A Local Authority v B (Mother) & Anor

The court is concerned with C , a nine month old baby born on 24^th May 2022. The application before the Court is brought by A Local Authority (LA) under the inherent jurisdiction for the Court to determine whether C’s wider maternal and paternal family should be notified of her birth and consulted on the plan for adoption.

C’s mother is B; her father is D. Father is aware of C’s birth and of these proceedings. He does not have and does not seek to have parental responsibility. He does not wish to participate in the proceedings. As a consequence, he has not attended this hearing and has not made any representations.

C is represented in these proceedings by her Guardian.

I am grateful to counsel for their assistance with this delicate application, Patrick Paisley for the LA; Chris Miller for mother and Sam Whittam for the child.

The LA first became involved with C on birth on 24^th May 2022. Mother had concealed her pregnancy, driven herself to hospital to give birth and indicated to midwives that she did not wish to care for C. Upon discharge from hospital, C was placed in foster care where she remains. Mother has had seven sessions of supervised contact, the last being on 18^th August 2022. Father has been given opportunities to see C face to face but has not taken them.

Proceedings were not issued until 2^nd December 2022. The reason for the delay appears to be the hope that mother would engage with the social work support provided and either sign the paperwork relinquishing C or allow the LA to make contact with the maternal family to look for alternative carers. The mother continued to provide s20 consent to the LA accommodating C and no interim care order is in place.

The mother has been clear that she does not wish for her wider family to be notified of the birth of C nor of her intention to give up C for adoption. She has informed the Court and the social worker that father is in agreement with this.

The LA issued this application on 18^th January 2023.

The Court has had the benefit of statements in respect of this application from the LA social worker, FG, dated 17^th January 2023, from mother dated 16^th December 2022 and 25^th January 2023 and from the Guardian dated 2^nd February 2023. The mother was not asked to give evidence; nor were the other witnesses. The written evidence is therefore the factual matrix against which to assess this application.

The LA and the Guardian consider that on balance the maternal and paternal families should be notified of C’s birth and their views considered in respect of the care plan for adoption. The hope would be that a family placement could be identified to enable C to remain in the family.

The LA accepts that mother is an articulate young adult. She works full time in a very busy job; she concealed her pregnancy from her parents with whom she lives and managed the birth without revealing that C had been born. The LA evidence from FG is clear that the since August 2022 mother has not seen or wished to see C. However, FG also says that initially the mother waivered about whether her parents should be told. She was not wholly against it and according to FG, mother thought they would be supportive. However she also acknowledges that mother changed her mind and refers to mother explaining that her parents would be too vulnerable due to an earlier death of their third child to “process the fact that she had had a baby and had concealed it from them”.

Mother opposes notification. She does not want either family notified. She wants C to be adopted and considers that this is in her best interests. She reports that the father is of the same view.

She explains in her statements that C was the result of an unplanned pregnancy; that she separated from father in early October but was not aware of the pregnancy until late January/early February 2022. By this stage she was too late for a termination. She had no ante- natal care.

She lives with her parents and her teenage sibling. Her youngest sibling died when very young many years ago. She explains her reasons for not telling the wider families. These can be summarised as follows:

Mother has reported father’s position. The Guardian reports her understanding that he had the opportunity of obtaining parental responsibility but declined; there has been limited social work involvement with father although the social worker records that he did not want his parents told of C’s birth; they would be upset and he did not believe that either he or any family members would be able to give C a permanent home.

At the hearing on 19^th December which he attended for the first part he stated that he did not wish to be involved in the proceedings and he told the social worker that he had informed his brother in law of C’s existence.

The leading case and relevant authority for notification applications is Re A, B and C

(Adoption: Notification of Fathers and Relatives) [2020] EWCA Civ 41. Lord Justice Peter Jackson gave the lead judgment. In particular he emphasised the need to respect the views of all the individuals involved – mother, wider family relatives and the child. Lord Justice Peter Jackson set out certain guiding principles to be considered when dealing with these difficult cases. The child’s welfare is a central feature but is not paramount.

The exercise that the Court must conduct is to strike a balance between competing interests.

Father does not have parental responsibility. He has had the option of participating in the proceedings and he has chosen not to do so. He does not seek parental responsibility. On mother’s case father also agrees that C should be adopted. This is not disputed by any other party.

The mother also has a right to a family life and is worried that if she tells her parents now the relationships with her own family will fracture to no avail as her family will not be able to provide a home for C.

The father’s rights to a fair hearing have been considered. He has had the opportunity to participate; to be joined to the proceedings but declined.

None of the wider family’s rights to a fair hearing are immediately engaged as they have no automatic right to be parties. However they may wish to seek their own orders from the Court and cannot do so if they are unaware of the child’s existence or the existence of the court proceedings.

C’s parents are separated. The relationship was relatively short-lived and mother only discovered she was pregnant after the relationship with father was over. There is no ongoing relationship. Father has chosen not to pursue a relationship with C. Father and C have no developed family life to protect. Nor does mother. She too has chosen not to pursue a family life with C who has been with foster carers for 9 months. Mother has seen C only 7 times.

The mother clearly has a close and important relationship with her own family. Indeed one of her significant reasons for not wanting the wider family told is the risk of family breakdown for her as her parents may feel that she has broken their trust for not telling them about the pregnancy and about C. It is clear therefore that her wider family may well feel that they should have been given a voice and the ability to consider whether they could provide a home for their grandchild. Given the closeness of the relationship with the MGPs it seems obvious that they would have legitimate grounds for complaint if they are not notified of the existence of C and consulted about her being adopted,

There was some disagreement between Mr Paisley and Mr Miller about the interpretation of this factor. I think the difference is one of emphasis. Mr Miller relies on a 2017 case (pre – dating the decision of Peter Jackson LJ) Re M and N (Twins – Relinquished Babies – parentage) [2017] EWFC 31 in which the judge considered that the local authority was under an “obligation to carry out a thorough analysis of the realistic options for the child”. The judge then goes on to say that he considers the “prospects of a maternal family placement are sufficiently unpromising on the information available as to exclude them as future carers”.

The LA and the Guardian consider that the term realistic is maybe a lower barrier and that in this case there are family members, not least the MGPs who may prove to be realistic if they were to be notified. Apart from practical difficulties which as we all know from other cases are not insurmountable the only issue appears to be the latent grief from the loss of their other child. This may not make the placement so unrealistic as not to be worth investigating.

The fact that there may be aspects of notification which will cause the mother difficulties in the family relationships must be balanced against the possibility for C of staying in the family. The child’s welfare is not paramount but it is and must be central.

This is not a case where the mother alleges that there would be any physical repercussions for her. However, her evidence is clear that there would be a breakdown in trust between her and her parents and this is likely to cause a fracturing of the family relations. She points to circumstances in the past that may have affected their trust in her. Further, the concealment of the pregnancy and the subsequent birth is likely to further impact on her parents’ attitude to her. This will cause her a significant impact both psychological and social given that she lives with the MGPs and her sibling in the family home.

The other side of that coin is the impact on the MGPs of discovering this late that their daughter has deceived them for so many months and that they have a grandchild whom they have not seen. It is likely to cause them very great distress on many levels. The mother says that the impact of telling them now would be devastating and is more than just social embarrassment or awkwardness.

This is not specifically relevant in this case.

The social worker has informed the court that father has told his brother in law of the existence of C. Mother says he has not expressly told him only given an example of a “friend”. Either way, father knows of C’s existence. We do not know whether he is as anxious to keep her existence secret as mother. There is always a risk that the information will not remain confidential and the wider families will find out in an unmanaged way. This may impact on C and the potential adopters if attempts are made to trace C and her new family. However, the secret has been kept so far and in difficult circumstances.

Once the process of adoption is complete there may be less sense of necessity to keep C’s existence secret, particularly if there are, as suggested by the Children’s Guardian, mental health risks associated with the process which may need to be addressed in future.

As part of her life story work C will have some knowledge of her mother and father. When she is older she may well try to locate her birth family who will have no knowledge of her. This of itself may cause C considerable distress and may unbalance any placement. Social media also makes it much harder to keep matters confidential.

Mr Miller stresses on behalf of C and mother the impact of delay. It is very unfortunate that C was not placed in a foster to adopt placement and that proceedings were not issued until C was nearly 7 months old. This application is being dealt with at 9 months. This is not good practice.

However, even if there are inquiries made of wider family members, the proceedings are only likely to be extended to a limited extent, either while enquiries are made and the LA satisfies itself that no one can care for C; or while assessments are carried out. If at the end of the process the care plan is for adoption C will still be well within the band of ages when adoption is both realistic and likely.

As Peter Jackson LJ said in Re A, B and C, “In most cases, the importance of the issues means that the delay cannot be a predominant factor.”

No additional matters have been drawn to my attention.

It is agreed by all that mother is a thoughtful, intelligent and engaging individual. Her evidence as to the reasons why she does not want the wider families notified of the existence of C and the care plan of adoption has not been challenged. Nor has her evidence of the reality of a placement within the family. No one sought to cross – examine her on these matters. It is therefore not for the Court to seek to go behind that assessment by mother.

The LA and the Guardian have put their case thoughtfully and with care, trying to balance the interests of the child with those of the mother and father and the wider family. I have come to the conclusion that the balance does not lie in favour of notification.

I have come to that conclusion for the following reasons:

For all those reasons, I find that the balance lies in favour of the LA not notifying the wider families about C.

That concludes my judgment.

HHJ Lindsey George Sitting as a Deputy Judge of the High Court (Family Division) (s9(1)) 2^nd March 2023