Leicestershire County Council v A

This is an application by Leicestershire County Council in respect of the proposed adoption of a 14-month-old girl, A. There are two applications before me. The first one is the Local Authority’s substantive application for permission to remove A from the jurisdiction of England and Wales and place her with prospective adopters pursuant to section 28 of the Adoption and Children Act 2002 and the second is the requirement to serve this application upon the parents should be dispensed with.

Both applications are supported by the Children’s Guardian who has been involved with this family for a number of years.

The background to this matter is that care and placement proceedings in respect of A concluded on 23 July 2024 following a contested final hearing on evidence attended by both parents. A was made subject to a placement order authorising the Local Authority to place her with any prospective adopters chosen for her.

Further background is that A is the third child of these parents who have been placed for adoption. The parents have made more than clear their very strong disapproval of the plan for adoption and have been extremely unpleasant in their behaviour to the Local Authority. It is the Guardian’s view, and it is in my view relevant, that parents’ behaviour has escalated over the period that she has known them which I think goes back as far as 2018.

In particular, the Local Authority relies on the fact that the father, who was in court in December 2023, was angry and aggressive to the mother to the point where security was required in court and Judge Patel made an order that he was not allowed to return to the courtroom. He has been verbally aggressive and threatening to professionals including social workers. He, I think very recently, referred to the social worker and the Local Authority as ‘scum’. Mother has made threats to staff during supervised contacts and there is a manifest failure on behalf of, not just the parents but the grandparents as well, to show any insight into the risks the parents show to the children.

Somewhat unusually, the level of the parents’ behaviour has continued and indeed escalated once the proceedings concluded.

As the social worker sets out in her witness statement, the Local Authority is very concerned that the parents would disrupt any prospective placement and that it is of the utmost importance that they should have no knowledge of the area where A is to be placed. I note that one set of prospective adopters who were in Coventry had to be eliminated because of the chance of them meeting the parents.

The prospective adopters who have now been identified and have come forward, live in XX. If this judgment is published, we obviously redact XX. Therefore, this application needs to be made.

My understanding is that those prospective adopters have had two pop-ins with A which I think have gone well and importantly have also committed to A having contact with her siblings which is of great importance to her long-term welfare interests.

I do not think I need to recite the law on placement orders as the placement order has already been made or to the provisions of the Adoption and Children Act section 1 where I have to have regard to the child’s welfare interests throughout his or her life and also to the likely prejudice that will follow.

Self-evidently there is a rule that parties to proceedings should be served but I can order that there should not be service of documents in a particular case. In making that decision, although it is a case management decision, the child’s best interests are plainly at the forefront of my mind.

I have no doubt on the facts of this case that it is in A’s best interests that an order should be made in the terms suggested. I also have no doubt that it is in her best interests that her parents are not served with this application and are not served with this order. There is a manifest risk that if the parents are served or become aware of the intention to place A in XX, that they would do what they could to disrupt that placement and most obviously would make efforts to identify the prospective adopters in the XX and it might not be that hard for them to do so. If they did so, there is every reason to believe that they would seek to disrupt the placement. That would be strongly contrary to A’s welfare interests throughout her life as there is an obvious benefit for her to be placed and to be placed as soon as possible with appropriate prospective adopters.

My only concern is to ensure that the basic principles of fairness can be met. Plainly if the parents do not have notice of the application and the order then they have no ability to challenge it. However, the Guardian represented the interests of the child before me and she, through Miss Miller, strongly supports the applications made.

Equally in terms of the adoption order itself the parents will be served with that order, and they therefore will have rights as do all parents in this situation to challenge. The provisions of natural justice are protected by this process.

For all those reasons I make the orders sought.