these also need to specifically refer to the findings that I have made in this judgment and need to include comment by the expert on M’s acceptance and insight into those findings, I think.  The outcome of that assessment will then inform the other evidence that will need to be filed for the final stage of these proceedings which is timetabled to take place before me over three days commencing 17 ^th June 2019.

 

 

15 ^th February 2019