W (minors), Re

This judgment, which is given at the conclusion of a three-day hearing, is effectively an extempore judgment. Had I had more time, it would perhaps have been a shorter judgment, and it may be that when the transcript falls to be corrected I will seek to amend it and, for that matter, tidy it up.

These are long running Children Act proceedings in relation to two children: W, born on 4^th March 2002, who has very recently become five years of age, and L, born on 11^th July 2003 and so now just over three and a half years of age. They are the children of GW and PB, as she is now known. The parents were married. Both obviously have parental responsibility for the children, but they separated in January 2004, and since that time there have been court proceedings before the Bromley County Court, then the Court of Appeal, and latterly the High Court Family Division, with further forays to the Court of Appeal during the intervening period.

The bundle of applications and orders takes up an entire loose leaf ring binder. The total number of pages in that binder is over 430 and, whilst there is some duplication, the scale of this litigation can perhaps be physically measured by that reference. Equally, there is a separate equally full ring binder of transcripts of judgments that have been given on earlier occasions. It is not necessary for this court slavishly to rehearse the litigation history, but it is appropriate for me to indicate, first of all, that the keystone judgment in this structure of judicial intervention is the judgment of HHJ Hallon, given on 22^nd October 2004 in the Bromley County Court. I will turn to that judgment in a moment, but since that judgment, which made a residence order at its conclusion in favour of the mother and set up a programme of supervised contact for the father, there has been litigation. There have been, I am told, 11 appeals against various orders since that order was made, and there have been some eight or more applications made by the father for orders under s.8 of the Children Act.

The proceedings that are currently before this court are for the following orders. First of all, an application by the father made on 28^th July 2006 together with his parents for a shared residence order sharing residence between the mother and the father. That application also included applications for contact and a prohibited steps order. The grandparents themselves then applied for residence orders on 9^th January and the father applied again in January for a committal order alleging that the mother was in contempt of court because she had moved her address without informing him of that move. Fourthly, there is an application by the mother for a direction that she be entitled to maintain her current address as confidential in the sense that it should not be disclosed to the father. There is already an interim order made by Black J. to that effect which is to be reviewed in this hearing. Fifthly, the mother applies for an order under s.91(14) of the Children Act. On paper it is an application to restrict simply the father, but orally that is extended now to include the grandparents, from making any further applications under the Children Act in relation to these children. Next, there is an application by

Having set the scene briefly, it is necessary to go in more detail to the judgment given by HHJ Hallon in October 2004. I propose to turn to that judgment in some detail because in due course I will indicate whether or not matters have changed significantly since that judgment was given. The judgment is to be found at p.C149 of the bundle and it was given after that judge too had heard this matter for three days. Having rehearsed the history, the judge explained that directions had been given for the preparation of a psychiatric report on the father. It is of note that para.11 says this:

“Detailed directions were given at various hearings, including a direction that a psychiatrist be jointly instructed to prepare a report on the father. The father, and I stress the father, in fact contacted a consultant psychiatrist, Dr. B, and instructed him without the agreement of the mother, but subsequently through her solicitors

Dr. B was accepted as being a suitable person to be jointly instructed, and he provided a report on 12^th July of this year.”

The judgment shows that subsequently the father rejected Dr. B’s report and instructed a psychologist, but as that professional had not been asked questions which were pertinent to the case and had not seen the father’s medical records, that instruction did not result in full oral expert evidence. The judgment in that regard goes on to record that at short notice a further expert, Dr. A, was instructed, and he provided a report to the court on the father’s mental health situation and gave oral evidence.

Before turning to the judge’s concluding remarks on that aspect, earlier in the judgment she notes that, even by that stage (which is October 2004), the father had made

“…a very large number of complaints against all those who have been involved in the case or who have had dealings with himself, the mother and the children, when the views expressed by those people do not accord with his views.”

The judge also records that the father has publicised his complaints and his unhappiness in relation to the proceedings to many bodies and organisations, which she then lists.

At para.16 she says this:

“The father’s case in relation to residence and contact is that he says that he is the perfect parent and it is his right to be involved in the children’s upbringing. He said the children are at risk in the mother’s care, although the nature of that risk has not been formulated. He says the mother has conspired maliciously with various people to engineer his removal from the home and his wrongful detention under the Mental Health Act. The grandparents’ case in relation to contact is that they just want to see their much loved grandchildren and they feel strongly that the mother has not been acting in the children’s best interests.”

The judge then went on at para.25 to make certain findings of fact. The first was in relation to the father’s allegation that the mother had conspired maliciously to have him ejected from the home and wrongly detained under the Mental Health Act. An understanding of what that finding relates to involves knowledge of the detailed history which all those who hear or read this judgment know and is recorded elsewhere. I do not intend to lengthen this process by putting that detail into this judgment now. The father described the mother’s actions as being “a malicious evil campaign” and that the mother was an evil wicked woman. The judge rehearses the evidence, such as it was, that the father relied upon in relation to this matter, and then dismissed the allegation as having no foundation and being one that was “irrational”.

The judge at para.31 goes on to note a number of inappropriate and worrying things which the father has written in cards to the children. Again, she summarises that. Those matters have been referred to during the hearing before me. They include statements by the father about how he will “get you back” in relation to his daughter and, so far as the son is concerned, that he will never let him go.

On the finding as to whether the mother had directly influenced the father’s admission under s.2 of the Mental Health Act, the judge expressly said this:

“I am satisfied that she did not herself approach the mental health team, although she did voice her concern that the father might remove the children from her care when she spoke to the health visitor, and that subsequently she was requested to provide information to the social services and she did so.”

So far as the medical evidence is concerned, the judge summarised the key components that need to be present before a psychiatrist can make a diagnosis under ICD 10 of the international code for the condition of paranoid personality disorder. Reference to that particular disorder was made because by the time of the judgment both of the two psychiatrists, Dr. B’s opinion was that that diagnosis was the most appropriate and could properly be made in relation to GW. I quote:

“Personality disorder is characterised by:

“(a)

excessive sensitiveness to setbacks and rebuffs;

“(b)

tendency to bear grudges persistently, for example refusal to forgive insults and injuries or slights;

“(c)

suspiciousness and a pervasive tendency to distort experience by misconstruing the neutral or friendly action of others as hostile or contemptuous;

“(d)

a combative and tenacious sense of personal rights out of keeping with the actual situation; [and (e) was not thought to be relevant to this case]

“(f)

tendency to experience excessive self-important manifest in a persistent self-referential attitude;

“(g)

preoccupation with unsubstantiated conspiratorial explanations of events, both immediate to the patient and in the world at large.”

Dr. A agreed that there was evidence that all six characteristics were present in GW but was unsure if there was sufficient evidence of all of them.

The learned judge, having rehearsed the evidence at some length, indicated that she found Dr. B to be an impressive witness and, where he differed from Dr. A in relation to these matters, she plainly preferred his evidence. She quoted a number of examples given by Dr. B which demonstrated, he said, the various categories or characteristics that I have already listed. Then just before the end of para.39 on p.161 she says this:

“My conclusion, having read and heard all of the medical evidence, is that Dr. B has investigated and considered the problem very thoroughly and has reached a balanced decision. In other words, it is his conclusion and his opinion which I prefer. In other words, I accept the father is suffering from paranoid personality disorder but that does not mean that he should play no part in the children’s lives. What it does mean is that there need to be safeguards and concerns for the views generally expressed that the mental state may deteriorate if not treated.”

She then goes on to record Dr. B’s opinion that the father’s parents, both of whom have played a full active part in these proceedings over the years, may be classed as being in the situation of “follie à deux” or, because there are three involved, “follie à trois”, in the sense that a person with delusional beliefs, thus the father, brings others who are close to him into their ambit.

The judge then drew attention to a letter which had apparently been written at an earlier stage to the grandparents by some, if not all, of the father, GW’s, siblings. The reference was made because Dr. B placed some emphasis on that, and it appeared at p.D26 of the original bundle. Again, because of what is said in the course of these proceedings, I quote from this short extract from the letter. The siblings say this:

“We are all extremely concerned about the dilemma you find yourself in at this present time. No one in the family can understand your hostile attitude regarding us all. We are all convinced that G is poisoning your minds and turning you against us. He has taken over both your minds and your bungalow, and if you’re not very careful you will be out in the street.”

Later the letter says this:

“You have got to understand we don’t hate G. He is our brother and we love him very much, but he’s got to come back to the real world before any of us can help.”

It is recorded that the grandmother told the judge that she destroyed that letter as soon as she had received it.

The learned judge analyzed the various factors in the welfare checklist, and in particular in relation to the likelihood of harm that the children might suffer were they to have unsupervised contact to their father she concluded that it was very likely that if the children were to live with the father they would be caught up in the father’s and the grandparents’ beliefs. They would hear adverse derogatory views about their mother expressed and they would probably, despite what the father says, be cut off from her. All that, said the judge, would be highly damaging.

Drawing those various findings, and indeed others which I have not quoted, together, the learned judge concluded that the only possible way forward was for there to be supervised contact and at that stage, as I have already indicated, the plan was for the supervised contact venue to be the TCF premises here in London. Thus the order was made in those terms.

Following that order, the father appealed promptly to the Court of Appeal and made two fresh applications for unsupervised contact in December and January. Those two latter applications came on for hearing before a different circuit judge prior to the matter being dealt with in the Court of Appeal. HHJ Hamilton by that stage had information that the TCF did not feel able to put themselves forward as supervisors for contact because of reasons connected with the father. The judge therefore, knowing that the father had applied twice for s.8 orders since Judge Hallon’s order, made a s.91(14) order against the father and dismissed his applications for contact.

Two days later, on 3^rd February 2005, the matter came before the Court of Appeal on a leave to appeal application and was heard by the single judge, Scott Baker LJ. The application was for permission to appeal the judgment and decision of Judge Hallon to which I have already made extensive reference. Scott Baker LJ at para.1 indicates that the father appeared before him in person and says this:

“It is his case that he has suffered an horrendous injustice and he is desperately trying now to obtain justice, that the state has assisted his wife in achieving her aims with regard to the termination of their relationship and the relationship between the father and his two children.”

Later the judge indicates that the real complaint that the father had was that the hearing was not a fair hearing before an impartial and independent tribunal.

At para.13 of the judgment Scott Baker LJ says this:

“The fundamental point of this application relates to what the father says was not a fair hearing before an independent and impartial tribunal. The father goes into some detail into the basis of his complaint both in his grounds of appeal and in his skeleton. He asserts that because Judge Hallon had already had dealings with his case she was in no position to give him a fair hearing on 22^nd October. He also contends that she got the case hopelessly wrong, that she should not have believed the mother and that she should not have accepted the medical evidence from Dr. B about his psychiatric state.”

The Lord Justice understandably had no trouble in holding that the fact that the same judge dealt with the case was not a matter of complaint.

At para.15 he says this:

“This is a distressing case. It is always sad when relationships break up, and of course the children’s welfare is the first and paramount consideration. It very much looks as if the father’s erratic and irrational behaviour has been caused as a result of his mental condition. This in all probability is no fault of his, but at the end of the day the judge had to consider the interests of the children. It is only the order of 22^nd October against which permission to appeal is sought. All the earlier orders stand unchallenged, with the findings of fact that the court made on each occasion, in particular the earlier findings of Judge Hallon on 8^th October. I cannot find a shred of evidence to support the contention that the father did not have a fair hearing before an impartial and independent tribunal. Judge Hallon plainly went into this distressing case with the greatest care and consideration. A good deal turns on the fact that she accepted Dr. B’s evidence. She had the benefit of hearing all the witnesses. I have carefully read the report of Dr. B and it is plain that Dr. B went into the background of this case and to the father’s history with a good deal of care. I am very sympathetic to the father’s position and also to that of his parents, who have been dragged into this distressing situation through no fault of theirs.”

Scott Baker LJ held that there was no possibility of the father persuading the court that he had a real prospect of success on the appeal, and so permission to appeal was refused.

The progress of matters, however, before the Court of Appeal did not end there, and the next significant hearing was again before a single judge in the Court of Appeal, Ward LJ, on 1^st June 2005. At that hearing the judge was considering an application for permission to appeal the order that Judge Hamilton had made on 1^st February, making a s.91(14) order and dismissing the father’s applications for contact. In a nutshell, Ward LJ on that occasion came to the view that the result of Judge Hamilton’s order was to end the father’s contact, and yet the supervised contact which had been planned by Judge Hallon taking place under the auspices of TC had not even started, because that agency had not felt able to take the matter forward. Ward LJ therefore took the view that it was premature and unfair simply to leave the matter hanging there and that the question of whether supervised contact at another agency might be pursued needed to come back before the court.

At para.12 Ward LJ says this, and it is important to stress this paragraph because this is the one and only quote that the father can rely upon in terms of any suggestion that there has been a serious injustice done at all during any of these proceedings. It is a quote to which, in isolation, he refers to often. Ward LJ says this:

“But I have become aware, as I listened to Mr. W, that there may have been a serious injustice done in this case both with regard to the making of the s.91(14) order and the contact order. Firstly, my concern is this. Dealing with the contact applications, I am not at all satisfied that Judge Hamilton dealt with this properly. If, on her own judgment, it was premature to return to the Bromley County Court to seek contact orders before this court had dealt with the application for appeal that was to be heard by Scott Baker LJ, then she should have adjourned the matter.”

He then, having indicated that that may be a technical point, turned to the point of substance and said this at para.13:

“I said then and I repeat that I am a little troubled that after TC had found supervision unsatisfactory, the case should be left hanging in the air without further consideration as to what should happen in the light of the rejection by them of the opportunity to supervise.”

Later:

“It seems to me Mr. W is perfectly entitled to approach Bromley County Court for further directions following TC’s assessment. That at least seems to me to be highly arguable as a matter which merited consideration on its merits. If not TC, was there anything else? If so, what? If so, who? If so, how? If nothing, then it ought to be dealt with by way of a separate consideration that the father is now to have no contact whatsoever. So I do not think at the moment it is clear enough to this court today that his case has been looked at on the merits.”

Thus the application for permission to appeal was adjourned to be heard by the full court.

That hearing came on on 13^th September. However, by that time the mother had agreed to a referral to a second contact centre, the TCCC, and indeed three supervised contact sessions had taken place, the first being on 6^th August 2005. So by the time the matter came on for hearing before Ward LJ, Rix LJ and Moore-Bick LJ, not only had supervised contact started but the mother was consenting to it continuing and therefore the appeal was effectively compromised by that measure of agreement. I have read the transcript of the Court of Appeal hearing which appears at part C of the bundle at p.240. That is an important document, as indeed is the order that flowed from that hearing. The importance of it is that time and again the father refers to the order made on 13^th September 2005 by the Court of Appeal. The reason he does so is because at para.7 of that order, which is to be found at A290 of the bundle, the order says this:

“The appellants [that is the father and the grandparents] shall have contact with the children at the TCCS or any other contact centre venue that the appellants and respondent may agree upon on such dates and such times as shall be agreed between them.”

The father relies upon that order of the Court of Appeal which says “The appellants shall have contact” as being, as it were, a trump card in any subsequent litigation. For example, he asserts that this court is still bound by that order some 18 months later. It is therefore important to look at the discussion in the Court of Appeal between counsel and the court that led up to the making of the order. I do not read out the transcript but the purport of it is that Miss Lucy Stone QC for the father indicated that there had been agreement, and at p.243 at letter D says that the supervising officer in charge of the centre has said that she is content that the children are at no risk in the centre and that she feels that supported, rather than supervised, contact is suitable. It was therefore on that basis that there would be contact at a contact centre, but at that stage that it would be supported rather than supervised, that the matter went forward.

The other point to be taken from the transcript of the Court of Appeal hearing is that it was very much a hearing looking to get the matter back before a first instance court, the High Court Family Division, for further directions at an early stage for the applications (which were by then to be reinvigorated by the setting aside of Judge Hamilton’s orders) to proceed on the merits before the first instance court, and there is discussion about whether there should be a one-day hearing fixed or an earlier one-hour directions hearing. Thus it is that the rest of the Court of Appeal order which was drafted by consent by the parties is to the effect that the matter should come before the High Court for an early hearing.

I am going to grasp the issue of the Court of Appeal order of September 2005 firmly at this stage. All that the Court of Appeal order does on its face and, having looked at the transcript of the hearing, was it intended to do, was to provide a bridging position until the matter could come back before the High Court. All that the Court of Appeal order provided for was for there to be contact at a contact centre, either the one named or another one agreed, and

Moving on, the matter left the Court of Appeal and in due course, as predicted, came up before the late Bracewell J. for hearing on 6^th October. On that occasion, and I note that the order is by consent, and it is at p.56 of the orders bundle, the order provided for supervised contact on the basis of fortnightly visits for a period increasing in duration to up to three hours, and the matter was to be re-listed for a review in December and a full one-day hearing in the early spring.

Unfortunately, the contact which had been continuing at the contact centre ended on 19^th November 2005. At p.B740 of the bundle a report dated 22^nd November from that agency raised a number of issues and suggested that the father should accept some counselling as to the most appropriate approach to contact and that the contact visits should be shortened to allow him to receive feedback and counselling from the workers at the end of each session. That letter which was sent to the father led swiftly to the contact centre withdrawing from further contact. They did so formally by a letter of 2^nd December 2005 at p.B799A of the bundle. They indicated in that letter that they were withdrawing from further contact as a result of complaints that had been made by the father about the centre and which had been published generally, and in particular to various professional bodies.

The issue of contact therefore was reconsidered by the parties and a new contact centre, the F Centre, was chosen and contact was commenced there on 8^th January 2006. In all, there were three visits there in January and February.

The matter came on for full hearing before Kirkwood J. on 17^th February 2006. This was, as I read the papers, the hearing that the Court of Appeal had set up by the order that they had made. The judgment of Kirkwood J. is in the bundle at p.C270. In the course of his summary of matters, he referred to the very robust advice that the father had been given by Ward LJ in the course of the Court of Appeal hearing. It is plain that Kirkwood J. endorsed the advice that Ward LJ had given, which was for the father, in effect, to look to himself and see what help and assistance he might benefit from in order to allow matters to move on. With regret, Kirkwood J. noted at para.9 that the father had not taken the advice of Ward LJ and had not moved on. He particularly noted that the father seemingly had continued his campaign of “vitriol” in relation to the system, the state, the court, the professionals and the mother, and that this was, as the judge observed, very much the sort of material that Ward LJ had hoped would stop.

At para.9 Kirkwood J says this five lines down:

“So long as he carries on as he still does, he cannot, it seems to me, allay the fears that he may conduct himself in respect of the children in breach of court orders. In short and not mincing words, that he may take them from their mother’s care. The grandparents remain totally enmeshed with the father, at least the grandmother does.”

That being said, the learned judge at para.13 noted that the progress of contact, still in its early days, was good. At para.14 he says this:

“I have reached the conclusion that the court would be greatly assisted by a psychiatric report of the type suggested this afternoon by [and he names the expert] which would address two things: One, the make-up of each parent in the context of establishing communication between them for the benefit of the children, and the other is an up-to-date assessment of the father’s own wellbeing and of any risk that he poses to the children of impulsive action of the kind I have referred to this afternoon.”

Having approached the matter in that way and looking to progress matters with a psychiatric referral of that sort, and also looking to find in due course an amelioration of the father’s approach, the learned judge felt it was not right to move to unsupervised contact at that hearing. He therefore made an order for the fortnightly supervised contact to continue and for the grandparents to have contact once a month by coming along to the contact session that the father would otherwise be having.

Again for the record, on 27^th March the Court of Appeal, Ward LJ and Bennett J., allowed permission for the father to appeal an order of HHJ Hamilton of the previous October which had dealt with an injunction order.

The next significant event is the beginning of the breakdown of the father’s relationship with the F Centre. A letter was sent on 10^th April 2006 by the centre, and it is to be found at p.788 of the bundle. In that letter, which is detailed, the centre set out some ten matters of concern about how the father had conducted himself at the various contact sessions, and balanced against that at p.790 they also record that the children appear to have enjoyed the contact that they had had with the father. The author of the letter, who is the managing director of the centre, then says this:

“I would strongly suggest that you [that is the father] undergo a psychiatric assessment immediately. I am of the professional opinion that F Centre cannot offer you supported contact until a full and clear psychiatric assessment is conducted, which the F Centre would wish to consider. The F Centre is prepared to offer supervised contact to ensure the continuing protection and supervision of the children whilst at the centre. This will of course be subject to your conduct at the centre. Any other action that we become aware of which in our professional view impacts directly on the children and is assessed not to be in the children’s best interest, will also be reviewed.

“I would like you to consider this letter as an official warning.”

There was one further contact session on 16^th April but the F Centre, in the light of the father’s reaction to their letter, withdrew from contact on 24^th April.

I pause there to note that by that stage the two contact centres and Kirkwood J. had each strongly advised the father to seek the advice of a psychiatrist. The matter came back before Kirkwood J. on 26^th April and directions were given for finding yet a further contact venue.

In order to progress matters in a different direction following advice from Ward LJ, the couple agreed to attend mediation. That started on 6^th June 2006 and was short lived, but it included within its compass two sessions, if not three, on which the children attended at the mediation centre and had contact with their father. The last mediation session was on 12^th July 2006. The mediation ended there. It is not the business of this court to enquire into the details of the mediation but two matters have become apparent in these proceedings. First of all, that the father accepts that he had a tape recording device with him in the mediation room and that the mother took exception to this. He asserts that it was not on. I make no finding about that. It is plain from his evidence, however, that it was out, as it were, and alongside his mobile phone in the room. Secondly, the father alleges that the mediation broke down because the mother, he says, would not stop her vile abuse.

The matter came back before Kirkwood J. on 17^th July for what was the final hearing before that judge. He continued the order for fortnightly supervised contact. He expressed his regret that the father had not taken up what had been agreed to be a joint referral for a psychiatric intervention, and he raised the question of whether the children should be separately represented. The order made then was for continuing supervised contact for the certainly short, if not medium, term. The father did not accept that outcome. Eleven days later, on 28^th July, he and the grandparents issued fresh s.8 applications for a shared residence order and contact. The reasons given in the application at p.A212 are that Kirkwood J. had given liberty to apply and that they were seeking the enforcement of the Court of Appeal’s order of 13^th September, and that the mother had consistently disobeyed and flouted orders.

Pausing there, the “liberty to apply” that Kirkwood J. had given was in relation to the working out of his order. If there was to be any application about that order, then it should have come to Kirkwood J. and not be the subject of a fresh residence order application. I have already made my observations about the validity of the father’s second argument based on the Court of Appeal order. The whole basis of the father issuing fresh applications so soon after the order made by Kirkwood J. was therefore totally erroneous. At subsequent hearings other judges of the Division have allowed the applications to continue and I have now hard them. The fact that this process has taken place is, however, relevant to the mother’s s.91(14) case.

At the same time as starting fresh s.8 applications, the father also lodged an appeal against the decision of Kirkwood J. On 4^th October before the Court of Appeal at p.A266 Ward LJ dismissed or refused all applications made by the father for permission to appeal and there was a limited allowance in relation to one minor part of the injunction orders made by Judge Hamilton for which permission to appeal had earlier been given.

Pausing there, the result of that decision was that the father’s challenge to Kirkwood J.’s order and process ended there. If the father’s point about the Court of Appeal order of September was correct, then one would have expected the Court of Appeal to have agreed with him on 4^th October and set aside the supervised element of the contact orders made by Bracewell J. and Kirkwood J. Ward LJ did not do that; he refused permission to appeal. This outcome underlines the conclusion to which I have already come, namely that the father is totally wrong to continue to rely upon the September 2005 order from the Court of Appeal.

The applications which the father had by then made came on for directions before Black J. on 14^th November. She directed that the children be joined as parties and that CAFCASS be appointed to act as their rule 9.5 guardian. That has led to the children now being represented by an independent guardian appointed by CAFCASS, Mrs. Jean Barratt, and by a solicitor. Black J. set up this hearing, which has taken place before me, and a directions hearing on 12^th January. She made provision for variations of the applications that the parties were due to make. The father was present at that hearing and the mother was present at that hearing. In due course I will look at the evidence, such as it is, about the two incidents that took place there. What is plain is that the father was not told anything on 14^th November about any proposed house move that the mother may have been planning to make. Unbeknownst to him, she did move house on 20^th November to a location, the details of which have not been disclosed to the father.

The next significant event is that on 18^th December 2006 the father issued a wide-ranging claim form in civil proceedings in the Queen’s Bench Division. In it he claims damages against the Prime Minister, the Lord Chancellor, the Lord Chief Justice, and others, for unlawful acts with regard to his family law proceedings. I am not aware of the current status of that claim and whether any directions have been given within it.

Shortly before Christmas the father found out for the first time (through the social services or the housing department) that the mother had moved. He therefore issued proceedings straight after Christmas in this court seeking orders to locate the mother and the children, and such orders were made by the court on 28^th December. As I have indicated, the grandparents and the father then applied on 9^th January for a residence order. There was a hearing before Black J. on 12^th January which set up this hearing with revised directions.

That, I hope, with the necessary detail and I suspect at too great a length, is the relevant background. Turning to the matters that have to be determined at this hearing, it is right to stress at the start that this is not a rehearing of the entirety of the issues in this case. The findings made by HHJ Hallon stand and have not been overturned. There has been no new psychiatric evidence commissioned or produced. There has been no rehearing of the original factual evidence and the decisions I make must be founded upon the original findings that were made by HHJ Hallon and indeed Kirkwood J., but subject to any evidence of subsequent events and an evaluation of the current welfare needs of the children.

The father makes a number of points both in his paper contributions and orally. The first is that the Court of Appeal order of 13^th September governs the determination of any contact issue and that this court has no business in looking at the issue of contact which has already been adjudicated upon by a higher court and three Lords Justices of Appeal. He also relies upon the fact that Ward LJ said that there had been, in the father’s words, an injustice here. I have already dealt with those arguments; they have no value at all.

Secondly, the father says, more generally, that there has indeed been a great injustice here, and it has been compounded time and again by the courts and the other authorities. In particular, he says this: that Judge Hallon took an unlawful and biased view. Her decision was a grave error of law. The mother lied repeatedly and the judge wrongly accepted what she said. Dr. B made false allegations. Dr. B’s instruction was not a joint instruction. Pausing there, I have already made reference to the fact that it was not initially, it was the father’s instruction to Dr. B with which the mother had eventually joined in. The court did not give leave, says the father, to Dr. B to see the court papers. Again, pausing there, under the rules [FPR 1991, r.4.23 applied at this time] there was no need for the court to give leave for an instructed expert to be given the court papers. Finally, he says that Dr. B deliberately came to a diagnosis of paranoid personality disorder in order to fuel the case and for he personally, Dr. B, to make money out of the system.

Thirdly, the father, again more generally, says that all the relevant agencies are in conspiracy with the mother in order to prevent contact. This is due (A) to the mother lying but also (B) due to the state having a policy aimed at destroying families and preventing contact. The organs of the state, be it the court, contact centres, CAFCASS or central government, are to be seen, he says, as assassins who have sought to kill his family life and his relationship with his children.

Fourthly, he asserts that there have been a number of conspiracies. For example, firstly, all three firms of solicitors who have acted for the father, he claims, have deliberately fuelled the litigation in order to make money for themselves rather than to further his or the children’s interests. Secondly, he claims that contact broke down at the two agencies because of the father’s solicitors having sent the court bundle to these contact centres and that they changed their approach to him and to contact itself after they had read that. Thirdly, he claims that there have been judicial miscarriages of justice and an abuse of judicial power. Fourthly, the family court, he says, is a form of state-sanctioned child abuse. Fifthly, he claims that legal aid fuels proceedings and creates a self-serving and self-perpetuating system. Lastly, he makes allegations against contact centres in general and believes that they fuel litigation and work against families, and in particular he asserts that it is quite wrong for the President of the Family Division, Sir Mark Potter, to be the patron of the Contact Centre Organisation because of this state of affairs.

The father intends to contact the police with the plan of giving chapter and verse about these various conspiracies to the police which he considers to be criminal. He anticipates the police will prosecute all of the professionals involved and that there will be, to that extent, he anticipates justice for his claim.

The sixth element of the father’s case is that he accepts that he has said in the past that he has always been right since he was a teenager. He went on to tell me that the only mistake that he has ever made in his life was to marry the children’s mother.

Seven, he claims that the mother is in breach of the Court of Appeal order for contact. I have already made observations about the Court of Appeal’s order. In terms of the breaches that he relies upon, I asked GW this morning to assist the court by giving details of precisely when it is said that the mother has failed to produce the children for contact. The result of that process is that there are but two occasions when he claims she failed to facilitate contact. The first is that she failed to attend on 24^th September 2005 at the first contact centre. The mother’s case, and she was asked about this in evidence, was that she was asked to facilitate contact on that date at very short notice, less than 24 hours. She had already arranged to take the children away for the weekend and she said that she was not able to comply at such short notice, but she did readily agree to an additional contact session being added the following week. The father accepts that contact was replaced the following week and it took place.

The second allegation of breach is that contact did not take place on 22^nd October. The mother agrees that it did not take place but relies upon the fact that at a court hearing on 20^th October, two days before, the father had faxed a note to the court, and it is at B447 of the bundle, indicating that he was exhausted, that he was ill and that he had “flu”. In the knowledge that that was what the father was saying on the Thursday, the mother contacted the contact centre and they indicated that they did not want someone who was ill attending the centre. Contact was therefore cancelled but rearranged for the following week. That is both the beginning and end of the father’s detailed case on the mother being in breach of contact orders. In due course I will turn to any findings I make in that regard.

Secondly, in terms of breach, the father says that the mother moving house without telling him is a breach of any contact order that he may have. The argument is that if he does not know where she is, contact cannot take place.

The eighth element of the father’s case is that this is a case of parental alienation syndrome, with the mother saying to the children that the father is not a good parent. I can deal with that shortly. There seems to me to be no evidence that this is a case of parental alienation syndrome. Rather, the evidence is to the contrary. The children go to contact with the father without any difficulty, and when they are with him in contact, all the reports are that they are relaxed and settled with him, have an easy relationship with him and enjoy being in his company. Secondly, if this is a case of parental alienation syndrome, it is very odd, particularly given the long history of this case, that the mother even now is still in favour of there being continuing contact and is willing to contemplate various options to develop it and move it forward.

Nine, the father does not accept that he has ever threatened or been violent to the mother. He does not accept Judge Hallon’s findings. I, as I have already indicated, am bound by those. He was taken to p.C226 of the bundle, which is part of a transcript of a hearing, I think before Judge Hallon herself, in the Bromley County Court. There is a short staccato stage of the transcript where the judge, Mr. GW and his father are all making observations. It starts with Mr. GW, the father in this case, saying that “Every person is on a list and I will hound them into the ground, and that’s a fact.” The judge then seeks to intervene and make one or two comments. The father then says to the judge: “You had better get yourself a bodyguard, judge, because I think you will probably need it.” The transcript goes on with GW saying: “Her days are numbered”, and then saying: “The one with wigs on, their days are numbered as well.” Later, at the very end of the transcript, GW is quoted as saying this: “Get yourself an armed guard.” Mr. W Senior says: “You will have to, all of you.” GW says: “A machine gun. You’re going to need it. Don’t.” The grandfather says: “Oh, watch out, got it.” Then GW says: “You will have sleepless nights now”, and that is effectively the end of the transcript.

Presented with that evidence, the father’s only recourse was to say that some of those observations were made by his father. I accept the transcript as being accurate. It is difficult to understand how the transcriber can have failed to differentiate between the two voices, and in particular the last comment I have quoted: “You will have sleepless nights now” is immediately followed by the same voice saying: “Go, mother.” It seems to me that it is impossible, having read that, for the father to assert that he has never been threatening in any manner. He also asserts that he has never been hostile or threatening to the mother.

I make five observations. The whole tenor of his evidence is to express revulsion to the mother and overt and direct hatred of her and what he perceives that she has done over the years. In particular, secondly, when asked if he wanted to cross-examine the mother yesterday afternoon he said this: “Just looking at her makes me feel repulsively sick as she’s lying again.” Thirdly, he accepts that at court on the directions hearing on 14^th November he said to the mother: “Because she’s not complying with the Court of Appeal order I would take her back to court and if she’s still not complying I would need to keep on going back to court.” Fourth, he accepts that he has threatened to take away, as he calls them, the W children, and he explained that he said that in order to protect his children. Fifthly, he explained how easy it would be for him to find out where the mother now lives via the internet or by what he called “influential friends”, and that, no matter what any order may say, he will find out where she is living.

Going back to the main points of the father’s case, the final five can be dealt with shortly. Point ten: he says he will not give up until justice is done, and by that he means when he gets a residence or shared residence order. Eleven, he has drawn the court’s attention to the fact that he has two applications pending before the Court of Appeal for a second appeal against a number of these substantive orders. In that regard, I have taken the view that it is right for this court to proceed with this substantive hearing today. If, in the light of any further appeal process in relation to orders upon which I have relied, this has to be re-opened, then that is a matter that will have to be looked at then.

Point 12:GW is, as we shall see in a moment, extremely scathing of the role of CAFCASS and in particular the guardian. He indicated at the beginning of the hearing that he wished to apply to have the guardian dismissed from the proceedings; however, he did not prosecute that application at all and the hearing has carried on with Mrs. Barratt playing an ordinary and full role in the case.

The last two points he makes were to do with conflict of interest, and I caused investigations to be undertaken in relation to each of them. He asserted that there was a conflict of interest between the solicitors acting for the mother, the name of the firm being Thackeray Williams, and the solicitors acting now for the children, Bindmans, because, having been to the internet, he had found that one of the members of family law team at Bindmans had the surname Thackeray. He therefore asserted to me that it was obvious that there was a conflict of interest between the two firms. I caused enquiries to be made and a short statement was produced by Miss Thackeray of Bindmans indicating that she was not related to anybody who might be connected with the Thackeray Williams firm and had no knowledge of them or dealings with them. That, for my part, was the end of the matter. It did not stop GW continuing to assert that simply the coincidence of surnames raised a conflict of interests that should be addressed.

The final point that he made in connection with his case, and with an allegation of conflict, was that the mother’s solicitors, Thackeray Williams, had a conflict of interest because at an earlier stage he had instructed a firm of solicitors which had subsequently merged with Thackeray Williams. Again,

What does the father seek at this hearing? He seeks for both of these children’s parents to be fully involved in their care. He seeks disclosure of the mother’s address, but if she will not disclose the address he seeks a sole residence order in his favour, saying that if he does not know where she lives there cannot be a shared residence order. If there is to be further contact at a contact centre before the children move to him, he has found the Orpington Contact Centre and puts that forward because, as he says, it is an open centre with an relaxed approach to contact and, in particular, I note it has no facilities for formal supervision of contact. On that issue, the father says this: “There will never be another contact centre in this case as long as I am breathing. Contact centres are part of the corrupt system.” He confirmed that if a further supervised contact centre was put forward, he would not go there.

So far as his residence claim is concerned, he seeks a move of the children to him as soon as possible after this judgment is given. He does not think that they would be unsettled because they have so recently moved house with the mother. He made it plain that if he thought the children were suffering harm he would remove them from the mother. He went on to confirm that the children are indeed in need of being removed from the mother because both she and the state are abusing them. In any event, he considers that it would be beneficial to the mother to forfeit the right to be a residential parent because of how she has behaved in the past three years, and he seeks the mother’s committal to prison for contempt. He told me it would do the mother and the court an awful lot of good for her to go to prison to show that she should not flout a Court of Appeal order, and also because she disappeared soon after the hearing before Black J. He felt it was in the best interests of the children for her to go to prison.

So far, I have not mentioned the children very much in the course of this judgment. I turn to do so now. The guardian’s intervention in this case has included arranging two contact sessions for the children with their father and, on one occasion the grandmother, at the CAFCASS facility at First Avenue House. The guardian’s report describes the two contact sessions, and it seems that the children went relatively easily to these sessions, despite the fairly long passage of time since they last saw their father, and that, subject to comments which I will turn to from the guardian in a moment, they were basically good and enjoyable sessions of contact. The father is at pains to stress how well he gets on with the children, and I too have made it plain to him that on the papers that I have read describing past contact, a beacon, as I call it, in this case is that when he sees the children it goes well. At his invitation, I have watched a short clip of video film of a contact session with him in 2005, and again any viewing of that clip shows two happy children playing well with the father doing his best (and indeed doing fairly well) to engage with both of them in different activities at the same time. I declined his invitation to look at what would have been an hour and a half, if not two hours, of other video contact records.

The problem for the court and the family and the children is how to build on the beneficial relationship that the children seem to have with the father for these short bursts of contact. The mother wants contact to take place. That is the other extremely positive feature in this case. On the first day of the case in colloquial terms I put the question to the father in this way, given the goal of moving to more easy contact: “How do we get there from here?” A number of options have been put to him by various professionals and indeed by the court during the hearing. I asked him in terms how he would look to build up trust with the mother and his immediate response was to say she should be in prison for breach of the contact order. He was asked whether he would agree to a referral now to a psychiatrist for both parents. His response was: “She certainly needs one but I don’t.”

In the light of those answers and indeed others, I formed the view that the father was totally deaf and blind to any view of any way forward other than his own. For example, he would not accept guidance from the guardian during the recent contact visit to the effect that he should not tell the children that there were bunk beds for them at his home, and that it was wrong for him to reply with the word “Soon” when W asked if they were coming to see their father. He accepted that saying these sorts of things would be confusing to the children, but he told me that was the state’s fault for abusing his children.

The guardian considers that there is a need for the father to discuss the children’s needs around contact before and after the contact sessions in order, no doubt, that there can be a learning process and an improvement in what takes place. The father was asked about this in cross-examination on behalf of the guardian and I was struck by the extremely animated and exercised nature of his immediate reaction. He said: “This level of abuse must stop” and that “CAFCASS is paid £100 million a year to assist in the disruption of families and has taken thousands of children off their families.” He therefore, he said, did not need third parties telling him what was in the best interests of his children, and he concluded this response (to the seemingly modest suggestion that a professional might discuss his children’s needs with him to assist in the contact sessions) by telling me that he agreed with his father, who had said that an army should be formed to bring to book all those who have perpetuated this abuse on children.

Another way of moving matters forward that has been considered and discussed during the hearing is to involve some of the large number of family members in the father’s family. I am not going to go into the detail of the various options that might or might not be available. To virtually all of the ones that the mother or the guardian thought were possibilities, in particular that of Steven, the father took some exception or expressed a contrary view.

At the close of the hearing on the second day I invited the parties to consider options for moving forward. That invitation was particularly aimed at the father, as the other parties had already acceded to a number of the suggested strategies. Sadly, when the court convened on the third morning, the father did not indicate any change in his position.

So much for the father and his case and his evidence in support of it. I heard short unsworn evidence from the maternal grandmother. She was asked a number of questions by the other parties. She described a big, happy family prior to these events. She is plainly greatly saddened by the disintegration of a number of family relationships. But she sides absolutely squarely alongside her son G in every respect. She told me that there was nothing wrong with him, and this was an answer that she repeated on more than one occasion. She considered that he had always been right to come back to court when he had done so and that her aim for him was to get justice. He had been, she considered, treated “worse than a murderer” by the court system. That being said, she wanted to put all this bickering in the past and let the mother and the children come to visit the family at one of the family homes with the contact building up from short meetings to a longer period of a day or so. In this regard, what she was proposing was far more modest than the father’s immediate move of the children to live with him and his parents at their home.

She, like the father, considered that the state and the mother were to blame for what had happened. In particular, she described CAFCASS as having an attitude to children akin to that of “the workhouse of a hundred years ago and more”. She was plain that she, even if offered contact on her own at a contact centre, would not attend unless the father was also attending.

The paternal grandfather, who has hitherto attended some court hearings, sadly is now in a state of much compromised health. The father and the grandmother both feel that his days are numbered. He is confined to the home as a result of his health, and this is a matter obviously and understandably that causes them great distress. The fact that he is unable to be in contact with his grandchildren at the moment and knows that his son is in his current state of dispute with the mother and indeed the whole system is a matter that causes him distress. Consequently, I have not heard from him directly at this hearing, but I am well aware of his views from the transcripts that I have read and from what the grandmother has told me.

The mother, PB, gave short evidence on the third day of the hearing. In the course of that she endorsed the guardian’s recommendation and confirmed that she would take the children to contact if arrangements for supervised contact were made. She was clear that she would not agree to unsupervised or simply “supported” contact at this stage. She was also willing to take part in a family meeting with various key members of the paternal family, provided that it was professionally co-ordinated. She totally agreed with the involvement of a psychiatrist now, who would assess both parents and advise on the way forward. She asked for the release of the passports so that she, from time to time, could go abroad with the children, but had no firm plans to do so on any particular date.

She described to me how intimidated she felt by the father and his manner, and particularly told me that outside the court on 14^th November he had approached her and said: “You stupid, stupid woman. I will take you to court every day of the week.” She then went on to tell me of another allegation to the effect that the father had made a direct threat to another family member who was there, but I have not heard direct evidence about that. The father was not asked about it and the individual concerned has not filed a statement or given evidence, so I make no finding about that matter.

She asked the court to make a s.91(14) order, firstly on the important but practical basis that, as the case has gone on and on, she has used up all her holiday entitlement by attending court and is now taking unpaid leave to be here. That situation is causing financial difficulties for her with the consequent impact on the children. But perhaps of far more importance, she also says that she needs a breathing space now away from the intense cockpit of these proceedings.

She was cross-examined, largely through me, by the father. She explained that she had moved home without telling him to her new address because initially there were no alarms on the new property. She had told her solicitors and the court of the new address but had instructed her solicitors not to disclose that to the father. The father, having heard this, immediately announced that he would be suing the solicitors.

She then went through the two dates upon which contact is said to have not taken place and upon which the father relies. I have rehearsed that evidence.

The mother was cross-examined on behalf of the children’s guardian. She confirmed the details of the recent contacts, so far as she had knowledge of them, and then – and it is important to rehearse this in some short detail – she was asked if she accepted a move from once a fortnight contact to once every three weeks, which is the guardian’s suggestion. She indicated that she thought this was a good plan. The immediate reaction of the father and the grandmother in court was to make loud comments about the mother’s observation to the effect that: “You would, wouldn't you?” to the mother. That caused me to give a warning to the father and the grandmother that they should be quiet while the evidence was given. It is right to record that the court has given considerable latitude during this hearing to the father and the grandmother, who have from time to time made observations when it was not strictly their turn within the proceedings. I understand how high the tension rides in this case and I have been keen to be fair to allow them latitude in that regard.

The questioning went on straightaway to ask the mother about attending a family meeting with members of the paternal family if there was a professional present, and she replied that she would like a professional present if she were attending a meeting with a number of members of the father’s family, as she did not want to feel that she was “like a lamb going to the slaughter”. This led to an immediate loud verbal reaction from both the father and the grandmother. I indicated that I would rise for a short time to enable them to decide whether they were prepared to take part in the proceedings on the basis that they remained composed and quiet when it was not their turn to address the court, and, if not, that they should remain outside the courtroom. I am told that the father and the grandmother then left the court after I had risen, and they have made no further appearance at this court during the rest of the hearing.

Drawing matters to a close, I heard briefly from the guardian, Mrs. Barratt. She is an extremely experienced guardian and is an independent guardian instructed by CAFCASS for this case. Her report is before the court and

Mrs. Barratt favours continued supervision of contact, firstly because of the father’s untreated medical diagnosis of paranoid personality disorder. Secondly, she believes that there is value for the children in an observer watching contact and then discussing the progress of contact and his approach to the children with the father. Thirdly, she draws attention to the extremely antagonistic attitude that the father has to the mother. (I say “draws attention to it”; it has in fact been obvious to all who have been in this courtroom for the last three days). Her concern is that it would be impossible for the father over an extended period of time to avoid “leaking”, to use her word, his attitude to the children so that they became aware of it. She accepted that it is probably true that he has not said any express words during supervised contact that fall into this category, but, she says, children are subtle in what they observe, and they would pick up on signs and the odd comment and the general attitude of the father, and that would seep through to the children over time, and that if it did so it would be extremely damaging for them, in particular because, as is plainly recorded everywhere, they have such a strong, beneficial and stable relationship with their mother, who is the very focus of the father’s venomous attitude. Mrs. Barratt said this: “His level of rage is so strong that he couldn’t hold on to it, that is keep quiet or subdue it, for a lengthy period of time.”

Mrs. Barratt therefore sees the way forward as being by supervised contact less frequently, that is now once every three weeks, at a venue, either the Brixton Contact Centre which has been selected, or another one if the paternal family are particularly concerned about the geographical location of Brixton, which she can approve. I asked her whether the reality of the case was that, until the father’s paranoid personality disorder is addressed directly, any further attempts at contact would meet the same outcome of those that have taken place hitherto. Mrs. Barratt understood my reasoning in that respect and in effect had at an earlier stage come to the same view. But she took the view that it was at this stage nevertheless better to capitalise on the children’s enjoyment of contact and the mother’s willingness to co-operate with it, to see whether, this hearing having taken place, contact could, despite the pessimistic messages from recent history, be beneficial.

Drawing matters to a close, I make the following various findings.

(1) First of all, as I have indicated, these findings are based upon those made previously by HHJ Hallon and Kirkwood J.

(2) I have looked at the matter, however, from that base point afresh and heard and seen the material that has been presented to the court. Nothing that I have seen or heard during this hearing causes me to doubt the soundness of those earlier conclusions. On the contrary, and sadly, a very great many of Judge Hallon’s observations would apply to the more recent evidence and to the father’s presentation at this hearing without changing but a word or two of her judgment.

(3) It is a fact that the father, as found by Judge Hallon, suffers from mental health disability in the form of paranoid personality disorder.

(4) Both he and his mother totally refute that finding and indicate that there is absolutely nothing wrong with the father; indeed, their case is that he is totally right in all respects and is justified in his sustained and multi-faceted fight for justice.

(5) The father’s view is that all the professionals that have been involved with him and his family, be they lawyers, judges, social work professionals or others, and all of the relevant agencies, and indeed the state itself, are involved in a sustained campaign designed to oust him from his family and ensure that he is not reunited with his children. In doing so, the agencies and the professionals are accepting the many lies that he says the mother has told and are actively conspiring with her to do him down.

(6) This, if true, would be an awesome and astounding situation, yet it is this belief that is sustained and built upon by the father and his parents to the extent that, on the presentation in court, it pervades every syllable that he utters and every sinew of his body as he utters them.

(7) The question has to be asked whether there may be something amiss with the system, or something amiss with the man. The paternal family parties do not for one moment contemplate the second altogether or more understandable option that it might be the man who has something amiss. This is despite the clear diagnosis and the findings of Judge Hallon and despite all of the other evidence in the case, for example (A) his claim about parental alienation syndrome which bears no resemblance to what is actually happening with respect to his relationship with the children. (B), the mother’s positive attitude to him having contact. (C) his alleged breaches of the order which, on consideration, are, even at their height, minimal and, on close inspection, have no validity to them. (D) his blinkered holding on to the Court of Appeal order without any understanding of what has transpired since then.

(8) I find that the mother is an impressive individual in the circumstances that she finds herself, both in life and in these court proceedings. It would be entirely understandable for a mother in a case such as this, facing the relentless venom directed at her by the father, to walk away and seek an order that there should be no contact. But that is not what PB does. She has continued to offer to bring the children for supervised contact, in the hope that it will develop. She, as far as can be seen, rather than giving the children negative information about the father, has brought two balanced children up in a way that when they go and see their father in these rather strange surroundings, are happy to leave her and go to him, and happy to be with him. She says that she has at home, out in the open, a photograph of the father with the two children. I accept that that is the case. That is another example of how big a personality she has been able to be in relation to this highly taxing and emotionally demanding issue. Her good faith, so far as this court is concerned, is not in doubt.

(9) Nothing has changed, sadly, in the circumstances of the case since they were before HHJ Hallon or Kirkwood J. Indeed, in my view matters have become more entrenched so far as the father is concerned, and the options for moving forward are running out. The tragedy of this is that GW has much to offer as a father to his children. In the same way, so do his parents as caring grandparents.

(10) On the first day of the case I explained to the father that this was, as it clearly is, a court of law and that the problems in this family were largely problems of personality and human relationships and that therefore, rather than court orders sorting matters out and talk of prison and enforcement, a way forward might be to look to resolve matters outside the court by professional help from psychologists, psychiatrists or social workers.

(11) The father is totally unwilling to contemplate any of the possible strategies that might normally be employed to assist a family that is stuck and unable to move on.

(12) The father’s reaction to each and every person who has been engaged in attempting to move maters on and establishing contact can be seen to fit the behavioural criteria of paranoid personality disorder described by Dr. B.

(13) It seems to me to be highly unlikely that the father is capable of engaging in any repeat of the supervised contact process, were it to be set up. He is a victim of the personality disorder from which he suffers, rather than being a victim of some elaborate and sustained global conspiracy. Psychiatric intervention may well provide a way of breaking the current circle of behaviour in both sides of this family. The father may well feel that he ha been banging his head against a brick wall in trying to achieve ordinary time with his children; the assistance of a psychiatrist could well help to show him a doorway in this wall through which the family can pass and move forward in a much more constructive manner. As long as he carries on without any form of treatment, or psychiatric challenge or other intervention, the result of further attempts at contact seem doomed to failure. GW needs professional psychiatric help to understand his condition and to learn to modify his reaction to events.

(14) I have considered whether or not it is in the children’s interests to require GW to obtain an up-to-date psychiatric evaluation and advice as to treatment options before ordering any further contact. The time must come when, sadly, that will be the only option available. To do otherwise is to ignore the root cause of all that has gone on, and by that I mean the father’s paranoid personality disorder, and simply make arrangements around the edges in the hope that things will move forward of their own accord.

(15) I have, however, been persuaded by the guardian and the mother that it is right to try to set up contact again. Both of them, and indeed the court, are driven by the fact that if at all possible this father and his parents should have contact. The children enjoy seeing him and in a supervised setting he manages the contact well.

(16) For the reasons expressed by the guardian, any contact at the moment must continue to be supervised. It is, I agree with the guardian, impossible, having encountered GW at this hearing, to envisage him in any lengthy period of unsupervised contact being able to hide or subdue his feelings and opinions about the mother and her activities over recent times.

(17) The question of the frequency of supervised contact is one that has caused me concern. I agree with the guardian that, given the emotionally charged situation in this case, contact at a level of once a fortnight was perhaps ambitious and inappropriate in the early stages, and that a level of once every three weeks would be more appropriate. It also allows the children more flexibility at the weekends. What the court does not want to do is, on the other hand, take a step that the father is bound to see as retrogressive at this stage and, as it were, adding and compounding by addition on the injustice that he wrongly perceives has taken place. I therefore envisage that the contact shall carry on at the rate of once a fortnight until the matter is further reviewed.

The question of when the review should take place is a matter of debate. It needs to be long enough to enable there to have been a number of sessions to see whether it can move forward. It needs, however, to be short enough to allow the matter to come back before the court if there are difficulties. In particular, I agree with the guardian that if the contact is to move forward the father has to be open to receiving advice from professionals as to how he might improve his relationship with the children during contact so that it develops more easily and, with professional confidence, into unsupported contact centre contact and then maybe ordinary contact at home in the community. It is only if the professionals can have confidence that he can operate the contact on his own in a way that is going to be beneficial to the children that the matter will move on. Therefore he needs to hear any potential advice from those professionals rather than simply it being listed as a series of criticisms at any further review hearing. Whether he acts on the advice is a matter for him, but I strongly urge him to do so. That needs to be a process which builds up over time. I am also aware that the father intends to prosecute his appeal, so it may be that he does not engage in contact in the early period.

Doing the best I can and noting that it is now early March, I direct that the review take place before the end of July. I reserve the case to myself. Any applications must be made to me. If I am not available, I will arrange a hearing before a different judge.

The effect of the findings that I have made means that I dismiss the father’s and the grandparents’ applications for residence orders, be it shared or sole residence, and I dismiss the father’s application for a variation of the current model of contact.

So far as the grandparental contact is concerned, the grandmother – sadly it is only she who is able to get to contact now – is to carry on having contact once a month by attending with the father on alternate visits.

So far as the mother’s application for a s.91(14) order is concerned, I have been referred to the leading decision in the case of Re P [1999] 2 FLR 573. That decision is well known to the court, and at this late hour I am not going to read out the details of the well known guidance given by Butler-Sloss LJ, setting out eleven factors that must be borne in mind.

It will follow from all that I have said about the previous litigation history that this father has brought applications to the court on a regular basis. It is striking to this court that, less than a fortnight after his case was determined by Kirkwood J., he was able to issue fresh applications which now come on for hearing afresh before a new judge at a three-day hearing. But that is what has taken place. That takes place after the process before Kirkwood J. and after the earlier process before the Bromley County Court. The father has had ample opportunity to litigate these matters before the court and it seems on the information that I have that nothing has changed in the circumstances of the case in his favour since the hearing of 2004.

The effect of continued litigation in any case is known not to be beneficial to the parties who are engaged in it. In this case, where it is so highly charged and the father’s attack on mother is so vigorously sustained, the emotional effect on her is plain to understand. She needs a break from this process. It is also impinging in a practical way on her ability to provide financial care for the children. She needs time out from the court process.

I therefore take the view that it is in the children’s best interests for there to be an embargo on further applications. I consider that the father has repeatedly made applications to the court which are in effect the same application that he has made before, which has been turned down by judges after a full hearing. This is the third such juncture within the proceedings and the time has come when an imposition on his ability to come to the court without the court’s leave should be imposed. The reason for setting aside the earlier s.91(14) order when Judge Hamilton had imposed it in 2005 was that the matter was left in the air and unresolved. The Court of Appeal rightly set aside that decision. Those circumstances have now changed. An order under s.91(14) does not shut the father and his parents out from the court; it simply provides a filter through which any applications they wish to make can be looked at.

The father and his parents stand, as I have indicated, shoulder to shoulder on all these matters. It would be artificial to impose a s.91(14) order against the father and yet leave his parents free to make applications. They would undoubtedly use that facility to prosecute the father’s case. The s.91(14) order will relate to all s.8 orders, including applications to vary the contact order, and will relate to the father and both grandparents and will run for a period of two years in the first instance.

I give the mother leave and make a direction to the effect that she can have the children’s passports back. She has a residence order and, subject to her complying with any requirements to provide the children for contact, she must be free under the ordinary terms of a residence order, to take the children out of the jurisdiction from time to time.

I also direct that the mother is entitled to have her current address kept confidential from the father. His manner is intimidating and in direct evidence he has indicated that, given that he thinks the children are at risk of harm, he would consider himself to be entirely justified in removing them from her care. She is fearful of him and wishes to have the reassurance that, at the moment, so far as she is aware, her address is confidential. That form of direction is in the children’s best interests as it provides reassurance to their primary carer. It is also in my view proportionate in that it does not impede the father’s ability to have the contact that I have ordered, given that the court and the father are able to communicate with her through her solicitors. She has indicated through her actions via the guardian the fact that her address is confidential does not mean that she will not turn up to contact, as indeed she did in January.

The only matters that are left outstanding therefore are the father’s application to commit the mother to prison for breach of court orders. The findings that

Finally, the father wishes to reopen the ancillary relief proceedings. Those, because of pressures of time, have not featured at all. There is no ancillary relief order. It is submitted by the mother that any application is empty because there is no money. The mother herself does not seek an order.

At the conclusion of this judgment I make one final plea to this father that, for the sake of the children, he asks himself the question that I posed earlier, namely: “Is there something amiss with the system, or may there be something amiss with the man?” I would urge both the father and the mother to give the option of psychiatric advice and intervention a try. It is unlikely to do any harm and may open up t he way to contact.