“I told R (the mother) that we did not require any help. Then R suddenly started crying on phone (sic) and said to me her husband had assaulted her and thrown her out of the house. She said she’d been standing around for an hour and didn’t know what to do. I told her to come to our house.”
“On seeing me she started crying and said she was suffering having been thrown out of the house. When I reached R at the gym she told me her husband had hit her in the face. On reaching home I saw bruising on the left cheek of R, a red rash on the left cheek of her daughter. R told us her husband has been assaulting her for the last two years and she didn’t report him to the authorities as she expected him to reform. I was very upset to see the injury on the small daughter and R so I called the police.”
“At 5:00 p.m. I got a call from my husband telling me R had called him crying and had said that her husband had beat her and her daughter and removed them from their home…..At around half six she arrived here with my husband and her baby. She was in a very bad condition, crying, and her face was red. I would say she looked very upset. I asked her what happened and she told me her husband is drinking alcohol a lot and had started drinking alcohol that morning. She then said he’d beat her and her daughter and removed them from the house. She arrived at our address with pram. On her arm was a yellow Sainsbury’s bag, and in the pram was her baby. The baby was sleeping when they arrived and that’s when R showed me the baby’s face, which had a mark.”
“It’s been going on for two years, verbal and physical assaults. Today he slapped her and pulled her hair and also laid hands on their baby.”
“Basically this mum described it happened between 4:30 and 5:00 p.m., just before 5:00 p.m. It happened in the loft. Mum, dad and baby were there. The other family were out. The father has a regular habit. He is drunk and starts abusing her. The mother said the baby wants and be quiet.”
“He picked up the baby, pinched her cheek very hard, pulled her hair at the front, he picked up the baby, shook her five times a little bit hard. The baby’s cot was there. He dropped the baby, not gently.”
“The baby became drowsy slightly and started crying. No exact loss of consciousness. No up rolling of the eyeballs, but the eyes went here and there. The baby was crying and then quiet for some time. He slapped mum on both cheeks three times, pushed her so hard her leg hit the drawers. He pulled her hair as well then took her by the wrist and dragged her out of the house. She came back saying she wants her kid, but since then the child was in her hand and she did not drop the child anywhere. Dad put the bag and put the baby’s everything, bottles diapers, and put mum and the baby outside. He got the pram from upstairs. Mum waited 5 to 10 minutes to see if he would let her back in and was confused what to do so got a bus to her cousin’s house.”
“How can you say that I’ve done it” but otherwise gives a “no comment” interview. Her pre-prepared statement says: “On4 December 2021 my husband was ignoring me and this upset me. I collected items for my daughter together with a carrycot. I went to the leave the property and I was carrying a Sainsbury’s bag on my arm with the carrycot. I had my daughter in the other arm. As I was walking down the stairs, my foot slipped, and the bag and carrycot went down the stairs. I protected N using both my arms. I believe that’s how N sustained her injuries. I’ve never neglected or assaulted N. I’ve never left her alone for long periods of time.”
“I wish to clarify I did not leave N upstairs crying. I have not left her alone. The other family that I used to live with left their children alone in the property and told me to look after the child. I had a bathroom attached to my room so I did not have to go downstairs. If I wanted breakfast I would take N downstairs with me into the kitchen.”
“It appears to me that there are significant difficulties in the relationship. Neither parent agreed with this. They state they are being in daily phone video contact and this is a source of comfort in very difficult circumstances. Each parent remained rooted in the position that they are going to jointly care for their children and therefore the issue of future contact arrangements is not relevant.”
“E states there has not been any domestic abuse in the relationship and neither had he roughly handled or caused harm or injury to N.”
“ E does not accept the results of the hair strand test.”
“E’s view is that the injuries sustained by N are accidental.”
“E has shown little willingness to discuss how the allegations point to relationship difficulties. He places the allegations made by R in the context of her making a mistake through being stressed and also annoyed with him for not being able to afford to move into larger accommodation.”
“My attempts to explore a lot more than this did not succeed. She was not, for whatever reason, coming across as inclined to open up. I asked her whether there were problems in her relationship with her husband, she said: ‘Our relationship is fine’. I asked what about the aggression allegations in the papers, she said: ‘I said in my first statement that he was but in my second statement I told the truth’. I asked her why she didn’t tell the truth in the first place, she replied: ‘Because as a mother I wanted to hold onto my child’. I commented it was a strange lie to tell and she said: ‘Yes I regret it’. I said: ‘Your husband could have got not serious trouble with the police’, she said: ‘I didn’t think about that. I regret it’. R came across as inclined to reveal nothing negative to me, or almost nothing.”
“I asked who he thinks caused the injuries and he said: ‘I don’t know. Then my wife went to say I fell to the hospital and the hospital called the police’. I read out the allegations R had made to E and he replied: ‘That’s all a lie’.”
“E’s closing of ranks is not quite so complete as he believes his wife caused the injuries.”
“N’s father, E, was intoxicated at home and began to shout at R and N. R tried to reason with E, asked him to be quiet as she wanted to put N to bed. E then picked up N from her cot, pinched her left cheek, pulled the front of her hair, lifted her up and shook her five times. He then squeezed her chest with his hands for one to two minutes, dropped her from a height of approximately 50cm onto a cot mattress. Following this N was drowsy for quite a few seconds and then began to cry. During this time E slappedR three to four times, pulled her hair, pushed her onto a cabinet causing her to knock her left leg.”
“N had several findings on her body map examination, in particular over the front and back of her torso, left check, and left arm. Marks to N’s torso, 1, 2, 3 and 6 on the body map, appear consistent with a history of being squeezed, and marks to the left cheek, number 6 on the body map, also appear consistent with a history of cheek pinching. Given N is non-ambulant she is extremely unlikely to obtain these marks from accidental injuries and therefore the injuries described are likely to be inflicted and consistent with physical abuse.”
“On N’s skeletal survey and MRI brain there do not appear to be any acute or healing fractures or brain haemorrhages, although these may not necessarily have occurred with the history of physical abuse that R describes, which is shaking, squeezing and pulling of hair. Although there are no confirmed scratches on the initial skeletal survey this will be repeated in two weeks’ time.”
“The mother said father lifted N up and squeezed her chest between his hand for several minutes”
“Are we to assume that was a two handed grip?”
“Thinking about the size of the child, or the age, we might have thought that, but without a full indication we cannot know for sure”
“What injuries would you expect from a squeeze around the chest, a two-handed squeeze?” and the treating clinician said: “I’m not sure I can comment on that”
“I’ve not seen the colour photographs of the imagery and I’m providing a report on the basis of the documents.”
“I am aware the mother has provided different explanations to the hospital and the police. If the court accepts the explanation provided by the mother in the hospital then the mechanism of injuries may be consistent with the injuries seen. The cheek has a thick buckle of fat. The common mechanism to cause a bruise on the cheek is by squeezing or pinching with force. The marks on the left lower back and right upper back could be caused if the baby is held tightly with significant pressure. The explanation provided to the police that the mother slipped on the stairs is not specific enough and not consistent with the injuries seen in N.”
“She picked up N from the bed, flung her over her shoulder quite aggressively. I cannot remember if she picked up the bag first or N, but she also picked up the baby bag and put the milk bottles in there.”
“The above mechanism may be consistent with the injuries on the back. However, it does not explain how the injuries occurred on the left cheek.”
“Please note this was actually the right buttock but the examining doctors describe it as the left buttock”
“I do not accept that explanation for the marks on the cheek. It’s possible the marks on the back could have happened from a fall downstairs”
“Is the mark on the back more consistent with the mother’s second account than a squeeze” and he replied “Yes”
“I know you have your questions but I want to say what I want to say”
“I lied at the time and I told you why I did lie”
“I only drink to my limit when I feel I am in control. The mother said he would only drink as much as he could manage. Their similar form of words was picked up by Ms Hendrick and put to the mother. The mother pointed out herself she was not in the room when the father gave his evidence about drinking, which made the similar response even more striking. (2) The father said he was happy to improve: “If we need to sort out a better way we will do that. We are here because I want my child” he said. The mother said: “Don’t take the child away from me. Whatever you want me to do I will do and my husband will do”
“Noted obvious injuries to face with bruising and red mark to the right side of the abdomen”
“I would say that R and E do not have a very good relationship. They always argue and fight in the early hours of the morning when we’re asleep. They’re (sic) arguing would often wake me up. I will often hear her screaming, him shouting, although I cannot make out exactly what is being said. Sometimes this would go on for about half an hour. I would hear banging, running, and a lot of ruckus. During these arguments I would hear the baby crying. I had never seen them argue as they always argued in their room, not downstairs…… They’ve been arguing regularly since they first moved in.”
“Lady was crying and screaming, I think he would be hitting her….. Every day I would hear fight noises, like the man hitting the woman. She would cry. I heard one time her crying and him shouting to stop.”
“She has just been me the extent of the abuse that has been going on for so long”
“I used to receive physical beating, physical harm from my husband every day. He used to hit me on my face. I had bruises on my lips and my face. I took all the pictures when I received this physical harm on my phone.”
“After that he would never hit me”
“I’ve never raised my hand to my wife or my daughter, nor did I hurt my wife in any way. I know she gets very bad cramps and sometimes they cause her bruising.”
“Interpreters have been used for sessions around domestic abuse and reflective social worker sessions that have looked at the situation on 4 December. During Freedom Programme sessions the website pages have been translated and videos have been used in reflective social work sessions with sub-titles.”
“Discussed with mother. Mother reported there was physical and verbal violence from N’s father towards N and her.”
“He was drunk as usual. It’s his regular habit. He is drunk and starts abusing”
“He was drunk. He appeared drunk because of his smell and when I asked him he admitted he’d been drinking. He’d come from work but maybe he went to the pub after work. He started carrying on alcohol drinking, which was called Haigs Club”
“E is a good man, except when he drinks”
“When you drink you normally get drunk and you look like a drunk person”
“When he gets drunk he doesn’t hurt anyone. He finds minor fault in normal things like not enough salt in the food.”
“You can never say for certain but knowing the interactions of the staff members with the child in my presence they are unlikely to have happened in hospital”
“Mother reports N is itching her stomach and the top of her legs. This has the previously happened and the mother used Sudocrem, which helped. Advised mother to speak to pharmacy about creams and lotions for skin.”
“Yes, but I indicate on the body map where skin changes are like eczema and number 6 is not one of those areas. I don’t believe they were consistent with Eczema. The skin changes were indicated on the body map that were marked 7”
“It’s difficult to say now if it was or not. Only seeing the child once limits my ability to comment”
“Did you see the baby hit anything or bang against something else?”
“I didn’t follow the mother out of the room but where we live there are lots of stairs, it is narrow, and it is possible she may have hit the baby on the way down as she was carrying the bags, prams, and lots of things”
“Does your wife lose her temper?”
“She loses her temper and that is the reason this has happened. She fights with me for no reason and said she’s going to report me to the police and get me deported and she will live on benefits. She could fabricate that I’ve hit her or hit the child or done worse.”
“She picked N up from the bed and flung her over her shoulder quite aggressively.”
“She started shouting loudly that I was telling her to work”
“He has pinched the child. Sorry was that pinched or bit? Okay pinched, pinched”
“This has been happening on a regular basis, the shaking and squeezing, and she cooks in the kitchen, and when she comes back the baby is always crying. She’s seen this a lot of times” says the treating clinician. In the ABE interview, the mother said she used to do the dinner and he was looking after N, and she would see him hitting N in the cot. To the social worker on7 December 2021 , she says she has never seen E be violent before to N, but she would leave N in their room to check on the food and hear N crying. She suspects that E may have harmed N but never saw this happening. (5) There are also inconsistencies in her account about whether she let the father hold N when he was drunk. That is inconsistencies picked up by the social worker on page C12. (6) There are inconsistencies about whether the father dropped N into the cot, or a bed, and the height from which she was dropped. I note here the 50cm height was actually an estimate the police officer volunteered himself when watching the conversation between the treating clinicianand the mother, otherwise the mother is broadly consistent in describing a 30cm drop. The social worker records the following about the height of the drop “R demonstrated this using a table at the hospital and not the actual cot that she says N was dropped into so this may not be accurate.” . (7) The number of times the father shakes N is sometimes given by the mother, sometimes not. On one occasion she says about five, on another five to ten times. (8) The body worn camera footage at the hospital records the mother told the doctors that the father squeezed N’s chest for one or two minutes. The mother is seen holding her hands up when she speaks of this, and then she points to the baby. Although she is mainly speaking her first language, she says at this point in English: “Look bruises there and there” pointing to the child. I cannot see the first site she points to, but the camera shows her pointing under the child’s armpit. From the way that the mother holds her hands up in the body worn camera footage, it is not very clear at all where on the child she was held precisely. The doctors speak to the mother and report back in English: “squeeze her chest basically”
“R held the doll in front of her, facing her, with the fingers on the back of the doll and her thumbs on the front in the rib area”
“He slapped mum on both cheeks three to four times, pushed her so hard she hit her leg on the drawers. He pulled her hair as well”
“R went to the cot to get N but before she could E turns to R, he has pulled her hair using both hands causing my whole body to turn and face him, and some hair actually being pulled out due to the force he is using. This made me dizzy and disorientated as I’m pregnant. E then started slapping R in the face approximately five to six times. This was hurting her. He then pushed R causing her to fall against the draws causing a bruise on her leg.”
“I would only add that in cases where repeated accounts are given of events surrounding an injury the court must think carefully about the significance or otherwise of any reported discrepancies. They may arise for a number of reasons. One possibility of course is that they are lies designed to hide culpability, another is they are lies told for another reason, further possibilities include faulty recollection or confusion at times of stress when the importance of accuracy is not fully appreciated, or there may be an inaccuracy or mistake in record keeping or recollection of the person hearing and relaying the account.”
“I was carrying a Sainsbury’s bag on my arm with the carrycot. I had my daughter on the other arm. I was walking down the stairs my foot slipped and the bag and the carrycot went down the stairs. I protected N with both arms. I believe that is how N sustained the injuries.”
“ I had N in my right hand, the bag on my arm and the pram in my left hand. I started going downstairs, 20 steps down I nearly slipped. The bag and pram fell out of my hand and N was about to fall. She banged her bead on the banister and whilst stopping her from falling I grabbed her tightly.”
“I was angry at the time and I was trying to go quickly”
“I was holding N on my right arm, wearing my bag on the left, holding the pram in my left hand. I tripped and caught N on the left-hand side. She hit a rail. I was wearing bangles. She was hit by bangles and the bangles were broken.”
“I asked R to help me understand the different stories and understand which was true and establish how N became injured. R gave a vague answer saying she disputes with her husband and he always argued with her during the pregnancy. She then stated: ‘We were living in the loft and there were many stairs. This incident happened and I went to my brother’s house. I didn’t notice the bruises. My brother said this is very dangerous that she has bruises’. The interpreter commented she could not understand from R what the link was to my question, and R said it was not translating very well.”
“I was worried at the time this this avoidance of the question and expressed I was worried, but I still didn’t know what had happened, and it felt as though R did not want me to know. R at this stage commented: what I told the police yesterday is the truth.”
“M disclosed that Social Services told her that they may take the baby from her for a little while. M very upset and crying”
“Mum talk about issues with her husband and how he was badly treating with her.”
“Mum tells nursing staff dad he her and shows photos.”
“Mum receives phone call from dad’s number and blocks him.”
“Whatever was coming out of my mouth I was saying”
“What I’m saying now is true”
“Any judge who has to conduct of fact-finding hearing is likely to have experience of a witness whose evidence, although shot through with unreliability as to details with gross exaggerations and even with lies, is nevertheless compelling and convincing as to the central core.”
“Where we live there’s a lot of stairs. It’s narrow, it’s possible she may have hit the baby on the way down. She was carrying the bags, the pram, lots of things.”
“This has been happening on a regular basis, the squeezing and shaking. She cooks in the kitchen and the baby is always crying. She has seen it lots of times, constant pulling of hair, puss, constant cleaning of the hair follicle.”
“Due to parts of N’s hair being pulled throughout the five months by E she had to treat her head because part of her head was full of puss. It was treated last Friday.”
“R informed the social worker she has never seen E be physically violent towards N prior to this but said she would leave N in their room with E and go down and check on the food and she would hear N crying. R suspects E may have harmed N but never saw this happening. She also said she thinks E pulled N’s hair before because when she cleaned N’s hair she noticed pimples and missing hair.”
“The mother also showed me what looked like a small patch of cradle cap on her head. The mother advised it was a pimple at first but turned into what it is now. Advised to also show pharmacist.”
“35. A natural progression of reasoning is to consider first what injuries there are, then to consider whether they were inflicted, and thus the range of possible causes. Those steps are not conducted by reference only to the medical opinion, albeit that there may often be no other relevant evidence as to the existence of injuries and consequent illness. Causation is different because as to that an important factor is the consideration of how, when and by whom an injury could have been inflicted becomes a necessary part of the analysis. To take an easy example: if a well-reasoned medical analysis leads to a conclusion that a child's airways were blocked at a particular time, but it can be shown from a video, or third party personal surveillance that no one did or could have blocked the child's airways during that period, that conclusion has to be revisited. I make this point because in my view at times the approach of both the local authority and the Guardian in this case came perilously close to an approach which, on the basis of the expert medical evidence, proceeded on the basis that: 'R' was the victim of a shaking injury because the medical opinion was that this was the most likely cause of his injuries, and the relevant exercise was to consider whether, given their care, and thus the opportunity they had to so injure 'R', the parents could show that they did not injure him.”
“[7] The standard of proof is the balance of probabilities: Is it more likely than not that the event occurred? Neither the seriousness of the allegation, nor the seriousness of the consequences, nor the inherent probabilities alters this.”
“The questions that the judge therefore had to ask were these: (1) Had the local authority proved that the injuries were inflicted as opposed to being accidental? (2) If the injuries were inflicted, who had the opportunity to cause them? (3) Of those people, could one person be identified on the balance of probabilities as having inflicted the injuries (a conventional ‘known perpetrator’ finding)? (4) If only two people [x or y] could have caused the injuries, but the one responsible could not be identified it necessarily followed that there was a real possibility that each of them may have caused the injuries (an ‘uncertain perpetrator’ finding). (5) Once these questions had been answered, had it been proved that the [x] had failed to protect [the child] from being injured or covered up what she knew about how he was injured?”
“The term ‘non-accidental injury’ may be a term of art used by clinicians as a shorthand and I make no criticism of its use but it is a ‘catch-all’ for everything that is not an accident. It is also a tautology: the true distinction is between an accident which is unexpected and unintentional and an injury which involves an element of wrong. That element of wrong may involve a lack of care and/or an intent of a greater or lesser degree that may amount to negligence, recklessness or deliberate infliction. While an analysis of that kind may be helpful to distinguish deliberate infliction from, say, negligence, it is unnecessary in any consideration of whether the threshold criteria are satisfied because what the statute requires is something different namely, findings of fact that at least satisfy the significant harm, attributability and objective standard of care elements of s 31(2) of the CA 1989.”
“Evidence cannot be evaluated and assessed separately in separate compartments. A judge in these difficult cases must have regard to the relevance of each piece of evidence to other evidence and to exercise an overview of the totality of the evidence in order to come to the conclusion whether the case put forward by the LA has been made out to the appropriate standard of proof”
“[27] There have been numerous first instance authorities that confirm this approach. Bracewell J observed in Re B (Threshold Criteria: Fabricated Illness)[2002] EWHC 20 (Fam) ;[2004] 2 FLR 200 at Paragraphs 24 and 30 that:-“Although the medical evidence is of very great importance, it is not the only evidence in the case. Explanations given by carers and the credibility of those involved with the child concerned are of great significance. All the evidence, both medical and non-medical, has to be considered in assessing whether the pieces of the jigsaw form into a clear convincing picture of what happened. [28] The expert evidence does not sit in a vacuum nor is it to be interpreted in isolation from the other evidence. Even if an expert says that that there are a number of possible explanations for some occurrence, it is still open to the court to find on the evidence as a whole which is the probable explanation (see, for example, Re B (Non-accidental injury)[2002] EWCA Civ 752 ). Charles J said in A County Council v K, D and L:-“…it is the court that is in the position to weigh the expert evidence against its findings on the other evidence and thus, for example, descriptions of the presentations of a child in the hours or days leading up to his or her collapse, and accounts of events given by “zers”…properly reasoned expert medical evidence carries considerable weight but, in assessing and applying it, the judge must always remember that he or she is the person that makes the final decision.”
“A factual decision must be based on all available materials, ie. Be judged in context and not just upon medical or scientific materials, no matter how cogent they may in isolation seem to be.”
“One highly important aspect of the Lucas decision, and indeed the approach to lies generally in the criminal jurisdiction, needs to be borne fully in mind by family judges. It is this: in the criminal jurisdiction the “lie” is never taken, of itself, as direct proof of guilt. As is plain from the passage quoted from Lord Lane's judgment in Lucas, where the relevant conditions are satisfied the lie is “capable of amounting to a corroboration”
“41. The court must, however, be mindful of the fallibility of memory and the pressures of giving evidence. The relative significance of oral and contemporaneous evidence will vary from case to case. What is important, as was highlighted in Kogan, is that the court assesses all the evidence in a manner suited to the case before it and does not inappropriately elevate one kind of evidence over another.”
“28. Of course in the present case, the issue concerned an alleged course of conduct spread across years. I do not accept that the Judge should have been driven by the dicta in the cases cited by the Appellants to exclude the impressions created by the manner in which B and C gave their evidence. In family cases at least, that would not only be unrealistic but, as I have said, may deprive a judge of valuable insights. There will be cases where the manner in which evidence is given about such personal matters will properly assume prominence. As Munby LJ said in Re A (A Child) (No. 2)[2011] EWCA Civ 12 said at [104] in a passage described by the Judge as of considerable assistance in the present case: "Any judge who has had to conduct a fact-finding hearing such as this is likely to have had experience of a witness - as here a woman deposing to serious domestic violence and grave sexual abuse - whose evidence, although shot through with unreliability as to details, with gross exaggeration and even with lies, is nonetheless compelling and convincing as to the central core… Yet through all the lies, as experience teaches, one may nonetheless be left with a powerful conviction that on the essentials the witness is telling the truth, perhaps because of the way in which she gives her evidence, perhaps because of a number of small points which, although trivial in themselves, nonetheless suddenly illuminate the underlying realities." 29. Still further, demeanour is likely to be of real importance when the court is assessing the recorded interviews or live evidence of children. Here, it is not only entitled but expected to consider the child's demeanour as part of the process of assessing credibility, and the accumulated experience of listening to children's accounts sensitises the decision-maker to the many indicators of sound and unsound allegations. 30. None of this will be news to specialist family judges and in future I would hope that in conventional family cases any submissions that unduly labour arguments based upon the dicta that I have been considering will receive appropriately short shrift. 31. As to the fallibility of memory, the dangers are again familiar to working judges, as are the problems of suggestibility in children”
“it can be seen that the concept of a pool of perpetrators seeks to strike a fair balance between the rights of the individual, including those of the child, and the importance of child protection… It should also be emphasised that a decision to place a person within the pool of perpetrators is not a finding of fact in the conventional sense… the person is not a proven perpetrator but a possible perpetrator”
“The court should first consider whether there is a ‘list’ of people who had the opportunity to cause the injury. It should then consider whether it can identify the actual perpetrator on the balance of probability and should seek, but not strain, to do so: Re D (Children)[2009] EWCA Civ 472 at [12]. Only if it cannot identify the perpetrator to the civil standard of proof should it go on to ask in respect of those on the list: "Is there a likelihood or real possibility that A or B or C was the perpetrator or a perpetrator of the inflicted injuries?" Only if there is should A or B or C be placed into the ‘pool’”
“I have been asked by a number of parties, and indeed a number of guardians, to go beyond the findings made and expressly to exonerate named individuals from complicity in the matters alleged. The reason why named individuals might seek such a finding is clear enough… the quest for exoneration is entirely proper and requires careful consideration. It must not be driven by sympathy but by the evidence alone. If the court has concluded that someone did not do something alleged, as distinct from its not being proved that they so acted, then in common justice the court should say so. That is what I understand exoneration to mean in this context… So what is the test for exoneration? All parties agree that it is more than simply a finding that a specific allegation has not been proved against them. I suggested an analysis that whilst the legal burden of proof at all times remains on the local authority, a party seeking exoneration assumes an evidential burden to satisfy a court of their innocence on a balance of probabilities… where the court accepts that a party has given frank evidence, specifically accepted by the court, then the court should say so, and assuming that evidence to be consistent with exoneration, the court should say that too. That is conceptually clear, simple, and in accordance with justice. On the other hand, where the court has heard evidence about which the court has doubts or indeed concludes that it has not been wholly frank, then, although declining to make a finding, it should go no further than that”