W - C (Children)

LORD JUSTICE MCFARLANE: This is an appeal from a decision of Recorder Digney sitting at the Family Court in Barnet taken on 29 July 2016. The judge had a number of issues to determine with respect to children born to the mother and, in relation to one of the children, one of the fathers.

The case had a substantial history and the concern of the social services, which was found to be established by the judge, focused upon the mother’s ability to provide consistent and safe care for the children. Behind that was a diagnosis that she, unfortunately, suffered from an emotionally unstable personality disorder. Relationships she had had in the past were characterised at times by episodes of domestic violence, and on her own admission she consumed cannabis on a regular basis. So, the core concern about the impact of all of that on any children in her care was that their welfare was neglected, and neglected to a degree that caused them significant harm in various aspects of their development.

By the time the case came on for hearing before the judge the issues in the case had crystallised. An older child born to the mother, a boy "B" who was by then aged 15, had been adopted effectively from birth and, the mother tells us this morning, with her consent or at least without her opposition. An older boy than the younger two who were the subject of the proceedings, "C", who was aged 12 was at an earlier hearing by agreement accepted to be a young person who now should reside in a residential home, and he was made the subject of a care order in March 2016. There had been earlier proceedings under the Children Act in 2009 when that boy, C, and the younger child, also "C", who was the subject of the proceedings, had been made the subject of a supervision order for 12 months. C was born in October 2008 and was therefore aged around eight at the time of the hearing.

By the time the case came on before the judge there was a fourth child, another girl, "D", who was born on 17 June 2014 and therefore was just about two years of age at the time of the hearing before the judge, and two and a half years of age now.

So, the judge's focus was on these two younger children, C and D. So far as C was concerned, at the start of the proceedings the local authority and the children's guardian favoured placement of C with a maternal aunt under a special guardianship order. The mother, who throughout the proceedings had had the care of C and D and they remained living with her during