A judge has criticised all parties involved in a case in which it took 131 weeks to resolve the future of a baby girl subject to care proceedings.
The case was dealt with by nine judges across 17 hearings and passed through the hands of 33 different advocates before it was resolved this month.
Such proceedings have a statutory time limit of 26 weeks, but such were the delays that the child is now more than two-and-a-half years old and has been cared for in two foster families, while also developing and sustaining relationships with birth parents who she will not live with.
Mr Justice McDonald even referred to an ‘conscionable delay’ in the judgment name and said the case had demonstrated ‘nearly every type of poor practice’ that family procedure rules and practice directions were intended to eradicate.
‘That these matters of poor practice are still occurring demonstrates that the provisions of the PD12A are still not being applied consistently and with sufficient rigour by the courts, legal practitioners and welfare professionals,’ said McDonald. ‘The prompt determination of care proceedings under Part IV of the Children Act 1989 is not a mere aspiration. It is what the law requires.’
The court was required whether to place the child with her paternal aunt in Ghana or her mother. None of the counsel appearing at the final hearing had previously been instructed in the case.
Proceedings were issued in January 2022, a few weeks after the girl was born, and the case was adjourned after a first hearing to a floating list.
A total of four case management hearings took place in the first 10 days of the proceedings just to arrange the girl’s interim placement.
Meanwhile, the mother was subject to a cognitive assessment which predicted that the mother would struggle with aspects of parenting.
By February 2022, a fourth judge in the case directed that a further parenting assessment be made of the mother. A senior social worker gave evidence to the court that asking for more assessments gave the mother ‘false hope’, while McDonald concluded that it amounted to ‘cruelty masquerading as hope’.
As the 26-week mark approached, the matter came before a fifth judge and was listed for a further case management hearing without a fixed date. There was no indication at that stage that the court had even considered whether an extension to the legal time limit was necessary.
The judge ruled that it was in the child’s best interests to give the paternal aunt permission to remove her from England and take her to Ghana. He concluded with regret that the mother was not capable of parenting the child.
