Re C & Ors (Care Proceedings: Fact Finding)

LORD JUSTICE BAKER :

Background and summary of proceedings

This is an appeal against findings of fact made in care proceedings.

The case concerns a large family. The father has nine children, four with his first wife, who tragically died in a road accident in 2009, and five with his second wife, hereafter referred to as “the mother”, to whom he was married in 2010. I shall refer to the children by anonymous initials. The children of the first marriage are A (now aged 24), B (23), C (17) and D (14). The children of the second marriage are E (9), F (7), G (6), H (born in July 2020, now aged 2½) and J (born in June 2022, during the course of these proceedings).

After the father’s remarriage, the mother moved into the family home and helped to look after his older children. The judge found that there were difficulties between the mother and her stepchildren who resented her role in their lives and felt a degree of jealousy towards the younger children as they arrived. In her judgment, the judge observed: “The emotional distress of the older children in losing their own mother, and their struggle to come to terms with the consequences of this have been very real and are important dynamics within the family.” The mother, on the other hand, “was responsible for the running of the house and the care of the children …. [Her] task, given the number of people in the household and their differing needs was a significantly demanding one.” Her second child, F, is on the autistic spectrum.

The family has been known to social services for a number of years. On several occasions, allegations were made that the children had been assaulted by one or other of the parents, but with one exception none of the allegations was either proved or accepted by the parents. On some occasions, the allegation was made by one or other of the children, but on every such occasion the allegation was later retracted. The exception was an allegation in 2017 that the mother had slapped D.

On Saturday 8 May 2021 at about 6pm, the mother telephoned the NHS 111 number and reported that H, then aged 10 months, had a “big lump” on his head. She denied that he had bumped his head and said that it had come from nowhere. She passed the phone to the father who described “a watery kind of bump on the side of his head”. They were advised to take H to hospital and, in line with Covid procedures then in place, arrived at the pre-arranged time of 8pm. During the initial assessment, the mother said tha