In a ruling which underlines the need for careful gathering of evidence in family cases, a grandmother who stepped in to care for her baby granddaughter after the child’s parents could not cope has triumphed in an appeal against an order placing the little girl in care.
The baby was removed from her parents’ home after the mother had threatened the father with a knife whilst he was holding the child. The mother had had a previous child taken from her by social workers and both parents accepted that the baby could not safely be left in their charge.
The child was sent to live with her paternal grandmother when she was less than three months old. However, the local authority decided that the grandmother could not give her the care and support she required and applied to a family judge for a care order with a view to an adoptive placement outside the natural family.
That order was granted and the grandmother was refused special guardianship of the child. The council had presented evidence of her ‘obsessive’ hoarding, the cluttered state of her home, her history of poor relations with social workers and her tendency to minimise stress factors that could lead to her care of the child being compromised.
In upholding the grandmother’s appeal against that decision, and directing an urgent rehearing of the matter, the Court of Appeal was critical of the council’s ‘cavalier treatment’ of the rules and directions given by the court, which had resulted in inadequate evidence being placed before the family judge.
The council had presented little or no evidence in respect of the relative merits of the various placement options, nor was there any evidence that an adoptive placement was either necessary or feasible. In those circumstances, the family judge simply did not have material before her which could justify a step as significant as permanent removal of the girl from her birth family.
For help with all family law matters, contact the family law team on 0121 698 2200 or fill in our online enquiry form.
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