“I am prepared to accept that rule 4.1(6) does give the court power to vary or revoke a final order, although I accept that the circumstances in which the power can be used in relation to a final order is likely to be limited and discrete, self-contained orders such as a costs order is one good example”
“The court has to ask whether the applicant has shown solid grounds for believing that the previous findings require revisiting and that a rehearing would result in a different finding. A decision to allow past findings to be relitigated has to be a reasoned one. The court would also need to be satisfied that the challenged finding was likely to make a significant legal and practical difference to the arrangements for the children. The second stage is that the court has to make a case management decision to ensure that the hearing does not become a free-for-all in which evidence is repeated and issues reopened without good reason”
“For the court to consider whether it will permit any reconsideration of the earlier finding, one has to remind oneself of the balance of public policy favouring finality in litigation and soundly-based welfare decisions on the other, and if so to determine the extent of the investigations to be considered. Also, is there any reason to think that a rehearing will result in a different finding on the earlier trial. There have to be solid grounds for believing that earlier findings require revisiting”
“The function of an intermediary is to communicate to the witness questions put to the witness and to any person asking such questions, the answers given by the witness in reply to them and to explain such questions or answers so far as necessary to enable them to be understood by the witness or person in question”
“Intermediaries are not to be appointed on a just in case basis or because the report by the intermediary, the psychologist or the psychiatrist has failed to provide the judge with a proper analysis of a vulnerable defendant’s needs in the context of the particular circumstances of the trial to come. These are fact-sensitive decisions that call for not only an assessment of the relevant circumstances of the defendant but also the circumstances of the particular trial. Put otherwise, any difficulty experienced by the defendant must be considered in the context of the actual proceedings which they face. Cases vary infinitely in factual complexity, legal and procedural difficulty and length. Intermediaries should not be appointed as a matter of routine trial management but instead because there are compelling reasons for taking this step, it being clear that all other adaptations to the trial process would not sufficiently meet the defendant’s needs to ensure that they can effectively participate in the trial.”
“There is no consequence that a lack of participatory directions, even if they might have been appropriate under the relevant rule and Practice Direction, will lead to a decision being quashed. The question is whether the failure to do so amounts to a breach of natural justice or an unjust decision. It is only if the lack of special measures leads to a breach of natural justice which itself impacted on the outcome of the case that a decision might be set aside”
“Permission to appeal will only be given where the court considers an appeal would have a real prospect of success or there are some other compelling reasons, i.e. the prospects of success must be realistic rather than fanciful.”