Case No: ME16C00142
IN THE FAMILY COURT AT MEDWAY

Anchorage House
47-67 High Street
Chatham
Kent
ME4 4W

BEFORE:

HER HONOUR JUDGE CAMERON

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

BETWEEN:

 	Kent County Council	Applicant	
 	- and -	 	
 	Mc M and Ay M	Respondents	

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The Transcription Agency, 24-28 High Street, Hythe, Kent, CT21 5AT
Tel: 01303 230038

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Mr Alastair Martey (of Counsel) on behalf of the Applicant Local Authority

Mr Robert Denman (of Counsel) on behalf of the Respondent Mother
Mr Simon Johnson (of Counsel) on behalf of the Respondent Father

Miss Ajanta Sinha (of Counsel) on behalf of the Children’s Guardian 

Judgment date: 29th September 2016
HEARING DAYS WERE: 12th, 26th, 27th, 28th and 29th September 2016

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Judgment
Her Honour Judge Cameron:

INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

1.	This is a sad and complex case involving the welfare of four young boys which could have had a very different conclusion if only the parents had started to tackle their own deep-seated issues very much earlier in the scheme of things.  The care proceedings were issued on the 27th January 2016 following on from the need to remove the children from their mother’s care on the 5th January this year.  The 26 weeks’ timetable therefore has already expired on the 27th July.  Placement Order applications were made more recently in August.

2.	That outcome was a particular disappointment as the Local Authority’s involvement, which had been put in place as long ago as March 2012, so four and a half years ago now, arose from the significant risk factors of domestic abuse fuelled by alcohol, resulting in an enmeshed, volatile and toxic relationship between these parents.  That has continued pretty well unabated to two weeks before this crucial five day final hearing commenced.

3.	Child protection plans and processes were invoked between the 14th July 2014 and the 2nd December 2015.  Covering part of that period, too, the mother herself obtained a 12 month Non-molestation Injunction in August 2014 which both she and the father have abused and breached repeatedly, she inviting him in to her home or to be with her and he readily acquiescing. Indeed, the father agreed in his oral evidence that if the mother calls he will go and so it has been proven to be the case, over and over again.  In fact, all of this really could not be made up, as I find, and it is completely unfair to these children’s proper expectations of a quiet, calm, secure, happy and consistent childhood, able to rely on, and trust fully, the adults in their world.

4.	Only two of the children that the Court are concerned with are the birth children of the father, Mr Ay M, now aged 45 and his wife, the mother, Miss Mc M, now aged 39.  Those children are R, who was born on the 8th February 2012 and who is now therefore four and a half years of age and O, who is two, nearly three, having been born on the 16th October 2013.  The mother and the father have had a relationship for some years and married, I think, in 2011, I may be wrong about that.  They were said to have separated in September 2013 but no divorce proceedings have been launched as yet and the couple meet up very regularly.  On several occasions, the father admittedly has slept in the garden of the family home or in an outhouse there and has given very mixed messages to the children who clearly knew all about this.  

5.	There was a short-lived reconciliation between the parents lasting some three weeks in February this year, after the children were removed.  Of course, whether these parents continue to have a sexual, intimate relationship is neither here nor there and is wholly irrelevant to the Court.  It is the mother’s preparedness and neediness to call upon the father, to meet up with him and to consume alcohol with him and his ready preparedness to meet up, to provide practical help or to pay for items on occasions including a hotel room, and himself to consume alcohol with her, which leads all to quickly to arguments, fights and the police being called yet again.  All of that is at the continuing root of this case.

6.	The older children for whom Mr M has been the paternal step-father figure for some years, are L, aged 12, his date of birth being the 19th May 2004 and T, born on the 5th June 2008 and he is therefore now eight years of age.  L’s father is S C but sadly he has had nothing to do with his child during his life.  There was domestic violence also in that relationship of the mother’s while T’s father, K A, tragically died in 2015, he himself being a heroin addict.  

REASON FOR REMOVAL

7.	The precipitating index incident of the mother being found unconscious and drunk in a hotel room occurred at 11am on the 5th January 2016.  The intoxicated father had already been asked to leave the hotel by the police at 5.30am in the morning, due to arguments.  One of the children had gone into reception at the Premier Inn and said:

“Daddy’s hitting Mummy.”

It was entirely contrary, of course, to the recommendation of the Child in Need Plans, which had been put in place only the 5th December, that the mother took the three youngest children to see Mr M in the hotel or, indeed, allowed him to arrange that for them.

8.	Later, the three children, because of course L was on holiday in Barbados with his carers, were seen running around in the hotel corridor, the youngest naked and the other two in pants, saying that their Mum was asleep and they had been locked out of their room.  Hotel staff, obviously worried, had then tried to wake the mother without success and an ambulance had to be called.  Earlier, the father was seen bringing in platters of food and vodka also had been purchased.  An empty vodka bottle was found near the bed where the mother was unconscious and there was a smell of smoke and alcohol in the air when the hotel staff opened the room and really quite a mess of cigarette ends and food and so on throughout the room.

9.	The mother, to the police, admitted neglect and putting her children in danger.  When it was put to her during her police interview that this could have been fatal, she responded that it was not so not to go on about it.  The children had actually given themselves a bubble bath and water was still in the bath when the staff and the ambulance crew were there and the children stated that they had been playing with empty beer cans in the bath.  Accordingly, they had been wholly unsupervised for some uncertain number of hours, that is plain.  The children were taken into police protection.  They were placed temporarily in Local Authority foster care and later a Section 20 arrangement and agreement was signed by the mother.  

10.	The father, extraordinarily, contacted the police and accused the social worker of child abduction.  He did actually have R and O placed with him and then they moved to live swiftly with their paternal aunt, Cl C, for some time.  But, quite rapidly thereafter, they were moved to foster care where they remain to date and are very well looked after and well settled.  The dynamics of the father apparently had caused the Cs to change their minds about the boys being left with them.  L has been living with J Y, a family friend, and her partner, G N, since late December 2015, while T is in a separate foster placement.  So the children, as a sibling group, have been split in those three different placements for some time.

11.	I have read four lever-arch files including a considerable number of statements, professional reports and contact notes and, especially, more than 900 pages of police disclosure spanning more than 70 police call-outs to the aftermath of the parents’ troubled relationship.  Indeed, the last tranche of police disclosure came in on Day 4 of the Hearing, just as the Court was hearing from the Guardian and closing submissions, and that revealed more extraordinary argy-bargy between the parents and the mother having to run to a neighbour for help and accusing the father of having suffocated her and so on and so forth.  I heard evidence from two social workers, from the parents themselves, from Dr Tizzard, Consultant Psychiatrist, on the first hearing day and also from the Guardian.

THE ISSUES AND PARTIES’ POSITIONS  

12.	The Local Authority, in its Final Care Plans, fully supported by the Guardian, seeks Final Care Orders in respect of L and T, the plan being that T will join his older brother at the Y-N household where L, plainly, is very happy and thriving.  L wrote a most poignant letter to the Judge in March of this year which he had dictated to his Guardian.  In it he states:

“I want to live here with J and G and I don’t want to go back home.  I like it here because it is fun and there is no rows.”

He also records that he:

“Wants to see his Mum but that she needs to get better at coming to see me.  It makes me, like, sad when she’s not coming.”

His Honour Judge Scarrett, who was the Judge dealing with the matter at that time, properly acknowledged and responded to L’s very, as I say, poignant letter.

13.	At 12 years of age he has real understanding of what he has experienced in his childhood to date and how his mother and step-father have let him down.  He does not want more of the same.  I have listened to his wishes and feelings. 

14.	T has recently spent some respite time in that household and there is no reason why he should not make a seamless transition there to live alongside his brother.  It is to be hoped, in time, that there may be an application for a Special Guardianship Order to really solidify that arrangement for the benefit of the boys but that is for the future.  

15.	In relation to R and O, the Local Authority seek Final Care and Placement Orders.  It is quite clear that the parents are only at the very beginning of any engagement with services and actual change, such that the children cannot wait any longer for permanency, security, stability and certainty but need to be owned and loved by an alternative forever family as soon as that can be arranged.  

16.	Contact between the parents, the mother and the older boys, is suggested as occurring six times a year with a real hope that that will encourage her to commit to that and not to disappoint the children as she has done by attending only 11 out of a possible 19 contact sessions at one time.  In relation to sibling contact, the Local Authority and the Guardian are ad idem that, hopefully, it can be arranged by the older boys’ carers with the adopters of R and O on two occasions a year with the important caveat that the younger boys’ placement and stability must not be jeopardised or undermined by that arrangement.

17.	The parents, inevitably and understandably from a human point of view, have a very different approach.  The mother seeks the return of all four boys to her care, not immediately, to her credit, but after a six month or so gap to allow her time and space to embark on courses that she needs and plans to do.  The father’s stance is to support the mother’s approach, feeling that she is a very good mother and should have all the children returned to her, while suggesting also that R and O could live with him.  While he acknowledges that his present property, a shared house with six other men there, obviously is not suitable, he believes that housing must be provided to him if he has the care of his younger children Ordered to be with him by this Court.  

18.	He too asks for an extension of time of several months to keep on reducing his alcohol intake.  He denies utterly ever taking cocaine, for which he has now two positive results in two separate hair strand tests over many months since April, and he wants to be enabled to start tackling his mental health issues, having been diagnosed by Dr Tizzard, in June of this year, as suffering from Bi-polar Disorder.  For that he has very recently been prescribed Seroxat.  Both of the parents have undergone Parenting Assessments by Mr Kevin Moran which have been negative.   

19.	The paternal grandparents are not able to offer alternative care and the mother’s own adult daughter, E, withdrew from the assessment, so no family placement can be secured for these children.  For completeness, I add that the maternal grandparents are ruled out because of the allegations that I will deal with in one moment in relation to T.  I have taken the opportunity to consider the considerable cumulative evidence here very thoroughly indeed over, of course, every intervening evening of this case and today also.  This is obviously a most important decision for these children and for the parents and other family members alike.  For completeness, I add that the mother has those two older children, E and Tm, while Mr M has three older, now adult, children whom he has not seen for some years.

THRESHOLD  

20.	Happily, on Day 4 of the Hearing, after some urging by the Court, a Composite Agreed Threshold Document was submitted and is fully accepted by the Court.  It comprises the three heads of domestic violence, alcohol and drugs and neglect.  The Court was grateful for that realistic and sensible approach which therefore, of course, gives it jurisdiction to go on and deal with the welfare decision.  Appropriately, as I find, the mother is not charged with failure to protect T in relation to alleged abuse by the maternal grandfather.  

21.	It remains confusing to me, because of course I have not seen all the police documents about that matter, as to whether the original information came from the paternal aunt, Cl C, or the mother.  There was some sort of revelation at a caravan at one stage.  But, in any event, that disclosure has caused, inevitably, considerable emotional upset.  T has undergone two ABE interviews, the Court was told, but all of that, as is so often the case in these sorts of investigations, sadly has come to nothing and there is a police decision of no further action, the Court was informed.  

THE LEGAL FRAMEWORK

22.	Before I review the evidence, I remind myself of the legal principles that I apply which govern such cases.  The starting point is, of course, that all things being equal, the best people, whether they be wise or foolish and so on, to bring up their children are the parents.  However, things are not equal here and they are often not equal because, currently, the children’s lives and, indeed, the parents’ lives too, have been run and wrecked by alcohol for many years and the resulting violence from that.

23.	I remind myself what Lord Justice Aikens said recently in Re: J (A Child) [2015] EWCA Civ 222:

“It is vital that Local Authorities and, even more importantly, judges bear in mind that nearly all parents will be imperfect in some way or other.  The state will not take away the children of those who commit crimes, abuse alcohol or drugs or suffer from physical or mental illness or disability simply because those facts are established.”

Mr Justice Hedley had said in a 2007 case that:

“Society must be willing to tolerate very diverse standards of parenting including the eccentric, the barely adequate and the inconsistent.  It is not the provenance of the state to spare children all the consequences of defective parenting.”

24.	I remind myself that the leading case of Re: B [2013] UKSC 33 and also, of course, Re: B-S (Children) [2013] EWCA Civ 1146 requires the Court:

“To carry out that global and holistic exercise, looking anxiously at all realistic options in relation to these particular children.”

As Lord Justice Ryder said in Re: Y (A Child) [2013] EWCA Civ 1337:

“Realistic has its ordinary, every-day English meaning.”

25.	The Court, of course, fully recognises, in relation to the younger children, that adoption is an outcome of last resort where nothing else will do and is always a draconian final order to make, severing, as it does, the family ties.  Re: A (A Child) [2014] EWCA Civ 1625 confirmed that:

“Re: B-S has not changed the law and that the Court is not required to strive to keep a child in the family at all costs if that is not in the best interests of his welfare and, moreover, the Court is not in the business of providing children with perfect homes or indulging in social engineering.”

26.	Of course, the Court applies the Welfare Checklist as set out in the Children Act and also Section 1.4 of the Adoption (Children) Act 2002 and considers, as its paramount consideration, the children’s welfare but, in particular, their physical, emotional and educational needs, the likely effect on them of any change in their circumstances and their respective parents’ capability in meeting their needs.  The Court always, of course, has to have regard to the intervention by the State with the parents’ Article 8 rights and, also I say, the children’s Article 8 rights.  That intervention always has to be proportionate, appropriate, justified and necessary.  The children’s welfare is the guiding criterion here.

THE PROFESSIONALS’ EVIDENCE

27.	The Court was particularly impressed with the evidence of the two social workers.  Mr Kevin Moran, Senior Practitioner, has been involved with the parents for far longer than any other of the witnesses or professionals.  That was for a period of some 20 months as from August 2014 and, hence, he is a particularly valuable witness.  There was then a transition and handover to Miss Florentina Lent by April or May of this year.  I found both the social workers’ evidence entirely well-balanced, very thoughtful and fair and also particularly compelling.  It is clear that they both wanted the parents to change and to succeed and were professionally disappointed when the couple could not really move forward at all in the months allowed to them.

28.	Mr Moran spoke to his several witness statements and his Parenting Assessments, all of which I accept.  He confirmed that the allegation that T had been abused by the maternal grandfather had emanated from an altercation that the mother had had with the father’s sister, Cl C, over the Bank Holiday weekend.  After a strategy discussion and the police of course being informed, there was an interview with T at school on the 12th June but there were no direct disclosures at that point by the child himself.  The mother stated to Mr Moran that, sadly, she did think that her father had abused T and had started her to disclose her own experiences with her father.  She shared that she had not thought that her father had posed a risk to boys, as opposed to girls, and her own mother indeed had reassured her that T would never be left alone with the grandfather.

29.	The Local Authority were, initially, critical about the mother’s safeguarding decision about all of that, if she had any level of concern about the father.  But there was nothing, ultimately, that could be substantiated about any inappropriate sexual behaviour by the grandfather, even though the Family Liaison Officer had a very close and supportive working relationship, as it was put, with T and could perhaps have overcome his operating at below his chronological age.  The police, as stated, took that no further action decision.  

30.	It would seem that T then gave more information to his mother and there was something about the tapping of the side of his leg and some sort of digital penetration and he had been told to keep these things a secret.  The police did become re-involved after further disclosure in the September which had led to that Achieving Best Evidence interview.  This was obviously enormously upsetting and frightening for the mother and the Court full well understands her emotional response to all of that.

31.	Although the Court is aware that the parents, particularly the father, are very critical about the Local Authority’s response to the sexual abuse allegation, I am satisfied that it was handled satisfactorily and well and, of course, it is the police, guided by the Crown Prosecution Service, who make charging decisions.  That is not down to the Local Authority at all.  Both the parents have said that they believe what T has said has happened, therefore they have listened to the child’s voice and, inevitably, that has brought to the fore some of the mother’s own experiences of abuse as a child which clearly have been deeply devastating to her.

32.	Both the social workers confirmed that the main issue impacting on the four boys’ welfare and governing the Child Protection Plans was the relationship between the mother and the father.  Mr Moran explained how they wanted the parents to work with social services to end that unhealthy relationship and to provide a safe, calm home for the children.  Between the period that he was involved, initially the August 2014 to December 2015, the mother had some admitted slip-ups, as they were put, but was managing to get the children into school and did appear to be separated from the father.  That is what she was reporting was the case to the Local Authority.  However, she did at times liaise with Mr M and that always heightened the risk for the Local Authority, although she said it was lies told by others.

33.	Weighing up the positive reports and signs of good progress, the Local Authority gave the mother the opportunity, by the third or fourth as it were, Child Protection Conference and the case was stepped down to allow her to continue to parent.  I add, fairly I hope, that there has never been criticism of the mother’s basic physical care of the children and, of course, that is not always the case with people who have a chronic addiction to alcohol.  But the whole aim and intention of those Initial Child Protection Conferences was to achieve finality of separation between the parents and for the mother to stay out of any other domestically abusive relationships.  The mother had been advised at the outset of the Child Protection Plans to obtain a Non-molestation Injunction Order to stop Mr M coming into the garden and camping there or sleeping in the out-house.  As stated already, that must have given the most extraordinarily confused and mixed messages to these young boys.

34.	It became clear though, to Mr Moran, that the mother was not telling the truth about his comings and goings and had omitted to inform the Local Authority that she was actually inviting him around to the house, in flagrant breach of the very reason that the Court had put that protective measure in place.  The father, in his evidence to the Court, admitted three breaches and he served three lots of prison sentences for those.  So the parents were not even paying lip-service to those important Court orders, feeling free to side-step them whenever they wished.  The mother was reliant on the father to do practical things for her, like helping to carry their luggage on a holiday and coming back to have a first birthday for one of the boys and so on and so forth, as the Local Authority begun to realise. 

35.	Mr Moran confirmed that, while the Local Authority were clear that the mother loved her children and that there was a real bond between them, there was anxiety there too in the relationship, particularly with the oldest boy, L, who was very worried about his mother’s safety, a not unusual phenomenon seen when mothers are victims of domestic violence.  He has had a caring responsibility not only for his younger brothers but also for his mother at times, Mr Moran said, and he was worried at what their future was going be.  I am satisfied that, at times, L has parentified as it were.  Sadly, there were then reports of physical abuse and assaults within the mother’s next relationship too, that was with D H, and that was all a precursor to the index incident in January of this year which triggered the removal of the children.

36.	Mr Moran told the Court that it was very much his experience over the many, many months of his involvement, that there were relapses, to use the mother’s own words, and a pattern of separation and then reconciliation between the parents.  He agreed that, in essence, they cannot live without each other and nor with each other.  There was, of course, that three week reconciliation in February after the children had been removed.  While it was positive, he agreed, that the mother now recognises that she has an alcohol problem and has acknowledged that she would benefit from help, from Turning Point, the Rising Sun and so on, she has that addictive personality and has swapped a previous addiction for heroin and cocaine in 2009, when she had been imprisoned at one time, and now uses alcohol instead.

37.	He agreed that the father, too, loves the boys and can be a good father when not under the influence of alcohol and he has observed contact and the father having parenting skills during that structured time in the environment of a contact centre.  I should say that neither the Court nor the Guardian doubts at all that both these parents love the children very much indeed.  However, there is that entrenched, enmeshed and toxic, as I called it, relationship between the mother and father which means, Mr Moran said, that she can manipulate and coerce him and involve him in the lives of the children which was not good.  

38.	Their reconciliation in February 2016 had led to another incident, there was one in mid-March and the mother had then contacted him again.  He was clear that if the mother calls the father will go and I have referred to that already.  He was aware, too, of later police call-outs to more incidents in May, July, August and September and the dynamic of their relationship continuing in that characteristic way.  I should add that Mr Moran, of course, had not read the 900 pages of all the police records.

39.	At his first meeting with the father Mr M had made it very clear that the social worker had no right to tell him how to conduct his personal relationships or to tell him what to do.  Mr Moran gained the clear impression that the father wanted to be in an on-going relationship with the mother.  He has said, constantly and consistently, that he will always be there for her and wants to be there and would resume their relationship.  The mother had threatened self-harm on one occasion and caused a further disturbance and the father went straight round knowing that she might well be drunk.  

40.	If the parents respond to all the initiatives and address their dependencies via Turning Point and all the other organisations, then that could reduce the risk factors, Mr Moran said.  However, that would have to be sustained as the Local Authority has all that evidence of long-standing addictive behaviour issues and the parents’ lifestyles which puts them outside the children’s timescales.  He agrees completely with Dr Tizzard’s timetable and, as yet, there is no level of sustainability and change.  L’s clear feelings have been listened to and it would be detrimental to move him where he is offered a very good level of care with Miss Y and Mr N and to send him back to instability and a chaotic home environment once more.  For the younger children, under the age of five, Mr Moran said that the Local Authority are confident of finding a sibling placement with an adoptive family.

41.	Turning then to the evidence of Miss Florentina Lent.  She took over in May.  She told the Court that the mother had attended those 11 out of a possible 19 contacts that had been arranged.  The mother’s reasons for not attending were mostly around her own emotional well-being, not being happy with the whole care proceedings and not being able to manage it and also not wanting to upset the children with her own emotional problems.  So she simply could not exert control over her own emotions and attend all of those contacts.  Miss Lent had researched what positive steps the parents had taken about their problems, following on from Dr Tizzard’s report and evidence.  

42.	Turning Point had stated that the father’s case had been closed due to his lack of engagement, not attending his first appointment on the 26th July and then cancelling another appointment and not attending on the 30th August.  The father blames the Key Worker for that lack of progress and recalled receiving a text from her, I think her name was Danielle, the Key Worker, cancelling one of those appointments and then not being available or on holiday for another appointment.  I gather that Mr Johnson certainly had seen that text and I full well accept that.  

43.	Of course, the issue of alcohol dependency here for the father, or for either of the parents indeed, is not a new one.   They have had that lengthy history and yet had taken no initiative at all, over all those years, to seek assistance, especially not during the period August 2014 and onwards.  The father, indeed, said that he had been prescribed Antabuse in the past, so was well aware of what treatment can be provided, but he has not sought it recently.  The mother’s stance about that was that she cannot take Antabuse because she would be working with chemicals if she returns to her career as a hairdresser, although I understood her to be only looking for work at the moment and not involved with using chemicals currently at all.

44.	Miss Lent had also checked about any referral to mental health services and the father had not been known to the service at Laurel House.  During the hearing, because it was important it seemed to the Court to chase all of this up most carefully, it was confirmed by the GP practice that a referral letter had indeed been sent on the 28th August, so again, all very late in the day, given Dr Tizzard’s report at the end of June.  However that the referral had actually been refused by Laurel House and Mr M was referred back for a primary care arrangement with his GP to be devised.  So all of that has not yet been embarked upon at all.

45.	In relation to the alleged family support network that could be provided to the father if the care of O and R was to be entrusted to him, Miss Lent had spoken to the aunt, Cl, who sounded very surprised about such a prospect.  She said that Mr M had never been in contact with her about this possibility and made it very clear that she did not support him having the younger children back.  His parents, who are in their late 60s and early 70s, said the same thing and did not mention the father resuming his relationship with them and looking to them for support.  Indeed, they said that there is a long history of volatile relationship between Mc L, as they called her, and Ay M and they feel that the boys will continue to be exposed to the violence between their parents.

46.	The mother’s adult daughter, E, who I think has a child of her own, was also contacted by Miss Lent.  The father had been saying that he had not been in contact with the mother for a number of months and it was Cl who had said that E actually might have more information regarding her mother’s relationship.  The mother had, in fact, contacted her daughter very recently, as Miss Lent heard, on the 8th September, in a very drunk, distressed and crying state, using Mr M’s mobile phone.  

47.	E told the social worker that she had asked her mother if Mr M was there, the mother had said he was not but E could actually hear Mr M’s voice in the background and she had heard the mother say:

“Shut up, I’m talking to E.”

E then ended that call with her mother screaming, shouting, crying and very distressed.  Therefore there has been that dishonesty to her own daughter too about the presence of Mr M.  E also reported from her own knowledge that the mother stayed with Mr M in his home address in Canterbury for four days and the father had helped the mother move from Whitstable to her current address and then he had stayed over for the weekend.

48.	Ch M, the father’s other sister, had also been canvassed as a potential carer for O and R and the social worker made attempts to contact her and, when she was not contactable on the phone, the social worker spoke to her parents.  Mrs M Senior reported that  Ch no longer wanted to be considered as a potential carer for O and R, due to her personal circumstances, but also due to being worried about the children’s mother, Mc, the volatile behaviour and the impact it may have on her own family.

49.	On the 20th July Miss Ch M was contacted again and a further discussion was held on the phone with her.  She stated that, after further consideration, she considers that:

“O and R will be best placed for adoption and no longer being exposed to their parents’ volatile relationship and have a normal life.”

Accordingly, that family network of support that the father says that he would be relying on and obtaining, simply and sadly is not there for him.  The paternal grandmother, I should say, had a heart attack some three years ago and has stents inserted and is not entirely in the best of health it would seem.

50.	Then, on the 9th September, so the day after E had spoken to her mother and heard her in that very distressed and crying state, Miss Lent herself had received a phone call from the mother at 8.50.  The mother presented as very distressed, swearing, crying, not controlling her emotions, expressing frustration, a real mix of everything and was threatening to kill herself.  She said she was feeling very lonely and worried about herself.  Miss Lent was so worried about the mother’s presentation over the phone, just as Dr Tizzard had been face-to-face in the June, that she immediately made enquiries with the mother’s GP for her to be seen straight away.

51.	She was told that the mother had, in fact, already been referred to mental health services.  She had collated the information and learnt that the mother had, in fact, attended that initial assessment on the 23rd August.  In fact, as the social worker was very surprised to see in the recent police disclosure, the police had been called out again that very night, the 9th September, because of yet another further domestic incident.  That was only three days, of course, before the first day of this crucial Final Hearing when the evidence of Dr Tizzard was to be heard.  

52.	The mother utterly failed to tell the social worker of the incident the night before and cancelled her contact.  So there is that lack of openness and honesty which very much devalues, sadly, the mother’s credibility and veracity.  That was all despite the fact that Miss Lent had been able to stress to the mother how very important contact was and had always been encouraging her to attend, despite her own difficulties, as the younger boys in particular found it very upsetting not to see their mother.  In particular, this lack of attendance by the mother gave L more reasons to be worried whether mother would come or might not come.  

53.	All of that had a huge impact on the children’s emotional well-being, the foster carers reporting that it took a weekend for the children to settle back into their routine and then waiting to see again whether mother would materialise or not.  The mother had also cancelled another contact, saying that she was in the process of moving.  It was not quite clear whether she was moving that day or was preparing to move but, again, the gravamen of that is that the mother was not able to prioritise that one hour of contact or so to the boys but preferred to deal with her own business as a priority.  

54.	As to the timescale for the children, Miss Lent told the Court that it is anticipated within four months or so, no more, that a suitable placement will be identified for O and R.  While it will not be a condition that there should be ongoing contact to the older boys, and the whole question of undermining the confidentiality of the placement would have to be considered, it is something that, yes, will be discussed with adopters to see if they would agree to that.  O being the age he is and younger than R, should actually facilitate the successful placing of the boys whom they are certainly not looking to separate.  

55.	About the father’s contact, Miss Lent confirmed that he had diligently attended the sessions, once released from prison on the 5th July, bar one when he had properly cancelled in advance, not having the money to attend, a slightly longer journey being involved because the centre had to be moved because of the child starting school.  He had said that his children were used to Coke when she took him to task about that at the contact and she had asked the Supervisor to keep an eye on that as she felt very strongly that the children should not be given such a large amount of Coke accompanied by a lot of sweets too.  The Guardian, too, referred to that.  While, initially, the father was rather resistant to her advice, he did change and provided suitable fruit and drinks and things to play with.

56.	She was also a little critical that the contact was very loud and noisy with the boys saying, ‘Dad, make me scream’ and ‘I’m going to catch you’ and there was chaotic running around and door banging which, of course, can disturb other families who are also enjoying contact there.  She got the sense that the father thought he was there to have fun with the boys which is probably what he wanted to do and I do not criticise him for that.  But that was rather than interacting with each other and she had to intervene, in essence, to say well, look, let’s calm down and settle down and do an activity.  There was also an element, possibly, of the boys missing him, she accepted, but he did show that he had capacity to learn.

57.	When Miss Lent had visited the father in prison he had said to her:

“I’m still married to her.  As far as I know she is my wife.  When I’m out, I’ll be with her,”

very much confirming what had been said to Mr Moran.  The parents had not told her, Miss Lent, at all that they had seen each other since the father came out of prison.  Now, of course, we have all of that police disclosure of assaults on the mother, of regular call-outs and the father still facing a Criminal Court hearing on the 25th October this year for that common assault on the mother.

58.	As Miss Lent said, it is not only about contact, it is also what the children have experienced throughout their lives.  The mother may have allowed unauthorised contact, there is no clear picture about that, and there are significant concerns here about the father’s inconsistency.  He has been in prison and absent from their lives on more than one occasion, as the Court heard, and then did not attend contact when the children were placed with his sister and the children have been through so many changes since they came into care in January.

59.	Miss Lent said that R has a good understanding about what was going on:

“Daddy had been hiding in the garden [and] hiding himself when the police came round.”

He has also referred to stabbing and a knife which the father denies he could possibly have said at his age and with his memory levels.  I am afraid that I do find that R did say those things and does remember them vividly.

60.	Miss Lent did not consider that the last two or three months of contact have established a strong attachment there with the father.  There was a real question mark for her about how close the relationship is between the father and the boys because of that inconsistency and because a lot of the time he has not been in their lives.  Referring to Dr Tizzard’s finding of anxious attachment, she said that that was indicative of the inconsistent parenting the children had received.  They do want to see their mother more and they say they cannot wait for the next contact to come.  So there were those positives stressed fairly by the social worker there.

61.	Miss Lent’s conclusion was that it is very clear that both parents need significant time to show progress but addressing the alcohol issue has not really happened yet and nothing has been done in time to show that the parents have taken serious steps forward.  There is a long journey and that, she is afraid, is not in the children’s timescales, R will be five very soon.  Of course, children of that age are often said to be, to use that awful phrase, on the cusp of adoptability.  Social services had been involved in the children’s lives for quite a long period of time now.  Moreover, even if the parents take the steps, there is a real question mark around their capacities to maintain and sustain those changes and not to back-track, as it were.  Requiring the children to wait any longer, the parents’ projected six to nine or 12 months, will only make them more anxious and confused about what is going on and further inconsistency about contact will also make them more upset.  

62.	The whole package of concern that Miss Lent identified was the alcohol levels, the domestic violence, the lack of honesty and the lack of trust.  So, in essence, four heads not just two.  She said there can be no trust in what they say.  The mother had kept that incident on the 9th September secret, despite knowing that the Local Authority would check these things and I stress that parents, of course, throughout, have had very experienced solicitors and Counsel representing them and would have received advice not only from the Local Authority but from their own individual their legal representatives too. 

63.	Miss Lent did not consider that the relationship worked for either of the parents or for the children and it had no sense of conclusion about it.  She thought it was very unlikely that they would separate.  The huge improvements, which it was said the father had achieved recently, have not been done.  The mother had also placed unfair pressure on L’s shoulders about the need for her to move.  I am going to quote from that because I know that the mother disputes this but it is recorded and, again, at 12, L is a child who could well meet a Judge, if he wished to do so, and his wishes and feelings are given proper consideration.  

64.	I quote:

“After a recent contact session on the 12th August 2016, L reported to J N that his Mum told him that she was moving to a new address.  L said that M whispered to him that he was to blame for the fact that she was moving because he had become looked after and the Council would not let her stay in her flat without the children.  She also said it that it was because L does not want to come back and live with her any more.  He told J that he replied, “No, I don’t want to live with you because everything will go back to as it was before.  You will never change.” L was understandably very upset by this and told J that he did not want to attend the next contact session, so he did not attend.”

65.	Also in the Local Authority statement is the fact that L had disclosed to his carer, Miss N, that his Mum would ask him to roll joints of cannabis for her when she was under the influence of alcohol and could not manage to do this herself and he said he used to roll them for her.  I do not find that L has lied about that.  I will deal with cannabis in one moment when looking at all the hair strand test results.  The mother was very much focussed on herself and overwhelmed by her own emotional needs and has a real lack of capacity to control her own emotions was Miss Lent’s conclusion.  All of that I accept as entirely cogent and credible and factual evidence and it was not successfully challenged by either of the parents.

66.	Dr Christine Tizzard conducted a global family psychological assessment and reported at the end of June this year.  She gave oral evidence confirming all the findings in her report.  Assessing the mother, she said that she has a current psychological assessment of alcohol abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, depression and learned helpfulness.  The relationship between the parents is an enmeshed system.  The dependency is at a significant level.  

67.	The risk of harm to the children, while the mother continues to drink alcohol at the level indicated, is severe.  The goal is total abstinence for her in her circumstances.  She requires drug and alcohol Counselling and a period of psychological Counselling, 20 sessions, to process the trauma symptoms and also the Freedom Project domestic violence programme to minimise the risks of future dangerous relationships.  There is a reasonable prognosis for Miss M to make the changes recommended.  This would involve a timescale of at least nine months.

68.	Dr Tizzard told the Court in her oral evidence that she actually had to break off the assessment to ring the mother’s GP, so concerned did she become at the mother’s crying and state of acute distress.  There was fright at the realisation that the two younger children might be adopted.  She felt the mother to be significantly depressed and not able to function well when she saw her.  The mother has atypical PTSD, she analysed, which has arisen out of her son talking about his experiences which may then have triggered a memory for the mother.  

69.	She said, as to the prognosis and the timescale, it is all dependent on the mother’s mood.  If it lifts it could be quicker but her estimation is that it could well take longer.  It all depends on waiting lists too and the conflict of trying to deal with the PTSD at the same time.  Of course, Dr Tizzard did not have the benefit of seeing all the copious police disclosure herself and to understand the frequency of the relationship and the difficulties between the parties.  She said that the psychological work was a precursor to any child being returned to the mother’s care.  There would have been an impact on the children’s attachment style, she believed, because of this enmeshed parental relationship.  

70.	Although there was love there in the children for their mother, there was fear too because of events that have happened and there would be no guarantee that the parents would be physically or emotionally available for their children at times.  She said that it was too early and not enough water had passed under the bridge, as yet, to see if the parents had resumed their relationship or maintained their separation.  The children, at this stage, need better than good enough and contained parenting.  Sadly, at this time, she said, the mother cannot provide that.  Dr Tizzard said that the mother has used alcohol to mask her emotional problems and, unfortunately, the alcohol has taken over.

71.	About the father, she said he has a current dual diagnosis of alcohol dependence and Bi-polar Disorder.  The effect has a significant negative impact on parenting.  He requires rehabilitative treatment.  The overall prognosis is relatively poor.  She estimated that he would require 12 to 18 months of therapy which is unlikely to be within the timescales of the younger children, his children of course.  Dr Tizzard, in her evidence, proposed very intensive CBT, cognitive behavioural therapy, for Mr M, to treat the Bi-polar Disorder which she preferred to a diagnosis of Personality Disorder.  He was also to be prescribed medication with a loading dose which would take, usually, four to five weeks to have any effect.  

72.	We know, because he told us so from his evidence, that the father’s first wife had in fact herself considered him to have Bi-polar and Dr Bamber had referred him then to Laurel House back in 2004.  However, due to the father then moving, that was never pursued.  Nor has he ever done any IDAP or CDAP course or himself asked to undertake a domestic violence intervention programme.  The father had said that the mother is weak and if she needs help he will give it to her on the telephone, that is what he had said to Dr Tizzard about the future.  It gave Dr Tizzard some faith, she said, that he was moving on and time will tell if the parents do contact each other.  Of course, time has proven entirely that they do and they will.

73.	Again, Dr Tizzard said it is completely a question of whether the father will engage, keep appointments and complete treatment.  10 to 11 months will have to be done before the changes could have been consolidated enough to indicate that no relapses would occur.  She said that the parents were doing what they need to do to begin the process and have that powerful incentive to be good parents but the total treatment protocol needs to be adhered to otherwise it will not be successful.  Overall, Dr Tizzard said that she was clear that there is an unacceptable level of risk if any of the children were returned to either parent’s care.  It would be disastrous, was her word, for R and O to go to their father at this stage.  She concluded this:

“I regret to say I think it’s far too long in terms of their window.”

THE PARENTS’ EVIDENCE  

74.	Both the parents bravely gave evidence and underwent a good deal of questioning.  It was to their credit that they were able to go into the witness box and I commend them for that.  Not every parent is able is able to do so in such circumstances.  I found, though, some of their evidence breath-taking I must say.  The mother referred to having a nervous breakdown, in effect, when she just could not handle the realisation that the Local Authority wished to put up the younger children for adoption.  This concerned me as to just why she thought the Local Authority had been involved for so long, those 20 months or more, before the triggering events of early January.  She admitted burying her head in the sand.

75.	Her alcohol results for the period the middle of January to the middle of April 2016 and then the beginning of April to the beginning of August, suggest chronic excessive levels of alcohol but no confirmation of any cannabis usage.  Her probation officer referred to her alcohol use as being a coping mechanism for her and about her not being honest with herself and the authorities about the relationship with Mr M, from whom she is deemed to be at risk.  Therefore it is probation, Dr Tizzard, the Local Authority, the Guardian, everybody having those same concerns about the mother.

76.	The mother said, about the relationship with Mr M, we are good friends when we do not drink.  That really is the nub of it.  She said they are not good for each other as they drink and fight, but when they are civil, they can be civil.  She accepted, as does the Court, that, regrettably, she cannot call on anyone else to help her and therefore had relied on him to help her move, which generated an argument and people hearing the noise and calling the police, and also helping her and the children down to Bognor Regis, resulting in another police call-out.  She has lost, it would seem, all her family as a result of T’s disclosures.

77.	She has her own way of viewing things and minimising matters, saying, for example, that she had given up her home to downsize but then, very regrettably, aiming that low blow, as I call it, about all of that at L and I have referred to that already.  She said now she is ready to take on responsibility.  Her drinking had increased to a daily rate, at times, since she lost the children but she wants to look for work and she hopes for a phased return of the children over, say, three to six months.  

78.	She said she had never been incapable of caring for her children and had never struggled.  She does not like to be judged and she said she was too scared to ask for help.  Now, she feels she has opened her eyes a lot.  She replied both no and yes, indeed she did that to a number of questions, but, in particular, when it was put to her that she had prioritised her relationship with the father over her children’s needs and, of course, those are needs for her as a mother and a carer.

79.	She said Ay had kicked off about a message from D H on the phone, a phone that he, Ay had brought for her.  There was a row, then, between another man, T A, in Wetherspoon’s, where she had taken the father after he had supported her at her own Court hearing when her Rehabilitation Activity Requirement Order was extended for a further three months due to her inconsistent attendance.  She said that the person she was staying with, T A, had got the hump and was trying to protect her but yet another fight ensued.  It was obviously a recipe for disaster to bring those two men together in that way.

80.	On the 12th September she had travelled back in a taxi with Mr M from Canterbury.  The police records show that many more than the two or three times that she had stated she had seen him since his release from prison on the 5th July actually had occurred.  Miss M said the father can be a very good dad when he is not drunk.  She has never known him, in the seven years that she has known him, to take drugs.  

81.	He is the only person she had left to turn to and he has stayed loyal to her and the boys.  She agreed that if she calls him he will come.  She wants now, though, to move on with her life, there is nothing between them but they will always be friends.  She knows it has been a bad relationship for her and now she is in a good place with her new home and happily looking for work.  She admitted that, yes, she has a little bit of trouble with alcohol but she is dealing with it to the best of her ability.

82.	She also referred to losing her children in 2009 when she was reliant on heroin and cocaine and she said she knows what it feels like.  T was only eight or nine months of age at that time.  But, having gone through that dreadful process, of course the sad thing is that history is now repeating itself.  She said, basically, she has brought up the children on her own and prefers them to come back into her care and she will work with anyone now and co-operate.  

83.	It was right that she had told the Guardian, in February, that she was engaging with Turning Point but she had stopped going, she accepted that, and then was referred back again on the 28th June.  The trouble is we are many months on now, this is the Final Hearing, and they are still only assessing her and real work has not yet started.  She accepted that she had not pulled her finger out as much as she should have and has failed the children and herself.  But she also blames social services, and that was a theme for both the parents, for failing her as well.  

84.	She said that she and L were very close and she accepts that L worries about her.  All the arguments this year had been about the children and they were stupid arguments.  She agreed that she could be very emotional if she wants to be, referring to how Miss Lent had seen her on the 9th September and, also, how Dr Tizzard had witnessed her to be.  The last common assault had happened and she said she had not yet decided if she would be pursing her complaint against Mr M.  She is speaking to the police about that next week she said.

85.	She denied being dependent on the father when that word was put to her but then she said, if things come up I know I can ask and he will help, I have no one else to turn to.  She asks now to be a given a chance, saying, I know I have had nine months, I know I have made mistakes but I can do it, I am willing to go to any lengths to prove that.  She knows she has to change and is ready and willing and she can get a lot done in six months and she is very on the ball now, she said to the Court.  She is working on the pattern of those domestically abusive relationships with Mr C, Mr M, Mr H and Mr A and does not plan to repeat that.

86.	Turning, then, to the father, his hair analysis for the beginning of January to the beginning of April suggested chronic excess alcohol consumption and the most recent tests continue and confirm that level, although he says he has cut down from eight cans to four.  He had also tested positive for cocaine in all three sections of hair in each test.  There was no use of cannabis revealed in the second hair strand test.  

87.	He gave further details about the caravan trip to Bognor Regis.  The mother had asked him to help and he had stayed down there nearby in a bed and breakfast.  The next morning he went there, to the caravan, the mother was asleep, seemingly not expecting him to be around, and she ran out and then the police arrived a short while later.  He denied there was ever any knife involved at the time of their separation in 2013.

88.	He agreed that he had been remanded in custody several times as a result of the mother’s complaints and then she wrote a statement saying that she had lied to the police and did not pursue the charges and effectively withdrew them.  Mr M seems to hold no resentment at all against the mother about those experiences in prison.  He said, and it was a phrase he used like a mantra really during his evidence, “we get on like a house on fire”, we chat and we are very amicable.  

89.	He said 99% of the recent arguments are over the children and previously, before they were taken, they were about finances.  Each of them blames the other for the children being removed and, yes, he had called the police to say that Kevin Moran had abducted the children and they had been returned to him for a short while and then moved to his sister.  He admitted that he should not have been anywhere the mother’s property or near her on occasion when he knowingly broke his bail conditions or the Non-molestation Injunction Order that was in place for those 12 months.  

90.	I agreed with Miss Sinha’s characterisation of these events as the father being very blasé about such breaches.  In essence, things do not apply to him, he is not prepared to comply and adhere.  His view was that the mother needed help with the luggage and, on one of the other occasions, it was all planned that he would spend Christmas with them, he would put the decorations up and that they would all celebrate O’s first birthday together and he said, well, I admit the breaches and I have paid the price.  I found that, as I say, quite breath taking.

91.	He said that when they had had a drink it causes problems.  He has had a problem for years but it has not affected his ability to look after the children, completely distancing himself from how the children, in their little lives, have experienced all this volatility around their young heads.  He agreed that the mother had tried to cut down but there then was a spike, as it was called, when the children were taken away and it was a Catch-22 really for her and her drinking had increased.  

92.	He said that they are really just good friends and he does not see their relationship changing in the future, it is all about the kids.  He accepted the word enmeshed and that they cannot live without each other.  At the moment he is not drinking nearly as much as he was and he has approached Turning Point, as the Court heard, but has not yet received any new appointment.  It seemed to the Court that that really, probably, could and should have been chased more leading up to this final hearing.  

93.	He said the medication has not yet kicked in and he does not yet feel any difference from drinking less.  He wants to engage, though, he wants to stop drinking and he wants his children.  Now he has his own place and, hopefully, will have a job to start tomorrow or next week.  He had worked previously as a tree surgeon.  He said the children have always had stability with him and Mc.  That is how he considered it, completely failing to take on board what Dr Tizzard and the Guardian and the Local Authority feel about how the children have fared during the years of their lives.

94.	He had fallen out with his parents recently but he said they have now re-established contact, they are back on track again and he believes that they will give him practical help, as will his sister Ch, who has her own baby, and he referred to his parents being prepared to sleep on the sofa bed so that he and the children could have the beds upstairs.  He believes now that the children should be in short-term foster care, of course they have been there for all those nine months now, until he is able to move into bigger accommodation which the Council will have a duty to provide.

95.	Referring to Dr Tizzard’s estimate of nine to 18 months for him, he feels he:

“Could do it easy within six months.  It depends how the medication kicks in and it is better for the children to come back to their parents than be put into adoption for the next 14 years.  They have got stability now with Th and that can continue.”

96.	He eventually accepted, after the question was put to him more than once, that he has physically hit the mother and he agreed he was possessive and jealous about her but said we get on really well, seemingly not critical of her at all, although she has lied to the police and caused him to spend those several months in prison.  There was also the hitting of her with flowers which he really was unsure as to whether or not to accept as an assault of her.  He does still love her, in essence, and, as he told Dr Tizzard, you cannot just turn that off and she is important to him.  

97.	I conclude from the parents’ evidence that really there is no change in the dynamic of their relationship at all.  

THE GUARDIAN

98.	Speaking to her final report she confirmed that none of the further documentation that had been provided to the Court during the hearing or the parents’ statements and the oral evidence had changed her professional recommendations and conclusions at all.  Because the mother was extremely upset about the Local Authority care plans for adoption of the younger children, the Guardian was simply not able to meet her in advance of preparing her report.  The mother talked and ranted to her loudly on the telephone, making it clear that she did not want to see the Guardian at all until in Court.  Of course, the mother had been in a very bad way, as the Guardian described it, when she had had the appointment with Dr Tizzard and was upset then, having been advised of the potential of adoption.  Miss Lent, too, had seen her particularly distressed.

99.	Miss Steadman-Gay did observe the mother’s contact on one occasion, just before this week’s hearing, and confirmed that the mother had fun with the boys, she divided her time well with all four of them, she played hide and seek and it was a nice contact to observe.  When the mother had mentioned that she was seeing her daughter E, L had had a few tears and the mother was able to sit down with him and talk to him and comforted him well.  So there were those positives observed.  The problem is that the mother needs to be consistent and committed to contact and she has not been.  It is really upsetting for the children when she lets them down and that has had an on-going impact of insecurity for them. It has been 50-50, as the Guardian put it, if the mother will be there.

100.	The Guardian commented that, hopefully, in the future the recommended six times a year contact to the older boys will lead the mother to be really committed to it.  Once the boys are finally secure and settled at the Y-N household and a good routine is established, it potentially could be increased from that.  Miss Steadman-Gay had confidence that Miss Y and Mr N will want to promote that contact and hopes that the mother is able to accept the situation and be happy, confident and positive about seeing her boys as they really want to and need to see her.  Certainly initially, she thought the contact would have to be supervised in a children’s centre or equivalent and it is to be hoped that the mother does not attend fuelled by alcohol or in any way be threatening to Miss Y.

101.	The Guardian confirmed that rather strange meeting with the father at his home on the 7th September.  She found him looking dishevelled, with his clothes messy, his face sweaty and not at all his usual smart, well-presented self, even though he had had some 30 or 40 minutes advance warning of her arrival and had insisted that she did visit that day.  As she said, the father was usually well-presented and takes pride in his appearance but that day she was shocked and surprised at his presentation, he looking as though he had been living on the streets and not in the house.

102.	She had been concerned already that his voice had sounded slurred on the phone.  When she arrived her impression remained and, looking at his eyes and listening to his slurred voice, felt that he was a little bit out of it, as if he had taken something that day or perhaps the night before and clearly was not himself.  However, he denied any problem but she was not comfortable in any event, with the other occupants coming and going and his state to continue this meeting.  She did, on the way out, see his very tidy and ordered ground floor bedroom.

103.	The Guardian referred to the father’s bravado and over-confidence that everything was fine.  I think those are two very applicable words for him.  There was no acknowledgment or acceptance of any difficulty.  He stated that there had never been any domestic abuse.  He was very confident about not being the perpetrator of domestic violence.  Any conflict that there had been was the responsibility of his wife.  He anticipated too that his hair strand tests would come back as clean as a whistle and be clear, even though the first one had found those chronic excess alcohol levels, a trace of cannabis and that use of cocaine too.  The second updated tests, received on Day 2 of the Hearing, confirmed cocaine usage and excess alcohol use but no trace of cannabis at that time.

104.	The Guardian realised that neither of the parents like being told anything.  The father was of the opinion that it was his contact and that, therefore, he could bring the big bottles of Coke and the big bag of sweets as much he wanted and that his children were used to this and liked this.  There was a bit of resistance about that, the Guardian felt, and the mother, too, had said:

“He can eat what he wants,”

not appreciating that the Contact Supervisor felt that T was shovelling down too many grapes at one and the same time.

105.	The father did have good quality contact though, but the picture he presented to the Guardian was not the picture at all that we see in all the police reports and nor was there any evidence, by way of even a letter, from his family members that you would have expected him to obtain if there really was that current network of support open to him and to be offered to him.  Overall, the Guardian told the Court that she had no confidence at all that the parents will make the changes required in any suitable timescale for these children.  The reality is that we are at the end of proceedings, not the start, and we are looking for significant changes by now, more than nine months on, and not for the start of engagement at this stage.

106.	She said that there was absolutely no doubt that the parents are in an enmeshed, co-dependent relationship and, for whatever reason, have not been able to separate from each other.  That was the major concern for her too.  She said it is a violent, conflictual, destructive relationship.  As she stated, there is not one jot of evidence to help the Court and the professionals that the parents could or will remain separated.  Indeed, there is a very significant volume of evidence that they have been seeing each other regularly and that simply may be the tip of the iceberg, given the dates provided by the further police involvement and records, although the Guardian fairly accepted that that was supposition on her part.  

107.	While it was good that the father was now on the medication and the letter from the GP, dated the 21st September, had informed him that he needed to go back to his primary carer, not to Laurel House at this time, and he was trying to make an effort to engage with Turning Point, whether one or two appointments had been cancelled by them, as the Guardian said we still have the alcohol tests and we want him to be abstinent. The father needs continued engagement and commitment to take all of these supports and he was just at the very start.  The Guardian did not accept the mother’s assertion that Mr M is a good father.  While he appears to be capable that it was only in the limited context of contact.

108.	While the father may now recognise this is a damaging relationship he has not yet turned the corner, he has not yet had a substantial diminution of his drinking and nor has he kept away from the mother.  As the Guardian rightly highlighted, the mother had an ideal opportunity recently to get away from the father, to make a new life for herself independently and to keep her new address confidential.  It was a real concern for the Guardian, as it is to the Court, that instead the mother once more called on the father to help her move, let him stay over and, once again, there was an argument and police involvement. 

109.	While it is understandable that the mother has no-one else to rely on, her family not being available or supportive, particularly in view of the allegations concerning T against her father, what this continuing dependency would mean is that R and O would be continually exposed to more of that conflict if returned to their mother or to their father’s care.  The Guardian was adamant that there was no confidence, certainly no guarantee that, in the near future, these parents could be alcohol-free or certainly drinking at a much, much lower limit as Dr Tizzard had required.  The prognosis is not optimistic at all even in the six months that the parents had mentioned as being necessary for them.  

110.	As the Guardian said, while the parents desperately and understandably want to keep their children, they are not in a strong position at all and all the evidence before the Court is against them.  There was no evidence that they had made really significant changes in order that the Guardian and the Local Authority and the Court could be confident in them and give them a chance.  She said that there is a need now to make plans and to have certainty for the children who are aware, and who ask questions about what is happening and who they are going to stay with, which their carers simply have not been able to answer.  It must be difficult indeed to fend off those sorts of questions without upsetting the children.

111.	The father still faces another criminal matter on the 21st October and, as the Guardian said, he may return to prison and therefore disappear off the scene again.  That is an unknown factor.  She said L is happy and more confident now and he has made good progress.  When she first met him he was insecure and timid and he is a worrier and the most reflective of all the children.  The Guardian thought that he had been involved in the care of his siblings.  I have dealt already, and the Guardian dealt with it too, that the mother upset him at that recent contact session on the 12th August, blaming him about her having to move.

112.	T too is more settled and doing well at school although the sexual abuse has impacted on him and he has been imparting more information right up to June of this year.  The Court gathers that the police have decided to take no further action and therefore that investigation has been closed.  T had asked his social worker spontaneously on the 1st August if he could stay living with J and G whilst also saying that he would like to return to the care of his mother.  O and R have been very stable with Aunt Cl C but they then had to be that other abrupt change.  But they have bonded well to their obviously excellent foster carer, Th, who has brought real stability to their lives.  All that security and confidence bodes well for the younger boys being able to transfer that attachment fairly easily to a new family.  As the Guardian said, these are all lovely boys.

113.	She did not envisage any difficulty at all in the younger boys being successfully adopted by one of the many adopters around currently who are suitable and approved to take a sibling group.  While that obviously would bring an end to their relationships with their parents and the wider family, it is what these boys need.  She did not believe that R and O know the mother’s older children well at all or have a bond there.  Moreover, the mother has a problematic relationship with E in any event, they fall out and that would not be of a benefit to the younger boys at all.  She said it is more commonplace nowadays, and could be expected here, that the adopters will liaise with Miss Y and Mr N to arrange direct contact between the boys, a minimum of twice a year, so they will not lose out entirely on understanding their background and identity.

114.	While this was hard for the parents to hear, the boys need to feel loved and secured in a family.  Corporate parenting, left adrift in a foster home with potential changes, the placement breaking down, Th’s life changing or her becoming ill, other children joining the placement, professionals having to have regular meetings about them, is not what these young boys deserve and need.  They need to belong to another family and become legally part of that family to give them the best life chance.  The longer it was left for R, nearly five, and although it was helpful that he had a younger sibling, the more difficult it would be the older he gets. 

115.	Weighing up a period of a few months delay now, compared with the rest of the children’s lives, the Guardian made it very clear that she could not support the parents’ plan because of all the risks, heart-breaking though that is.  She said that this is not one of those cases at all, and there are such cases, where she could support a delay because the evidence here was so strong against the parents and the prospects of success were so poor.  The Court entirely accepts the Guardian’s compelling conclusions.

DECISION AND CONCLUSION  

116.	It gives the Court no pleasure to have to find as it does that, like the very impressive social workers, the Court has been frustrated and disappointed with the parents response to these care proceedings.  The views of the professionals in this case are entirely clear and unanimous.  In essence, this couple are stuck in an oft-repeating pattern.  Their relationship has been characterised by those separations and reconciliations and time has marched on.

117.	Even now, after Miss M has done the Freedom Project twice already and plans to repeat it, there is a pointlessness about all of that as she continues to invite Mr M into her life and then complains to the police about his behaviour.  It is all really an absurd charade which does the parents no credit at all.  More particularly, it means that they have failed to grow and improve and change and to have any sort of real insight at all about just how damaging this has been for the four boys and will be again if simply more of the same is permitted.

118.	It was advanced on behalf of the parents, in valiant closing submissions, that they wish now to put their relationship on a proper footing and overcome the inextricable problems that have dogged them to date.  Both of them assert that they are now making strides to tackle the endemic common denominators, as I will call them, of their addiction to alcohol and addiction to each other.  That is all to the good for their own health, both mental and physical and emotional.  

119.	They are said to have cut down recently but the police disclosure substantiates no great change or let up at all in the pattern of drinking and then the police having to become involved.  I have referred already to the fact that, as recently as the 28th August, they were at it once again, meeting up, arguing and drinking and involving other people and the police, and then the father going down to the police station and making counter-allegations against the mother on the 1st September, he having some injuries to his own body.

120.	There is the conundrum, as I am calling it, of the father adamantly denying any usage of cocaine whatsoever and any history of it and never taking any drugs at all throughout his life.  But there are those two positive results which he cannot explain, nobody has been able to explain, and they stand.  They are there.  The alleged recognition of their individual problems, if genuine, is simply too little and too late in the children’s timescales.  

121.	They have been waiting in limbo, in essence, for nine months and one cannot extend that to 15 months or 18 months or whatever.  They simply cannot be expected to wait any longer, to drift uncertainly waiting for some future unascertained date, whether it be three months or six months as the mother had said, or six to nine months or 12 months, as the father and Dr Tizzard had mentioned, to see if their parents can resolve their long-standing relationship and alcohol issues.  That is unrealistic in the scheme of things.

122.	While it is to the mother’s credit that she overcame the pernicious evil of heroin, she has switched that for a somewhat equally damaging and affecting substance for her as a mother of young children needing stability and consistency at home.  Those children need to be the priority and focus of their parents’ lives but, at the moment, the parents are still wrapped up in their own mutual neediness and that four year history of chaos and drink-generated violence.  

123.	It is a huge task for the parents; it evidently has been a huge task for them.  Even under the eye of the Local Authority during the lengthy child protection process and then all the months leading up to this hearing under the spotlight, when the spotlight has been fully on them, they have not been able really to impress at all and I regret to have say that.  It is not the fault of the Local Authority or anybody else.  The parents, as adults, mother now nearly in her 40s as she said, father in his 40s, must accept responsibility for their own actions and behaviours and failures and to stop minimising and denying and providing excuses and explanations for themselves.

124.	The attendant risks, therefore, of the option that the parents argue for, remain unabated.  Even had they done all of the courses that, of course, is not a panacea.  There has to be discernible growth and change, not just paying lip-service by participating in courses.  I thought it was particularly telling actually that the mother, having undertaken the Freedom Project programme already and planned to do it again, remarked about other people having done it four or five times because they had not got it and saying that she was not in the right place at that time.  I have stressed already the pointlessness of that when she has failed to grow in insight or to try and distance herself from the father and that really underlines the negatives here.  I agree with the Local Authority’s submissions, that the chances of this couple really separating are slim and that the best outcome for these children is not to be cared for again by these adults.  They have proved themselves not capable of meeting their children’s needs.

125.	While the Court echoes the Guardian’s great sadness and appreciates that this is not what the parents wanted to hear at all, it would be to do a great disservice to these four young boys to require them to wait any longer.  The false optimism of the father is simply not borne out by experience and by the test results and where the parents both are in their thinking and conduct.  They meet, they drink, they fight, the police are called.  The desired different and changed behaviour has not yet been demonstrated at all.  It would be wholly wrong and detrimental for these children to be sent back for more of the same and the parents consequently are ruled out as a viable option in the balancing exercise that the Court conducts.

126.	While I have been asked to treat with caution what the boys have said I find that they have been aware of what has been happening in front of their eyes.  T saw his step-father hitting his mother with the flowers and referred to him beating her up.  R remembers a knife.  The mother confirmed in her evidence that the father did have a knife.  They are not too young, sadly, not to have remembered those frightening experiences that they witnessed.  

127.	The child remembers not only his first day at school, as was said about him, but also the other not so happy memories and they will be with him as he grows.  They also saw the father in the garden and understood that he was not supposed to be there.  The father handing food and the banned puppy through the window at the hotel in January also would have been observed by them and was another example of him doing whatever he likes.  That was not a good role model for young children.

128.	Ultimately overall I have no hesitation whatsoever in finding that there are the exceptional requisite circumstances here and the overriding requirements pertaining to the children’s best interests mean that nothing else will do other than Adoption Orders for R and O.  The children’s lives cannot be placed on hold any longer.  Accordingly, I accept and fully echo the social worker’s and Guardian’s final analyses and endorse the Local Authority’s Care Plans. I make Final Orders for L and T and they will live with Miss Y and Mr N.  I make Final Care and Placement Orders for R and O.  The welfare of the children, requiring it throughout their lives, I dispense with the consent of the parents thereto.  

129.	Of course, I stress that the children are not going to disappear.  There will be the regular six times a year contact to L and T which could well be increased.  Contact to R and O will continue for some months.  It is to be hoped that the parents will both attend, and participate fully too, in preparation of the life story work for the children which will be a very important treasure trove for them, as they grow, to understand their background and their identity.  

130.	I want to pay particular thanks to all the Counsel and advocates in this case who have pursued their individual case with great care and appropriate sensitivity.  The Court was very grateful for that.  That concludes the Court’s Judgment.  I have refused leave to appeal this Judgment.