A v Gateshead Metropolitan Borough Council [2025] EWFC 224

Case No FD25P00186[2025] EWFC 224
IN THE FAMILY COURT AT NEWCASTLE
Newcastle Civil & Family Courts and Tribunals Centre Barras Bridge Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 8QF
Before
HIS HONOUR JUDGE STEPHEN SMITH(SITTING AS A JUDGE OF THE HIGH COURT)
Between
AAPPLICANTGATESHEAD METROPOLITAN BOROUGH COUNCILRESPONDENTSBRespondentC (a child, by her Guardian)RespondentLegal RepresentationA (Applicant Father), Litigant in Person for in personMs Dodd (Barrister) for Respondent Local AuthorityB (Respondent Mother), Litigant in Person for in personMr Rainey (Counsel) on behalf of C (via her Children’s Guardian)JudgmentJudgment date: 9 June 2025(start and end times cannot be noted due to audio format)Reporting Restrictions Applied: YesThis judgment was delivered in private. The judge has given leave for this version of the judgment to be published on condition that (irrespective of what is contained in the judgment) in any published version of the judgment the anonymity of the children and members of their family must be strictly preserved. All persons, including representatives of the media, must ensure that this condition is strictly complied with. Failure to do so will be a contempt of court.This Transcript is Crown Copyright.  It may not be reproduced in whole or in part other than in accordance with relevant licence or with the express consent of the Authority.  All rights are reserved.His Honour Judge Stephen Smith:Date 2025-06-09
[1]This is an application by the father of C, a girl born on 26 July 2018, for a declaration that the respondent local authority, Gateshead Metropolitan Borough Council, should not be permitted to administer the routine vaccinations recommended by the UK Health Security Agency to C, and for an injunction preventing it from doing so.[2]C is the subject of a Care Order made by HHJ Hardy at a hearing on 13 October 2023. C is therefore within the care of the respondent, which by virtue of section 33 of the Children Act 1989 (“the 1989 Act”), has parental responsibility for her.[3]A issued this application in the Family Division of the High Court. By the order of Williams J, it was transferred to this Court to be heard by me sitting as a judge of the High Court, pursuant to section 9 of the Senior Courts Act 1981.[4]There are parallel public law proceedings involving C. The local authority seeks an order under section 34(4) of the 1989 Act permitting it to refuse contact between C and her parents. An Interim Order is in force, and the final hearing in that matter is listed later this year before HHJ Hardy. In addition, C’s mother, B, seeks an order to discharge the care order made by Judge Hardy, to resume contact with C, and to appoint C’s paternal aunt as her special guardian. That application is also listed before Judge Hardy.[5]This issue has been listed before me to determine the vaccination issue under the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court, and for case management directions in relation to the parallel proceedings. Accordingly, the central issue in this judgment is A’s application for a declaration that the local authority may not administer the vaccines recommended for a girl of C’s age by the UK Health Security Agency, and for an injunction.[6]A and B appeared before me as litigants in person. I commend them for the clarity and industry with which they approached their role in these proceedings. B was assisted by Mr Simpson as her McKenzie friend. I did my best to accommodate the needs of both parties as litigants in person, and to provide them with the appropriate levels of assistance throughout the proceedings.

Legal framework

[7]It is common ground that there are certain parental responsibility decisions that are of such magnitude that it would not be appropriate for a local authority to take in its role as a corporate parent without the guidance or supervision of the Court. Such cases often involve questions relating to medical treatment. It is now well established however that in so called “routine” vaccination cases, that is where a question arises as to whether the local authority should be permitted to administer routine recommended vaccinations to an otherwise healthy child, it is not necessary for the local authority to apply for leave to invoke the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court for authority to administer the vaccine. In such cases, the onus is on a person seeking to object to the administration of such a vaccine to apply to the High Court to prevent a vaccine from being administered. That is what A has done in these proceedings.[8]The leading authority on this issue is Re H (A Child) (Parental Responsibility:Vaccination) [2020] EWCA Civ 664. I am very grateful to Ms Dodd, counsel on behalf of the respondent, for preparing a helpful and succinct summary of the law. It contains the following propositions.a. First, routine vaccination is not a ‘serious or grave issue’ but requires the local authority to seek the Court’s approval whenever a parent objects.b. Secondly, the local authority should give notice to the parents, and it is then for the parents to express their objection. The onus is on them to make an application to the High Court.c. Thirdly, while a parent’s view will be considered, the weight given to it should not be based on how strongly the view is held by the parent.d. Fourthly, it should be assumed that vaccinations recommended by Public Health England, or the UK Health Security Agency, will benefit a child even though they are not free from risk.e. Fifthly, a part 25 application for a jointly instructed expert is unlikely to be necessary where the vaccinations have been approved and recommended by the relevant public health authorities.f. Sixthly, an application to invoke the inherent jurisdiction, or seek an injunction with a view to preventing the vaccination of a child in care, is unlikely to succeed unless there is, put before the Court in support of that application, cogent, objective and/or welfare evidence demonstrating a genuine contra indication to the administration of one or all of the routine vaccinations.

The parties’ positions

[9]The Respondent obtained advice from C’s GP that there were no obvious contra indications in C’s health records to suggest that she should not be immunised with the standard, routine vaccinations that are recommended for children of her age. See Dr G’s letter dated 24 March 2025. The thrust however of A’s objections lies in what he says are his own adverse reactions to having been vaccinated in the past. Those concerns are coupled with broader objections that he has in relation to vaccination generally.[10]B for her part is concerned about the proposed course of vaccinations and its accelerated pace of administration. C has never been vaccinated, she stressed. She is a healthy young girl. The vaccinations which she is to be subject to would ordinarily have been administered on a gradual basis over the course of a child’s life. The local authority in these circumstances proposes to administer all vaccines over an eight-week period on three separate occasions. B also reports her own adverse reactions to having been vaccinated. She relies not on her medical records, but to her account of having received a vaccination referral from an occupation health adviser in the past, which itself led to the administration of a vaccine with, she says, adverse consequences.[11]By an order dated 29 April, I directed that A and B would be able to file details relating to their own medical histories which would then be put before the treating clinicians responsible for the care of C, in order for them to offer a view as to whether or not they considered that their views in relation to the vaccination of C should be revisited. Those objections could then be shared with C’s GP and/or an immunologist at a local hospital. Thereafter, either the GP or the immunologist would be able to provide a statement or report addressing whether or not their opinion remained the same in light of the contra indications said to be set out in the medical evidence of the parents, and my order also made provision for the parents to apply to the Court to put questions to the medical experts, or the treating clinicians, in order for them to clarify certain matters.

Adjournment application refused

[12]On the morning of this hearing, A applied for an adjournment. He sought to do so on a number of bases. I gave a ruling at the time, and reference to that should be made for a full explanation of why I refused the application. It will be sufficient to observe at this point, however, that one of the grounds of challenge to the matter proceeding today lay in the fact that in both A and B’s view neither Dr G, (name 3’s) GP, or Dr N, a Consultant Immunologist, had provided a formal report as envisaged by my order of 29 April. That being so, in the submission of A and B, it had not been possible for either of them to follow the process envisaged by my order dated 29 April, and they were thereby deprived of the opportunity to engage fully with the process which this Court had provided should be followed. I explained at the time that they had had a proper basis to engage with the process (as indeed A sought to do), and it was not necessary to adjourn the proceedings to ensure that the hearing was fair.

The parties’ submissions

[13]I will summarise the submissions each of the parties made. My summary will necessarily be selective. It is not my intention to repeat back to the parties everything that they have said to me. I confirm that I have taken all matters into account, and did so before arriving at my conclusions.[14]In summary form only, A’s position is as follows. First, he relied on the reasons for which he sought an adjournment. He submitted that the process adopted by the local authority was procedurally unfair. The order that I gave on 29 April required a report. By contrast, there was no report. He also submitted that it was possible to ascertain from the copies of email correspondence between Ms H, the Solicitor on behalf of the local authority, with staff at the GP surgery and the hospital that it was possible to glean that there had been coaching and/or collusion between the local authority and the hospital. Put simply, A said that the local authority told the doctors what to say.[15]Secondly, A submitted that is was not possible for the Court to have any confidence that the local authority shared all relevant materials he provided with Dr G and Dr N. That is because in addition to a statement provided by A, he set out extensive summaries of various articles about vaccination in bullet point form, along with some citation details of a large number of academic journals, which, on his case, demonstrate that the case for vaccines is far weaker than is otherwise often presented to be the case, and that those papers demonstrated that this Court cannot have confidence in the proposed approach of the local authority seeks to adopt.[16]A submitted that the correspondence that he had set provided, and the details that he had included, had not been placed before Dr G and Dr N by the local authority, and therefore it cannot be said that either doctor had considered his concerns, and the ‘non report’ that was eventually produced by Dr N cannot be said to have complied either procedurally or substantively with my order of 29 April. Furthermore, A submitted that there are longstanding and well established concerns with vaccination which neither Dr G or Dr N knew about, understood, or had otherwise addressed.[17]B, for her part, stresses, as I have already observed, that C is a healthy child. She had never been vaccinated. While she was in the care of her mother she had thrived physically. She did not need the vaccinations. They would overload her immune system, and in any event, B would far prefer C to be vaccinated on a single shot basis rather than a combined vaccination approach.[18]Ms Dodd in her submissions stressed that this Court was bound by the judgment of the Court of Appeal in the case of Re H. She submitted that there had been no contra indication in the case of either A or B of events in their own medical histories which demonstrate that it was not appropriate or clinically advisable for C to be administered any of the vaccines that the local authority seeks to arrange in the circumstances of these proceedings.[19]Mr Rainey, on behalf of the Children’s Guardian, adopted a position which was consistent with that of Ms Dodd. He added that A’s expertise did not extend to engaging with scientific research in the manner which he sought to do in providing the detailed comments to the local authority, which referred to the papers which he had found through several weeks of online research. Mr Rainey also submitted that there had been no procedural unfairness.[20]Against that brief background I now turn to my substantive analysis.

No procedural unfairness

[21]First, I am not satisfied that there has been any procedural unfairness. My order of 29 April permitted a report or a statement from a GP and the immunologist. There was no expectation that a formal, part-25 compliant report would be provided. This is a case which has followed the authority of ReH, and which sought to set out a pragmatic process by which both parents could provide contra indications about the health of C to the treating clinicians, and then thereafter a process by which those concerns may be scrutinised.[22]The manner in which the opinion of Dr N and Dr G was set out did not affect their ability to engage in that process. I have taken into account the fact that each applicant represents themselves, although in the case of B with the assistance of Mr Simpson.[23]In any event, having had the benefit of conducting an earlier Case Management Hearing in these proceedings on 29 April, and having at that hearing sought to take a number of steps to verify with A in particular that he fully understood what was required of him, I am satisfied that he did understand and that it was within his high levels of comprehension to grasp what needed to be done.

No collusion between the local authority and Drs G and N

[24]There is nothing to suggest, in my judgment, that there had been collusion between the local authority and the GP and Dr N. Contrary to what A submitted, the fact that the email correspondence in the bundle that has been prepared for these proceedings features, at some points, different typefaces and font sizes is nothing to the point. It is not evidence of a conspiracy or some form of collusion. I also reject the submission that it was necessary for A to be copied in to all correspondence with the doctors. Consistent use of fonts was not a requirement of my order of 29 April and the fact that the typeface changed in one part of an email is neither here nor there. Rather, the local authority was tasked with taking the lead in engaging with Dr G and Dr N. There was no requirement for A to be copied to the entirety of that correspondence.[25]Secondly, the material provided by A was not in the form of expert evidence. Although on A’s case it referred to peer-reviewed articles, which on his submission would be consistent with the approach required by paragraph 55 of Re H, the format in which those materials were provided was not consistent with my order of 29 April. That order did not permit reams of references to separate articles to be sent to the doctors. By contrast, it specifically provided that the parties, namely A and B, were each to provide a witness statement that would be limited to five pages. Those statements were to set out the concerns that A and B had in relation to the proposed vaccinations, to address whether they consented to any of the vaccinations that were proposed, addressing their own past adverse reactions to vaccinations, and exhibiting their own medical evidence in support of that final point. At no stage in the order that I gave was it permitted or envisaged that A would be able to provide substantial numbers of documents, whether by way of bullet point summaries and references or otherwise, in order for them to be reviewed by a busy GP.[26]The process envisaged was a means by which the medical records, if relevant, of A and B could be considered by Dr G and Dr N for the presence of any contra indications which may have suggested that contrary to the general public health advice for children and the receipt of vaccinations, that due to features in A’s own medical history and that of B, that there would uniquely be some cause for concern in these proceedings.[27]Therefore there was no need for Dr G or Dr N to engage in any depth at all with those extensive materials that had been provided by A. What was required, on the other hand, was a consideration of any of A’s reported medical conditions, or other similar factors which would have led to consideration of whether there was a contra indication in relation to whether C could be the subject of a particular vaccine. The approach taken by A therefore sought to expand that which was summarised at paragraph 3 of the order of 29 April and went considerably beyond what was permitted.

No contra indications

[28]I also respectfully consider that the evidence before the Court of A’s own claimed adverse reactions is, even taken at its highest, incredibly thin. The medical evidence itself consists of a summary, prepared by A himself, of his own medical records. In those records he is reported as having said to a practice nurse, and later a GP, in August 2012, that he considered that he had experienced adverse reactions to a hepatitis B vaccine that had been administered to him in January of that year.[29]Although the entry for late August 2012 records at moderate length the history given by A when visiting the GP, there is very little by way of corresponding medical analysis or prognosis, or even an acceptance that the reason A claimed to present with a number of conditions on that occasion could properly be traced and linked back to the administration of the hepatitis B vaccine in January of that year, some seven or eight months previously.[30]Put another way, taken at its highest, the only evidence pertaining to A’s own claimed adverse reactions showed a self-reported concern some eight months after having received the vaccine. In the form it was provided to Dr G and Dr N, it is difficult to see how A’s medical evidence could have led to any other conclusion to that which was ultimately reached.[31]The same is true in relation to B: there was no evidence of her own adverse reactions to past vaccinations such that the general position in Re H could be displaced.[32]A also submitted that the correspondence that he sent to the local authority had not been put before Dr G or Dr N. I disagree, see for example page E7 in the bundle, which contains an email sent from Ms H, a solicitor with the local authority, which attached the statements from the parents. See also page E3 of the bundle, which is an undated email from Dr N to Ms H sent in reply to an email of Ms H dated 21 May 2025 (and so post-dating that email; the original email is undated due to the way the printed document was included in the bundle). This email, in fact, is the central evidence upon which the local authority relies to resist A’s application. The email provides:
“Hi [Ms H], I can confirm that I have received and reviewed parents [sic] statement. Regarding recommendation by Dr G (letter dated 24 March 2025) for catch up immunisation the schedule suggested it was consistent with UK guidance for children between two and ten years old. According to Dr G’s letter the GP Nurse […] had reviewed C’s medical record, and there was no obvious contra indication to immunisation. This suggests that C is safe to be vaccinated as long as she does not fall into the categories of contradictions listed in the G Book. I haven’t prepared a formal letter because in correspondence below you mentioned that an email from me would suffice. Let me know if you need anything else.”
[33]I should observe that Ms H having “mentioned that an email from me would suffice” was not an attempt by the local authority to tell Dr N what to say, as A submitted. On the materials before me, it was simply clarification as to what the local authority considered Dr N would have to do in order to provide sufficient information to this Court to comply with my order of 29 April.[34]It was not necessary for Dr N to go into any further depth when opining that the vaccination could take place in a manner consistent with C’s health requirements. That is entirely consistent with the approach taken by the Court of Appeal in Re H at para. 55, where King LJ said as follows:
“In my judgment, subject to any credible development in medical science or peer reviewed research to the opposite effect, the proper approach to be taken by a local authority or a court is that the benefit in vaccinating a child in accordance with Public Health England guidance can be taken to outweigh the long recognised and identified side effects.”
In these proceedings, there has been no credible development in medical science or peer reviewed research to the opposite effect of the propositions which Ms Dodds’s summary of the law outlined. There is no medical evidence before Dr G or Dr N which showed the cogent evidence of a contra indication.[35]I note that C has not been vaccinated previously. That is a matter which the local authority, Dr G and Dr N have considered (see Dr G’s letter dated 24 March 2025: “Children who have not received childhood immunisations are recommended to follow the immunisation schedule below…”). However, as the summary of the law helpfully set out by Ms Dodd makes clear, the views of parents, no matter how strongly expressed, are not determinative in the circumstances of these proceedings. I also note that A provided a number of materials in the bundle from an organisation based in Italy. The organisation, Corvelva, is a support group which exists, it is said, to provide advocacy and support to the families of those who have been harmed by the consumption of vaccines. In my judgment, there is nothing in those materials which gets remotely close to the peer-reviewed threshold which is set out at paragraph 55 of Re H, which must be surpassed in order for the general position, as endorsed by the Court of Appeal in ReH, not to apply.[36]Drawing this analysis together, therefore, I am satisfied that the approach the local authority proposes to take is one which is entirely consistent with the powers that it enjoys under section 33 of the Children Act 1989. There is no basis for this Court to issue an injunction prohibiting that conduct from taking place.[37]I should stress, as requested by A, that I have accepted the local authority’s assurances that his statements were provided by them to Drs G and N. In any event, A told me during the hearing that he provided the materials directly to them in any event. It therefore follows that in the unlikely event that the local authority has mistakenly given me an assurance which cannot be substantiated, or is not well founded, that nothing turns on that insofar as the accuracy of what Dr G and Dr N advised is concerned.[38]For those reasons, I refuse this application for an injunction, and I grant the declaration sought by the local authority that it would be consistent with the local authority’s corporate parenting function to arrange for the standard vaccinations, administered pursuant to UK public health guidance, to be given to C. This Transcript has been approved by the Judge. The Transcription Agency hereby certifies that the above is an accurate and complete recording of the proceedings or part thereof. The Transcription Agency, 24-28 High Street, Hythe, Kent, CT21 5AT Tel: 01303 230038 Email: court@thetranscriptionagency.com