B (Children) , Re

Lord Justice Wall:

This is an application by the mother of twin boys for permission to appeal against an order made by Singer J sitting in this building on 7 August 2009. I saw the application on paper at the end of November, and I put it into the list for today with the following comment:

“Although we are dealing with the exercise of discretion by an extremely experienced judge of the Division it may be arguable that he was plainly wrong for the reasons which are well articulated in the grounds of appeal and skeleton argument.”

I confess I have not found this an easy application to deal with. Lurking beneath it is a point of law which time does not permit us to address.

The background I propose to state very shortly. The mother in question has a number of children, but her difficulty is that she has been found by a judge of the Division, the late Bracewell J, of having unlawfully killed two of them: S, who was born on 15 March 1998; and L, who was born on 11 February 2000. In proceedings relating to an older child, Bracewell J on 15 February 2002 found in terms that the mother had suffocated and smothered both children. Mother does not accept that she did this and has never accepted that she did it and believes herself to be innocent of the deaths of the two children. But clearly this very serious series of events which included an attempt, as the judge found, of a previous smothering, has led to extreme concern about the mother’s contact with her surviving children and leads to particular concern about her contact with the twins.

The matter is compounded by the fact that the mother travelled to the Isle of Man when she was in the latter stages of the pregnancy. For present purposes I am content to accept that she did not intend to give birth in the Isle of Man initially but the twins were born prematurely, and as it seems is the case no doubt this can be investigated further at trial. But it seems to be the case that the mother at that point gave a false name and sought to persuade the Manx authorities that she was not who she really was in the hope that she would be given an opportunity to look after the twins there. In the event the Manx Court, as I understand it, made interim care orders, the children were repatriated and are now the subject of care proceedings which are for issue resolution hearing this afternoon before Ryder J and for final hearing in April 2010. The question which comes to us in the interim is what contact if any the mother sh