‘The Court of Appeal has dismissed an appeal against an order that a child’s biological father should be informed of care proceedings concerning his daughter against the mother’s wishes.’
Local Government Lawyer, 19th August 2021
Source: www.localgovernmentlawyer.co.uk
‘Martin Downs analyses the Supreme Court’s judgment on the use of the inherent jurisdiction to authorise the deprivation of liberty of children in alternative restrictive placements by a local authority in cases where an approved secure children’s home is unavailable.’
Local Government Lawyer, 13th August 2021
Source: www.localgovernmentlawyer.co.uk
‘The desired shift in professional practice in care proceedings can be achieved by paying fresh attention to the fundamental principles of good case management, the Court of Appeal has stressed in two cases appealed from the Family Court at Leeds.’
Local Government Lawyer, 12th August 2021
Source: www.localgovernmentlawyer.co.uk
‘Legislatures in London and Cardiff have long ago established the most detailed safeguards and systems of registration to protect young people placed in children’s homes – most especially where that involves depriving them of their liberty. At the same time, the administrations in both capitals have presided over a situation whereby there is a significant shortage of such registered accommodation. This has tended to provoke expressions of outrage by the Judiciary. One of these problem cases has reached the Supreme Court (T (A Child), Re [2021] UKSC 35).’
UK Human Rights Blog, 5th August 2021
Source: ukhumanrightsblog.com
‘Richard Ager and Clare Ciborowska of 1 Crown Office Row (Brighton) discuss with Rosalind English the distressing and emotional business of removing newborns from their mothers when it is decided that it is in the infant’s best interests. Earlier this year the Public Law Working group has published a series of recommendations for improvements in practice to make the whole procedure less traumatic for the mother. Whether these recommendations will be implemented remains to be seen.’
Law Pod UK, 29th July 2021
Source: audioboom.com
‘Are hundreds of thousands of families being put through unnecessary investigations by unchecked social workers? That’s the suggestion made by a succession of recent news stories, some prompted by the first report of the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care. Services are ‘too focused on investigating families’, went the BBC; ‘innocent families have been traumatised by groundless investigations’, said The Times as part of a series on the issue, elsewhere reporting that ‘councils … launch abuse investigations based on a single unexplained mark’, and asserting ‘social workers too quick to wade in’, quoting the Review’s chair, Josh Macalister, as saying that social workers are ‘investigating first when [they] should be helping’.’
Transparency Project, 23rd July 2021
Source: www.transparencyproject.org.uk
‘A Family Court judge has praised the London Borough of Bromley for its “brave but proper decision” to end care proceedings in case where a child was suspected to have suffered deliberate injury but was later found not to.’
Local Government Lawyer, 22nd July 2021
Source: www.localgovernmentlawyer.co.uk
‘The Court of Appeal has allowed an appeal by a council over a judge’s order that effectively rejected the local authority’s care plan for adoption for an 18-month-old child (A).’
Local Government Lawyer, 13th July 2021
Source: www.localgovernmentlawyer.co.uk
‘A mother and daughter have been reunited under the rarely used ‘Resolutions Model’ by the Family Court.’
Local Government Lawyer, 8th July 2021
Source: www.localgovernmentlawyer.co.uk
‘In TT (Children: Discharge of Care Order) [2021] EWCA Civ 742 the Court of Appeal sets out the tests to be applied on an application to discharge a care order and also considered the relevance of attachment theory in welfare evaluations. Mostyn J’s approach to these issues in the recent case of GM v Carmarthenshire County Council [2018] EWFC 36, [2018] 3 WLR 1126 (‘GM”) was overruled.’
Becket Chambers, 15th June 2021
Source: becket-chambers.co.uk
‘In a significant adverse judgment for child abuse claimants, DFX v Coventry City Council [2021] EWHC 1382 (QB), Mrs Justice Lambert rejected a claim brought by a number of claimants who alleged that the defendant council’s social services negligently delayed in instigating care proceedings and that had they been removed from the family home earlier they would have avoided serial abuse at the hands of their parents.’
UK Human Rights Blog, 14th June 2021
Source: ukhumanrightsblog.com
‘A High Court judge has dismissed an application by a mother for a boy (P), who is aged 21 months and in interim care, to be circumcised in accordance with the custom of the Muslim faith before his second birthday.’
Local Government Lawyer, 15th June 2021
Source: www.localgovernmentlawyer.co.uk
‘Madeleine Whelan, barrister of Fourteen, analyses a recent Court of Appeal case that highlights the flexibility of the Children Act.’
Family Law Week, 9th June 2021
Source: www.familylawweek.co.uk
‘In the majority of public law cases involving newborn babies parents are given very little formal notice that care proceedings have been issued and the case is to be heard in court, research by the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory (FJO) has shown.’
Local Government Lawyer, 7th June 2021
Source: www.localgovernmentlawyer.co.uk
‘Judges are to investigate the use of urgent hearings in proceedings involving babies, after a study found that 85% of mothers in cases involving newborns being taken into care were given less than seven days’ formal notice.’
Law Society's Gazette, 4th June 2021
Source: www.lawgazette.co.uk
‘One in six mothers involved in care proceedings over the last year were given just a day’s notice of a court hearing to decide whether their newborn child would be taken into care, according to research. The vast majority of such women in England and Wales receive less than one week’s notice, new analysis shows.’
The Independent, 5th June 2021
Source: www.independent.co.uk
‘Care order applications are usually made when social workers decide a mother is unable to look after her child on her own. The baby will probably go into foster care and it may be adopted.’
BBC News, 4th June 2021
Source: www.bbc.co.uk
‘The purpose of this judgment is to approve and formalise the local authority’s decision to withdraw its application for care orders, following receipt of medical evidence that the baby did not suffer any non-accidental injury. As the judge points out, the local authority acted correctly in taking proceedings when it did, on the basis of earlier medical evidence (now known to be mistaken), and has also acted correctly in asking the court to agree to end the proceedings on the basis of the new, more specialist, evidence.’
Transparency Project, 18th May 2021
Source: www.transparencyproject.org.uk
‘The Divisional Court has rejected an application by a council concerned about the welfare of children of a diplomat for a declaration that the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (VCDR) breaches Articles 3 or 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights.’
Local Government Lawyer, 17th May 2021
Source: www.localgovernmentlawyer.co.uk
‘Andrew Bagchi QC and Anna Lavelle examine an important Court of Appeal ruling on fact-finding hearings and Lucas directions, and considerations of children giving oral evidence in family proceedings.’
Local Government Lawyer, 14th May 2021
Source: www.localgovernmentlawyer.co.uk
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