This is my first case of legal blogging where I’ve heard anything about the child’s views being sought on my attendance and reporting of the proceedings.
Last month, I went to a hearing in care proceedings at Gloucester Family Court (which takes the prize for having the most overly zealous family court security checks I’ve experienced, although a very helpful and friendly court usher once you get to his floor.)
This was the second hearing in this case I’d attended and, although listed as an IRH (issues resolution hearing in a care application), I was fully expecting it to turn into a final hearing – more on this below.
The care application concerned a 14 year old boy who I’ll call Tom. His mother (I’ll call Sarah) attended the IRH in person, as did two social workers and the Cafcass guardian. Tom’s father (I’ll call James) joined by video link. Each party was represented by a barrister, apart from Tom, who was represented by a solicitor.
Tom’s wishes and feelings
I’d been to an earlier online case management hearing (CMH) in February. For that hearing, I’d sent in notice to the court a week ahead that I was planning to attend and please could they notify the parties. However, it seemed this had only come to the attention of the judge and the lawyers on the morning of the hearing.
The problem was that Tom’s lawyer had concerns about how he would feel about a reporter being in court and possibly writing about him. His lawyer and Cafcass hadn’t had time to discuss this new development with him. Everyone present was positive about transparency in theory but I could see why Tom’s lawyer was cautious. Apparently, information about Tom’s court case had previously been posted online by adults and he’d been distressed about this. Tom’s lawyer said she was certain that he wouldn’t want his personal information posted online, outside his control, and she needed to check with him how he’d feel about a legal blogger being in court.
District Judge Tait decided to adjourn my application for a Transparency Order (TO) so that Tom’s lawyer could take instructions. I was able to stay on the call but wouldn’t have been able to publish anything before (and if) a TO was made. I was given ‘liberty to restore within 28 days’ which meant I could pick up my application for a TO if I wanted to go ahead.
I heard at the CMH that Tom had been living with foster carers under an interim care order for about three months. He had told his lawyer and the social workers that he didn’t want to return to either parent. He’d been having telephone contact with both of them and had asked about having some direct contact with James, but said he didn’t want to see Sarah. James’s lawyer said that James accepted, because he had periods of serious mental illness, that he wasn’t in a position to care for Tom. Sarah wanted Tom to move back to her and denied she was a risk to him. She said that the only risks of harm posed to Tom were because of James’s mental health problems and the traumatic effects she’d experienced as a victim of domestic abuse. The local authority (LA) lawyer said that they did not want or anticipate a ‘granular argument about blame’ and the judge confirmed that future hearings should not be another battleground for the parents.
Some directions were made about filing final documents and the parents taking drug and alcohol hair strand testing.
In view of his solicitor’s caution, I wasn’t expecting to hear from her that Tom agreed, so I was pleased when shortly afterwards she contacted all concerned to say she and the guardian had explained the role of The Transparency Project, and the anonymity provisions, and Tom had said he didn’t object to the TO. He just wanted to be reassured that his name and photo wouldn’t appear online. No other party objected either. A TO was then made that covered proceedings from the date of the CMH I’d attended.
It was good to learn that the lawyer and guardian had been able to explain open reporting to a child in a positive way.
Sadly, by the time we got to the listed IRH in April, Tom was still saying he didn’t want direct contact with Sarah. There were phone calls with her, but he had expressed discomfort about those. He had started some supervised contact with James.
The final hearing
I received a copy of the LA case summary and threshold document (i.e. the grounds for the care order and why the LA needed to share parental responsibility for Tom). This set out a history of Tom being exposed to risk, mainly since autumn 2024 when Sarah and James had separated, and especially since February 2025 when Tom called on authorities for support at 3 a.m one morning. This incident was described by the LA as Sarah having ‘thrown hm out’, although this was contested by Sarah. She said Tom had left voluntarily after an argument. Sarah had been arrested by police and video footage of her arrest was part of the evidence bundle. As far as I could tell, charges hadn’t been pursued.
After this happened, Tom went to live with James, and then some relatives, but by November, none of these arrangements had worked out.
The lawyers for the LA, James, and Tom (via the guardian), all submitted to the judge that the issues had by now been narrowed to the extent that he could make final orders that day. The lawyer for the LA said there had been a close bond between Tom and Sarah in the past and they urged Sarah to ‘build bridges’. James didn’t oppose the LA care plan for Tom to remain in foster care while the LA worked toward rebuilding his relationships with each parent. James’s lawyer said that the outstanding matters weren’t going to be resolved in the court arena and that the LA would be under a duty to hold looked-after children reviews that would work to re-establish contact. Tom’s lawyer made strong arguments in support of bringing the proceedings to a conclusion now, so that Tom could stop worrying what was going to happen. She said the outcome of the case wasn’t going to turn on facts – only on Tom’s welfare needs. There was a lot of discussion about various local services that could be called on to support Tom rebuild his relationships with both parents and provide specialised support for Sarah and for James.
Sarah’s barrister argued that a full final hearing was required because Sarah didn’t agree with the LA care plan for Tom to remain indefinitely his placement. She wanted a transition plan for Tom to return to her care. Sarah denied being drunk or violent on the occasion the police were called in February 2025. She didn’t agree that Tom’s account and the police video footage added up to the version that had been accepted as fact by the LA and she wanted to correct this. With regard to other points set out in the threshold statement, Sarah attributed any harm Tom had suffered directly to James’s behaviour, or to her being traumatised when trying to protect herself and Tom.
The judge said that whatever label was going to be given to the plan, the work that needed to be done with Tom and his parents would take some time and would have to be done under a care order. The lawyers said it wasn’t possible to put a strict timeframe now on when that work might be completed and so a staged transition plan wasn’t possible.
With regard to the threshold criteria, the judge observed that the parents had accepted that Tom had been suffering significant harm at the point the LA issued proceedings. The harm was attributable to their parenting (an element required for a section 31 care order). The judge said the grounds for a care order are about the harm as experienced by the child – not dependent on blaming one parent or the other. He was struggling to understand what he was being asked to do at a future hearing that was different to what he could do that day at the IRH. He asked Sarah to consider that Tom might respond positively to her accepting his expressed wishes and feelings ahead of her own. He said he would allow time for Sarah to give oral evidence that day about her reasons for requiring the case to come back to court.
Sarah was asked a few questions in evidence by her barrister. When asked why the LA criticised her for not fully engaging with them, Sarah explained that no one had taken seriously all her concerns about Tom having been at risk from James over a long period and that if she had been listened to, Tom wouldn’t now be in this situation where he was in foster care. With the right support, she could have kept him safe. Sarah believed that the authorities had erased her from Tom’s life and he needed that narrative corrected. The LA had allowed the situation to materialise because they hadn’t responded to her concerns about James, and they should be made accountable for that.
DJ Tait asked Sarah how things would be different if – for example – he completely accepted her account of why Tom was now saying he didn’t want to see her. Because no one was suggesting Tom could be made to move back with her before there’d been a careful therapeutic process. Sarah replied ‘Yes but the order doesn’t need to be made now’.
Hair strand testing
No one submitted any evidence (that I saw or heard) about Sarah currently having substance abuse problems that would affect her parenting. She was completely composed and clear throughout the hearing. However, the interventions by the LA in 2024 and 2025 had mostly involved those sort of allegations. It was therefore inevitable that the court would want scientific evidence on this, if possible.
Following the CMH, Sarah hadn’t undertaken the hair strand testing the judge had directed, although she’d already been given an extension to do this after an earlier direction in January. James’s results were available but he wasn’t putting himself forward as a carer for Tom at this time so these weren’t subject to intense analysis.
Sarah was opposed to testing on the grounds of privacy. She said she didn’t use illegal drugs. She didn’t want testing now because this would only be relevant when she was looking after Tom and if she was looking after him she wouldn’t drink. If she was having direct contact with Tom, she would agree to testing. Her barrister said that Sarah had been warned that the court could ‘draw an adverse inference’ i.e. might think her not taking a test meant she thought the results would go against her. (This warning was also included in the February order.) The LA lawyer argued that without test results, they had no ‘base line’ to work with Sarah to address substance abuse problems (if there were any.) As he put it, Sarah had not ‘taken the opportunity’ that hair strand testing offered to contest relevant parts of the threshold statement. In his judgment, DJ Tait said that the unresolved concerns about substance misuse meant it was impossible to evaluate evidence of risk to Tom if he returned to her care.
Judgment
The hearing had been listed for 10 am to 12 noon but after hearing Sarah, the judge said we could come back at 2 p.m to hear his decision.
DJ Tait went through the relevant principles and law about children’s welfare and the family’s human rights. He applied the welfare checklist and said he had decided to make a final order because of the impact further delay would have on Tom when there were no outstanding issues in dispute that meant the threshold of harm hadn’t been reached. No further evidence had been identified that would affect the outcome and a final hearing couldn’t be listed until the end of August. Even if Sarah did establish at a final hearing that there had been a flawed narrative, this wouldn’t change the final order. The judge said that both parents accept that Tom needs to stay where he is (although I’m not sure Sarah saw things that way). He said that Tom required a final order and the implementation of the care plan. His decision did not in any way minimise the effect of domestic abuse, but this was the best opportunity for the family to recover from trauma. Both of Tom’s parents were important in his life and the LA had statutory duties to support his relationships with both of them.
The judge summarised Sarah’s concerns about having been misbelieved and mis characterised and wanting this to be corrected. However he thought she misunderstood the powers of the court. Her real dispute is how her relationship with Tom will be promoted and this isn’t something the court can get involved in.
A care order was made, with approval of the long-term foster care plan.
Timescales under the PLO
The IRH was listed for week 23 within the 26 weeks time limit on care proceedings. Parenting assessments of Sarah and James had been filed. Sarah seemed unaware that the listed IRH could turn into a final hearing, although I assume her lawyers must have advised her about this. The order made in February referred to the April hearing as ‘an issues resolution hearing / early final hearing (“IRH/EFH”)’ and directed the parties and advocates to attend court an hour beforehand ‘for pre hearing discussions’.
DJ Tait referred to the legislation and guidance on making every hearing count and resolving cases at IRH stage if this could be done justly. He referred to the ‘Re S criteria’ that might justify a case taking longer than 26 weeks. Although he didn’t directly cite cases about final orders at an IRH, he was probably thinking of Re H (Final Care Orders at IRH) [2025] EWCA Civ 1342.
In Re H the Court of Appeal said that if the evidence is complete, there is an obligation on the judge to give clear reasons which explain why the IRH has been used as a final hearing, and/or why the proceedings are not being case managed to a further hearing:
One of the key considerations as to whether a case is resolved summarily or adjourned for further and/or more detailed enquiry will be “the relevance of the potential result of the investigation to the future care plans for the child” [36]
… the benefits of robust resolution of public law proceedings at any stage prior to the final hearing (where evidence is tested) must never be at the expense of procedural fairness and justice [37]
There should always be “sufficient preparation and hearing time” at an IRH, so that the parties are treated justly and fairly, and no-one is denied the opportunity to attempt properly to resolve the issues. [40]
Children’s views on reporting
I’ve written a number of blog posts about cases I’ve followed where children I heard about were as old as Tom. I now realise that I’ve no idea how their lawyers explained why reporters might be present – or even if they told them I would be there. I’m confident I can rely on Tom’s solicitor and the guardian to explain DJ Tait’s decision to him, and how the care plan will now work. We often hear that young people who’ve been subject to family court proceedings say no one listened to them. I hope that Tom does think the judge was listening.
Parents’ experiences of the care proceedings process
I think Sarah found the proceedings unclear and fragmented – she’d had four different barristers over the five months. She didn’t understand why she’d sat through a string of CMHs and not been allowed to speak.
Reflecting on what DJ Tait said about Sarah overestimating the court’s powers, I think she had hoped that a forensic examination by the judge would reverse the negative picture that had been painted of her. She didn’t think the social work evidence would stand up in court. She feared the loss of court oversight of the LA’s plan – but under s 31(3A) and 3(B) Children Act 1989, the court is limited in its scrutiny of timetabling details of care plans. The judge and the other parties’ lawyers agreed they couldn’t see how continuing the court process would effectively change Tom’s memories and perceptions and it was therefore necessary to avoid delay until August before getting a final order and beginning the reparative work.
Photo of Gloucester Civil and Family Court, April 2026
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