Ward LJ on the court's powerlessness in contact cases

The Times reports on Ward LJ's remarks in a contact case as he agreed with a father in a contact case that the law was "sterile, impotent and utterly useless".

Suzanne Holdsworth appeal result

Babysitter Suzanne Holdsworth has won her appeal against conviction for murder the BBC reports on the basis of fresh medical evidence suggesting that his death might have been caused by an epileptic seizure. The full judgment is on Bailii . The case has been remitted for retrial.

Children with Attachment Disorder

A thoughtful piece in the Times by Penny Wark considers the difficulties facing adopters raising children with attachment disorders, profiling in particular Melanie Allen's experience. Melanie has written a book about it - The Trouble with Alex - which I have ordered from Amazon and then review.

Angela Cannings Foundation

The Angela Cannings Foundation website is now up and running though still in the building stage. There is an associated forum which is likely to make for lively reading, with Penny Mellor heavily involved. One case the team is tracking is the appeal of baby sitter Suzanne Holdsworth, who was convicted of the murder of a child in her care in 2005. BBC's Newsnight carried a feature on the appeal & the medical issues in which one of the officers who investigated the offence expresses concerns about the quality of the investigation, partly because important evidence about the child having a brain tumour was not put before the jury. The outcome of the appeal hearing is still awaited as judgment was reserved.

David Southall re-instated on register of doctors

The GMC has admitted that it should not have banned David Southall from working as a doctor because it wrongly applied its new rules retrospectively accordingt to the BBC but he remains barred from undertaking any child protection work. He faces a further disciplinary hearing in Manchester from 12th May in relation to breathing tank experiments.

News Roundup

It's been a busy week in the news for family law subjects.

I am sure we have all been riveted by the Austrian family story with over 2,400 stories on Google news .

On Community Care there are stories about a Parliamentary debate on so-called forced adoptions , impending discussions between the LGA & the government about funding for the care issue fee hike & reports from TACT that foster carers are being pressured into applying for special guardianship .

The Telegraph has a long feature on divorced mothers as single parents & the legalities of leaving children alone or with a sitter .

The Observer features a high-profile appeal for foster carers supported by Cherie Blair.


The Times had a piece by DJ Gerlis critical of the fees hike for care proceedings.

The BBC reports on the non-prosecution of a doctor for the evidence he gave in the trial of Marianne Williams, the rather surprising two year community sentence handed down to Dr David Moore, Consultant at Birmingham Children's Hospital for downloading child pornography (GMC hearing to follow), Cardiff University research on the growth in violence towards children (more than double in the last year), & the the cost of violence towards women (£40 billion a year).

Coleridge J's speech to Resolution

The full text of Mr Justice Coleridge's speech at the Resolution conference is
here (opens a pdf file).

Welcome to the Laws of Love

A new family law blog - Laws of Love (a family law blog dealing with all aspects of relationships (legal and just plain odd) - from Mark Chaloner, a Southampton based family barrister, was launched on the same day as the PLO and made has made a very good start with a piece on contact. I am particularly glad of today's post on Coleridge J's speech to Resolution which tells us more about what the Judge had to say. Saves me a job!

Talking of Kinship Care

Following my earlier post on the kinship care research, the Guardian reports on the lack of financial support offered to grandparents.

Macca v Mucca

Heather breaks her silence!






The full judgment in the case is now up on the Family Law Week website.



Geek Lawyer has helpfully translated selected passages into plain English.



John Bolch selects the Judge's comment on Heather Mills' self-representation on the Family Lore blog and does the maths here .







Judith Middleton on her Divorce blog concludes that neither party can claim victory.









Marilyn Stowe aka the Barracuda on her blog considers neither party to have been realistic. Macca offered too little, Mucca asked for too much.

Pink Tape analyses the number of times the word 'unreasonable' appears in the judgment. See also her excellent post on Rex Judicata on custody of family pets.

The Press has had a field day. Typing in Mills McCartney to the Google news search reveals 3,529 articles and an awful lot of references to Money Can't Buy Me Love. The Google blog list is equally enormous.

Frances Gibb in the Times reports on Heather Mills' reaction to the publication of the judgment - tipping water over McCartney's lawyer and picks out the juicy bits from the judgment here as does Philippe Naughton who also reports on her rant outside court in which she claimed to have kept silent for 21 months. Another example of the gap between her view of the world and other people's as found by the Judge?

The Telegraph picks out the juicy bits here and has more to say about the water incident or as the Sun says she chucked Shaka.

The Guardian's take on it is written by Esther Addley.

Then there is the Mirror , the Mail &the Sun (lots of capitalised OUTRAGE & the opportunity to elect Mills or Burrell as the biggest liar).

And Heather herself: the judgment was outrageous and today she just wants to rest. Paul is keeping quiet. And that is the difference between them. She has her own website , by the way, but strangely enough it does not contain the text of the judgment.

News Round up

Eleanor Hamilton QC has been appointed as a Judge in the Family Division. She is to be known as Mrs Justice Eleanor King.

Professor Carolyn Hamilton is one of two new appointments to the Legal Services Commission.

Some great new articles on the Family Law Week website:


John Gumbleton has written on the considerable variation in the approach of different local authorities to possible rehabilitation and the resources that they develop or devote to helping children return safely to their parents.

David Chaplin has interviewed Lord Justice Thorpe , Head of International Family Law. Later this year the inaugural International Family Law lecture will take place, funded by the FLBA & Resolution.

John Wilson writes on privilege and accidental disclosure . He is a rather brilliant fellow who once had a rather brilliant pupil!

Following the Panorama programme about shaking baby syndrome the BBC announced that Keran Henderson is to appeal against her conviction.

The NSPCC added its considerable weight to the criticisms of the proposed issue fee increase for care proceedings. The Law Society is not impressed either. The views of the ALC & the Family Justice Council are of like mind.

Children cared for by members of their extended families or social networks in general appear to do at least as well as those in traditional foster care, according to a research briefing from Research in Practice .

The President of the Family Division gave a the Resolution Inaugural Annual Lecture in which he expressed his hopes for the PLO as a mechanism for defeating delay & announced that DCSF will issue guidance to local authorities on adoption procedures which the PLO does not deal with He also spoke about ensuring that the child's voice is heard both in the context of public and private law proceedings and a new initiative along the Early Intervention lines called DAtrys To that end he wishes to encourages judges to talk to children directly if appropriate training could be provided to them. He was strangely silent on the proposed issue fee increase other than to emphasise that it had nothing to do with the PLO and that anything which discourage local authorities from acting appropriately to protect children could hardly serve the best interests of children!

News roundup

Lisa Arthurworrey is appealing to the General Social Care Council against a decision not to register her on grounds of competency. We are tantalisingly told in a related article that she has admitted to writing inappropriate emails to the GSCC but not what they said.

The mother in the Nottingham case lost her appeal against the interim care order made by a District Judge (see Family Law Week's case report of Re G [2008] EWCA Civ 86 but the case has been remitted to Munby J to consider whether there should be a s 38(6) assessment. Rather interestingly there is a reference to the LSC agreeing to fund a viability assessment at the Cassel hospital. I am hearing reports that they will not do so normally.

Munby J, who is now seized of the case, is quoted in the Daily Mail as demanding better training for social workers and hospital staff over the original unlawful removal. It looks from the press coverage that a s 38(6) assessment has been ordered.



Every Child Matters has published a guide for local authorities on their duty to provide information, advice & assistance under the Children Act 2006 which is downloadable from this page

Researchers have called into question the effectiveness of early support to mothers via the Home Start scheme as Research in Practice reports. The website has a summary of the research findings and a link to the full research report by Jacqueline Barnes, Kristen Macpherson & Rob Senior.

By contrast, the National Evaluation of Sure Start shows that children behave better and are more independent if they live in areas with Sure Start Children’s Centres. Other findings show that parents have more positive parenting skills and provide a better home learning environment for their children, helping prepare children to do well at school and make the most of their talents.

The Court of Appeal has decided in K K (A Child) that a local authority does not have the final say on the matter of a young person's age and identity, and that such a decision should ultimately rest with the court. A court has power in family proceedings to direct the local authority to investigate issues such as age and identity under s 37.

The Times reports on plans to establish 100 specialist domestic violence (criminal) courts.


Panorama tonight features the case of Keran Henderson, the childminder accused of shaking a baby in her care, and will include interviews with US biomechanic experts. The case is also discussed in the Daily Mail .

News Roundup

Ofsted has published Joint area review (JAR) reports for Hammersmith and Fulham, Knowsley, Bracknell Forest, Derby, Gloucestershire, Leicestershire, Liverpool, North Lincolnshire and Wandsworth. The services reviewed include council services, health services, police and probation services, and publicly funded services provided by voluntary bodies. Evidence from other inspections, including schools, further education colleges and residential settings, also contribute to the review. You can look at the reports for the individual authorities
here .

Ofsted also publishes its reviews of LA adoption & fostering services and residential units on their social care page .


The Fatherhood Institute and Department for Children, Schools and Families have produced guidance for local authorities and children’s trusts to help them develop parenting support services which are effective at strengthening father-child relationships. The guidance, which consists of a 'checklist' of father-inclusive approaches, is aimed mainly at Parenting Commissioners and those involved in drawing up Parenting Strategies, but will be of interest to anyone with a strategic role in children's services. DCSF will review implementation and follow up with Parenting Commissioners 'at some point after the Parenting Strategies have been submitted'.



The London Safeguarding Children Board has published its procedures for safeguarding children abused through domestic violence.



The NSPCC is running a course on Child Sex Abuse & the Law on 8 - 9 April.

You can sign up for a weekly CASPAR email alert from the NSPCC as well as weekly email alerts on New in the NSPCC library .


In case you missed it, registered members of the Law Society can use their new online legal library which has been developed in conjunction with Lexis Nexis.


The Observer previews a government commissioned study (The 'Care Profiling Study' report produced by a team at the University of Bristol, led by Judith Masson. It analyses the characteristics of a sample of nearly 400 cases of care proceedings that went before the family courts between 2004 and 2007) which apparently concludes that social workers are generally more than justified in bringing care proceedings.

Katy Dowell comments in the Lawyer on the proposals to make family court decisions publicly available.

Mid-life Crises or Affairs causing divorce? Chicken or Egg?

The Guardian reports on a survey of 100 leading divorce lawyers carried out by chartered accountants Grant Thornton on the reasons for divorce. Whether the cause was adultery (29%) or mid-life crisis (14%) the straying spouse or crisis sufferer was overwhelming likely to be the man (in 78% of adultery cases & 93% of mid-life crises).

Neglecting to care

An interesting piece in the Times by Professor Gary Slapper about the law on the neglect of children.

Some are more equal than others

The Telegraph reports on another biggish money divorce being heard by the Court of Appeal in which the wife is seeking to overturn an equal shares approach by the lower courts on account of her greater contribution to the joint assets. The Court of Appeal is to give judgment at a later date. I wonder just how often this argument has to be rehearsed before there will be any clarity?

CAFCASS fights back

Community Care reports on the response of CAFCASS Chief Executive Anthony Douglas to the recent damning Ofsted report on the East Midlands.

Experts seek protection from child protection

On the theme of experts (see earlier post about the new Practice Direction), the Guardian reports on Professor Terence Stephenson's concerns about Paediatricians being intimidated against giving evidence in child abuse cases and being vilified for speaking out in high profile cases.

Damages for unlawful removal

Nottingham have agreed to pay the proverbial undisclosed sum of damages to the teenage mother from whom it unlawfully removed a baby according to the
Guardian .

News Roundup

Parents are to be given the right to information about people who regularly look after their children in a scheme which the Government are piloting according to the the Times .


The NSPCC fears that trafficked children are not being properly protected and end up being sent back to gangs who continue to exploit them according to the Guardian .

Top divorce lawyers Suzanne Kingston from Dawsons & Alex Carruthers of Hughes Fowler Carruthers advise that pre-nuptial agreements are becoming essential in the wake of the Crossley case & the McCartney divorce according to this Times story .

The Germans seem to be going in the opposite direction to recent case law here keeping the biological father & extended family at bay in adoption cases (see this earlier post on Adoption Resources . According to this Guardian story a German woman has been forced to name the six men who won an online auction to have sex with her on the basis that the child has a right to know the identity of its parents.

Geoffrey Robertson has written an interesting article the UK's contribution to the Australian stolen generation policy suggesting that an apology from the UK government is in order.