R (A Child), Re
2014
COURT OF APPEAL (CRIMINAL DIVISION)
United Kingdom
CORAM
- LORD JUSTICE CHRISTOPER CLARKE
- LORD JUSTICE PATTEN
- LADY JUSTICE MACUR
Areas of Law
- Family Law
2014
COURT OF APPEAL (CRIMINAL DIVISION)
United Kingdom
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
The case involves a father's appeal against a decision terminating his contact with his 12-year-old daughter, R. The court history shows a lapse in contact from 2005 to 2012, whereupon the father sought to reestablish contact. Despite R's expressed wishes against contact, the court of appeal found that alternatives to promote contact were not sufficiently explored. Based on principles emphasizing the paramountcy of the child's welfare and the importance of parent-child contact, the appellate court allowed the appeal, set aside the original order, and remitted the case for the exploration of supervised contact options.
J U D G M E N T
1. LORD JUSTICE CHRISTOPHER CLARKE: The appellant is the father of R, who was born on 18 May 2002 and is thus now 12 and a half. The father is a child social worker. He appeals from a judgment of His Honour Judge Powles QC given on 20 January 2014. By his order of that date, the judge decided: (i) that R should reside with her mother, the respondent; (ii) that there should be no order for contact with her father; and (iii) that the previous orders made for indirect contact should be discharged. The order provided that R might make such contact with her father as she considered appropriate, and required the mother to support and assist the child should she wish to make contact with her father. It also contained provision for the sending of school reports and photographs each year and keeping the father informed if R was seriously ill and informing the father of her address.
2. The history of the case is this: when R was born in May 2002, the parties were not married. They had met in the spring of 2001 and they married in September 2003. In May 2002, they were both living at the mother's father's house in Tottenham. Thereafter in 2003 they lived together in two other different places in Tottenham. They separated in November 2004. In late 2004 or early 2005, the mother moved to another dwelling in the Tottenham area, and in February 2005 she moved back to live with her own mother in Ealing and withdrew R from a nursery in Tottenham. The pretty regular contact that the father had been having with R immediately after the separation greatly reduced and then stopped in April 2005. According to the father it was because the mother told him he was no longer to see her. The mother applied for divorce in March 2005 and the divorce finally went through in February 2008.
3. In May 2005, an agreement was made at the Waltham Forest Magistrates' Court, providing for staying contact for one night every other weekend and a phone call every other day. The last direct contact between father and daughter was in about September 2005. A hearing was set up at the Brentford County Court, to which the proceedings had been transferred, for 22 September 2005 to consider contact, but the father did not attend. A fresh date was set for 12 January 2006. The father did not attend then and his application was dismissed. It appears that he did not hear about the dismissal until October 2007, when he wrote to the court complaining that he had not received any correspon