"I am afraid that my very clear impression is that she altered the case note to bolster the local authority's case."
"Generally the above findings illustrate on the part of Ms Fraser (a) a negative attitude towards the mother; (b) a disregard for the importance of contemporaneous records and evidential probity; (c) a willingness to manufacture, manipulate or distort evidence after the fact; (d) a contempt for the court process and in the face of the court; (e) a disregard for professional colleagues; (f) a failure to adhere to the HCPC standards of proficiency for social workers; and (g) dishonesty."
"36. Following my draft judgment, I have been asked to address the medical evidence provided by Ms Fraser in November 2015 and January 2016 and the degree, if any, to which it has been taken into account in reaching the findings made. 37. I am afraid I cannot locate the November 2015 evidence, neither in the court bundle nor on the electronic file. I do, however, have a letter from an occupational health physician dated7 August 2015 when he states that she is fit to attend court and meetings relating to court proceedings, although it would be helpful if some allowances and additional assistance could be offered on the grounds of her current emotional distress/stress related condition. 38. The letters from her GP dated 7 and8 January 2016 state that, although there has been some improvement in her condition, she continued to suffer from significant symptoms of depression, remained certified as unfit to work and is likely to remain so for several months. Her ability to give evidence may be impaired in relation to future evidence. 39. When she gave evidence in July 2015, there was absolutely no sign or any evidence that she was poorly at that stage. She adamantly denied altering16 December 2014 note when, as I have said, she did it following the hearing of 2 July and how could she possibly forget that in the context of that hearing when the local authority opposed the order made and why, after the order I made for disclosure, did Ms Fraser think it was right to alter those case notes? 40. So I have considered the medical evidence submitted after her testimony her July but it does not alter my findings."
"It was incumbent upon the lower court where (a) the appellant had admitted a failure ion probity in her oral evidence and (b) where the learned district judge's own three issue analysis was to explore motivation and the intent to hide untruthfulness, for the judge to self-direct following Lucas as per the closing submissions. This is also a case where the lower court relied upon recall, consistency and demeanour as evidence of credibility or untruthfulness, not only did potentially relevant medical evidence fall by the wayside, but there was no appropriate self-direction on issues of memory and credibility."
"From the … the single question asked by the learned district judge at the conclusion of the appellant's oral closing submissions on 22 January in response to counsel's offer to render any further assistance required by the court, the learned district judge stated that the appellant had attended court on 2 July and had heard her order for case notes in the face of the local authority opposition, the learned district judge then said words to the effect, of 'I didn't say existing case notes, but I meant that. What led Ms Fraser to think that she had the right to alter the existing case notes?'"
" Appellate courts have been repeatedly warned, by recent cases at the highest level, not to interfere with findings of fact by trial judges, unless compelled to do so. This applies not only to findings of primary fact, but also to the evaluation of those facts and to inferences to be drawn from them."
"The reasons for this approach are many. They include i) The expertise of a trial judge is in determining what facts are relevant to the legal issues to be decided, and what those facts are if they are disputed. ii) The trial is not a dress rehearsal. It is the first and last night of the show. iii) Duplication of the trial judge's role on appeal is a disproportionate use of the limited resources of an appellate court, and will seldom lead to a different outcome in an individual case. iv) In making his decisions the trial judge will have regard to the whole of the sea of evidence presented to him, whereas an appellate court will only be island hopping. v) The atmosphere of the courtroom cannot, in any event, be recreated by reference to documents (including transcripts of evidence). vi) Thus even if it were possible to duplicate the role of the trial judge, it cannot in practice be done."
"She accepts that she denied making the edits during cross-examination. This was, she thinks, because she was being showered with questions that were accusing her of having falsified information and it was “out of the blue” that someone would interpret amending the case notes in that way. She did not think she had falsified anything. She states that she did not lie intentionally. She says that she should have asked for a short break or found some way of slowing it down and explaining that there was no sinister intent or falsification involved. She was very shocked at the suggestions that were being put to her and this affected how she responded. I hope given my 16 years of experience as a district judge that I would be sensitive and conscious of a witness who was in some distress. This was not the impression I had of Linda Fraser when she gave her evidence at the July 2015 final hearing. As I have said earlier, she was absolutely adamant that she had not edited the notes. I have highlighted in my notebook the phrase she used, namely 'I did not edit those notes'. I asked her why she'd gone through the notes on a 'quality assurance' basis and, although I have noted no answer to that question in my notebook, the transcript indicates she responded as follows, 'In terms of sending them off, I wanted to make sure that everything was there and correct to be sent off'. Again, in my view, this was too much of a coincidence. She could have reflected or asked for a break. The note was only altered a few days before the final hearing, the afternoon following the hearing when I ordered disclosure. She also made significant alterations. It beggars belief, in my view, that she could not remember that she could not remember that she had altered that note."