K (Children), Re

Lord Justice Thorpe:

Public law proceedings in relation to three children have been ongoing for some time in the Swansea District Registry of the Family Division under the management of Wood J, the liaison judge for the Wales and Chester circuit. The judge is immediately concerned with three children, two girls, nine and four, and a little boy, IB, born on 19 September 2007. The proceedings arise out of serious injuries to IB and fatal injuries to a sibling, which were the subject of a fact-finding judgment by Wood J in the autumn of 2008.

There was to be a final hearing in February and at that stage there seemed to be a likelihood that one or more of the children would proceed out of the family into adoption. The adoption panel had considered and progressed that option. However, the expert in the case, Dr Holt , had seen the possibility of rehabilitating IB, the two girls having seemingly been well parented during the years preceding the non-accidental injury, the physical abuse found by the judge in his previous judgment.

So at the pre-trial review the judge asked the local authority to formulate alternative plans: plan A, which would be signposted “Adoption”; plan B signposted “Rehabilitation”. The local authority complied and those alternatives were before the judge at the February fixture. However, the matter could not be concluded because the administrative consideration of the panel had preceded the emergence of rehabilitation as a possibility for IB, a possibility that had expert support. So it was agreed that the papers would have to be returned to the panel to see whether they held to their previous decision despite the emergence of fresh evidence.

The case was refixed for June, and it is that hearing in June 2009 which is the subject of our review today. The order that emerged from that hearing is expressed in ten paragraphs, the first of which is of considerable significance because it reads thus:

“the final hearing in this matter be adjourned to be heard on 13 October at Cardiff, time estimate 5 days, reserved to Wood J.”

So the principal outcome of the June hearing was to set the whole thing over once again for a span of months with an interim that was to be covered by interim care orders of all three children, some provision for an assessment of the mother’s mental health, and provisions in paragraphs 5 and 7 for professional work in the interim to which I will return in greater detail.

The judge had received some final written submis