Neutral Citation Number: [2021] EWCA Civ 448 Re H-N and Others (children) (domestic abuse: finding of fact hearings) This is a post by Sarah Phillimore. This is a useful judgment setting out comprehensively and clearly the historical evolution of the family court approach to issues of domestic abuse and offering useful pointers for how such […]
Final Report of the Ministry of Justice 2020 In May 2019 a ‘3 month inquiry’ into issues of domestic abuse and applications to court about children, was announced by the Ministry of Justice. I expressed considerable scepticism at the time, not least scoffing about the wholly unrealistic timescales proposed. In that at least I can […]
Living with the long term effect of abuse and neglect. This is a post by an adoptive mother, who shall remain anonymous. Adoption is a cornerstone of social policy in the UK for children living with abuse and neglect, and without legal reform, adoptive families are at high risk of having their children removed as […]
Who holds the risk, how risk is assessed and how brave or risk averse those who make decisions for children? This is a post by Sarah Phillimore On March 9th 2017 Lord Justice McFarlane delivered the first of the Bridget Lindley OBE Memorial Lectures. He began by paying tribute to the memory of Bridget Lindley […]
The dangers of ‘absolutism’ when considering the ‘interests of the child’. Many thanks to Clare Fenton Glynn for alerting me to this recently decided case in the European Court – only a French version of the judgment is so far available but I have run it through Google Translate and this seems a pretty good […]
I am a passionate believer in the value of adoption in appropriate circumstances… But I fear that, in making all those orders, I never gave much attention to the emotional repercussions of them. In particular I fear that I failed fully to appreciate that an adoption order is not just a necessary arrangement for the […]
This is a post by Sarah Phillimore. What gives a social worker the power to investigate my family? Children’s Services have two basic functions; to help and support families stay together but also to make application to the court to remove children from those families if they think there is a risk of serious harm. […]
Here we look at the concept of ‘forced adoption’ I am a passionate believer in the value of adoption in appropriate circumstances… But I fear that, in making all those orders, I never gave much attention to the emotional repercussions of them. In particular I fear that I failed fully to appreciate that an adoption […]