North East Lincolnshire Council v M & Ors

This case is about S a baby boy born on the 30 March 2025 and therefore 7 ½ months old at the time of this judgment.

S’s interests are represented by his children’s guardian, Sophie Ellyard, who instructs Holly Bates.

S’s mother is M, represented by James Goodwin.

S’s father is F, represented by Tania Woodliffe.

The local authority which brings these proceedings is North East Lincolnshire Council, represented by Gavin Button. The allocated social worker is Tara Nevet. I record my thanks to Mr Button who stepped into this case at the last minute and whose willingness to do so ensured that there was no delay for S. Mr Button has mastered over 1000 pages of evidence with felicity.

On 9 April 2025, when he was just 10 days old, S’s parents took him to the Accident and Emergency Department of Diana, Princess of Wales Hospital, Grimsby. He had a 4 x 4 cm swelling to the left side of his head. The parents said that S had been placed on a bean bag chair from which he fell around 5-6 inches to the floor. A CT scan that evening showed that S had a skull fracture and a 2 cm haematoma. Treating medics did not accept that the injuries were consistent with the accident described.

A child protection strategy discussion was held on 10 April 2025 with all agencies agreeing that a s47 investigation should commence. A viability assessment was undertaken and it was agreed that the paternal grandparents would supervise the parents with S on the hospital ward.

An initial skeletal survey was undertaken on 11 April. This did not reveal any further injuries. (The date of the initial skeletal survey is consistently given in the papers as the 13 April, 4 days after S’s admission. In his expert radiological report, Dr Oates, gives the date of 11 April. Dr Oates had access to the original X rays and medical records and he is correct. Dr Mohamed also gives the correct date in his report. Nothing turns on the exact date for current purposes, however it is unacceptable that previous counsel for the local authority simply cut-and-paste erroneous information from the initial social work statement without properly checking it; the initial social work statement also contained inaccurate information that was cut-and-paste into the written opening about the first account given by the parents and the location of S’s scalp swelling).

There was a second skeletal survey on the 23 April 2025. This showed healing fractures of the left 6^th and 7^th posterior ribs and a possible additional healing fracture of the left 5^th posterior rib. The parents were unable to provide any additional information to account for those injuries. (The suspected healing fracture to the left 5^th posterior rib was later excluded by the independent expert radiologist, Dr Oates. He confirmed the other rib fractures).

On 27 April the parents gave a different explanation for S’s injuries to the hospital. They told an unidentified consultant that the father had in fact picked S up on his beanbag and S had fallen backwards out of the beanbag from greater than the father’s waist height onto the floor. The hospital passed that information onto the local authority the following day.

The local authority issued proceedings on the 2 May 2025. HHJ Whybrow made an interim care order at a hearing that day and approved a plan for S to be placed with foster carers. At the time of his discharge, there was a question mark over whether the paternal grandparents might be on the list of potential perpetrators for some of S’s injuries. It is now known that they are not but once S was settled in foster care the parents did not seek to have him moved to his grandparents. He has been placed with foster carers since his discharge from hospital and is said to be thriving.

At a CMH on the 4 June 2025 HHJ Whybrow approved the instruction of Dr Oates, consultant paediatric radiologist, and Dr Mohamed, consultant paediatrician, and timetabled through to an IRH on the 6 October 2025. That hearing was listed before HHJ Hickinbottom as it was known that HHJ Whybrow was retiring. At a FCMH on the 3 September 2025 HHJ Hickinbottom refused, rightly in my judgment, the local authority’s application, which was supported by all parties, for a discrete fact-finding hearing. Matters were timetabled through to composite final hearing on the 10 November with a time estimate of 5 days. On the 6 October 2025 HHJ Hickinbottom reallocated the case to me as, by then, it was known that she was moving to the Sheffield family court. I conducted a PTR on the 30 October 2025 at which the witness template was approved. The case was listed on 10-12, 14 and 25 November given a prior commitment I had on the 13^th.

Proceedings are now in their 28^th week.

This is a single-issue case in the sense that the local authority’s threshold relies solely on S’s injuries and the parents’ lies about them.

The local authority’s threshold document is at A25 in the bundle. (For reasons that are unclear to me it is called a ‘Further Interim Threshold’ document. It is not. It is the local authority’s final threshold document although it is wrongly pleaded in terms of s38 rather than s31). The local authority’s pleaded case is that S’s injuries were inflicted by either his father or mother. In the alternative, with respect to his head injuries, they plead that they were caused recklessly in the incident described by the father on 27 April. They further plead, which is accepted, that both parents lied about S’s injuries when (or, in the mother’s case, after) they presented him to hospital. At the conclusion of the case, the local authority amended the findings sought and now argue that all of S’s injuries were inflicted by F. F accepts that the injuries resulted directly from his actions but says that they were accidental.

The following legal principles – which are well known and uncontroversial – are drawn from paragraphs 46-53 in the case of Re L and M (children) [2013] EWHC 1569 (Fam), a decision of Baker J as he then was:

I remind myself that precisely because the local authority bears the burden of proof, the parents do not have to prove any alternative explanation for S’s injuries. As HHJ Clifford Bellamy said in Re FM (A Child: fractures: bone density) [2015] EWFC B26, at paragraph 122:

I have firmly in mind the decision of the Court of Appeal in Re A (Children) (Pool of Perpetrators) [2022] EWCA Civ 1348, where at paragraphs 17-34 King LJ considered previous caselaw guidance that trial judges should not ‘strain’ to identify a perpetrator in a pool of perpetrators case. Having reviewed the history of this guidance she concluded at paragraph 34:

I have reminded myself of Re A, B and C (Children) [2021] EWCA Civ 451, in particular at paragraphs 54-58, with respect to the proper application of Lucas in family cases.

There is a PDF bundle running to 694 pages. I have not read it all. Much of it is irrelevant material that should not have been included in the final hearing bundle, an issue on which I comment further below. There is also a 350 page bundle of text messages between the parents; this was uploaded to the Portal just prior to the final hearing. I had previously made clear that I would be reliant on the advocates to take me to any messages that they say are relevant. They have done so, although I have also read some other text messages in order to give myself an overall flavour of the parents’ communication. I can confirm that I have read all of the relevant material.

I heard from Dr Adam Oates, consultant paediatric radiologist; Dr Bashir Mohamed, consultant paediatrician; Tara Nevet, the allocated social worker; M, S’s mother; and F, S’s father. The social worker gave evidence on a very narrow factual point only. I did not hear from her or the guardian with respect to welfare issues; all parties have invited me to give a judgment with respect to the disputed factual matters today, being 14 November 2025, which is the 4^th day of this 5 day final hearing and deal with welfare issues on the 5^th day, which is a week and a half hence. This will give all parties an opportunity to reflect on my findings and, insofar as necessary, amend welfare plans. I heard submissions on behalf of all parties on the afternoon of 12 November 2025.

It is not necessary for me to set out the totality of the evidence or submissions I have seen and heard; rather I focus on those aspects of the evidence and submissions that have assisted me in making the findings set out below.

Dr Adam Oates is a consultant paediatric radiologist at Birmingham children’s hospital. He has prepared a substantive report in these proceedings dated 15 July 2025 and an addendum dated 18 September. He gave evidence on the 10 November via CVP. He was an impressive and helpful witness with a clear understanding, as one would expect, of his remit; he appropriately deferred to Dr Mohamed on a number of issues, such as the likely presentation of a child with rib fractures on handling and the likely coincidence of bruising with a rib fracture caused by squeezing. His written reports, from which he did not demur, contain the following evidence, all of which I accept:

In his oral evidence he was clear that if S’s rib fractures were birth-related he would have expected to see a healing response 12 days later, i.e. on the first skeletal survey. He confirmed that it remained his opinion that whilst the fall latterly described by the parents could explain the skull fracture it was ‘still very difficult to imagine how that could cause the rib fractures’. He confirmed that with hindsight the first medical evidence of the rib fractures was on an MRI scan taken on 15 April which showed oedema (pockets of fluid) around the sites of the later identified fractures. He said that from a radiological point of view there was no way telling whether the rib fractures were more likely to have occurred on 9 April or on or around the fourth or fifth of April, the significance of those latter dates being that they coincide with the parents seeking medical attention for reported breathing difficulties that S was experiencing.

Dr Oates told me that the father’s explanation, that S’s rib injuries occurred during or immediately after his fall, was ‘a very unlikely mechanism; I can’t say impossible because there are always outliers… but rib fractures are very unusual injuries in young children. Lots of children get chest x-rays for lots of things and it is vanishingly unusual to see rib fractures. Even in road traffic accidents or a fall from a second-floor window rib fractures are very unusual. It requires an unusual force and an atypical mechanism’. He remained clear in his opinion that a compressive force is very likely to have been required to cause the fractures seen to S’s ribs.

Dr Bashir Mohamed is a consultant paediatrician. He prepared a substantive report dated 21 August 2025 and an addendum dated 25 September. He gave evidence on the afternoon of 10 November via the CVP. He was again an impressive witness with the ability to explain things in clear and accessible terms. In his written evidence he says that:

In his oral evidence, when he was asked about the oedema seen on 15 April, he said that he couldn’t refine the timing of the rib fractures beyond saying that oedema take one to two weeks to resolve, meaning that the rib fractures will have occurred sometime within the two weeks prior to 15 April. He said that rib fractures are often occult and can’t be detected on clinical examination going on to say, ‘in 99% of cases or more they are only identified on x-ray’. He said that bruises were very rarely associated with rib fractures. He also told me that after an initial period of at least 30 seconds of crying, a parent or carer who was not present when the rib fractures were caused would be unaware that there was any injury because ‘the symptoms are very non-specific; children cry for lots of reasons such as colic or trapped wind. Even a professional wouldn’t attribute those symptoms to a rib fracture’. That evidence is relevant in my judgment in circumstances where both parents say that S often cried and frequently seemed inconsolable. It means that his rib injuries could have been caused by one parent whilst the other was momentarily elsewhere in the house with the other remaining unaware that anything was untoward. That said, both parents are clear that the only time they ever heard what they considered to be unusual crying was on 9 April. On this issue, Dr Mohamed said, ‘we have two injuries competing for that same account… the rib fracture could have occurred [at the same time] but the mechanism doesn’t account for it, so even if the parents’ account of the fall is accepted, the mechanism would only account for the head injury. So, the rib fracture could have occurred at some other time’.

Whilst Dr Mohamed couldn’t rule out the rib fracture occurring in the incident described by the father, he said that ‘I have never come across as either an expert or a clinician a fall causing a head injury and a rib fracture at the same time’.

Tara Nevet gave evidence that was limited to a single paragraph in her parenting assessment of the mother. She said that during her assessment work with M, the mother told her about a specific incident when she had fallen asleep and, upon waking, had found S crying uncontrollably with the father visibly upset. Mr Goodwin put to her that she had in fact conflated two separate incidents and both parents would later tell me that there were two separate incidents each containing an element of that reported by the social worker. In the first incident the mother had slept and F had looked after S while she did so. However, upon waking there was nothing untoward; F was sat on the floor rocking S who was not upset. On the second occasion, the parents were both trying to take ink prints of S’s feet. S became inconsolable when the father held him and after two or three hours of this the father himself became upset and took time out in the kitchen where he audibly slammed his hand into a kitchen work surface. Alarmingly, in my judgment, Ms Nevet readily, if not even casually, accepted that she may well have conflated these two incidents. I find her acceptance of that troubling. The first incident did not involve any indication of S being injured or distressed and the second did not involve the father being alone with S. Although Mr Button tried to shore this up, the damage was done. I’m bound to accept the parents accounts noting in particular that it would positively assist the mother’s current case if there were an occasion other than 9 April when the father was alone with S and S presented as particularly distressed. The fact that Ms Nevet readily accepted the possibility that she had conflated two separate incidents into a single (misleading) account and made no reference to contemporaneous notes in which she had carefully documented the mother’s account or accounts reflects poorly, I am afraid to say, on her social work practice.

On each occasion I have seen M in court she has looked frightened. Her presentation is consistent with what is often described in children as ‘frozen watchfulness’. She was appropriately and understandably upset at times in her evidence. She did not deny her history of poor mental health and anxiety. She accepted, although in this regard she had no choice, that she had allowed medics and social workers to act on the basis of misinformation for around two weeks after F gave her his revised account of S’s fall to her. For reasons that I set out below I have concluded that there are elements of her evidence to me that are untrue even now.

F gave his evidence in a somewhat flat manner although did become moderately upset at a few points. He readily accepted the very many lies he has told. Overall, he came across as somewhat defeated. I did not find him to be a credible witness and for reasons that I set out below I do not believe that he has told the full truth about S’s injuries yet.

Both parents spoke with evident warmth about how happy they were to find out they were expecting a child. I have no reason to doubt that their evidence about that was genuine.

The initial explanation given by the parents was that S had slipped, by himself, from a beanbag which was on the ground at the time. Both parents say that this occurred whilst S was in the living room with the father, and the mother was in the kitchen preparing bottles. Neither parent says that the mother witnessed what occurred. Accordingly, she was reliant on the father to tell her what had happened. The account documented in the available medical evidence was that this fall was from a height of around 5 to 6 inches.

Both parents say that F then gave M a different account on the first weekend following S’s admission to hospital. They disagree about the day on which this happened but nothing much turns on the precise day in my judgment; I suspect that this inconsistency is simply a product of one of them having a faulty memory. On either account, however, it was the 12 or 13 April that the father told the mother that he had in fact picked S up, on his bean bag, and having raised him to about waist height lost his grip, with S falling backwards out of the beanbag and striking his head on the floor.

The paternal grandmother, says that on either 17 or 18 of April she had a discussion with Dr Haider about S’s then known injuries. Both parents were privy to this discussion in which Dr Haider said that any fall would need to be from at least a metre to cause a skull fracture. Dr Haider has provided a statement in which he confirms that this conversation took place although he does not give a date for it.

Stacy Pope, a specialist nurse for safeguarding children who was involved in S’s care in hospital says that on the 23 April 2025 she spoke to S’s parents and paternal grandparents and explained that professionals were seeking the views of Sheffield children’s hospital as to whether the parent’s account of S slipping from his beanbag on the floor was consistent with the injuries then known.

The second skeletal survey was conducted on 23 April and it was at this point that professionals realised S also had healing rib fractures.

The social worker, Ms Nevet, says that she was given this information by the hospital the following day. M told me that she found out from the social worker and no medic told her about the rib fractures until some days later. The parents cannot have found out that medics knew about the rib fractures before 23 April and it seems to be accepted evidence that they did not in fact find out until the following day.

The paternal grandmother says that on 25 April in the evening the mother told her, for the first time, that the fall had been from a greater height than previously disclosed but that she wanted F to tell her this for himself. The grandmother says that F told her the following day, being Saturday 26 April. The paternal grandfather says that F told him, separately, later that day.

F’s evidence is that the first professional he told was a consultant on Sunday 27 April. This corresponds with the local authority evidence, which is that the hospital informed the social worker on Monday 28 April that the parents’ account had changed over the weekend.

The parents were each interviewed under caution by the police on the 1 May 2025. The transcripts are in the court bundle. F gave an account in line with his second explanation for S’s injuries. He emphasised that when S fell from the beanbag he hit his head and his back on the floor. He accepted that the initial account he had given both to M and to the hospital had been untrue. He said that he had lied to M because she had previously warned him against carrying S on the beanbag. M told the police that she had been given F’s revised account around 2 to 3 days after S’s hospital admission, which is in line, more or less, with what she now tells me.

The mother’s first statement in proceedings is dated 29 May 2025. She says that F gave his second explanation for S’s injuries to her ‘about 4 days after he was admitted’ to hospital. She says that this came about because she herself knew that the low-level fall previously described could not have caused the injuries by then known about (i.e. the skull fracture and associated swelling) and that she had asked him ‘about this a lot’. She accepts that having been given F’s second account of the fall, she failed to disclose this to medical or social care professionals. She accepts that this was wrong although queries whether it constitutes a failure to protect. For the avoidance of doubt, I am clear that it does: the new information, if true could have had a bearing on the treatment that S required. Without that information, professionals were unable to act on it. She says that F initially persuaded her not to tell anyone about his second account on the basis that they wouldn’t be believed and would lose S; ‘Eventually I managed to convince him to tell the truth about what he had told me because I said if he did not, I would be doing so’. She confirms that in light of her doubts about whether the father may have injured S non-accidentally, she has decided to separate from him ‘for the time being’.

In her oral evidence, M told me that immediately after the fall, when she had heard S crying in an unusual manner and come into the living room to find out what had occurred, she had wanted to take S to hospital. She told me, and the father agreed with her about this, that F had dissuaded her from seeking medical attention. Both parents now agree that it was around 15 to 20 minutes later that M first noted a lump to the side of S’s head. And they both agree that even then F sought to dissuade her from taking S to hospital. This is at odds with what F told the police which is that in the immediate aftermath of the fall he decided to take S to hospital himself and thought that this would be quicker than waiting for an ambulance. Given his oral evidence, that was a lie to the police.

On the first morning of the final hearing M filed a further statement. In it, for the first time, she set out earlier on 9 April when the parents were returning from a GP appointment, the father had become annoyed with her, although she could not recall why. He had slammed the door and thrown nappies onto the settee. On the one hand it is remarkable that M would only recall this potentially significant loss of temper seven months after the event and on the day of the final hearing; on the other hand, as Mr Goodwin said in submissions, she didn’t particularly over-egg this incident and told me that by the time midwives visited, which happened around 1 to 1.30 pm, F was calm again. In her oral evidence she told me that when she had said to police, as she did in her interview under caution, that F had never punched walls this was a lie because he had punched walls and slammed doors during their relationship. She said, ‘I admit I wasn’t honest when I gave that account; I didn’t want to believe that F hurt S; I just wanted to keep my family together’. Accordingly, even after the revised account of S’s fall had been disclosed, the mother was still not being entirely honest with professionals who needed the truth in order to investigate her son’s injuries. For his part, F told me that he couldn’t remember the incident latterly described by M but nor did he deny that it happened. I can infer therefore that the slamming of doors and throwing of objects is not wholly out of character for him. In fairness, he paid in that when he was younger at least he had punched walls and slammed doors, on one occasion hard enough to cause a hole in a wall.

M’s oral evidence to me was that during the two weeks after she had found out the father’s revised account of the fall, she had constantly asked him, if not begged him, to tell the truth. She was taken to the text messages which correspond with this period of time. She accepted, as she had to, that there is absolutely no indication of her ever requesting that the father change his initial account until 25 April. Nor did she tell anybody until she told the grandmother nearly 2 weeks later. M’s explanation was that it been easier to pressure the father to tell the truth during face-to-face conversations that they had during cigarette breaks at the hospital. I found the mother’s evidence about this deeply unconvincing and I don’t accept it. The text messages are warm towards F and evidence hostility towards professionals during this period. I believe that the mother was fully committed, at this time, to trying to get away with it and to misleading professionals to that end. In my judgment, during this period, the parents had effectively conspired together to try and ride it out. There is a text message sent at around 8 o’clock in the morning of 24 April that is revealing in this regard. Whilst it was sent to F by M, in context it wasn’t intended for him, and she accepted in evidence that it was meant for professionals. In that message M requests a second opinion and asserts, nearly 2 weeks after she says she was given F’s revised account, that the height of the fall was around 16 inches (which corresponds with the highest point of the beanbag when it is on the ground). She knew this that was no longer the explanation that F was giving for the fall.

I find that it was only after Dr Haider had given the height of a fall likely to explain the injuries and the parents have become aware of the rib fractures that the mother changed tack and requested the father to give his second account to anyone other than herself. She had realised, I am sure, that they were not going to be able to ride it out. The first text message to that effect was sent by M at around 7 pm on the 25 April. She gave no explanation to me as to why, after two weeks, it became possible to raise this issue by text rather than during their face-to-face cigarette breaks. I conclude that the mother has continued to be dishonest in her evidence on this issue and lied to me when she tried to persuade me that from the moment she found out about the father’s second account she was keen to have him report it more widely.

F told me that his initial lie – that S had fallen by himself from a height of a few inches – was motivated by his fear of M’s reaction if he told her the truth. He says, and she seems to agree with this, that she had previously warned him not to carry S on his beanbag. He accepted that on 2 separate occasions, before and after S’s scalp swelling became apparent, he tried to dissuade the mother from seeking medical attention. Whilst his explanation for lying to the mother about the fall has some plausibility to it, that would not explain why he tried to avoid medical attention for his son. Of course, he knew (if I were to believe his second account) that S had fallen from a greater height. However, on the first occasion that he sought to dissuade the mother from taking S to hospital, i.e. prior to the swelling being evident, he would have had no reason to believe his son was injured if the account he now gives was true. On the second occasion, after the swelling had become apparent, whilst he would have known his son was injured, if the account he now gives was true he would have had no very good reason to avoid medical attention because on either account (i.e. the one he had given to M or the one he now gives) it was an accident and the only visible injury was a relatively small bump. F’s admitted efforts to avoid medical attention are consistent, in my view, with him knowing or believing that his son may be more seriously injured than was evident to either parent after the swelling developed and wanting to avoid anyone finding that out. There is no good reason, in my judgment, for a parent to avoid medical attention for a visibly injured baby if they know that there is an entirely innocent explanation for such injury. His oral evidence on this was both unconvincing and revealing. When Mr Button asked him if he was afraid of what the investigations might find he said, ‘no, I was more worried I would be seen as a monster that has hurt my child when in reality he fell out of a chair through my stupidity’. There was no reason for F to think he would be seen as a monster unless he knew that he had hurt his child and there was no true accidental explanation.

By the conclusion of the evidence the local authority no longer sought a pool finding with respect to S’s injuries. Their case, which is supported by the guardian, is that I should identify F as being the sole perpetrator of all of S’s injuries. In fact, somewhat unusually, both parents also support that finding (although F would no doubt describe himself as the ‘cause’ rather than ‘perpetrator’ of S’s injuries). F’s case is that the skull fracture was caused accidentally in the fall first described to professionals on the 27 April and that, notwithstanding the opinions of the medical experts, the rib fractures were caused accidentally at the same time, either by the fall itself or by F picking S up too forcefully without realising it, immediately thereafter. In the latter regard, F did not recall picking S up forcefully or squeezing him as he did so. The medical evidence about the force required to cause these rib fractures is set out above.

The local authority’s case is that the rib fractures are most likely to have been inflicted by F on an earlier occasion. They say this on the basis of the parents’ evidence that S did not like sleeping on his back, was often inconsolable, and their joint description of the particular, earlier (although undated) occasion on which they had tried to take S’s footprints and he had cried for around 3 hours as the father held him round the chest. They say that the father’s reaction to that occasion, which was to become upset himself, take time out in the kitchen and slam his hand down on a kitchen worksurface (which the mother heard from the living room) is consistent with him knowing that his son may be injured and being worried about the same.

In closing submissions, the local authority sought a finding that, ‘Mother and Father knowingly gave medical staff and professionals untimely, inaccurate and/or incomplete information regarding S's injuries and this placed him at risk of physical and emotional harm’. They indicated their intention in this regard by email to me and the parties over the luncheon adjournment. For my part I made clear that the evidence I had heard bore out a somewhat stronger finding with respect to the parents actively lying over a period of at least two weeks. In submissions neither parent resisted that finding.

The mother’s case is that the very many positives identified in the parenting assessment (and there are many) point away from her being the sort of parent who would deliberately harm her child. That submission does not carry significant weight. The experience of these courts is that otherwise loving parents can and do hurt their children. In M’s case, as she accepts, none of the positive things about her as a parent stopped her from lying to treating medics and social workers for at least 2 weeks and exposing S to the real risk of harm thereby.

Mr Goodwin says that the mother’s lies must be seen in the context of a controlling relationship, including control exerted by F intimating that he was suicidal and fearful of going to prison in the aftermath of S’s injuries. There is insufficient evidence before me to conclude that this couple’s relationship featured control. M herself told me that her motivation was a desire to keep her family together. I accept that the environment they were both in from the 9 April onwards will have been highly pressured and frightening. They both succumbed to that pressure and fear, and they both repeatedly lied and put their son in harm’s way.

Ms Woodliffe says that I can separate S’s injuries out and that, having done so, there is no reason to go behind the expert medical opinion that the current account given by F is, in her words, an ‘entirely plausible’ explanation for S’s head injuries. She points to the fact that, barring the mother’s very recently given evidence, there were no red flags on that day; S was settled and falling asleep; there was no reason for F to become dysregulated. She accepts that the rib fractures are more problematic for F. He does not allege that there was any opportunity for the mother to have caused them. His case is that they can only have happened at the same time as the skull fracture, in which regard neither medic said that this was impossible. S was a much loved and much wanted baby and there would be no reason for her client to injure him.

The approach that Ms Woodliffe invites me to take would, in my judgment, involve compartmentalising the evidence and viewing individual parts of the broad canvas in isolation from each other. She invites me to consider the skull fracture and associated haematoma first. Both experts agree that the explanation now given by the father is a plausible mechanism for those injuries. The problem with that approach is that it would ignore at least 3 other key parts of the evidence. The first is that, on any analysis, the father’s initial instinct was to lie about how those injuries were caused. The second is that, at 10 days old, S also had 2 fractured ribs which neither expert accepts were likely to have been caused in the fall. The third is that the father accepts that on the 9 April he made 2 attempts – both before and after the swelling became obvious – to dissuade the mother from taking S to hospital. The local authority, and guardian, also point to other evidence that they say is indicative of F being a perpetrator of S’s injuries such as his loss of temper earlier on 9 April and his demeanour in evidence to me. I take those factors into account but give them less weight than the three factors I have outlined.

The father’s case is that his initial lie (which was to the mother) was occasioned by his fear of getting into trouble with her, given that she had previously asked him not to carry S on his beanbag. Whilst that may make some sense, it does not explain why, having told the mother the ‘truth’ – which he did 3 or 4 days later – he would then continue to lie for another 2 weeks to everyone else; he had no like reason to be fearful of them. The father’s case is that having told the initial lie he found it hard to retract it. I accept that that can happen. However, in this case he had retracted it – to M, the one person that lie was designed for. I don’t infer simply from the fact that F continued with his first lie for another two weeks that he is guilty of inflicting S’s injuries. However, his willingness to lie about serious injuries to his son is one piece of the evidential canvas that I cannot ignore. There were many other lies that he accepted under cross-examination some (but not all) of which I have set out elsewhere in this judgment.

When I took M to part of the parenting assessment where she told the social worker that, ‘F eventually admitted responsibility for S’s rib injuries’, she told me that this had happened in around June or July and that F had said to her, ‘I know the ribs have happened with me but I’ve never squeezed them… I know I broke S’s ribs.’ This would be a strange admission indeed for F to make in the face of medical evidence which tells him that the possible explanations for those injuries he has advanced are implausible. Yet F continues to accept that he must have caused these injuries to S. In my judgment that ready acceptance is consistent with F knowing that he has done something to hurt his son. It is only one part of the canvas but an important one. I have weighed in the balance the many positives about F’s attentive care of S in contact; the fact that he was a much-wanted baby and is loved. However, the clear medical evidence about the rib injuries, F’s lies from the outset and his attempts to avoid medical scrutiny of his son, have led me to conclude that on balance of probability S’s rib injuries were inflicted by F squeezing or compressing his son’s ribs. The type of pressure needed to cause such a fracture is, as both Dr Oates and Dr Mohamed confirmed, significantly outside of normal or everyday handling of a baby.

The father’s repeated lies, some of which, as I have outlined, have no real alternative explanation, and his desire to avoid medical scrutiny for his son have led me to conclude that the most likely explanation for S’s head injuries is that they were inflicted in what may well have been a momentary loss of control by F. In particular, when I have considered the broad canvas of the evidence, I have concluded that it is unlikely that aged 10 days S had suffered inflicted rib injuries and an accidental head injury. I am persuaded on balance of probability that these injuries were caused by F and that they were inflicted.

All of the evidence points to the head injuries at least being caused in a narrow window of time on 9 April 2025 between around 1.30 pm when midwives left the family home and around 3 pm when the swelling was first noted by M.

With respect to the timing of the rib injuries it is not possible for me to be specific. I accept the medical evidence that they are very unlikely to have been birth-related. I find that they were not. Beyond that, some of the evidence including S’s reported discomfort when lying on his back and frequent inconsolable crying would point towards the injuries having been caused before the 9 April. On the other hand, some of the evidence including the fact that there was no evidence of healing response on the initial skeletal survey and the fact that M, who would have no reason to lie about this, does not report any instance of unusual crying prior to 9 April, points to all of the injuries being caused on a single occasion albeit, I am satisfied, by two distinct mechanisms such as a squeeze and a throw or hit. I am not required to make findings with respect to precisely how or when S’s injuries occurred unless the evidence takes me there. I am required to determine whether the local authority has satisfied me on balance of probabilities that any or all of S’s injuries were inflicted and, if so, by whom. For the reasons I have set out, they have. The findings I make are as follows:

I have set out above that I found the mother lied to me in parts of her evidence (as, for the avoidance of doubt, the father must also have done by virtue of my findings on the causation of the injuries). I suspect those lies were motivated by a desire to paint herself in a good light and maximise her chances of having S returned to her care. I have not concluded yet, nor formed any preliminary conclusion, that these lies would preclude S from being cared for by M. However, at the very least they will require the local authority to act with great care in ensuring that S is safe if and when he is returned to his mother’s care. I am not confident that M can be relied on to tell the truth. I also don’t believe that professionals could sensibly ignore the possibility – and I put it no higher – that these parents may intend to resume their relationship at some point in the future. Again, that is something that would require careful management and oversight if S is returned to his mother.

That is my judgment.

This is by no means the worst bundle I have seen. However, I want to take the opportunity to encourage this local authority and the advocates to think about preparing bundles in a way that complies more closely with the rules and in ways that are more helpful to judges. I will also comment on some poor individual practice.

The document that is in fact the local authority’s final threshold is titled an ‘interim threshold’ document and sets out the test as per s38 of the Children Act rather than s31. That is poor drafting and should be brought to the attention of the author.

I have set out above that the written opening cuts and pastes multiple inaccurate factual details that I have had to correct in my narration of the background. That is unacceptable and should be brought to the attention of the author.

Separately, the social worker might reflect on how or why on the 1 May 2025 (which was no longer, so to speak, in the heat of battle) she came to report that S’s initial presentation was with swelling to his forehead (it wasn’t) or that the parent’s initial account was that he had fallen 30-40 cm (it wasn’t). The initial medical report at F15 gives the correct information.

The PDF bundle is 694 pages long. That is roughly twice the permitted maximum. There are numerous unnecessary documents included in it. For example:

The text message bundle, by itself, was larger than the permitted maximum size of a bundle in care proceedings. It could and should have been significantly pared down to those messages to which I was going to be referred in evidence. There could, for example, have been an agreed fact, expressible in a single sentence that ‘Between 13 and 25 April there were X text messages from the mother to the father and in none of them does she encourage the father to share his revised account with anyone else’.

If, having discussed at the advocates’ meeting whether any of the above documents or text messages should be included in bundle, the advocates were in doubt (or disagreed) they should have raised such doubts/disagreements at the IRH. In practice, I suspect that within seconds of turning their minds to it, there would have been neither doubt nor disagreement about the necessity of including 120 pages of expert CVs, to give but one example.