East Riding of Yorkshire Council v The mother

This case concerns 3 young children, who for the purposes of this anonymised Judgment I shall refer to as J, K and L.

The children’s mother is M, represented by John Worrall.

The children’s father is F, represented by Helal Ahmed.

The children’s interests are represented by their guardian, Kim Pickard who instructs Philip Goodall.

The local authority which brings these proceedings is the East Riding of Yorkshire Council, represented by Andrea Ferguson. The allocated social workers are Nichola Warren and Molly Nixon.

When she was a child, M was involved in a car accident as a result of which she sustained a head injury. F is reported to have diagnoses of ADHD and of ASD. At a CMH early in these proceedings the local authority reported its awareness of these issues. Both parents were directed to file and serve letters from their GPs setting out details of their respective medical histories. In keeping with the often non-cooperative stance the parents have adopted in these proceedings, neither complied. They have both been legally represented throughout and neither parent’s legal representatives have raised issues with respect to their client’s cognition or ability to provide instructions. I have heard evidence from each of them. They each had a good understanding of the questions they were being asked and a clear ability to express their answers. Insofar as M often resorted to saying that she could not remember particular incidents I am entirely satisfied that this related to her not wanting to answer questions about potentially difficult topics; she was able to remember with clarity non-controversial details from the same parts of the family history and could recall with equal clarity a number of matters which she says other witness have got wrong.

On 21.3.2024 police found the father, mother (who was heavily pregnant with L), J, K and pet dogs sleeping in a car at Wharram Percy, a remote part of Yorkshire. This followed a period when police and social services had been trying to locate the family who had been reported missing and who were believed to be living in their car to avoid social care scrutiny. The police exercised their protective powers and the following day I made interim care orders. Threshold is not conceded by either parent and the circumstances in which the family came to be at Wharram Percy are disputed.

Within proceedings, the mother put forward a family friend – B – as a potential carer for the children. She is someone who the mother has known since childhood and who she thinks of as an ‘aunt’. She and her partner, C, were positively assessed and the children moved to live with them under temporary fostering regulations in July of this year.

At this final hearing the local authority, supported by the guardian, invites me to make final care orders for all 3 children. The plan is for them to remain with B and C as foster children but with a view to those carers being assessed as special guardians within the 6-12 month period following proceedings. At the time the local authority was directed to file its final evidence, the children had not long been placed with the carers and there is no special guardianship report before the court.

The parent’s case is that threshold is not crossed and the children should be returned to their care forthwith.

I must therefore determine disputed factual matters and reach a conclusion as to whether they amount to threshold.

Even if I find that threshold is crossed, both parents dispute the local authority’s plans for the children and so I must determine which of the competing options for the children best meets their welfare needs. (Although the parents deny that threshold is crossed, they both say that they would agree to the children coming home under care or supervision orders).

I can only make care or supervision orders if I am satisfied, as per s31(2) of the Children Act 1989, that at the time the children were removed from the care of their parents, which was the 21.3.24, they were suffering and/or likely to suffer significant harm and such harm or likelihood of harm was attributable to the care given to them, or likely to be given to them, not being what it would be reasonable to expect a parent to give.

Where there are disputed factual matters, the following non-controversial, legal principles apply. They are drawn from Re L and M (children) [2013] EWHC 1569 (Fam), a decision of Baker J as he then was:

My numbering differs slightly from Baker J’s, by reason of the fact that I have left out points that relate to non-accidental injury.

If I am satisfied that threshold is crossed then I must go onto consider which orders, if any, to make. Each child’s welfare is my paramount consideration: Children Act 1989 s1(1).

I must have regard to the principle that delay in determining issues is likely to be prejudicial to the children’s welfare: Children Act 1989 s1(2).

I must have regard in particular to the welfare checklist factors: Children Act 1989 s1(3).

I must only make orders if I am satisfied that to do so is better for the child’s welfare than making no order at all: Children Act 1989 s1(5).

To the extent that any order I make is an interference with the Article 8 rights to a family life of the parents and/or the children, I may only make such orders if that interference is necessary and proportionate to secure the welfare of the children.

The bundle in this case is on Caselines; I have downloaded it as a PDF and it amounts to 794 pages. I can confirm that I have read all of the key documents from that bundle and many – including the witness evidence on contested matters – multiple times. In addition, I heard oral evidence from PC S (an officer who was present on the 21.3.24); social workers Nichola Warren, Molly Nixon and Kirsty Sample; the parents; and the guardian, Kim Pickard. I heard submissions on behalf of all parties. It is not necessary for me to set out the totality of the evidence that I have read and heard; rather I set out those parts of the evidence that have assisted me in making the findings that I have made and reaching my conclusions with respect to the welfare of these children.

Before turning to specific aspects of the evidence, I will set out my general impression of the parents as witnesses.

M was a dishonest witness who did not give a straight or credible account of where she or her children had been living in the weeks prior to the 21.3.24. She frequently relied on the answer ‘I can’t remember’ when asked about evidence that would undermine her account. For example, she was asked about text messages reported by an anonymous police witness – who M accepted was likely to be her friend, B (the children’s carer, and M’s ‘aunt’ figure). Those text messages, which the police witness said she had received from M, explained that the family were sleeping in the car in Bridlington around the 19^th March and that the children had had very little to eat. M’s oral evidence was that she couldn’t remember sending them. She became upset at a number of points in her evidence and appropriate breaks were allowed. To large extent her upset was understandable given what is at stake. However, on more than one occasion, her upset was triggered, in my judgment, by the fact that she was being asked about cogent evidence which undermined or contradicted her account. I found her evidence with respect to the extent to which she would ever challenge F’s behaviour particularly troubling. I do not doubt her love for her children or her desire to say the right thing. Unfortunately, I found her an unimpressive witness who would readily lie, in particular to exculpate F.

F’s evidence was given in an argumentative and confrontational style: his seething anger was palpable and created a tense and unpleasant atmosphere in the court room. He had to be reminded on more than one occasion not to swear in his evidence and readily accepted having called Ms Ferguson, Counsel for the local authority, a ‘cunt’ during a break in proceedings. It is a consistent theme throughout the evidence that he has an antipathy towards authority and challenge. He has also approached these proceedings in that manner, failing to comply with a court direction (to which he had previously agreed) for hair strand testing; cutting his hair in breach of a court warning not to do so; refusing to engage with the originally allocated social worker for the purposes of her parenting assessment; failing to file final evidence on time; and when an extension of time was allowed, then ignoring a court order that his statement must address why his evidence had not been filed on time. He too was a deeply unimpressive witness, and I did not find him to be truthful or credible.

The local authority’s case is that the parents had effectively been living in their car, with their then 2 young children, M heavily pregnant, and a number of animals for some time prior to the police finding them on the 21.3.24. If the local authority are right about that, then it would have been a thoroughly unsuitable and unhealthy arrangement for young children and the unborn baby. It would be neglectful, emotionally harmful and expose the children to the risk of significant physical harm – not least from the exposure to animal excrement.

The parents’ case is that they had in fact been on something of an adventure, living in holiday accommodation (albeit they have never provided any corroboratory evidence of such accommodation) and camping since leaving the paternal great grandparents’ house at the start of March. The fact that they were sleeping in the car, with their pets, when the police attended on the 21.3.24 was due to the fact that their car happened to get stuck in the mud the previous evening. The night of the 20.3.24 was the only occasion on which they had slept in the car. The children had never gone hungry. They were, according to M’s oral evidence, regularly bathed and showered. If there was ever any animal excrement in the car it was solely attributable to the police decision to lock the dogs in the car after the family had been taken to Malton police station; there was never any excrement in the car previously. I accept that if that were the case then, whilst the previous weeks may not have been ideal for young children and a pregnant mother, it would not amount to threshold. Conceivably, any family could find themselves broken down and with no immediate option but to sleep in their car overnight.

I unhesitatingly reject the parents account for many reasons:

In my judgment, the reason these parents have given so many conflicting and, even on their own cases, untrue accounts of their movements in the days leading up to the 21.3.24 is that they are seeking to avoid the reality, which is that having left F’s grandparents on or around the 7 March 2024, they were homeless and living out of their car.

In addition to the information in the text message, where M said that they had only had £1.95 to buy a bottle of water and some sausage rolls, PC S told me that ‘there was certainly no food in the car and no evidence of food’. I reject the mother’s evidence – given for the first time in the witness box – that the family had been for a McDonalds’ drive through the previous evening. Two days earlier, on the 19.3.24 she had been asking for £10 to buy fuel, saying that F had lost his wallet: the family clearly had no money.

Accordingly, the finding that I make is:

Unstable home conditions

As a result of a car accident when she was a child, M received significant financial compensation on her 18^th birthday. She used this to buy a house in Wakefield. There was a large amount left over but, according to the parenting assessment, this was spent within around a year, being used for general living expenses. She met F in 2019, becoming pregnant with J in early 2020. In 2021 she sold her house at a considerable financial loss and lived off the money for a while until it was gone. The family moved to East Yorkshire eventually settling in Driffield where K was born in 2022. It is accepted evidence that between around March 2022 and December 2023 – 21 months – the family had settled, rented accommodation in Driffield. They were then evicted from that property. The reasons for that are disputed. The parents say, and again this does not appear contentious, that they stayed in a holiday let in Bridlington for around 2 weeks over Christmas 2023; they then moved to live with the maternal grandmother in January 2024; she reported F to the police, alleging that she had been assaulted in early February 2024. Between that point and the 21.3.24, the situation is unclear: the parents have variously claimed that they lived for 6 weeks with the paternal great grandparents; that they spent time in other, vaguely identified, holiday lets; that they lived with a friend of the mother’s at Driffield; and/or that they were camping at unspecified and unremembered locations in Scotland.

The local authority seek a finding that the parents have failed to provide consistent and safe home conditions for the children. The parents’ case is that, whilst the various moves of location in early 2024 were not ideal, the children did not suffer any harm.

There is, in my judgment, a wealth of evidence that points to these parents being unable to maintain accommodation or consistently good enough home conditions for their children:

I weigh in the balance that the statement of B is redacted and hearsay; indeed, in some aspects, it is second hand hearsay because it relies on reports from the maternal grandmother, with whom there is clearly no love lost as far as the parents are concerned. However, some of it is based on B’s own observations; no one suggests that she has any motivation to lie or exaggerate – her concern for the children is evident. Further, I am obliged to survey the ‘wide canvas’ of the evidence and the thing which is so striking about the above summarised accounts is their consistency with each other and with what the police found in March of 2024. This is a family who have repeatedly moved from one form of accommodation to another and repeatedly after a period of time – days or weeks on some occasions, months on others – allowed it to deteriorate to the point that it is unhygienic and, for young children, unsafe.

It is also clear to me that the parents have, at various times, sought to avoid professional scrutiny of their parenting:

The finding I make is as follows:

Non-engagement

During her pregnancy with L, the mother missed many appointments. That much is set out in the unchallenged statements of the midwife in Barnsley and the midwife in Hull. The local authority seeks a finding that the parents have not consistently engaged with professionals seeking to ensure their children’s wellbeing and that the mother’s failure to engage with antenatal services for L placed him at risk of significant harm.

The mother’s response is that she did attend some appointments, in any event attendance at such appointments is not mandatory, and since L was born healthy, any failure on her part does not amount to threshold. The father accepts some degree of non-engagement at the outset of proceedings.

With respect to the mother’s non-engagement with ante-natal services, I take into account the following, which has not been challenged:

Of the 2 attended appointments before proceedings began, the first was a routine initial appointment, following the pregnancy being booked. There were then multiple missed appointments. M’s evidence is that she did not know about these appointments, having left their home in Driffield at the end of December. Against this, the mother’s oral evidence was that the initial move was a planned holiday to a holiday let for 2 weeks. It would have been entirely open to her to provide the address for this to ante-natal services so that no appointments were missed at this stage. Thereafter, when the family were living with the maternal grandmother it would again have been open to M to provide this address so that appointments were not missed.

The second, and only other, attended appointment before proceedings were commenced was on the 21.2.24.

Notwithstanding the concerns that had been set out – and repeated – to M on the 21.2.24, she failed to attend for growth scans on 26.2.24 and 4.3.24.

After proceedings had commenced, on 24.3.24 the allocated community midwife from Barnsley offered M an appointment on the 26.3.24. She then texted on the day of the appointment to ask M if she was going to attend. M’s response was ‘Currently trying to find temporary housing for my 3 dogs so im not sure at the minute’. The community midwife offered to visit M either that day or the next, but M did not provide information about where she was or might be. It is clear, in my judgment, that M’s priority was her dogs, not her own wellbeing or that of her baby.

On 5.4.2024 a different midwife contacted Nichola Warren to say that M needed to be seen in hospital to receive an over-due anti-D injection and also antibiotics for untreated chlamydia; her unborn baby also needed urgent checks and monitoring. The midwife wanted M to attend hospital that evening. Ms Warren contacted her to pass that information on. M said it was too late to attend that evening and that the following day she was seeing her dogs; she said she would go on the 7^th of April, which was a Sunday. Ms Warren therefore bought her and F train tickets and sent them via email. She did not attend the appointment (G112).

A further appointment was then made on the 9.4.24 with the local authority arranging a taxi. Nichola Warren’s evidence is that ‘M initially told me she would not get in the taxi due to the driver being rude, however the taxi driver then refused to take them on account of F’s behaviour. M was asked to still attend, however declined’. M told me in oral evidence that F ‘was doing nothing, the taxi driver started getting cocky and I didn’t need it’. I don’t accept that evidence. This was simply the latest in a long line of appointments which for her own reasons M failed to attend, despite the fact that she was well aware of its importance.

What is clear from the above is that medical professionals were extremely concerned about the wellbeing of M’s baby; there were a number of health risks – tachycardia, poor growth, the mother’s untreated chlamydia, the overdue anti-D injection; professionals repeatedly made that fact known to M; they were pressing on her the importance of attending appointments; and still she repeatedly failed to attend at key appointments. M’s response to this is that it doesn’t matter because L was in fact born healthy. The factual premise is correct: he was born well. However, M’s response misses the bigger point which is that she was consistently prepared to put her unborn baby – and, indeed, herself – at risk because that suited other agendas that she had at that time. I am satisfied that one of those agendas was the avoidance of scrutiny by professionals. I am satisfied that another was prioritising her pets over her unborn baby.

I have set out elsewhere in this Judgment the ways that F has failed to cooperate with professionals. Many of those post-date threshold but are still relevant to his attitude towards professionals and authority figures prior to that date.

The finding I make is that:

The father’s behaviour

The local authority seek a threshold finding with respect to the father’s aggressive behaviour. It is also part of the local authority’s case that the parents are in an abusive relationship with the father exerting unhealthy control over the mother. That forms part of the parenting assessments before the court, although Kirsty Sample fairly conceded that during her assessment sessions with F – for which M was present – she did not directly observe anything that gave her cause for concern. The parents’ case is that they have a mutually supportive and equal relationship which does not feature control or abuse. Given the relevance of this to the welfare determinations I have to make, it is necessary for me to set out the evidence, my analysis of it and my conclusions with respect to their relationship as well as addressing the local authority’s threshold finding with respect to F’s aggression. In that regard, there are a number of relevant facts.

First, F is incontrovertibly an angry man, capable of speaking and acting in an aggressive and intimidating manner. He accepted that he was angry as part of his evidence and I witnessed his anger and simmering aggression for myself. I reject his evidence that his anger is solely attributable to the local authority’s removal of his children. It may well be the case that his current anger is attributable to that, but there is a wealth of credible evidence – some of which he himself accepts – to demonstrate anger and aggression pre-dating these proceedings:

Second, in my judgment F has a pervasive need to be in control and have things on his terms. This is demonstrated across a number of contexts, including the various threats to sort out or foster carers or start ‘snapping necks’. There are many other examples in the evidence, and I do not need to set them all out:

Third, the mother is, with respect to F at least, a passive and unchallenging young woman. I found her evidence about the father’s behaviour really troubling. When Ms Ferguson asked her about the fact that F had called the children’s social worker a ‘cunt’, she said ‘I can’t control him’. When I pushed her on this, asking about whether she ever challenged or ‘called out’ his behaviour she said ‘I let him express himself however he chooses; I just cry – that is how I get my emotions out’. The police incident in June 2023 is clear evidence, I find, of an occasion when M was positively frightened of F. When she was asked about a contact session in which she told J not to use the word ‘arsehole’ but did not challenge F on his repeated uses of the words ‘fucking’ and ‘bastard’, she said ‘I am not going to correct a 23 year old man about his speech’.

Fourth, it is clear in my judgment that there have been occasions when the father’s aggression and/or need for control have impacted the mother’s choices and behaviours. By way of example:

Molly Nixon told me that her concern was less about physical abuse and more about the unhealthiness of the parental relationship. That concern is well-founded in my judgment. The parenting assessment of F concluded that ‘F expects things to be on his terms, and it has been recorded through Children’s Social Care that he will challenge and disagree with professionals, often to the detriment of their children. F becomes verbally aggressive when he does not get his own way, and this raises concerns for how M is treated within their relationship if she does not do what he wants, and what J and K were exposed to whilst they were in their parent’s care. F can be threatening to adults’ (G236). I agree with that analysis.

It is likely, in my judgment, that precisely because of the mother’s unchallenging and passive nature, F does not have to act in a directly controlling manner towards her very frequently. It is more likely that she simply complies with what he wants. However, because of his anti-authoritarian and sometimes aggressive nature, this is an unhealthy relationship dynamic perhaps best summarised by M’s own words: ‘I let him express himself however he chooses; I just cry’.

My findings in this regard are as follows:

Drugs

Although not specifically pleaded in their threshold document, the local authority invites me to make a finding that F was using cannabis prior to the children being removed from his care. They invite me to do this on the basis of an inference – which all parties accept I am entitled to draw – from his failure to comply with court directed drug testing.

F’s case is that he last used cannabis prior to J being born and drugs are not, for that reason, relevant to his parenting. Against that proposition, when F was arrested in June 2023 one of the attending officers reported that the home smelt of cannabis, that F’s eyes were glazed and he appeared to be under the influence of cannabis, and also that he told police he had taken 3 grams of the drug 24 hours previously (J101; 680). Accordingly, and on the basis of what he himself told police officers in June of last year, I do not accept his evidence that he last used cannabis prior to J’s birth. I also note, in this regard, that in her parenting assessment the mother told Molly Nixon that F was using cannabis at the time of the police incident in June 2023. She then changed this in her oral evidence to be in line with the father’s evidence about ceasing use prior to J’s birth. That is a further example, in my judgment, of the mother’s passive and unchallenging nature causing her to fall in line with the father.

Within these proceedings, F agreed to undertake drug testing. He then refused to comply with the court direction for such testing and indeed cut his hair. His given reason was that the local authority had not managed, he said, to arrange contact to his convenience. For that reason, he told social workers, he was not going to comply with hair strand testing. I accept that it is entirely consistent with everything else I have learnt about F that he would act in such a petty way and for such a reason; it is consistent with his pervasive need to be in control and his anti-authoritarianism. However, that doesn’t preclude me also drawing the inference, which I do, that this was a convenient excuse for F to avoid hair strand testing which he knew would give the lie to his claim to be abstinent from drugs. I draw the inference that F’s refusal to comply with a court order, to which he had previously agreed, was in part because he was in fact using cannabis at the relevant time and knew that the testing would reveal this. I also note that in March of this year, F’s grandfather told police that on 6.3.24 – just before the family left his home – he and F had an argument about the latter’s ‘cannabis use’ (J43; 622).

The finding I make is:

For the avoidance of doubt then, it is my conclusion that the above emboldened factual findings are a basis on which I can say that J and K were suffering and all three children were likely to suffer significant harm. That harm was emotional and physical harm and neglect. It was attributable to the care they were receiving and were likely to receive not being what it would be reasonable to expect a parent to give. I therefore find that threshold is crossed.

That opens the door to me making public law orders. The competing realistic permanence options for these children are to remain in the care of B and C under care orders or to return to the care of the parents under any orders or none.

Whilst I take into account all of the welfare checklist factors set out in s1(3) of the Children Act 1989, in my judgment the most relevant factors in the circumstances of this case are the children’s physical and emotional needs (paragraph b); the harm they have suffered and are at risk of suffering (paragraph e); and the capability of the parents and of B and C in meeting their needs (paragraph f).

The children are too young to express their wishes and feelings meaningfully, though I strongly suspect that they would all want to feel safe and looked after. As young children, they need safe, secure care in a stable setting. The parents have not provided that. These children have suffered significant harm in the care of their parents who have neglected them through their desire to avoid professional scrutiny and pursue their own agendas. The parents deny threshold is crossed and, to that extent, it is their case that the care these children were receiving up to the 21.3.2024 was good enough. In my judgment if these children were returned to their parents they would inevitably, and quite quickly, experience sub-standard care again from parents who don’t recognise that they have done anything to harm their children previously. I have seen photographs of the parent’s current accommodation. The local authority accepts, as do I, that it is a suitable home in which children could be raised. However, these children have had that previously, in particular for a period of time when the family lived in Driffield. The issue is the parents’ ability to keep it that way rather than becoming, what M herself described as, a ‘shit tip’. Further, in my judgment, if these children were returned to the care of their parents, it is highly likely that at the first realistic opportunity the parents would seek once again to remove them from the scrutiny of professionals whether by moving geographically or simply refusing to co-operate with any level of oversight. These parents have a long history of failing to work co-operatively – and in F’s case civilly – with professionals trying to ensure the safety of their children. Furthermore, as evidenced by the early part of this year and the statement of B, they have a history of falling out with family members and then isolating themselves from sources of support and oversight. I am not satisfied that any level of support could address that at this time. Nor do the parents accept that they need any support. In particular, they do not acknowledge that there is any imbalance in their relationship that needs addressing or that their peripatetic lifestyle caused any harm to the children or placed L, whilst still in utero, at risk of any harm.

The children are said to be settled and doing well in the care of B and C who have provided them with a stable and safe home. The parents, on other hand, are wholly lacking in insight into the harm that the children have suffered previously. Until they acknowledge that, they are unlikely, in my view, to be capable of meeting the children’s holistic welfare needs. I fully accept that M has been attentive and emotionally attuned to the children in contact, noting that for the vast majority F has not been there. I fully accept that both parents love the children and have a genuine aspiration to resume care of them. I acknowledge that F is a hard-working young man who has demonstrated a good ability to sustain employment and, currently, a home. I have no doubt that when he does not consider himself to be challenged or under threat, he is capable of being respectful and interesting. However, in my judgment his inherent mistrust of authority and his unusually thin skin with respect to perceived challenge, are a volatile combination that have led to frequent outbursts of abusive and aggressive behaviour and, at other times, simply ‘running away’. He is likely to continue to act in that manner until he acknowledges that he has a problem and, thereafter, seeks and benefits from proper help. In the meantime, if the children were in his care, they will be exposed to emotional harm by way of seeing and hearing his aggressive behaviour, and instability and neglect on each future occasion that he falls out with someone and/or pre-emptively decides to move the family. For reasons I have set out, M has not been in a position to shield the children from that and, in my judgment, remains incapable of doing so. Indeed, she too has demonstrated avoidance and at other times confrontation and obstruction, not least in her dealings with antenatal services for L.

The pros of a placement with B and C are that the children will have a stable and safe home. They will be with a carer in B who has clearly had these children’s best interests at heart throughout their childhoods. She is known to the family, in particular the maternal family and M trusts her to provide a loving home to the children if they cannot return to her care. She will be able to promote family relationships. B and C will protect the children from exposure to their father’s aggressive and abusive behaviours.

The cons of such a placement are that the children will not be with a mum and dad who clearly love them and, in M’s case, based on observations of her contact, has a lot to offer in terms of emotional warmth and attention. They are likely to grow up wondering why they, unlike many of their friends, are not living with their mum and dad. That is likely to cause them a degree of emotional harm.

The pros of a placement with M and F would be that it would give these children a sense of family and belonging that they are unlikely to achieve, certainly as fully, in the care of people who are not biologically related to them.

The cons of such a placement are set out in this Judgment and the preceding paragraphs of my welfare analysis in particular. Within the proceedings neither parent has shown a proper ability to focus consistently on the welfare needs of the children. F has barely attended any contact. I accept that his employment has been a significant contributory factor. However, I also note that he refused to attend contact in Wakefield on the basis that he feared retribution from drug dealers who he previously robbed (which, on his evidence, would have to be 4 years ago or more), notwithstanding the fact that he lived in Wakefield, with the maternal grandmother, in January of this year, when it suited him. I am entirely satisfied that if F was not so set on proving a point and creating problems, he could have attended much more contact with his children than he has achieved. For her part, M has refused to consent to J being enrolled in a nursery close to his original foster carers and has deprived him of shoes that he was bought by his foster carers because she found them to be ‘ugly’. These are still parents whose petty adult agendas stand in the way of them focussing on their children’s welfare.

When I weigh up all the pros and cons of the competing options for these children I am driven to the clear conclusion that only a plan of them remaining with their current carers will meet their holistic welfare needs.

If I approve plans for the children to remain with B and C, M argues that her contact should be higher than the once a month suggested in the care plans. In closing submissions, Mr Worrall said that once a week would not be unreasonable. I have already noted that contact is generally of a good quality. However, the court is now in a position to approve plans of permanence for these children and it is important that they are given an opportunity to invest fully in their placement and come to realise that it is their ‘forever’ home. The current level of contact, which is 3 times weekly for the mother, is unsustainable and incompatible with family life with their carers. In my view the local authority’s plan of monthly contact strikes the right balance between B and C’s family life as primary carers for the children, and the need for the children to maintain positive relationships with their parents. However, I note the local authority’s commitment to holding a formal review once contact has reduced down to fortnightly to reconsider which level of contact best meets the children’s welfare needs. I also note that if there is a special guardianship order application the court will be required, by virtue of s14B of the Children Act 1989 to reconsider the issue of contact.

I therefore make care orders with respect to each of these children.

I approve the permanence plan for them to remain in the care of B and C, noting that the local authority’s intention is to assess them as special guardians in the near future.

I approve the local authority’s current proposals for the reduction of contact, noting that it was agreed as part of the oral evidence that there will be a formal contact review once that contact has reduced to a level of once a fortnight.

I give permission for a copy of this Judgment to be shared with B and C.

I make the usual order for costs.

In this Judgment, I have said a number of forthright and blunt things about the parents, It is important that they also understand, then, that I do not think either of them has deliberately chosen to harm their children or set out to be neglectful parents. I think they are both immature in their own ways and need to do a lot of growing up. I also think they have become blinded to the bigger picture of their children’s welfare by their focus on their own agendas and their desire to do things their own way.

I have read with concern F’s comment, during his parenting assessment that he was suicidal because of his children being removed. The parenting assessment also notes him saying that although he hopes to be with M for the rest of his life ‘they will only separate if he does not get his children back, because he will kill himself’. Through Mr Ahmed he accepted saying this but denied meaning it. I really hope that is the case. F does strike me as someone who would be capable of taking drastic and self-sabotaging steps in an effort to prove a point. I therefore urge him to seek help – from his GP, through the social worker or from trusted family members – if he is struggling in the aftermath of this Judgment. I urge him to do that both because of his individual worth and importance as a human being and because of his worth and importance to M and to his children.

By virtue of the orders that I have made today, the local authority will maintain parental responsibility for these children. That means it is incumbent on the local authority to satisfy itself that contact arrangements, including the supervision of contact, remain safe for these children and that they are not exposed to any unmanaged risk from the parents. In particular, it is the local authority’s responsibility to ensure that these children are not removed from contact by the parents in a rash attempt to run away with them. In the event that the local authority becomes concerned about the risk of this, there are further orders the court could be invited to make and I reserve any future applications with respect to these children to myself in the first instance.