T (A Child)

Judgment Approved

Lord Justice McFarlane:

This appeal concerns the extent to which a family court may exercise its jurisdiction to grant a non-molestation injunction under the Family Law Act 1996 to protect a child who is the subject of a full care order.

The care order, which was made in February 2013, relates to a girl, who is now aged 10 years. Her care plan has always been for placement in long-term foster care and since November 2013 she has resided with the same foster parents. Unfortunately the child’s mother and her partner, Mr JM, have never accepted the validity of the care order and, at various times, they have embarked upon serious attempts to abduct the child from her carers; one such attempt formed one of the grounds upon which the threshold criteria in the Children Act 1989, s.31 were satisfied at the time that the original care order was made. Criminal proceedings followed and the mother was convicted of an offence of conspiracy to abduct the child for which she received an 18 month prison sentence in 2013.

Prior to being placed with her current foster carers, the child had had to be moved from two previous foster homes because of the actions of her mother, supported by Mr JM.

A further complicating feature of the case, which, in combination with the mother’s dogged determination to remove her daughter from care, leads the local authority to hold a high level of concern, is the fact that Mr JM has a significant and ongoing criminal record involving offences of serious violence.

The present appeal relates to orders made by His Honour Judge Jonathan Furness QC on 31 March 2017. On that occasion the judge granted the local authority an injunction under the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court restricting the geographical movements of the mother and Mr JM so as to prevent them from coming to any part of the western side of the county in which the child lives, the boundary being delineated by one of the major national motorways. That injunction had become necessary, and geographically specific, because by that time the mother and Mr JM had traced the foster home and had, as the judge found, frequently visited the area whilst expressing an active intention to abduct the child.

This appeal, which is brought by the local authority, does not relate to any part of the injunction granted under the inherent jurisdiction for which it had applied. Neither is there any appeal before the court with respect to the judge’s findings as to the underl