Care proceedings - application by the child for a contact order with her father.
Before : |
Sir Michael Birt, Commissioner, and Jurats Nicolle and Le Cornu |
Between |
The Minister for Health and Social Services |
Applicant |
And |
A (the mother) |
First Respondent |
And |
B (the father) |
Second Respondent |
And |
April (acting through her Guardian) |
Third Respondent |
And |
Taylor (the brother, acting through his Guardian) |
Fourth Respondent |
IN THE MATTER OF APRIL (CONTACT ORDER)
AND IN THE MATTER OF THE CHILDREN (JERSEY) LAW 2002
Advocate C. R. G. Davies for the Minister.
The First and Second Respondents appeared in person.
Advocate V. Myerson for the Third Respondent.
Advocate H. J. Heath for the Fourth Respondent.
Ms Elsa Fernandes (the guardian) appeared in person.
judgment
the commissioner:
1. This is an application by April (not her real name) acting through her guardian for an order for contact with her father, the Second Respondent ("the father").
2. April is just over 17 years old. The Fourth Respondent ("the brother") is her brother Taylor (not his real name) and is aged 14. They are both the children of the father and the First Respondent ("the mother").
3. In November 2011, the father was sentenced to a total of 5 years' imprisonment for eight counts of indecent assault and four counts of procuring an act of gross indecency on a boy who was between the age of 12 and 15 during the period of offending. He was also sentenced to 2 years' imprisonment, consecutive for 12 counts of making indecent photographs of children contrary to the Protection of Children (Jersey) Law 1994. The father befriended the victim who was a particularly vulnerable child and ingratiated himself by buying sweets and expensive gifts for the boy. During his period of imprisonment, the father did not engage with any sex offender treatment and continued to deny his offending. He is subject to a restraining order under Article 10(4) of the 1994 Law which prohibits him from being alone with any person under the age of 16.
4. April and the brother have lived with the mother throughout their lives. The father was released from prison in November 2014 but he lives separately from the mother and her children. The Minister was concerned that, upon the father's release, the mother would not be able to protect the children from the risk of harm as she was in denial over the father's offending. Accordingly, the Minister applied for a care order. An interim care order was granted by the Royal Court on 3rd December, 2014.
5. Subsequently Dr Dawn Bailham was appointed to carry out psychological assessments. Her report is dated 7th April, 2015, with an addendum dated 9th May, 2015. She concluded in her report that the father presented some degree of sexual risk to April and a high sexual risk to the brother. There was a risk of sexual harm to April from the men with whom the father associates. He also presented a high sexual risk to other children and young people, both male and female. She recommended that contact between April and the father should be supervised. She further recommended that concentrated therapeutic work should be undertaken with the children and the mother with a view to assisting them all to keep the children safe. Some work to this effect has already been undertaken through the Children's Service but it is felt that more concentrated work, which would be undertaken in greater depth, is necessary. This work would build on what has been done so far.
6. Following the interim care order, the father had contact with the children which was supervised by the Children's Service and took place at Le Bas Centre. The recommendation of Dr Bailham in her addendum report was for contact to take place in the community, albeit supervised.
7. As already mentioned, contact took place between the father and his children as planned up until 13th April. On 14th April the father sent a text message to his children informing them that he was leaving Jersey. The next day he informed the Children's Service that he did not want any more contact with his children and requested that all future planned contact sessions be cancelled because of his departure. Subsequently, on 27th April, he changed his mind and decided he would now stay in Jersey. This was an upsetting experience for both children. On 15th May, April said that she would not be attending any more supervised contact sessions because the sessions felt "fake" because it was artificial simply to meet at the Le Bas Centre. She wanted to develop a natural relationship with the father by having contact with him in the community. Recently, April has, with the agreement of the Children's Service, had supervised contact with the father on two occasions in the community.
8. There was some delay in the selection of the experts to undertake the therapeutic work recommended by Dr Bailham. Following receipt of the addendum report on 11th May the Children's Service made enquiries but were having difficulty in identifying someone suitably qualified to provide the required therapeutic work. Having been notified of this on 14th May, the guardian immediately sent the CV's of two people who might be able to undertake the relevant work; one of these was Mr Rob Tucker. The Children's Service tried to telephone Mr Tucker on 17th May but without success. They then appear to have become side-tracked by attempts to find an appropriate expert through the NSPCC, but this was ultimately unsuccessful and they contacted Mr Tucker by email on 2nd June. He responded on 4th June and since then arrangements have been made for him and a colleague Jo Siegert to come to Jersey to undertake the necessary work. The first session with the mother took place on 21st July and the first session with April is planned for tomorrow 28th July. The work will take about eight weeks and thereafter there will need to be a report. This should be available by the end of September.
9. We should add that on 11th March, 2015, the interim care order was discharged in the light of April's age and was replaced with an interim supervision order. That remains in force.
10. It is clear from the reports that April wishes to develop a relationship with her father (he has of course been absent for much of her life both before and during his prison sentence); she feels this extremely strongly. She is now over 17 years of age and feels that she would be able safely to have unsupervised contact with the father. She found the contact (1½ hour a week) at Le Bas Centre extremely frustrating and artificial. It was not a natural situation, particularly with the supervising officer sitting in the corner taking notes of what was said. She believes that the relationship can only develop properly by ordinary natural contact in the community. She feels that she has complied fully with all that has been asked of her in terms of therapeutic work and she remains willing to undertake the further therapeutic work recommend by Dr Bailham. However she feels that the goalposts have been moved in that she is still being told that she cannot have unsupervised contact. She also feels the Children's Service have been slow to agree to contact in the community and only appear to have done so after there were a couple of unauthorised unsupervised contact between her and the father. She is further frustrated that things have moved too slowly. The guardian suggested Mr Tucker's name on 14th May but this was not taken up by the Children's Service for some time. In summary, she asks for unsupervised contact on the basis that (i) this will allow a natural relationship to develop, (ii) she has undertaken the keep safe work required of her so far, (iii) she agrees to undertake the further work and (iv) she feels that she is being discriminated against because, under the terms of the restraint order, the father can have contact with anyone over the age of 16, with the only exception being her because of the terms of contact imposed by the Children's Service.
11. The Minister, on the other hand, emphasised her overriding duty to keep April and any of her young friends safe and, in the absence of the further therapeutic work and a report from Rob Tucker, this could not be achieved by agreeing to unsupervised contact. The Minister was content to agree to a further hearing shortly after receipt of the report from Mr Tucker and his colleague but until then the contact needed to be supervised, albeit that it could take place in the community.
12. The guardian supports the need for contact to be in the community but agrees with the Minister that it would be an unacceptable risk to allow unsupervised contact pending completion of the therapeutic work and receipt of Mr Tucker's report.
13. The Court understands April's desire to establish a relationship with her father and for this to happen in a natural manner. We can fully understand the frustrations of contact in a room at the Le Bas Centre. We are pleased that the Minister has agreed now to contact taking place in the community.
14. Nevertheless, in the light of the report from Dr Bailham, we agree with the Minister and the guardian that it would not be appropriate at this stage to allow unsupervised contact. The evidence from Dr Bailham is clear, namely that the father poses a serious risk to young people and we agree that it be unwise to allow unsupervised contact prior to the necessary therapeutic work being undertaken, notwithstanding the extremely responsible and co-operative approach which April has shown in this respect.
15. However, we think that there are grounds for criticism of the delay in appointing Mr Tucker and in the slowness of the Children's Service to agree to contact in the community. They should, in our judgment, have been proactive in seeking to meet April's desire to develop a relationship with the father subject to considerations of safety and it must have been obvious that contact in the confined environments of Le Bas Centre was not a satisfactory method of achieving this. This is all the more so in the light of the co-operative approach which April has shown.
16. The existing contract is for one and a half hours once a week and this involves contact with both April and her brother. April has explained that she would like there to be two occasions a week so that on some occasions contact could be solely with her or solely with the brother with a view to aiding the development of the relationship with their father. The Minister did not feel able to agree this as a commitment because of uncertainty as to the impact this might have on other demands upon the Service.
17. Having considered the submissions made to us our decision is as follows:-
(i) April and her father shall be allowed direct contact out in the community involving age appropriate activities supervised by an appropriate member of the Children's Service or other authorised professional and such contact shall take place for a minimum of once a week for two hours. It would be for April to contact the Children's Service to make the necessary arrangements. In the event that April requests that such contact with her father takes place more frequently and/or for a longer period of time, we direct that the Children's Service shall use its best endeavours to accede to such reasonable requests given the importance for April's welfare of developing a natural relationship with her father. For the reasons put forward by Advocate Davies on behalf of the Minister, we accept that it would be wrong for this Court to direct that the Children's Service must agree to more frequent or longer contact because we cannot be aware of any knock-on effect on other important work undertaken by the Children's Service; but we intend by this decision to emphasise to the Service our view of the importance for April of seeking, as far as possible, to accommodate her reasonable requests for greater contact.
(ii) We also direct that the parties attend to fix a date for a further hearing in relation to contact, such hearing to take place as soon as practicable after receipt of the report from Mr Tucker at the end of September. This will allow the issue of contact to be addressed in the light of how the therapeutic work has gone. The Court will also have to bear in mind that at that stage April will only be some six months short of her 18th birthday and thereafter she will be free to do as she wishes. The main final hearing is now fixed for early December.
18. In concluding, we commend April for the mature and responsible attitude which she has shown in cooperating with the Children's Service even where she has not agreed with their decisions. We urge her to continue to work with them as, although she no doubt finds it frustrating at times, they have her best interests at heart. As already stated, the nature and level of contact can be reviewed in the light of Mr Tucker's report following the therapeutic work to be undertaken over the next couple of months.
Authorities
Protection of Children (Jersey) Law 1994