S (A Child), Re
2014
COURT OF APPEAL (CRIMINAL DIVISION)
United Kingdom
CORAM
- LADY JUSTICE MACUR
- LORD JUSTICE PATTEN
- LORD JUSTICE CHRISTOPHER CLARKE
Areas of Law
- Family Law
- Civil Procedure
2014
COURT OF APPEAL (CRIMINAL DIVISION)
United Kingdom
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
The mother appealed against two orders that granted custody of their child to the father. The court examined the history of contact disputes and prior fact-finding hearings that substantiated father's custody. The court dismissed the mother's grounds for appeal, emphasizing the child's welfare, previous court findings, and the mother's continued non-compliance with court orders.
Judgment
Lord Justice Ryder:
This is an appeal brought by an applicant local authority against the findings of fact made at a hearing in public law children proceedings brought under the Children Act 1989 [CA 1989] which took place on 10 September 2013 in the Cambridge County Court. The proceedings concern a 12 month old baby girl who I shall call ’S’. The local authority was Cambridgeshire County Council and the other parties were S by her children’s guardian and S’s parents who were separately represented.
The precipitating circumstance for the proceedings was the clinical presentation of S on her admission to hospital on 30 April 2013. By the time the hearing took place the detail of that presentation was not in dispute. There was un-contradicted medical evidence that S had been brought to the hospital with a serious head injury. That injury can be described in simple terms as being two skull fractures, one at each side of the back of S’s head, one of which was stellate, with associated brain haemorrhage and swelling.
I have called the harm an injury for reasons which will become clear, but as the identification of the key issues in the proceedings and the terminology that was used are critical to the appeal, it needs to be understood that this was a case in which the court had to decide among other questions whether facts existed sufficient to satisfy section 31(2) CA 1989 (known as the threshold criteria) namely, whether S was suffering significant harm, whether that harm was attributable to the care given to her and whether that care was not what it would be reasonable to expect a parent to give to her. Section 31(2) reads as follows:
“31(2) A court may only make a care order or supervision order if it is satisfied -
(a) that the child concerned is suffering, or is likely to suffer, significant harm; and
(b) that the harm or likelihood of harm, is attributable to -
(i) the care given to the child, or likely to be given to him if the order were not made, not being what it would be reasonable to expect a parent to give to him;
or
(ii) the child's being beyond parental control.”
The local authority’s case in writing was that the injury had been caused by two separate blunt impacts to the child’s head or by the force occasioned in a bilateral crushing mechanism. That was colloquially described in a schedule of findings of fact as ‘non accidental injury’ and it was alleged that the injury had occurred while S was in the care of her parents. I