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July 14, 2009
COURT OF APPEAL (CRIMINAL DIVISION)
United Kingdom
CORAM
Lord Justice Thorpe:
On 8 June 2009 HHJ Cleary sitting in the Coventry County Court refused to sanction an application by the local authority for the swift removal of four children from the home of their mother. The children are aged respectively five, two and twins of about 16 months.
The care proceedings had been initiated by the local authority on the grounds of chronic neglect. There had been a number of directions hearings with a view to a formal hearing on 27 July 2009. However, on 7 May a social worker visiting the mother and children in the home found a state of affairs that suggested that chronic neglect was deteriorating into something more serious, which, even in the short term, placed the children in jeopardy. Accordingly the local authority decided to seek the court’s leave to remove the four children into foster care pending the final hearing. There were immediate discussions as to whether further assessment necessarily preceded the fixture. In March there had been a suggestion that there should be a further psychological assessment of the mother but she at that time was resistant, and accordingly at the directions hearing HHJ Bellamy had decided not to direct such an assessment. But following the incident of 7 May it seems that the mother reconsidered her position and offered her assent provided that was a report also from an independent social worker. That led to the recognition that the commissioning of these further reports would necessitate the vacation of the fixture on 27 July. The case was then reprogrammed to a seven-day fixture which unfortunately the court could not accommodate before 10 February 2010.
So when the judge sat in early June he contemplated an eight month interim during which he had either to grant the application and break up the family or leave things as they were for the deployment of the full case on each side. The hearing before HHJ Cleary was spread over four days, although it is agreed that only nine hours of court time was devoted to this case during that period because of other listings. The local authority’s application was supported by the children’s guardian, but the judge indicated at the conclusion of submission that he was not minded to accede to the local authority’s application but felt that there should be a sharing of parental responsibility which could be achieved by the local authority’s amendment of the care plan to acknowledge that the children should remain in the family home but under the pr
AI Generated Summary
HHJ Cleary refused the local authority’s application to remove four children (aged five, two, and 16‑month‑old twins) from their mother’s care during pending care proceedings. A social worker’s 7 May 2009 visit revealed deterioration beyond chronic neglect and immediate jeopardy, prompting the authority to seek interim removal pending the final hearing. The mother later agreed to psychological and independent social work assessments, vacating the July fixture and reprogramming the case for February 2010, creating an eight‑month interim. HHJ Cleary kept the children at home under an interim care order, treating Ryder J’s Re L formulation (“imminent risk of really serious harm”) as raising the bar. On appeal, Thorpe LJ held the judge misdirected himself, reaffirming Court of Appeal authorities (Re H; K and H) that interim separation is justified only if the child’s safety demands immediate protection and that interim decisions must be confined to issues that cannot await the final hearing. Maurice Kay LJ concurred. The appeal was allowed and the matter remitted for retrial, noting recent improvements and the need to keep siblings together.