Jersey Unreported Judgments

2002/106

ROYAL COURT

(Family Division)

27^th May 2002 

IN THE MATTER OF the Adoption (Jersey) Law, 1961

Application to adopt an infant Child, JAF, by the

natural father (Mr. B).

Natural mother (Ms.F) at first opposed application and then signified consent in principle, through her Advocate, with conditions attaching, but did not appear at the hearing.

Advocate D. Gilbert for Mr B.

Advocate F.J. Benest for Ms. F (in default of appearance).

judgment.

the DEPUTY bailiff:

1.        This is an application by Mr B to adopt JAF who was born in 1997, and is therefore 4. 

2.        The background is as follows.  J is the child of Mr B, to whom we shall refer as the father, and of Ms F, the mother.  He was born after a six month relationship between the mother and the father had ended.  For the first 18 months of his life J lived with his mother and his maternal great-grandmother, Mrs OM.  The relationship between the mother and her grandmother was volatile.  The mother was working and Mrs OM, on whom the burden of looking after J substantially fell, was not in the best of health.  She was supported by the Psychiatric Services and the Children's Service was regularly involved. 

3.        In the summer of 1999, it became clear that Mrs OM's health precluded her from offering a long term option for looking after J.  The mother felt unable to cope with the care of her son, and in August, 1999, she told the Children's Service that she wished to place J for adoption.  She signed a provisional consent form on the 14th October, 1999.

4.        By then J was in voluntary foster care.  An approach was made by the father and his partner ES.  They offered a home to J, with the intention of subsequently adopting him.  A case conference was held in November, 1999, at which the relevant authorities considered the matter and it was agreed that this would be the best way of proceeding.  At that time the mother agreed with this course of action.  Shortly afterwards, J moved to his father and Ms S, and he has lived with them since then. 

5.        Access took place between the great-grandmother and J, but for 9 months no request for access was made by the mother.  Eventually supervised access was arranged for the 28^th November, 2000, but this was cancelled by the mother that day.  There was no further request for access from the mother until February, 2001, when supervised access was arranged on 28^th February, and again on the 14^th March.  Thereafter, there was a resumption of access, approximately once a month.

6.        On a date which is unclear from the papers - one refers to June and the other refers to August - the mother failed to return J and kept him overnight without informing the father.  This clearly caused considerable upset with the police being informed and it broke the father's trust in the access arrangements.  Accordingly there has been no further access since then.

7.        J lives with the father, Ms S, and their 2 children, D aged 7 and A aged 18 months.  We have received detailed reports from the Children's Office and from the Probation Service who have been appointed as the guardian ad litem for J.  Both reports make it clear that J is being brought up in a loving and supportive family and they are strongly in favour of the application by the father.

8.        Advocate Benest appears today on behalf of the mother.  Having taken instructions from the mother on Thursday, in conjunction with Mr Syvret, who has represented her throughout this matter, he was instructed to consent to today's adoption application on the basis that she would be permitted access after the order was made.  The plan is for an initial supervised access and then, if the Children's Officer agrees that it is in J's best interests, for staying access to take place; staying access would then occur monthly.

9.        However, today the mother has not appeared before the Court and we have no explanation for her absence.  She has not provided an unconditional consent in writing, and accordingly the conditions of Article 5(1)(a) of the Adoption (Jersey) Law, 1961 are not satisfied.  We therefore have to consider whether her consent may be dispensed with on any of the grounds specified in paragraph (2) of Article 5.

10.      Having read all the reports we are quite satisfied that it would be in the best interests of J to be adopted by his father.  It is clear that the father and his partner can provide a stable home with the half-siblings and that there are good relationships in that home.  The mother and the great-grandmother are simply not in a position to provide a home for J.

11.      Having considered the matter we have concluded that the withholding of formal written consent by the mother is unreasonable in this case.  She gave consent in principle in 1999.  She approved of the proposal that J go and live with his father later in 1999, and she gave instructions on Thursday to Advocate Benest to consent to the adoption, but she has not bothered to turn up today for this hearing.  She has had very limited access in recent months and indeed none since access ceased in the circumstances which we have described. 

12.      In our judgment it is perfectly right, and indeed it is necessary and in J's best interests that the father should have legal authority in relation to J in order that his up-bringing can be under the control of a parent.

13.      We are satisfied that J's best interests require this Adoption Order to be made, and we are furthermore satisfied that, in all the circumstances of the case, the withholding of her agreement by the mother is unreasonable.  We therefore dispense with her consent under paragraph (2)(b) of Article 5 of the Law.  We add that, in relation to the question of access, it would be desirable, in the particular circumstances of this case, for access to the mother to be continued, but that entails responsibilities. 

14.      It is clear that access has not taken place for a considerable period.  We, therefore, agree with the proposal that, before staying access can take place, there should be supervised access during the day.  The initial proposal is that one supervised access visit should take place.  Mr Trott on behalf of the guardian ad litem has expressed concern to us today that it may require one or two more occasions of day access before it would be right to allow overnight access in view of the lack of recent contact between the mother and J.  We note that point and we think that the Children's Office must consider carefully the time at which staying access will be right and in J's best interests, but we support the aim of making staying access the objective.  However, the mother must appreciate that access brings with it responsibilities, and if access arrangements are made, they must be adhered to.

15.      Subject to those observations we conclude that it is right to make this Adoption Order and we so order.

No Authorities