H-W (Child), Re

Judgment Approved by the court for handing down (subject to editorial corrections)

Lady Justice Black:

W is now 9 years old, There has been litigation about him between his parents almost continuously since he was under one year old, both at first instance and on appeal. I refer to him in this judgment as “W” because that is how he was referred to in the judgments given on a previous appeal to this court concerning him in March 2015.

The issue that has proved so intractable is W’s contact with his father. The latest in a long line of orders about this was made by Her Honour Judge Newton on 17 May 2016. She dismissed the father’s application for direct contact with W, provided for indirect contact between W and the father in the form of letters, cards and small presents, and made a family assistance order under section 16 of the Children Act 1989 requiring CAFCASS to make an officer available to advise, assist and befriend W and his parents. It is against that order that the father appealed to this court.

It will be noted that in this judgment I use the old term “contact”, rather than the more proper, new terminology. I do so partly because the history with which I am concerned goes back to before the new terminology was introduced and also because it will serve as a convenient shorthand, enabling me to explain the issues more simply than might otherwise be possible in all the circumstances of this case.

I do not propose to rehearse the entire litigation history in this judgment and will give only sufficient outline to enable me to explain the father’s challenge to Judge Newton’s order and how I would determine it. However, I cannot avoid referring to earlier judgments in the case because, in a matter such as this, each new decision about the welfare of the child is taken against the background of the decisions taken earlier in the litigation process, and Judge Newton expressly said that her judgment of May 2016 should be read alongside the earlier judgments.

W’s mother and father began their relationship in May 2005. It was relatively short-lived. They finally broke up in around October 2007, W having been born in the July of that year. The mother has two older children, both girls, by other fathers. After the parents’ separation, W continued to live with the mother and his half-sisters. In February 2008, the father issued an application for contact with him and, in April 2008, contact started at a Sure Start Centre. Between then and 2011, for the mo