B & H (Children), Re

Lord Justice Lloyd:

This is an application to appeal on behalf of Mrs Lynda Barnes arising out of public law family proceedings in which the relevant local authority is Bath and North East Somerset District Council. The children are referred to by initials B and H, and their various parents were also directly involved, and also one or more of the grandparents. It was heard by HHJ Barclay in Bristol. It had started in the Bristol County Court but had been transferred to the High Court. It was already a long, protracted and difficult proceeding, but it became dramatically more complicated and difficult when allegations were made about Mrs Barnes, who was the team manager for the relevant social workers of the local authority. Allegations were made against her by one of her subordinates, Ms Ohlsen, who was for part of the relevant period the social worker with direct responsibility in charge of the case. The judge, at paragraph 62 of his judgment, having explained who Ms Ohlsen was, said that in the course of her evidence she made a large number of allegations of a serious nature in respect of Mrs Barnes’ working practices and management style. Then at paragraph 63 the judge went on to refer to what he called the most remarkable development in the case which, as he said, tended at times inevitably to distract the court from the children to the adults involved.

I do not need for present purposes to go into the detail of what emerged, but as the judge later said at paragraph 66, it did have a most unfortunate and destabilising effect on the court process for a number of different reasons. It had the result, first of all, that almost all parties brought in leading counsel, and secondly that the judge directed that Ms Ohlsen and Mrs Barnes should be treated as interveners. The judge allowed them to be represented and they were represented at the expense of the local authority, their employer. The judge identified what he called a discrete issue, which was essentially the issue as to which of Mrs Barnes and Ms Ohlsen should be believed in relation to the allegations made by Ms Ohlsen against Mrs Barnes. The judge had to resolve that, not for its own sake, but in order that he could approach the issues under the Children Act on a proper factual basis.

On Friday 12 December 2008 the judge handed down a long and full judgment in the course of which he made findings of fact on what he calls the discrete issue which were for the most part adverse to Mrs Barnes. On t