H (Care Proceedings: Risk Assessment), Re

LORD JUSTICE BAKER :

This appeal is brought by a local authority against the refusal by a judge to make a care order in respect of a girl, H, now aged rising 2.

H is the mother’s fifth child. In the course of proceedings between 2014 and 2015, her four older children were all made subject to care and placement orders and subsequently adopted. The principal reason for their removal was the mother’s repeated failure to protect the children from exposure to emotional harm arising from her relationships with abusive partners.

Between 2020 and 2021, the mother was involved in a relationship with another man, E, described by the local authority as dangerous. In 2022, the mother started a relationship with the father and became pregnant again. That relationship was also characterised by domestic abuse. In April 2023, when she was about six months pregnant, she was assaulted by the father after meeting E following his release from prison. A few days later, the father assaulted the mother again in her home. A child and family assessment completed in respect of the unborn child found that the mother “shows little insight into domestic abuse despite completing the Freedom Project”.

In July 2023, the mother gave birth to H. On the following day, the local authority filed an application for a care order. On discharge from hospital, H was placed in foster care under an interim care order. At a case management hearing, the court approved a residential assessment of mother and baby. Later that month, the mother was assaulted again by the father, as a result of which she was treated in hospital.

On 31 July 2023, the mother and H moved into the residential unit. The initial report from the unit was positive, although in an addendum report concern was expressed about the mother’s capacity to remain separated from the father. Despite these concerns, the local authority filed a final care plan in November 2023 for H to remain in her mother’s care under a supervision order. Under the interim care order, the mother and H moved into a mother and baby foster placement prior to a planned move into the community.

In December 2023, the mother and H left the mother and baby foster placement and moved to what was intended to be a confidential address. But later that month, according to the chronology filed in these proceedings (but not mentioned by the judge in his judgment), the father met the mother on two occasions at a hotel, and on a separate occasion, unknown to the local a