Family Law Cases & Materials June 2006

Compiled by Emily Beer, Barrister

R v Finland (App34141/96) ECHR 30.05.06

The ECHR held that there had been a breach in the Applicant’s Art 8 rights where reunification of a Father and son had not been seen as a serious option. It was stated that the guiding principle of care orders was that they should be regarded as a temporary measure to be discontinued as soon as circumstances permitted.

Re H (a child) (contact) CA 09.06.06

A father’s appeal from a judge’s refusal to allow NYAS to intervene in a contact dispute was allowed. The judge should have allowed NYAS to make representations. The case (which involved a Father with extremely limited vision) was transferred to the High Court.

Re B (a child) CA 14.06.06
The CA held that a judge failed to weigh evidence properly, in concluding a grandmother had known of non-accidental injuries and had done nothing, where he failed to make any reference to expert evidence that someone who had not witnessed the incidents could ascribe the baby's pain to normal causes.

Re N (children) (relocation outside the jurisdiction) CA 14.06.06

An appeal was allowed against an order which would have allowed a father to take one of his two children to Canada for an interim period while the other child would remain with in England with the mother.

A Borough Council v D and Others (Chief Constable Intervening) Fam Div 20.06.06
The court gave guidance on the disclosure of documents and information to the police in private family cases following the Family Proceedings (Amendment No 4) Rules 2005. The court held that a police officer could use information passed to him by a social worker for both child protection and criminal investigation purposes. However to use the documents so disclosed the officer needed the court's permission.

Re T and another (children) (abduction: recognition of foreign judgment) Fam Div 20.06.06
Held that the judgment and order of the Spanish court, which gave interim custody in the father, should be recognised by the English court in accordance with Council Regulation (EC) 2201/2003 (concerning jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in matrimonial matters and the matters of parental responsibility) (Brussels II b)

A City Council v O and others Fam Div 21.06.06

The court approved a care plan for adoption or long-term fostering for two children of Nigerian parents and dispensed with their consent under s.16 Adoption Act 1976. Given the risk of injury to the children if returned it was held that the parent’s consent was being withheld unreasonably.

Re B (children)(care proceedings: care and supervision orders) CA 22.06.06

A mother successfully appealed the grant of care and supervision orders in respect of her children. The CA holding that the trial judge had not referred to the favourable family history and the evidence presented by LA was not sufficiently compelling to make non-accidental shaking the only proper conclusion.

Re M-K (a child) (relocation outside the jurisdiction) CA 22.06.06
CA held that a judge erred in concluding a mother had deliberately misled the court regarding her qualification as a lawyer in the foreign jurisdiction and refusing permission to relocate on that basis. The mother should have been given an opportunity to explain and justify herself since it had not been part of the father's case she had misled the court and she was not cross examined on that basis.