No. ME15C02316
IN THE MEDWAY FAMILY COURT
Anchorage House,
47-67 High Street, Chatham.

30th June 2016

B e f o r e:-

HER HONOUR JUDGE CAMERON

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KENT COUNTY COUNCIL
Applicant
v

R & M

Respondents

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MISS CAVE of Counsel appeared on behalf of the Local Authority.
MISS LUCEY of Counsel appeared on behalf of the Mother.
MISS BAKER of Counsel appeared on behalf of  the Father.
MISS WELLS appeared on behalf of the Guardian

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JUDGMENT
EX TEMPORE JUDGMENT 

HER HONOUR JUDGE CAMERON: 
1.	I am not going to give a lengthy Judgment today and I do not intend to prolong the agony and uncertainty for these parents of three lovely children aged six, very nearly seven and three-and-a-quarter, and twenty months. It is my task of course to hear all the evidence and to carry out the balancing exercise in relation to any harm which may be caused to the children and placing their welfare always as my paramount consideration. 
2.	I have decided not to make a final decision and Final Orders today although I am well aware that the 26 week timetable expired on the second day of this hearing on the 29th June and that of course any delay in a child’s life is viewed as being prejudicial. I have decided to allow the mother’s proposal for an assessment by an Independent Social Worker finding that that is necessary for the Court’s final determination.  I am aware that in doing so I depart from the very experienced Guardian’s very thoughtful and thorough report, recommendation and evidence. I do not do so lightly at all or out of any disrespect to her. I do so because I cannot with my hand on my heart state instinctively and convincingly today that the draconian “nothing else will do” last resort of adoption is right today. I make it plain though that does not mean that it may not be the right and only outcome in a few weeks or months’ time. 
3.	Inheriting this very sad and challenging case only on Monday of this week, I have had a chance of reading three very full lever arch files and have heard full evidence and excellent closing submissions from all the parties today. There has been very well intentioned and very high calibre Social Work input here, both from Miss McKenzie and from Miss Blackburn. I commend that.
4.	The chronology here is woeful. I will quote only a few statistics therefrom. There are 33 pages of Local Authority involvement and input going back to 2011 and beyond.  S, the eldest child, has had Social Services involved in her young life nine times and L in her life six times, and W four with no sustained real change and all driven by those repeated crises which have done the parents no credit at all.  
5.	There are 420 plus pages of Police Disclosure.   S has been removed three times by the Police and L and W twice, the last of which, Christmas 2015, being a memorable experience for them for all the wrong reasons. That was a hideous time for these children.
6.	I remind myself what Sir James Munby said in Re A (A Child) about us all being frail human beings and sometimes that manifests itself in bad behaviours which may be copied by children. He said also the State does not and cannot take away the children of all the people who commit crimes or who abuse alcohol or drugs and so on.  
7.	I also bear in mind what His Honour Judge Jack said in the well-known North East Lincolnshire Council v G & L case in 2014 that he deplored any form of domestic violence and deplored parents who cared for their children when they were significantly under the influence of drink. He said the reality is that in this country there must be tens of thousands of children who are cared for in homes where there is a degree of domestic violence, now very widely defined, and where parents drink more than they should. He says that he does not condone that for a moment and nor does this Court.  He added that the Courts are not in the business of “social engineering” or providing children with “perfect homes”. We have to have a degree of realism about carers who come before the Courts. The Court’s task also is not to secure that every child has a happy and fulfilled life, however much it would want to do so.
8.	I have borne in mind also The President again in Re S and that three stage test about which Miss Wells, for the Guardian, reminded the Court, that the Court looks for that solid evidence to get a reasonable belief that a parent is committed to making change, that there is solid evidence as well to give a reasonable belief that a parent can maintain that commitment and that the changes are achievable in the children’s timescales.
9.	I am just persuaded here that the mother should be given a very last chance – in fact just as the Justices had said to her on the 30th December when they considered the Emergency Protection Order Application – to move on and to see fully the error of her ways. The oft quoted “toxic trio” has been operating here in these particular children’s lives for far too long and for many years in the case of S. There is that proven excessive and chronic use of alcohol by both these parents. That has made particularly the mother at times simply not available to her children. I am satisfied of that.
10.	Leading from that there have been the alcohol fuelled heated arguments, the pushing and shoving and the physical violence too which father finally accepted in his oral evidence to the Court yesterday that he has indulged in, that each of them have indulged in, and accepting that it was not 50/50. A man is always going to be physically stronger than a woman. It seems to me from the reports that I have read that the mother came off the worse for wear rather than the father.
11.	Most or all of that, until it was taken out into the street on the 20th October of last year, was witnessed and/or overheard by the children. Then of course they had the horrendous experience of seeing the aftermath of that in their mother’s damaged face and her no doubt being emotional and distraught and the atmosphere being very, very tense and frightening at times. 
12.	They have seen and witnessed at first hand that poor quality of their parents’ relationship at times. That does not take away from the fact that, at times, these have been very good parents. Certainly the mother is well able to provide a good quality of basic care. The children are well presented. There is food in the property.  It is an attractive home and so on and so forth. However, that has simply not been consistent enough.  The mother now accepts that, as does the father, given their helpful concessions in relation to Threshold.
13.	There has been a disastrous and worrying cyclical history here and a real revolving door of Social Work input, improvements demonstrated, case closed and then the whole ghastliness starting up all over again. That cannot go on any longer, particularly for S, and for the younger children too. They are all highly vulnerable and particularly in the case of S because she is very, very close to her mother and has this issue about paternity too which she has had to come to terms with.
14.	However, very belatedly indeed, the mother has taken some significant steps and made significant changes which the father too has recognised and acknowledged. There are therefore positives for which credit is due to this mother. There is therefore a scintilla of hope that she can sustain those changes consistently and honestly and hopefully consign the toxicity to history for the good of her children.
15.	She has been abstinent from alcohol for now 20 weeks, so five months. The short statement that I read from Tash Evans, the Recovery Mentor, who is now at Change, Grow, Live (formerly CRI) referred intriguingly to “We addicts…. having a light switched on and getting it”.  I think that is where the mother now is.  It is early stages though. It is early days and nobody wants her to relapse. That would be disastrous all round and frankly the end of this case, and she knows it.
16.	I do think that the mother has now got it.  The removal of the children six months ago now has been the final catalyst for her to kick start some realisation and change. The father, to his credit, a hardworking and ambitious man has also moved forward although not yet actually accessing any treatment for his drinking or for his anger management issues. 
17.	He described the “toxic relationship” as it has been called between the parents as “totally over” with no prospect of reconciliation and “dead in the water” was his phrase from the witness box. The Court understands that the parents speak on the phone about the children’s welfare and issues that have arisen at contact. That is understandable. I do not criticise that. They have that nexus, that link, of the children between them and the mother I know has been particularly critical at some stages with some justification about the children looking a “bit grubby” as the Guardian acknowledged and there have been thrills and spills and bruises as will happen to any young children.
18.	Together these parents need to understand that this is not a game and that the Local Authority and the Court will not hesitate to take immediate steps if there be any further violence, or indeed reconciliation, or either parent being anywhere in the vicinity of the children if they are drunk or under the influence of alcohol. The prospect of them wearing the Scram X bracelets needs to be looked into further because the Court has no information about those today.
19.	The Court is therefore extending to the mother the opportunity for her to continue the journey upon which she has recently embarked to complete long term sobriety, to undertake the long overdue Freedom Programme, to engage fully with CGL, to complete her Incredible Years Parenting Course and really  to impress an Independent Social Worker who would provide a full report to the Court.
20.	Just in passing, I say that I do not find at all that the Local Authority had pre-judged the mother. I do not find that they had a closed mind. It was appropriate in the circumstances for the Local Authority to undertake the secondary parenting assessment. For all the reasons I have adumbrated already I am going to allow that further opportunity.
21.	The mother’s own mother sadly is seriously ill.  Everybody is aware of that. That must not be used by the mother as a trigger for her to run backwards to that crutch of alcohol as she has done before. There is that addictive personality or gene in her family, her own mother having difficulties with alcohol. That seems to be the case with the father’s own mother too.  They must move on from that damaging chapter and tendency in their own lives.
22.	I have found this to be one of those exceptional cases where decisions about these much loved children, both in the short and long term for their futures, should not be sacrificed today on the altar of speed. So for today I do not approve the Local Authority’s Care Plans.
23.	As was referred to during closing submissions, the requirement of 12 months’ abstinence and sobriety is never really going to be achievable in the 26 week timetable that we have very properly imposed on children’s cases.
24.	I understand the ISW’s report will take some six to eight weeks, which of course will take us into the school holiday for S. The mother’s course starts in September as I have heard, that is the Freedom Programme.  I am not clear about how many weeks that will take. I consider that the plan for the future to take the case forward should be as follows.
25.	The Local Authority in this Interim stage should prepare please a suggested transition plan as to how the children may be returned to their mother, to her care under a Supervision Order if the Court should find that appropriate at a Review Hearing in mid to late September I propose. I say nothing further in relation to the father’s proposal, which of course is a contingency plan that if the mother was unsuccessful that he would seek to have the two youngest children – his own children of course – cared for by him. He does not, and he has been very frank and honest about this, offer a home for S as well but obviously wants her to keep up her very regular contact with her younger siblings should they move to him.
26.	In the meantime the mother must co-operate entirely fully with all that is required of her or suggested to her, including perhaps some therapy or counselling to understand her difficulties.  She has not had an easy childhood at all. She has been right through the care system, as it used to be, herself. I was a little disappointed in fact that a psychological report had not been obtained and commissioned here at all.
27.	The father too must engage as much as he can given his work commitments, which nobody wants to interfere with, but he must see what work or anger management course he can undertake around his usual hours of employment. 
28.	Each of them will need to take the initiative about all of this themselves and not wait for the Local Authority to do things for them.
29.	The excellent and regular contact that they have to these lovely and obviously much loved children will continue. I find it to be in the children’s best interests to allow this final opportunity to be explored, aware that there are risks and that of course nothing in life is guaranteed, including an adoptive placement being available to take all three children together as a sibling unit.  I have not at all ignored the fact that several months down the line inevitably will make S seven months older.  Although she is an entirely – and it sounds an awful way of putting it – attractive proposition, and these children are not damaged or developmentally delayed in any way – a sibling group of three, with a child of seven plus, may or may not be capable of placement together.
30.	I also bear in mind that had I made the Final Care and Placement Orders sought today that there could well be a situation some months down the line when the parents could seek the leave of the Court to oppose an Adoption Application. That would lead to real confusion and delay at that time.  The Court has daily and weekly experience regrettably of that scenario.  At that stage in the future it would be highly unlikely that the parents would have the benefit of Public Funding and legal representation. 
31.	That is the Court’s Ruling and Decision today.  Clearly further Directions will need to be canvassed. I may have taken everybody somewhat by surprise, but I am very clear in my own mind that this is the right decision for the Court today.
AVTS REF: 6350/H5179