H (Children), Re

Lord Justice Wall:

This is an application by Ms F and Mr H for permission to appeal against an order made by HHJ O’Malley sitting in the Taunton County Court on 16 July this year.

The background to the case is that the judge on that occasion was concerned with two boys, who are the children of the parents: B, born on 25 February 2005; and R, born on 3 April 2006. Both parents have a long history of drug addiction. The consequence was that, simply concentrating for the moment on these two children, there were the care proceedings taken by the local authority in December 2007, care orders made by a circuit judge in November 2008 after a four day hearing, and placement orders also made. None of those orders was appealed and therefore it follows that we must start in this court from the proposition that care orders and placement orders in relation to the two boys were properly made. That is not something which is accepted by either of the parents but it is the premise upon which we have to start.

What is striking about the case is that both parents have made very strenuous efforts to kick the habit of their serious drug addiction. They may not have a full appreciation of the circumstances in which they placed their older children, the two boys in particular, by their abuse of drugs, but that is neither here nor there; they are doing their best to kick the habit. As I understand it Ms F is still on methadone although she has stopped taking heroin.

So what they did was to apply to the judge to revoke the placement orders in relation to the two boys. I should say that in the meantime they have had a little girl and her case comes before the Justices sitting in the area in December of this year. I shall return to her at the end of this judgment. At the moment I am concentrating on the two boys.

They applied to revoke the placement orders on the basis that they were effectively now drug free, that they had got their lives together, that they had never neglected the boys in the first place, the boys wanted to return to them, they were still having contact with them, they were the boys’ parents and therefore the boys should return to live with them.

That application was duly issued by the parents, who at the time were represented by solicitors and counsel, and it came before the judge on 7 July with what is agreed to be a listing of half an hour. It was plainly a directions appointment, and counsel acting for the parents unsurprisingly had come to the court to