A Local Authority v K & Ors, Court of Appeal - Family Division, March 08, 2005, [2005] Fam Law 450,[2005] 1 FLR 851,[2005] EWHC 144 (Fam)

Reporting Judge: [2005] Fam Law 450,[2005] 1 FLR 851,[2005] EWHC 144 (Fam)

President: A Local Authority v K & Ors

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A Local Authority v K & Ors, Court of Appeal - Family Division, March 08, 2005, [2005] Fam Law 450,[2005] 1 FLR 851,[2005] EWHC 144 (Fam)

Case No: HBO4C00060

Neutral Citation Number: [2005] EWHC 144 (Fam)

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE

FAMILY DIVISION

Royal Courts of Justice

Strand, London, WC2A 2LL

Date: 08/03/2005

Before :

THE HONOURABLE Mr JUSTICE CHARLES

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Between :

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Mary Lazarus (instructed by a local authority) for the Applicant

Miss A Ball QC and Miss A Le Prevost (instructed by Goodall Barnett James) for the First Respondent

Miss R Brown (instructed by Holden & Co) for the Second Respondent

Mr S Cobb QC (instructed by Stephen Rimmer & Co) for the Third Respondent

Hearing dates: 22 / 26 and 29 November to 3 December 2004 and 24 / 28 January 2005

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Judgment

The judgment is being distributed on the strict understanding 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 or location and that in particular the anonymity of the children and the adult members of their family must be strictly preserved.

Charles J:

Introduction

1. The child who is the subject of these proceedings is a young girl (the subject child). She is now three. She is the daughter of the first and second respondents (the mother and the father) who are not married.

2. The proceedings are brought under Part IV Children Act 1989. This is a fact finding hearing.

3. The parents had two other children. The youngest H died on 27 August 2003 at the age of seven months. The oldest L died on 2 February 2004 at the age of three years and nine months. In the periods immediately leading up to their deaths these two children were in the sole care of their mother. This is common ground and the father's absence from the house on each occasion is established clearly by independent third parties.

4. The essential issues before me relate the cause of L's death. I have heard no detailed evidence of the events leading up to, surrounding and after H's death and in my view correctly it was common ground that I am not in a position to make any finding as to its cause.

5. The overarching threshold finding sought by the local authority is that on the relevant date (2 February 2004) the subject child was at risk of suffering significant harm from her mother and continues to be at risk of suffering such harm if returned to the day-to-day care of her parents, due to the care given to her not being what it is reasonable to expect from a parent.

6. This is based on the submission that I should find that the mother caused the death of L.

A general background history

7. The father was born in 1957. He has two children from an earlier marriage who were born in 1989 and 1991. The father does not have contact with these children who live with their mother.

8. The mother was born in 1978. She has a sister and a brother who are in their early twenties. Her parents separated when she was about 15 and at that time she wanted a fresh start away from her mother and went to stay with an aunt in Sheffield. She says that she became epileptic at about this time and was advised by her doctor to return to London for treatment. She returned in around 1996 and lived in hostels.

9. The parents met in 1999 on the father's birthday. At that time they were both studying information technology. The mother says that she felt an instant attraction to the father who had overheard her talking about her problems to a fellow student and had offered her support and invited her to drop by for coffee. She took him up on the offer and, as she told a social worker, "never left''.

10. The mother became pregnant with L shortly after the parents met and at around this time they obtained a flat together. They lived together from that time in 1999. The parents individually and together describe their relationship as a happy one.

11. L was born on 16 May 2000, the subject child was born on 3 September 2001 and H was born on 21 January 2003. The father was present at the birth of all three children and he had attended the antenatal appointments. L was an unplanned child but both parents say that they were happy when they discovered that the mother was pregnant with L. The other two children were planned.

12. Shortly after L's birth the father began working but that job only lasted about two months. He was unemployed until February 2002 when he obtained employment for about six months which involved shiftwork and some weekend work. That employment ended after about six months. The father attended a job club twice a week from 4 August to 25 September 2003. So the father was employed for two months when L was a small baby and for about six months in 2002 when L was 2 and the subject child was under one. He attended the job club in the weeks shortly before the death of H. Apart from those periods of employment and attendance at the job club the father was at home and helped the mother look after the children. The parents shared the care o...

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