“CCTV / video footage The applicant seeks an order for disclosure and inspection of footage from the respondent's household CCTV covering the following periods: 3pm on Friday 11 February - 9am on Saturday12 February 2022 ; and 6pm on Saturday 12 March to 7pm on Tuesday15 March 2022 . The applicant also seeks an order for the instruction of an expert to review, organise and verify that footage.”
“It is very difficult to establish how the children are parented at their mother’s home, the division of parenting and child care between T and the staff. It is not possible to ask the employed nannies because it would potentially compromise their employment. Ex nannies, being ex nannies, could be said to have an axe to grind. Nevertheless a former nanny observed that the surveillance worked both ways. Thus I think it might be useful to exploit the wall to wall surveillance systems and take a sample of footage from when the children are returned from spending time with their father, over the following 48 hours. For example the children were returned on Sunday March 12th at 19.00 so let’s see the footage of how they are parented/cared for (nothing else) until Tuesday 14th evening, when they return from school and were put to bed. This could provide an evidence base for how the maternal house functions in terms of the delivery of parenting and child care but must be retrospective.”
“Fact-finding hearings and domestic abuse in Private Law children proceedings – Guidance for Judges and Magistrates”
“[23] Lord Bingham stated the position in this way, at paras 3–6; '3. Any evidence, to be admissible, must be relevant. Contested trials last long enough as it is without spending time on evidence which is irrelevant and cannot affect the outcome. Relevance must, and can only, be judged by reference to the issue which the court (whether judge or jury) is called upon to decide. As Lord Simon of Glaisdale observed in Director of Public Prosecutions v Kilbourne[1973] AC 729 , 756, “Evidence is relevant if it is logically probative or disprobative of some matter which requires proof … relevant (ie logically probative or disprobative) evidence is evidence which makes the matter which requires proof more or less probable.” … 5. The second stage of the inquiry requires the case management judge or the trial judge to make what will often be a very difficult and sometimes a finely balanced judgment: whether evidence or some of it (and if so which parts of it), which ex hypothesi is legally admissible, should be admitted. For the party seeking admission, the argument will always be that justice requires the evidence to be admitted; if it is excluded, a wrong result may be reached. In some cases, as in the present, the argument will be fortified by reference to wider considerations: the public interest in exposing official misfeasance and protecting the integrity of the criminal trial process; vindication of reputation; the public righting of public wrongs. These are important considerations to which weight must be given. But even without them, the importance of doing justice in the particular case is a factor the judge will always respect. The strength of the argument for admitting the evidence will always depend primarily on the judge’s assessment of the potential significance of the evidence, assuming it to be true, in the context of the case as a whole. 6. While the argument against admitting evidence found to be legally admissible will necessarily depend on the particular case, some objections are likely to recur. First, it is likely to be said that admission of the evidence will distort the trial and distract the attention of the decisionmaker by focusing attention on issues collateral to the issue to be decided. This… is often a potent argument, particularly where trial is by jury. Secondly, and again particularly when the trial is by jury, it will be necessary to weigh the potential probative value of the evidence against its potential for causing unfair prejudice: unless the former is judged to outweigh the latter by a considerable margin, the evidence is likely to be excluded. Thirdly, stress will be laid on the burden which admission would lay on the resisting party: the burden in time, cost and personnel resources, very considerable in a case such as this, of giving disclosure; the lengthening of the trial, with the increased cost and stress inevitably involved; the potential prejudice to witnesses called upon to recall matters long closed, or thought to be closed; the loss of documentation; the fading of recollections. … In deciding whether evidence in a given case should be admitted the judge’s overriding purpose will be to promote the ends of justice. But the judge must always bear in mind that justice requires not only that the right answer be given but also that it be achieved by a trial process which is fair to all parties.” [24] This analysis, given in a civil case, applies also to family proceedings. There are two questions that the judge must address in a case where there is a dispute about the admission of evidence of this kind. Firstly, is the evidence relevant, as potentially making the matter requiring proof more or less probable? If so, it will be admissible. Secondly, is it in the interests of justice for the evidence to be admitted? This calls for a balancing of factors of the kind that Lord Bingham identifies at paras 5 and 6 of O’Brien.”
“it is not the duty of a CAFCASS Officer, when preparing a report, to explore every aspect of a parent or a child’s life or to investigate matters that are not in issue. The CAFCASS Officer will, aside from interviewing the parents and the child, usually make enquiries of the police, a child’s nursery or school, health care professionals or social workers, if they have been involved with the family, but no more than that unless the court expressly requires other more extensive enquiries.”