L (A Child)

Judgment

Lord Justice Ward:

On 15 June 2009, sitting in Plymouth, Coleridge J began his judgment, saying “In many respects this is a truly mysterious case.” I agree.

The case concerns two children from the Ivory Coast. D is a girl aged 13 and G is a boy said to have been nine in July of this year. The children were brought from the Ivory Coast to this country to join their parents, both themselves from the Ivory Coast, some time in July of 2007. By that time the father, who apparently also has German nationality, had been able to enter the United Kingdom and apparently is in employment here and consequently has a right of entry to this country. The children duly joined them. The cause for their coming here appears to be -- all of this is part of the mystery -- that they were very unhappily placed at that time with the father’s brother. The case began in January of 2008 with references to the children’s hospital when the girl, D, had a hand injury, but the culminating event occurred apparently in February 2008 when G was treated at the hospital for serious lacerations to the skull. How they were caused is as yet unknown. It may be that the wounds were self-inflicted. It may well be that they were caused by one or other of the parents and, astonishingly, it may be that they were caused by D.

The fact-finding enquiry to determine what has happened was due to be heard by Coleridge J later this year and, allowing for the difficulties of interpreting, nine days had been set aside to enquire into the injuries I have described and into other injuries suffered whilst the children and perhaps whilst the family were still in the Ivory Coast.

What is most unusual about the case is that an issue has arisen as to the true paternity of G. According to the father’s account he, on a visit to the Ivory Coast or a time when he was in the Ivory Coast at least, had sexual intercourse with G’s mother. She told him that the child she bore was his and he has accepted that fact. For one reason or another, however, doubts have arisen as to G’s true paternity and, as a result of those doubts, HHJ Rutherford, who at that time was managing this case, ordered that it would be in G’s best interest for paternity to be determined and, to that end, for bodily samples to be taken both from G and from the father, those samples, as I understand it, to be mouth swabs and the collection of saliva accordingly. An order was made to that effect but its implementation is frustrated, though law