Your report of Anthony Douglas’ comments on A County Council v K and others [2011] EWHC 1672 underlines the view held by many children panel solicitors that he is too fond of putting a gloss on any criticism of the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass).

He says he welcomes the judgment ‘which did not find that we acted unlawfully’.

The circumstances of the case were that the court made a decision in care proceedings following advice from the court-appointed children’s guardian.

A former Cafcass employee, working for the local authority, overheard comments made by social workers after the hearing and e-mailed Cafcass. A Cafcass manager then wrote to the court. The letter (set out in the judgment) explained that Cafcass did not agree with the guardian’s view and sought to have the children’s guardian removed.

Sir Nicholas Wall, president of the Family Division, said at paragraph 105 that the letter written by Cafcass should not have been written.

Then, at paragraph 113, he said: ‘In the instant case, it does not seem to me that Cafcass obeyed its own rules. It was not for Cafcass to replace the guardian: it was not for Cafcass to substitute its view for those of the guardian…. Added to which, of course, it was complicit in the failure to notify the parents of what was going on.’ In paragraph 114, he added: ‘So what occurred should not have happened.

'Should such events arise again, they will not, I hope, be repeated.’

I therefore find myself in some difficulty in understanding how Mr Douglas can say that Cafcass did not act unlawfully.

Bruce Edgington, non-practising solicitor, member of the Family Procedure Rule Committee, Gravesend