Care Order - application by the Minister for an interim care order.
Before : |
J. A. Clyde-Smith, Esq., Commissioner, and Jurats Le Cornu and Morgan. |
Between |
The Minister for Health and Social Services |
Applicant |
And |
A |
Respondent |
IN THE MATTER OF K (CARE ORDER)
AND IN THE MATTER OF THE CHILDREN (JERSEY) LAW 2002.
Advocate S. L. Brace for the Applicant.
Advocate P. G. Nicholls for the Respondent.
judgment
the commissioner:
1. On 16th July, 2013, the Court granted the Minister an interim care order in respect of K ("the child") who was aged two. The application was wholly opposed by the respondent ("the mother") and we therefore set out our reasons.
2. The Court heard evidence from Mrs Jane Ferguson of JFCAS (no guardian having at that stage been nominated) and Mrs Jayne Isaacs, the social worker. The mother did not give evidence or call any evidence on her behalf.
3. The case for the Minister, which we summarise below, was contained in Mrs Isaacs' statement of 10th July, 2013.
4. The mother first became known to the Children's Service in 2004, when she was fourteen and when her mother (who we will refer to as "the grandmother") was concerned about her cannabis use and challenging behaviour. In 2005, she was placed at B Children's Home when her parents admitted they could not manage her behaviour or drug use. Later that year, the mother took an overdose of medication and was admitted to C for her own safety.
5. The mother became involved with the Alcohol and Drug Service from her early teens. She started taking heroin when she was sixteen and has remained drug dependent ever since. At the age of sixteen, she served an 18 month custodial sentence for the importation and possession of a Class A drug. The mother has tested positive for opiates in March 2012, June 2012, December 2012, January 2013 and May 2013, despite denials that she had been using opiates.
6. The child was born in October 2010, and the father has played no part in his life. The mother has no other children. The child lived with the mother from his birth, with intermittent periods in the care of the grandmother and her husband ("the mother's adoptive father").
7. In July 2010, the Children's Service received the first referral in relation to the child, because of the mother's relationship with an individual named D, known to be listed on the Sex Offenders' Register in the UK. He served a 4 year custodial sentence in 2003 for an indecent assault on a female, burglary and actual bodily harm.
8. Between July 2010 and the date of the application, the Children's Service had received six reports from the police, raising concerns for the child's welfare as a result of domestic abuse incidents involving a number of men. There were also intelligence reports to suggest that the mother was involved in the commercial sale of illegal drugs.
9. Since 2010 the Children's Service have been concerned with the mother's mental health, her repeated threats to harm herself, her actual attempts to harm herself, her dysregulated moods and subsequent erratic and aggressive behaviours, her capacity to cope with her emotions and her unpredictable responses to situations. She is considered by the Mental Health Team to have a working diagnosis of borderline personality disorder as well as dysthymia, which is a mood disorder.
10. On 25th February, 2012, the hospital advised the Children's Service that the mother had been admitted to Accident and Emergency following an overdose of an unknown quantity of paracetemol, temazepam, subutex and alcohol. The mother had made arrangements for the child to be looked after by a friend prior to this overdose and he was subsequently placed with the grandmother.
11. On 20th April, 2012, D was arrested and charged following a significant assault on another person and was remanded in custody, subsequently serving a custodial sentence. The child's name was placed on the Child Protection Register on 30th April, 2012, under the category of neglect and with the child protection plan recommending that there be no contact between the child and D under any circumstances as a result of potential risks he posed to the child.
12. On 16th May, 2012, the prison advised that the mother had attempted to visit D with the child against the recommendations of the Children's Service. In June 2012, the prison advised that the mother had continued to visit D, despite her informing the agencies that she was no longer visiting. At this time a telephone conversation at the prison between the mother and D revealed a plan for D to obtain a residence for the mother and the child in the UK.
13. In the period February 2012 to date, the mother has taken an overdose on one known occasion, has been suspected of taking an overdose on two occasions and has made five known threats to kill herself.
14. During the course of 2012, the mother received intensive support from the Children's Service via a family support worker to aid her parenting skills but it was clear she was increasingly struggling to manage the child's more challenging behaviours.
15. The mother continued to struggle in her care of the child who was increasingly looked after by the grandmother. On 20th December, 2012, she was arrested for allegedly driving her car with the child in the front seat without the safety of a car seat, an allegation which she denied and there have been no charges.
16. On 28th March, 2013, the mother was considered by the grandmother to have been "incoherent on the phone" saying that she had "passed out" earlier in the evening whilst caring for the child. She advised the grandmother that the child had "put himself to bed". The mother agreed for the child to be placed in the care of the grandmother, where he has remained.
17. On 1st May, 2013, the grandmother advised the Children's Service that the mother had informed her that she had injected anti-freeze into her groin. On the 5th June, 2013, the mother admitted having purchased and injected five bags of heroin, which she stated later was a suicide attempt.
18. Mental Health Services and the Alcohol and Drug Service have worked closely to support the mother, instigating a "wellbeing programme" comprising of twice weekly sessions, but to date, the mother displays poor commitment and consistency to engage with this.
19. A core assessment was completed on 6th June, 2013, and it recommended that the child should remain with the grandmother, with regular and "safe" contact with the mother, backed by a residence order in favour of the grandmother.
20. The relationship between the grandmother and the mother has been challenging in the past. The grandmother is committed to the child, but the mother is also her daughter, giving rise to a difficult conflict of needs. The grandmother felt that it would be difficult for her to manage contact through a residence order and was reluctant to apply for one, preferring the contact arrangements to be managed by the Children's Service through an interim care order, which we were told she supported.
21. Mr Nicholls cross-examined Mrs Isaac vigorously. The central thrust of his cross-examination was that this application had been triggered solely by an imminent three week holiday the grandmother was about to take with her husband and which had apparently been long since booked, during which they had arranged for the child to be looked after in their home by his nursery teacher, who knew him well and who would maintain his routine; arrangements which the Children's Service had approved. Risks to the child, he said, had apparently been identified some months ago but there had been a paucity of action. In reality, the mother was perfectly capable of looking after the child during this three week period. The mother and the grandmother were working voluntarily together to parent the child and there was no need for the Minister to intervene.
22. Mrs Isaacs accepted that the holiday had caused the application to be expedited but it was in the course of being made in any event. We will not set out here all of the matters raised in cross-examination. The mother will apparently deny taking a heroin overdose on 5th June, 2013, (even though needles were said to be evident in her arms) and Mr Nicholls suggested that if she had actually injected anti-freeze, she would not have survived. In general terms, Mrs Isaacs maintained her assessment of the risks to the child if parented by the mother, which were in summary:-
(i) The risk of neglect and unpredictable care as a result of the mother's substance abuse and her mental health difficulties.
(ii) The risk of emotional harm as a result of inconsistencies in his routine and lack of age appropriate boundaries when in the care of the mother.
(iii) The risk of emotional harm as a result of the perceived risky male partners and friends of the mother that he comes into contact with (i.e. who have visited, stayed overnight or been resident in his home).
23. The Court should only make an interim care order if it is satisfied on the balance of probabilities that there are reasonable grounds for believing that the circumstances of the child are as mentioned in Article 24(2) of the Children (Jersey) Law 2002, which is in the following terms;-
"(a) that the child concerned is suffering, or is likely to suffer, significant harm; and
(b) that the harm, or likelihood of harm, is attributable to -
(i) the care given to the child, or likely to be given to the child if the order were not made, not being what it would be reasonable to expect a parent to give the child, or
(ii) the child's being beyond parental control."
For the purpose of that Article:-
""harm" means ill-treatment or the impairment of health or development;
"development" means physical, intellectual, emotional, social or behavioural development;
"health" means physical or mental health; and
"ill-treatment" includes sexual abuse and forms of ill-treatment which are not physical."
24. In order for the statutory threshold criteria to be satisfied, the harm which is either being suffered, or is likely to be suffered, must be "significant harm" and that is a matter for the Court to determine on the balance of probabilities.
25. Mr Nicholls submitted, using the language of a criminal trial, that the mother had no case to answer. She profoundly disagreed with the Minister's intervention, which was based in the main, he said, on historical evidence. The mother was quite capable of looking after the child during this three week period and should only be prevented from doing so if there were clearly visible risks. An interim care order was not, he said, the solution to the problem.
26. The Court's disagreement with the position of the mother was as profound as the mother's disagreement with the intervention of the Minister. We accepted that in view of the child's age there was insufficient evidence (as yet) of actual harm, but the risk of future harm was as clear as it could be.
27. The evidence was not historic. The mother had tested positive for opiates as recently as May 2013 and there was evidence of an overdose as recently as 5th June, 2013. The mother had, by handing over care of the child to the grandmother in March 2013, acknowledged her inability to parent.
28. So often the Court is faced with mothers who have no family support, but thankfully here, the grandmother and her husband have been there to step in and care for the child whilst at the same time maintaining the child's relationship with the mother through contact. Mr Nicholls represented the Children's Service as interfering with a working arrangement between the grandmother and the mother to parent the child, but it was significant that in fact, the grandmother supported the Minister's application and had made arrangements for the child to be looked after in her own home, because she clearly did not agree that the mother could safely parent him.
29. We entirely sympathised with the predicament the grandmother faced in both looking after the child and at the same time trying to maintain her relationship with her own daughter. We fully understood why she felt she needed the backing of the Children's Service over the management of contact through an interim care order, which would give the Minister parental responsibility.
30. We approved the care plan and the contact arrangements. Having applied the welfare checklist and given consideration to the no order principle, we made an interim care order and gave directions for a number of assessments to be carried out including a psychiatric assessment of the mother.
Authorities
Children (Jersey) Law 2002.