A County Council v PS & CS [2026] EWFC 68 (B)

IN THE FAMILY COURT SITTING AT WORCESTER Case No. WR25C50107[2026] EWFC 68 (B)Date Monday, 16 March 2026
Before
MR RECORDER ROWBOTHAM
Between
A County CouncilApplicantPS 1stRespondentCS 2ndRespondent(a child by his Children’s GuardianRespondentAmy Rowland)RespondentA County Council Applicant– and –PS 1 st Respondent– and –CS 2 nd Respondent(a child by his Children’s Guardian,Amy Rowland)
Sarah Buxton, Counsel for Applicant local authorityBethany Armitage, Counsel for 1 st Respondent motherClaire Briggs, Counsel for 2 nd Respondent childHearing Hearing dates: Tuesday, 17 to Thursday, 19 February 2026JUDGMENTIntroduction
[1]I am concerned with the welfare of a baby boy, CS, born in June 2025 and aged 8 months. His mother is PS. I shall refer to them as “the child” and “the mother” respectively over the course of this judgment. The identity of the child’s father is unknown; the mother believes it to be a man named XY, but he has ignored all requests to engage in DNA paternity testing and so – for the purposes of these proceedings – there is no respondent father or any identified paternal family.[2]These proceedings are separate to (but follow on from) proceedings with case number WR25C50070, which concerned CS’s older sister, CP, who is now aged 6 years. On 4 August 2025, the court made final orders that CP should live with her father with the support of the County Council (“the local authority”) under the auspices of a supervision order. The final threshold document dated 25 July 2025 is marked as “agreed”; the mother asserts that document was agreed by her advocates without her consent.[3]Before proceedings concerning CP had concluded, by Form C110A issued on 20 June 2025 the local authority applied for a care order in respect of CS, at that time just three days old. That application followed a parenting assessment in the earlier proceedings followed swiftly by a pre-birth assessment, the conclusions of both being that the mother could not provide good enough care.[4]It is the application concerning CS that now appears before me for final hearing. The local authority seeks a final care order with a care plan of long-term placement in a kinship setting, specifically with the maternal grandmother and step-maternal grandfather, YA and ZA (“Mr and Mrs A”). They have been approved as foster-carers, a decision which itself shows the level of faith placed in them by the local authority. The final care plan is supported by the Children’s Guardian but opposed by the mother, who seeks the return of CS to her care, failing which she asks for her son to be placed for adoption rather than placement with her own mother. The reasons behind her making such a desperate and sad plea formed a large focus of this hearing.[5]The local authority was represented by Ms Buxton of Counsel, with Rachel Waddams (allocated social worker) in attendance. The mother was represented by Ms Armitage of Counsel. The child was represented by Ms Briggs of Counsel via his Children’s Guardian, Amy Rowland, who was in attendance throughout. I have been greatly assisted by all of the advocates. Relevant factual background[6]To understand this case, it is necessary to say a little about the mother’s life as a whole. She is the only child of YA and XB, who separated when she was very young. The role of the maternal grandfather in the mother’s life seems to have been a consistently negative one due to his abuse of substances, unstable lifestyle and (in later years) his apparent willingness to abuse his daughter financially. The mother does appear to have had a good relationship with her paternal grandfather, who died when she was just 15 years old; within the medical records contained in the bundle, the mother refers to her grandfather as “the dad I never had”, with professionals noting the need for bereavement work years after his passing.[7]In reality, the mother’s care in childhood was very much met by her own mother, Mrs A. As Mrs A herself accepts within the Family and Friends Assessment (“FFA”) dated 4 September 2025, the mother’s early years lacked stability and were at times chaotic. Mrs A was 18 years old when she gave birth to the mother, her first child. When the mother was aged 1, her father XB moved in with them; he suffered mood swings and, I am told, in 1996 Mrs A discovered that he was abusing drugs after an incident in which he was admitted to hospital for a heroin overdose. It was at that point that Mrs A and XB separated. After that, the mother’s time with her father was inconsistent; XB is described as failing to be a consistent presence in his daughter’s life, whether physically, emotionally or financially.[8]Mrs A had another partner, who appears to have moved in with her and the mother after only a short period of time. The mother is said to have ‘adored’ him. In 1999, Mrs A gave birth to her second child, Q, but during the pregnancy discovered that Q’s father had been unfaithful and so she ended that relationship. Although the relationship later resumed, the man became controlling and abusive, and so it ended for the final time. Although he would continue to spend time with both Q and the mother, that contact became increasingly sporadic and ultimately stopped completely when Q was aged 10 years. Not for the first or last time, therefore, the mother lost another paternalistic figure in her life.[9]In August 2003, when the mother was aged 6 years, her mother married ZA (step-maternal grandfather). Together, Mr and Mrs A had two children, a brother (born 2004) and a sister (born 2005). From historic records, Mr A seems to have been a generally positive presence in the mother’s life; I note, for example, that in 2017 the mother informed health professionals that she had ‘a stepfather with whom she shares a reasonable relationship’. That being said, it is common ground that the dynamics in the home were challenging.[10]As a child, the mother was diagnosed with epilepsy, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (“ADHD”) and dyspraxia. She is described by Mrs A as having been an extremely smart and intelligent child who experienced issues with behaviour as she got older; the mother is said to have been ‘naughty throughout school and has always had issues controlling her mood’. In November 2015, health professionals noted that ‘[g]rowing up there were many problems at home due to [the mother’s] mood swings - as a result [the mother] was asked to leave and get her [own] place at the age of 16 years, this has improved the relationship between [the mother] and the rest of the family’.[11]There is reference in the papers to an incident when the mother (aged 16) tried to suffocate herself. In 2012 (aged around 19 years), she was assessed by the community mental health team, when advice was given to access anger management and bereavement work; there is no evidence to suggest that such work was completed at that time.[12]The mother’s life after leaving home has been a difficult and often traumatic one. I was invited by the advocates to consider the medical disclosure in full (a little under 200 pages), which I have read in detail. I note that in/around March 2016, the mother was diagnosed by Dr Jennifer Dale (Consultant Psychiatrist) as having a ‘Personality disorder – Emotional unstable and antisocial traits’. Traumatic incidents recorded in the medical records are numerous and include physical abuse perpetrated by partners; incidents of sexual violence and rape at the hands of partners; an ectopic pregnancy; financial abuse perpetrated by her own father; bereavement; being bullied in the workplace, with a colleague threatening to post intimate photographs online; and volatile arguments with her family, sometimes ending in physical assaults. At times, she has abused alcohol and prescription medication as a way of coping or “self-medicating”.[13]Save for a period of around two years working part-time in ASDA, the mother was unable to maintain paid employment. I also note many years of uncertainty around housing, with significant rent arrears building and the repeated threat of eviction and homelessness. The medical disclosure details in particular events from 2015 to late 2019. For long periods of time, these records show a high level of support being offered by the local authority and NHS services to assist the mother in areas including mental health, housing and employment. Sadly, the records also show repeated patterns of non-attendance at meetings and the consequent discharge from services.[14]In/around 2019, the mother commenced a relationship with HP. Together, they had a daughter, CP, born in January 2020. Their relationship ended in late 2020, when CP was aged around 10 months, although they remained on good terms.[15]It seems to have been around that time that the local authority received the first referral concerning CP’s wellbeing. Over the following years, there were a number of referrals received by the authority, many of which formed the basis of the threshold statement dated 25 July 2025 as adopted in proceedings concerning CP. While it is not necessary to repeat the contents of that threshold statement in full, I note the headline safeguarding issues concerned the mother’s poor home conditions, her poor mental health, violent outbursts, complaints from neighbours of screaming and shouting, and risk of eviction. CP was considered at risk of neglect. CP’s needs were assessed as being high arising from her autism diagnosis, which meant she remained pre-verbal with developmental impairment in all domains.[16]CP was made subject to a child protection plan from January 2024 onwards, during which time the mother’s home conditions continued to deteriorate. The mother’s presentation included displays of ‘dysregulated and unpredictable behaviour as a result of poor mental health’. I also note that neighbours continued to complain about the shouting and screaming heard from the mother’s home. Information received from the housing association makes for especially sad reading: the noise coming from the mother’s flat and heard by neighbours included much crying and distress, as well as shouting “why are you still here, I don’t want you”. Screaming fits were said to have become a nightly occurrence; it seems obvious that by mid-2024, both the mother and CP were in trouble. The PLO process was commenced in July 2024.[17]On 9 January 2025, CP was observed to have suffered a black eye while in the care of the mother. The mother suggested that this had happened during an epileptic seizure while she was holding the child; a child protection medical could not say whether or not the injury was accidental. An agreement was reached that CP would move to reside with her father, HP, and public law proceedings were subsequently issued. On 14 May 2025, the court made an interim supervision order alongside an order that CP should live with her father and spend time with the mother (supervised by the father).[18]Within CP’s proceedings, a detailed parenting capacity assessment was completed of the mother in March 2025 by Dan Weatherby using the ParentAssess model. While there was no question that the mother loves CP and could provide basic care, that care was assessed as being inconsistent due to ‘uncertainties surrounding her emotional stability and the impact this has on her parenting’. She lacked a good enough ‘understanding of her children’s developing emotional needs’. The long-standing issue of poor home conditions remained, as did the risk of entering further abusive relationships. The mother was assessed as being isolated and lacking a strong support network at that time, with a risk of eviction due to noise complaints. Mr Weatherby observed the mother to ‘present as preoccupied with wanting to discuss her unresolved trauma’ and concluded that, until she accesses specialist support for that trauma, professionals ‘will continue to experience barriers when trying to support her to create change with her parenting strategies’.[19]The mother did not attend the issues resolution hearing for CP before District Judge Redmond on 4 August 2025. She was represented by her solicitor, however, and the order records as follows: The mother is in agreement to the orders being sought today, she has moved to a refuge over the weekend and has been unable to attend the hearing today but has given instructions to her representative. A final child arrangements order was made for CP to remain living with her father, with contact to be arranged between the parents themselves. A final supervision order was made for a period of 12 months.[20]Before those proceedings concluded, the mother had become pregnant with the child. A pre-birth assessment dated 5 June 2025 was completed by Carl Skelding (social worker). It identified several positive factors: that the mother was engaging more with antenatal services and adult social care; she was maintaining contact with CP; and was taking steps to obtain her own housing. The risks identified in CP’s case, however, remained: her long-standing issue with home conditions (despite support), her lack of ability to manage her emotions day-to-day, the risk of homelessness and the strained relationships with her wider family which left her isolated and without a support network. Mr Skelding recommended that the child be removed at birth under an interim care order, with any further assessment to take place in the community. Procedural background[21]The child was born on 17 June 2025. The local authority’s application was issued on 20 June, with the matter listed for hearing before Mr Recorder Messling on 23 June 2025 at which an interim care order was made. An application had been made on the mother’s behalf for placement of herself and the child in a mother-and-baby residential assessment and so the matter was adjourned to consider care planning and placement on discharge from hospital. On 25 June 2025, Deputy District Judge Lewis approved a care plan of removal into foster care but adjourned the mother’s application for a residential assessment to 10 July.[22]At the hearing on 10 July 2025, District Judge Redmond dismissed the application for a residential assessment. Directions were made for paternity testing of the putative father; in the event, he did not respond to that request and so the identity of the child’s biological father has remained unknown. The local authority was directed to undertake a parenting assessment and the matter timetabled through to an IRH on 25 November. The case was to be twin-tracked, with directions made in the event of an application for a placement order.[23]On 1 October 2025, a consent order was lodged providing for police disclosure to be obtained for the period 1 January 2004 to 31 December 2020. The significance of those dates was not recorded, nor were any of the parties able to assist me on that point; no party, however, suggested that additional disclosure was required and/or sought an adjournment for the same.[24]The matter appeared before District Judge Redmond on 25 November 2025. The order records that the mother was present and represented by Counsel. The local authority had filed final evidence in which it proposed a final care order with placement of the child with his maternal grandmother and step-grandfather; that plan was supported by the Guardian but opposed by the mother, who sought either rehabilitation to her care or else a plan of adoption. The order records that she ‘actively opposes the placement of [the child] in the care of the maternal grandmother and her husband’.The matter was timetabled through to a two-day final hearing, at which the only witnesses were to be the social workers, the kinship assessor, the mother’s parenting assessor, the mother herself and the Guardian. The order provides for a bundle at final hearing of no more than 350 pages.[25]The order of District Judge Redmond records in detail that the court was asked to determine a case management issue concerning whether or not there was a need for ‘any evidence from maternal grandmother regarding the allegations made by the mother regarding historic abuse that she says she suffered in her childhood’. The order records that the court did not consider such additional evidence necessary or proportionate. The Judge’s reasons are detailed in the recitals as follows: a) The mother does not resile from those allegations made and it remains her case that she suffered an abusive childhood for which maternal grandmother is responsible b) The mother will be permitted to cross-examine the connected persons assessor as to whether the mother’s allegations were properly considered, investigated and taken into account as part of the assessment of maternal grandmother c) The court, in reaching its decision, considered the nature of the allegations made, the evidence likely to be available and therefore the likelihood of the court being able to make such finding d) The delay that this would cause is not in the child’s best interests e) And furthermore that the main issues for the court to consider, in relation to this issue will be: i) The extent to which the local authority have taken into account the mother’s views and objection, as the mother with parental responsibility, in relation to the proposed kinship placement including the family dynamics in conducting the balancing exercise as to the appropriate care plan for [the child] ii) The extent to which the local authority has investigated and considered the mother’s allegations as part of their kinship assessment and the thoroughness of that assessment. That case management direction was not appealed. I note that no application appears to have been made for the mother to provide a schedule or other particularised form of allegations against the grandmother, nor has she sought to adduce what I am told is a detailed ABE interview which she has given to the police on those allegations.[26]On 16 January 2026, the matter appeared before District Judge Khan for an urgent directions hearing ahead of the final hearing on 22-23 January. It appears the Judge allocated to hear the final hearing had become unavailable; in any event, it was the common view of the parties that three days would be required instead of two. The mother had made a Part 25 application for a cognitive assessment, which was refused. The matter was re-listed before me on 17-19 February 2026, with a revised witness template now requiring only one social worker but potentially adding in a housing officer. The direction was again made for a bundle of no more than 350 pages. The final hearing and evidence[27]This matter appeared before me for final hearing, commencing on Tuesday, 17 February 2026 with an estimated length of three days. The hearing has taken place significantly outside of the 26-week statutory limit, which was reached on 19 December 2025.[28]The full court bundle totals some 925 pages. That is in clear breach of the orders of both 25 November 2025 and 16 January 2026. I am grateful to Ms Buxton for her helpful case summary, which includes a reading list of key documents. I confirm that I have read the entirety of the written evidence I have been asked to consider, although (as will be clear from this judgment) I have read beyond that list, not least the full extent of the mother’s medical disclosure.[29]At the commencement of the hearing on Tuesday (day one), Ms Armitage on behalf of the mother raised as a preliminary issue some proposed “ground rules” to assist her client in engaging and participating in the hearing as effectively as possible, which proposals were helpfully set out in advance in a position statement. Although dismissing the application for a cognitive assessment, I was informed that the court on 16 January had asked all advocates to ensure their familiarity and use of the advocates’ gateway toolkit and indicated ground rules should be addressed. I was further informed that the advocates’ meeting ahead of this final hearing had considered the mother’s vulnerabilities and the need for regular breaks.[30]The proposed ground rules were not contentious. They included inter alia the need for regular breaks and for advocates to use simple, everyday language without jargon and technical terms, keeping their questions short, simple and concise. I am very grateful to all Counsel for their assistance in ensuring that those rules were followed. I am quite satisfied that the mother understood the questions she answered and that the right balance was struck between ensuring fairness for the mother alongside the need for the local authority to put its case. I am satisfied that the hearing has been conducted fairly and in a manner entirely consistent with the parties’ Article 6 ECHR rights.[31]On the first day, I heard live evidence from the author of the parenting assessment, Rebecca Pop. Her evidence was concluded in the morning. Shortly before lunch, I heard evidence-in-chief from Vivien Smith, the author of the FFA. Her evidence was concluded in the afternoon, after which I commenced hearing from the allocated social worker, Rachel Waddams. On day two, Ms Waddams’ evidence took the full morning to conclude. In the afternoon, I heard from the mother. On the final day, I heard oral evidence from the Guardian followed by closing submissions from all parties, at the conclusion of which I reserved judgment. The mother as witness of fact[32]In reaching the decisions I have made today, it is necessary to comment a little on the various impressions I formed of the witnesses from whom I heard. I outline my views of the professional witnesses when I consider their reports later in this judgment. For now, I will consider only the mother.[33]As I had made clear prior to the mother giving evidence, I was concerned at the level of tearfulness and distress she had displayed at times during the professional evidence and the extent to which requiring her to give oral evidence might only exacerbate that distress. In the end, however, the mother was very clear that she wished to give evidence and I got the clear sense she felt a duty to do so for her son.[34]Throughout the written evidence there are descriptions of the mother as being ‘pleasant, co-operative and well-communicative’. That is certainly how I experienced her over the three days of this hearing. Her responses to questions – no matter how difficult the topic – were often peppered with terms of endearment, with Counsel for the local authority and even the court often being referred to as “my love”. She came across as a big-hearted individual who was courteous towards all of the advocates. She clearly loves her son immensely.[35]I also formed the clear impression that the mother very much believes the narrative that she gave me. Sadly, the narrative she believes can often be in stark contrast to the events as they appear to have occurred and the facts on the ground. There seem to me to be multiple examples of this disconnect, of which I detail just one by way of illustration.[36]In her written evidence, the mother alleges that in July 2025 her maternal uncle ‘attempted to rape or physically harm’ her. She says that she was on the telephone to the Guardian while this was happening and that she was ‘screaming down the phone pleading for help’ but that the Guardian failed to act. Several weeks later, the mother alleges that the Guardian admitted ‘to hearing the abuse’. This was an assertion repeated during oral evidence.[37]In her written evidence, the Guardian states that ‘while I did hear shouting during the call, the shouting was from [the uncle] rather than [the mother] herself’. She says she offered police assistance but this was declined, the mother explaining that the uncle ‘had shouted at her because she had taken one of his drinks without permission’. At no point, the Guardian says, did the mother scream or plead for help; had that been the case, she would have contacted the police ‘without hesitation’.[38]On balance, I prefer the Guardian’s account of this incident. I do not accept that this very experienced Guardian – aware of the mother’s many vulnerabilities – heard a cry for help and simply ignored it. It is an allegation that stretches credulity and yet it is – as I have said – just one example of the way in which the mother reinterprets events. I reiterate, however, that I am not suggesting that the mother is dishonest. There is a conviction to her narrative which leads to me to conclude that she very much believes the allegations she makes. This inability to distinguish between fact and her own flawed recollection, however, makes her a very unreliable witness of fact. Threshold[39]It is on that note that I turn to the not-uncontroversial issue of threshold. There is in the bundle a document headed ‘Agreed Threshold Criteria’ dated 29 January 2026. It includes tracked changes plainly made on the mother’s behalf. The position statement of Ms Armitage notes as follows: The M met with counsel (virtually) with the support of her solicitor at their offices, this enabled her to discuss the threshold document with the support of her legal representatives, the outcome of this meeting was an agreed threshold document that it is understood has now been uploaded to the portal. The M accepts that final threshold is crossed ... … On the basis that M now accepts threshold and this document is, it is hoped, agreed, it was confirmed at the advocates meeting that the housing officer was not required for any oral evidence, the focus being on that of welfare and the M’s ability to care for CS. It was on that basis that Ms Buxton for the local authority wrote in her case summary that a revised final agreed threshold was now to be found in the bundle.[40]Over the course of the hearing, however, it became clear that the mother sought to distance herself from the agreed threshold document. At times, she would indicate that threshold was agreed but then go on to deny the individual facts contained in the threshold statement. For example, when discussing the complaints from neighbours about the ‘shouting, swearing and screaming’ heard from her home, she put this down solely to an abusive relationship she had been in. At one stage, she suggested that CP was ‘never around’ this behaviour and so had not been exposed to it. That assertion stands in clear contrast to the detailed reports from the housing authority, the complaints from neighbours and threshold as found by the court in CP’s proceedings.[41]I note that a similar pattern of rowing back from concessions made has occurred with the findings made in satisfaction of threshold in CP’s proceedings. The mother similarly suggests she did not agree that final threshold statement, notwithstanding the document is marked as ‘agreed’ and the final order clearly records she was in agreement to the orders made.[42]In closing submissions, Ms Armitage told me that threshold was agreed and that the mother has shown “insight with elements” of it. Given the mother’s equivocations about two ‘agreed’ threshold statements in two sets of proceedings, however, I consider it necessary to confirm that – having read the local authority’s evidence, the evidence of the housing authority, the parenting assessments and pre-birth assessment – there is ample evidence before the court to find on a balance of probability that the facts as pleaded by the local authority in support of threshold (as contained in the final draft of the threshold statement) are made out.[43]I therefore find the facts as pleaded in the threshold document dated 29 January 2026. I find that threshold for the purposes of section 31(2) of the Children Act 1989 is crossed on the basis of those facts. That is to say I am satisfied that, as of the date of intervention, the child had suffered – or was likely to suffer – significant harm, and that such harm or likelihood of harm was attributable to the care given to him, or likely to be given to him, if an order were not made, not being what it would be reasonable to expect a parent to give. The mother’s allegations[44]Mr and Mrs A put themselves forward to care for the child. Their motivations for doing so have been a focus of much of the mother’s case. The mother believes that Mrs A has wanted to remove a child from her for a long time; she does not accept that the grandmother is motivated in any way by a love for the child but rather out of a wish to punish and abuse her. When asked in re-examination why she was so worried about the proposed placement with her own mother, the mother said:
“I’m going to be airbrushed. He will be pumped full of hatred, like my other siblings. If I used to go home, they would make me stay in a bed full of dog urine. I’m terrified of her coming back into my life and I am more terrified she will have a hand in raising my son.”
[45]The context of her comments rests in large part on allegations made by the mother against the grandmother and (to a lesser extent) the step-grandfather. In essence, I understand that the mother has in recent years made allegations that she was sexually abused by members of the wider maternal family when she was a child. Those allegations have not been particularised in any form within these proceedings nor are they detailed in her written evidence save for general allusions to her mother being ‘the woman who abused me’. Rather, they appear to have been discussed in the course of the parenting assessment, when the mother stated that her ‘earliest memories were from the age of 4 and … centred around her being “molested” by her aunt and cousins’. The mother expands upon this to suggest that her mother not only knew and failed to protect her from sexual abuse but that she had a role in facilitating it, “passing her round like a toy”. There are also allegations of physical and emotional abuse perpetrated by Mrs A.[46]I am told that the mother has made allegations to the police by way of ABE interview. No police disclosure has been obtained concerning those allegations; I note that the order for police disclosure sought only information up to December 2020 and was made by consent. I can see no indication from the orders of June and July 2025 that the mother’s allegations were raised or pleaded, despite the grandmother being named on at least one of the orders as a possible kindship carer.[47]Indeed, it does not appear that the mother took any steps to pursue a positive case against the grandmother within these proceedings until the IRH on 25 November 2025, by which time all parties had filed final evidence and the local authority’s care plan had been made clear. At that hearing, District Judge Redmond refused the mother’s suggestion that evidence was needed from the maternal grandmother. No application appears to have been made for the mother to particularise her allegations nor to adduce her police interview or indeed for the grandmother to be joined as an intervenor. In those circumstances, I cannot fathom how it was considered that the maternal grandmother could properly have responded to any allegations given their nebulous, unparticularised form. The decision of District Judge Redmond was not appealed. For completeness, no application has been pursued at this final hearing for further evidence to be adduced.[48]As was made clear at IRH, the mother was permitted ‘to cross-examine the connected persons assessor as to whether the mother’s allegations were properly considered, investigated and taken into account as part of the assessment of maternal grandmother’. In the course of that cross-examination, Ms Smith (FFA author) was taken to extracts in the mother’s medical disclosure which point towards there having been an incident of sexual abuse in her childhood. These references are as follows, in chronological[49]Within the police disclosure, there is an entry dated 19 April 2004, when the mother would have been aged 10. It records a report of an incident on 16 April during a sleep over, in which another child ‘began to indecently kiss[the mother] in intimate areas’ and encouraged the mother to touch her. The mother was left with two “love bites”, one on the neck and one on the breast. The name of the perpetrator is redacted so their gender is also not known. The entry concludes that the other child’s parents ‘are close family friends of [the mother’s] parents and they have spoken about the incident between themselves’.[50]The grandmother’s account is detailed in an addendum to the FFA. She recalls that the mother was aged 11 years at the time and that the other child was a girl aged one year older. She recalls seeing the marks after the other girl was collected and taking the mother to the police station.[51]I am not in a position – nor am I invited – to adjudicate upon the mother’s allegations against her own mother. To that extent, I have to proceed on the basis that they are unproven. Of course, it remains open to me to adjourn these proceedings for further investigation should I consider it necessary and proportionate, albeit that is not an option which I am invited to take by any party. I will come back to that option when explaining my decision.[52]What I am prepared to do, however, is find on a balance of probability that an incidence of sexual abuse took place in 2004 perpetrated by a child of a family friend. That much seems obvious from the contemporary police report. I cannot, however, attribute blame to the maternal grandmother, however inadequate her response might now be viewed 22 years later. The maternal grandmother and step-grandfather[53]The FFA was completed by Vivien Smith on 4 September 2025. It was accompanied by an addendum dated 14 October 2025. Although I have not seen a copy of the initial viability assessment dated 12 May 2025 completed prior to proceedings, its conclusion is summarised in the initial SWET dated 20 June 2025: Whilst the Viability Assessment did identify many strengths in relation to Ms A’s caring capacity, it is also acknowledged that there are complicating factors relating to the very serious allegations that [the mother] has reported in respect of her mother, as well as Ms A’s own health needs of arthritis, and the logistical factors of family time contact between baby and [the mother] as maternal grandmother resides [on the south coast]. It is therefore my analysis that, whilst it is positive that Ms A has worked in partnership with the Local Authority, there are additional factors that need to be fully assessed as part of a full kinship assessment and, should an Interim Care Order be granted in respect of baby, due to the vulnerabilities identified within the Viability Assessment of maternal grandmother, I would not recommend that baby moves to the care of Ms A as a temporary assessed carer under Regulation 24 at the current time.[54]Ultimately, the issues of arthritis and geographical location are not considered by Ms Smith to be significant obstacles in the ability of Mr and Mrs A to care for CS. Ms Smith’s assessment, however, is not universally positive: it acknowledges areas of weakness concerning Mr and Mrs A’s attitude towards the mother, not least their continued use of the “deadname” with which she was registered at birth. Historically, there is evidence of a dynamic in which the mother was treated as a “black sheep” and within which the grandmother in particular appears to have demonstrated a general lack of insight into the mother’s mental health needs.[55]In the end, the conclusion of the FFA is positive and recommends that Mr and Mrs A be approved as foster carers. I am told that they are now approved. The deficits in their understanding around the mother’s mental health have improved and can be improved further through direct work. Ms Smith acknowledges that the grandmother’s response to the incident of inappropriate touching in 2004 was (with hindsight) lacking, which she assesses as being due to a lack of understanding that sexual abuse is perpetrated by other children, not just by adults. Again, that is an area of weakness which can be addressed in direct work. Notwithstanding the negativity with which the mother is viewed by Mr and Mrs A, Ms Smith believes they genuinely wish to reconcile and are committed to promoting a positive image of the mother to the child. The mother[56]In considering whether or not the mother is able to provide care for the child, the standard of care need not be ‘perfect’ but merely ‘good enough’. As was said by Hedley J in Re L (Care: Threshold Criteria) [2007] 1 FLR 2050 at 2063: … society must be willing to tolerate very diverse standards of parenting, including the eccentric, the barely adequate and the inconsistent ... it is not the provenance of the state to spare children all the consequences of defective parenting.[57]The mother must be given credit for the sheer level of assessment to which she has submitted herself over the past year or so. As mentioned above, she was assessed in CP’s proceedings by Mr Weatherby for his parenting assessment dated 6 March 2025. She was then assessed by Mr Skelding in his pre-birth assessment dated 5 June 2025. Within these proceedings, the mother undertook another detailed parenting assessment dated 10 October 2025, this time conducted by Rebecca Pop. Both parenting assessments from June 2025 and October 2025 applied the ParentAssess framework. The mother’s commitment to Ms Pop’s assessment is commendable; between 4 September and 2 October 2025, she attended five sessions while at the same time engaging fully with family time (with both CS and CP) as well as support work with various agencies.[58]In her written and oral evidence, the mother informed me of the work she has completed and which she still intends to complete. Against a chaotic background of evictions, homelessness, sofa-surfing and rent arrears, she has remained in her current refuge for (I believe) around six months. There, she has her own room and shared kitchen, bathroom and living spaces, for which she shares in the responsibility to clean and tidy. While in the refuge, she had made some good friends and now considers that her support network is strong.[59]She has completed the Freedom Programme and told me that she has learned about different types of abuse and how to form healthy relationships. Having completed this, she has commenced the Nurture Programme, which I am told involves ‘how to recognise abuse and teaching children how to recognise this too’. In oral evidence, she told me she had completed one session so far, and that a strength of the Nurture Programme is that it is “designed for mother’s like myself, with systemic abuse over their lives”. She is receiving counselling via Women’s Aid, which she attends once per week. She has enrolled on West Mercia’s SARC course, which will involve 48 sessions and is due to commence imminently.[60]In addition, the mother is receiving assistance from HAB Support, an organisation offering health and social care support for individuals with learning disabilities, autism and mental health. I have seen a statement from Adele Coleman of HAB Support, detailing the support given and the mother’s good level of engagement with the same. In summary, the mother is helped to attend appointments, to access the community (for example, with food shopping) and to ‘build a stable support system around her’. Ms Coleman praises the mother’s engagement and the efforts she is taking to look after herself; a statement from Women’s Aid is similarly positive. I was informed by the mother that HAB Support will continue to work with her for as long as she needs them.[61]All of these are positive improvements made since the court’s decision regarding CP. Nothing I say in this judgment is designed to detract or in any way undermine the hard work she is putting in to getting herself into a secure and better place. Equally, the parenting assessments are not without their positives. She has been assessed (for example) as having ‘a lot of good knowledge’ around CS’s needs; she can feed him using a bottle and change his nappy. She has been observed with CS where she ‘played with him and sung to him beautifully’. Although the contact notes are not included in the bundle, I am told that they are are overwhelmingly positive.[62]One of the principal concerns of professionals is perhaps best summarised in the threshold statement: that the mother ‘displays dysregulated and unpredictable behaviour as a result of poor mental health’. This behaviour includes ‘numerous incidents of shouting, swearing and screaming’. In her assessment, Ms Pop concludes: [The mother] has complex emotional needs and is diagnosed with EUPD. She has suffered trauma, loss and rejection as a child and often presents with a desperate need to be loved, to belong and to have the harm she had suffered acknowledged by those who had caused it. This is, however, not happening and [the mother] lives with a permanent sense of injustice and in an atmosphere of conflict with her family, towards whom she still appears to gravitate. [The mother] would not be able to prioritise [the child]’s care and emotional needs over her own because this is not how EUPD works. [The mother] was offered therapy and mental health support in the past, however she is in a deeply entrenched pattern of emotional distress and dysfunctional behaviour.[63]In reflecting on this case, I was invited to review the mother’s medical records as disclosed into these proceedings. They confirm that the mother’s struggles with emotional health are longstanding. As long ago as November 2015, she presented at A&E explaining that she had taken an overdose of prescription medication. She was referred to the community mental health team. On 25 January 2016 – almost exactly 10 years ago – the mother was assessed by Dr Balakrishnan (Consultant Psychiatrist), when she explained that she had been suffering with rapid mood swings for a number of years, during which times she would start ‘screaming, shouting or crying and can do a lot of damage around the house’.Dr Balakrishnan observed: [The mother] is [in her twenties], employed, single, young lady who represents with quite significant difficulties to control her emotional responses. She appears to respond to most situations with anger and seems to engage in physical altercations with her family and verbal altercations with people outside. Dr Balakrishnan recommended that she engage with anger management and anxiety courses. The need for bereavement work around the loss of her grandfather was also raised. The mother’s case was to be considered further at a multi-disciplinary meeting.[64]On 8 March 2016, the mother met with Dr Dale. In a letter dated 10 March, Dr Dale refers for the first time to a diagnosis of ‘Personality disorder – Emotional unstable and antisocial traits’. Due to the nature of that disorder, Dr Dale expressed the view that there was ‘an ongoing risk of impulsive non-suicidal self-harm’ and that the mother ‘potentially presents a risk to others through impulsive acts of anger and violence’. Medication was not indicated due to the risk of overdose.[65]The mother was next reviewed by a Dr Mohyuddin on 22 December 2016. His letter gives the diagnosis as ‘Emotional unstable personality disorder’.Dr Mohyuddin noted that the mother ‘continues to engage in maladaptive, self-destructive coping strategies like pulling hair, head butting and promiscuous behaviour’. The risks ‘inherent to her diagnosis’ included ‘a chronic unstable risk of accident/intentional fatal self-harm … mainly because of her unpredictable affect, impulsivity and maladaptive coping strategies’. The recommendation was for the mother to undergo Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (“DBT”) because she would ‘benefit from emotional regulation and distress tolerance skills’.[66]What is plain from the medical records is the extent to which the mother has been unable to engage with recommended work over a number of years. After her appointment with Dr Mohyuddin in December 2016, DBT was discussed during a psychological assessment on 5 April 2017. The mother was noted to say she ‘thinks she needs to deal with issues from the past’ but the assessor expressed concern about her ability to do this while she was self-medicating with alcohol. I can see there was a period of inconsistent engagement with NHS services in the latter part of 2017, with clinicians recording the need to assess the mother further before a DBT referral could be made.[67]After a number of cancelled appointments, the mother attended on 13 February 2018 where she was again assessed by Dr Dale. At that time, she discussed rapid emotional changes, self-harm and abuse of alcohol and prescription medication. As a result, Dr Dale was again reluctant to prescribe medication due the risk of misuse; DBT was described as ‘the treatment of choice’ subject to a further discussion with psychology services. Finally, a referral was made to DBT Services in early May 2018. In June 2018, the mother attended a screening interview and was assessed as meeting the criteria for DBT. She was placed on the waiting list. Sadly, her engagement with mental health services appears to have deteriorated. On 29 January 2019, Dr Dale wrote to confirm she had been discharged from mental health services ‘due to her poor engagement’. As a result, the mother was discharged from DBT services on 1 February 2019.[68]I do note, however, that the mother suffered a miscarriage during that period of non-engagement (in around October 2018). The practical outcome of this, however, is that the mother’s engagement with mental health services appears to have been very poor from late 2017 to early 2019, at which point she was discharged with no medication being prescribed and little (if any) of the recommended work being completed. Save for a single appointment with perinatal mental health services in November 2019 when pregnant with CP, the mother had no contact with mental health services again until 2023, when she contacted crisis teams during times of distress. To her credit, the mother has returned to see her GP and is now prescribed Duloxetine ‘for the management of her emotional regulation difficulties’.[69]No application has been made in this case for expert evidence, psychiatric or psychological. To the extent that the social workers (for example) might consider DBT treatment to be necessary, I make clear that I am not at all swayed by such conclusions given the lack of expertise of those professionals in the arena of mental health (as well-intentioned as their recommendations may be). Rather, what concerns me when I consider the evidence as a whole, is the extent to which those early reports from 2016 are echoed in the various accounts of the mother’s behaviour in 2024 and 2025, almost a decade later.[70]The mother’s difficulties with dysregulated behaviour have continued. It was almost a decade ago that Dr Balakrishnan observed that the mother ‘represents with quite significant difficulties to control her emotional responses’ and that she responded ‘to most situations with anger and seems to engage in physical altercations with her family and verbal altercations with people outside’. Dr Mohyuddin observed that the mother ‘continues to engage in maladaptive, self-destructive coping strategies like pulling hair, head butting and promiscuous behaviour’. In 2024, the mother herself has described sexual violence from at least one partner while professionals continued to observe signs of self-harming behaviour, including scratches/bleeding to her face. Complaints from her neighbours of screaming and crying at night were still being reported in June 2025. In July 2025, the mother was arrested for an alleged assault on her grandmother during which she was reported to be intoxicated, indicating continued difficulties in managing her impulsive behaviour.[71]In her assessment, Ms Pop concludes that whilst the mother ‘has achieved some stability since moving to the current refuge, this is too early to provide the reassurance that she is on a pathway to change’. Sadly, I agree. The mother has been able to maintain a period of some stability while in her current refuge but – in my assessment – that stability remains tentative. While it is positive she has been able to maintain good home conditions, her ability to manage daily tasks of living in the community – outside of the refuge, albeit she will have help from HAB Support – remains untested, as does her ability to manage a tenancy. As Ms Pop observes, the stability and support network that the mother has found while in the refuge will largely ‘go away’ if she were to move into her ownaccommodation.[72]I accept Ms Pop’s view that the mother is only really able to engage with those professionals who do not challenge her. The ability to work with counsellors, HAB Support workers and other such services is of course a good thing but it does not negate the need to also engage with those professionals whose job it is to challenge her; those relationships are plainly more problematic and prone to fracture. While the mother has completed the Freedom Programme, she has not yet spent any time in the community in which to demonstrate that work is now embedded, against a significant history of highly violent and abusive relationships. Neither do I share the mother’s optimism that the friends she has made while in refuge will be there to provide a consistent support network once she leaves. She would again find herself socially isolated, a situation only made worse by the fractured family relationships.[73]Ultimately, I accept Ms Pop’s assessment and conclusions. Although I was not entirely convinced by some of her observations about contact, I found her on the whole to be a fair and measured assessor who had acknowledged and weighed the mother’s areas of improvement into the balance.[74]Having heard from the mother herself, it is her own case that she has suffered a great deal of trauma – a chaotic childhood, bereavement, abuse from partners, a miscarriage – which now requires work. Given the minimal engagement with mental health services over a period of many years, during which time the mother’s dysregulated presentation, impulsive behaviour and angry/violent reactions have continued, there seems little doubt that the mother has long-standing and unmet needs. In turn, the child would be at risk of emotional harm in her care, not least from his exposure to the conflicts and physical altercations that seem to surround the mother and her interactions with friends and family. As the dispute concerning the threshold document demonstrates, the mother continues to show limited insight and acceptance into her past behaviours and parenting deficits, which leads me to conclude that the child would remain at risk of neglect were he to be returned to his mother’s care.[75]I am supported in that conclusion by the observations of the Guardian, who in her final analysis states: Her unresolved trauma, longstanding emotional dysregulation, inconsistent engagement with services, and the absence of sustained therapeutic progress continue to compromise her day-to-day functioning. These difficulties have been evident over several years and across multiple periods of professional involvement and remain unchanged despite the support offered. In my professional view, the level of risk arising from [the mother’s] current presentation cannot be safely managed within the community, even with an enhanced package of support. [The child] requires stable, predictable and regulated caregiving, and [the mother] is not presently able to meet those needs.[76]For all of these reasons, I find that the mother is unable to provide good enough care to CS. Given the enormous amount of support offered by professionals over the years and the mother’s inconsistent engagement with the same, I am also compelled to conclude that no package of support would remedy the deficits to make the mother’s care good enough. Welfare analysis[77]Having found threshold crossed for the purposes of making public law orders, that does not mean that such orders should be made. In this regard, the burden remains with the local authority. The local authority seeks a final care order with a care plan of placement with Mr and Mrs A. That care plan would see a dramatic reduction in the contact between the child and his mother, from twice per week to just four times per year. That position is supported by the Guardian.[78]The mother stridently opposes any plan for the child to be placed with the maternal grandmother. She seeks a return to her care under whatever orders and safeguards might be considered necessary to allow that to happen, failing which she proposes long-term foster care or ultimately placement for adoption. The point is made by the local authority that the court has no power to make a placement order of its own volition. If I were to reject the final care plan currently before me, says the local authority, it would seek further time to explore other kinship options before concluding there is no other choice but adoption, or – in the words of Lady Hale, that ‘nothing else will do’, see Re B (Care Proceedings: Appeal) [2013] 2 FLR 1075 at [198].[79]My paramount and overriding consideration is the welfare of CS. I must also have regard to those factors set out at section 1(3) of the Children Act 1989, referred to as the “welfare checklist”. In the context of the mother’s suggestion that I consider the need for a placement order, I have also borne in mind the factors set out at section 1(4) of the Adoption and Children Act 2002, not least the need to consider the welfare of CS throughout his life and his relationship with his birth parents. I must also have regard to the “no delay” principle, that is, the assumption that delay will usually be prejudicial to a child’s welfare, and also to the “no order” principle, that is, that I should not make an order unless I am satisfied that it would be better for CS for me to do so than not.[80]My task is to conduct a holistic evaluation of CS’s welfare needs followed by a balancing exercise of the realistic placement options. As was said by McFarlane LJ in Re G (A Child) [2014] 1 FLR 670 at [54]: What is required is a balancing exercise in which each option is evaluated to the degree of detail necessary to analyse and weigh its own internal positives and negatives and each option is then compared, side by side, against the competing option or options. I am conscious of the need to avoid a linear approach, where different placement options are discounted in such a way as might inevitably leave one wrong conclusion. Rather, the need for a holistic evaluation means weighing up each option against the others.[81]The available placement options before the court as identified by the parties are placement with the mother or placement with Mr and Mrs A. The mother adds to that list the potential of foster care or placement for adoption.[82]In considering the possibility of placement with the mother, I remind myself that my assessment of her ability to care must take account of whether or not she would be able to do so with proper support in place. That is, per Lord Neuberger in Re B (A Child) [2013] UKSC 33 at [45], ‘the court must be satisfied that there is no practical way of the authorities (or others) providing the requisite assistance and support’. In the present case, the mother has already benefitted from extended and extensive support, none of which has achieved sustained or sufficient stability to date. While she is engaging at this time with HAB Support, a counsellor and other agencies, she remains in the artificial bubble of a refuge, in which all of those agencies are there to help and comfort her, but not to challenge her actively about mistakes she has made and improvements she could make. I accept the evidence of the local authority and the Guardian that there are no measures which might be implemented to safeguard CS sufficiently and/or buttress the care provided to ensure it is good enough.[83]I have no doubt that the mother loves CS very much indeed. I am not satisfied, however, that she is able to provide good enough care at this time, nor that she will be able to do so within a timescale referrable to CS’s needs. Were he to be returned to her care at this time, I am satisfied he would be at immediate risk of inconsistent care, significant emotional harm and neglect.[84]The mother’s case is that placement with Mr and Mrs A is not viable. Ms Smith was cross-examined at some length on perceived deficiencies and biases in her assessment of them. Most notably, she was asked why she did not explore in more depth the mother’s allegations that Ms A was complicit in sexual abuse perpetrated by wider members of the maternal family. In fairness to Ms Smith, the mother’s allegations in this regard were not particularised or even really set out in any meaningful way at the time she undertook her assessment or even the addendum (indeed, they are not set out at the time of this hearing).[85]It is plain from her work, however, that Ms Smith did explore the mother’s allegations in the broad terms available to her. That much is clear from the discussion she had with Mrs A around whether or not the mother was molested by her aunt and cousins, and the suggestion she knew about and facilitated this. Those allegations were robustly rejected. While it is a fair point made by the mother that the grandmother failed to volunteer the fact of the police report in 2004, Ms Smith does not believe there was anything sinister in that omission but rather concludes it arose from lack of insight into child sexual abuse by other children.[86]I do not accept that the mother’s concerns were simply overlooked or ignored, either by Ms Smith in the FFA or by Ms Waddams in her overall analysis of the case. That reality is most obviously demonstrated in the fact that interim placement was not recommended at the commencement of proceedings for the express reason of allowing the mother’s concerns to be explored. Nor am I convinced by the suggestion that either Ms Smith or Ms Waddams ought to have considered the various references to abuse as contained in the medical records and (in essence) cross-examined Mrs A on each one. I do not accept the allegation made against both of those professionals, that they have adopted a biased approach to this case.[87]The mother is right when she says her objections to placement with her mother cannot just be ignored. She has parental responsibility. Equally, I agree with her that the dynamic between the mother and her estranged family must be an important consideration in the balancing exercise. The mother’s views are important but not determinative when considering the best placement option to give CS stability and permanence.[88]In explaining why her siblings have expressed such positive views of Mr and Mrs A’s parenting, the mother explains in her statement her suspicion that they have been ‘coached’. At other times, however, she seems to show a level of understanding that her experience of childhood – during those chaotic years when she was Mrs A’s first child – was different to that of her siblings. The mother says as much in her statement: I further note that the other children indicated a positive parenting experience from YA and ZA. I am YA’s oldest child and YA was 18 years old when I was born. My parenting experience was very different to what her other children have said theirs has been … I fear that CS’s upbringing will be the same as mine. In April 2017, I also note that the mother commented during a psychological assessment that she was ‘envious of her siblings because her mother had now stopped drinking. She told me “why couldn’t she be nice when I was at home”.’[89]Whilst I must limit any criticism of Mrs A by virtue of the fact she is not a party and able to defend herself, there were plainly deficiencies in her early parenting as outlined in the FFA. All of the professionals working with Mrs A now, however, are satisfied that she has grown and developed into a competent and able parent who is able to meet CS’s needs to a very good standard. The stability and happiness of the mother’s siblings is testament to the abilities of Mr and Mrs A now.[90]So why would CS experience something different? The mother says: because he is her son. She believes that there has been a conspiracy (my words) to take her baby away from her. When I asked her to consider that, perhaps, Mrs A as a grandmother has stepped in to prevent her grandson from being adopted, the mother was unable or unwilling to even consider that as a premise. To be clear, I have not seen or heard any evidence that would lead me to suspect that Mr and Mrs A are anything but loving grandparents. I note the Guardian’s own assessment of them as ‘an impressive and committed couple who are clearly desperate to ensure that [the child] remains within his family’.[91]I agree with Ms Smith’s assessment in the witness box: that but for the mother’s allegations, there are no significant concerns about the ability of Mr and Mrs A to care for CS. I have thought very hard about the proportionality of exploring further the mother’s allegations of wider familial sexual abuse (or indeed her other complaints about the grandmother). Although I am not invited to consider an adjournment to explore the same, it is an option I have considered nonetheless.[92]Ultimately, I have determined that it would not be in CS’s interests for me to do so. I cannot ignore the incoherent form in which the mother has raised her allegations; they remain unparticularised and are not currently in a format that I could invite Mr and Mrs A to respond to, let alone consider adjourning a decision on CS’s welfare and the delay that would entail. There is no corroborative evidence before me that might justify further exploration.[93]I have to consider the ability of Mr and Mrs A to care for CS – and the appropriateness of placement with them – against the whole canvas of the evidence. I am satisfied on the evidence that Mrs A is no longer the parent that the mother experienced as a child. I am also satisfied that Mr and Mrs A are able to provide a good level of care to CS, within a family unit that loves him and will offer him stability throughout his childhood in the event he is unable to return to his mother’s care in the future. I also accept the assessment of the professionals that Mr and Mrs A are able and willing to promote a positive relationship between CS and his mother, as challenging as that might sometimes be and notwithstanding the negative views Mrs A has expressed about the mother in the past.[94]Weighing up placement with Mr and Mrs A against the mother’s alternative proposals of foster care or adoption, I deal with this suggestion robustly. CS is aged just eight months; long-term foster care might see him remain in the care system for the duration of his minority, with all the uncertainty and stigma that would bring as a Looked After Child. It represents a sub-optimal and unnecessary placement option where there is a loving and able family placement available. By virtue of the conclusion I have reached about Mr and Mrs A, it must also follow that we are not at the point where nothing else but adoption will do.[95]For all the reasons set out above, I find that CS’s welfare will be best met with a care plan of placement with Mr and Mrs A. In reaching that decision, I cannot say that I am not troubled by the dynamic between the mother and Mrs A. It is a factor I have considered very carefully. It is the reason why (at least in part) the local authority asks to conclude matters now under a final care order rather than any private law order granting parental responsibility to the grandmother. It is also (sadly) the reason why contact is recommended at just four times per year; one would expect a kinship placement to allow for a much higher level of contact. Sadly, I accept the analysis of the local authority and the Guardian, that at present the family dynamic has the potential to destabilise CS’s placement, and that there will remain a risk that CS could pick up on his mother’s anxieties.[96]I do not know if the mother’s relationship with her family is reparable. She tells me it is not and that she cannot conceive of engaging in any reparative work; if CS is placed with Mr and Mrs A, she says, she will choose not to have any contact with him. That is one potential outcome that all professionals are agreed would be a disastrous for CS, but it is also one which rests largely in the gift of the mother. I understand her reasons and do not seek to minimise the distress she feels around the proposed placement. Ultimately, however, I adopt the view of the Guardian: that the potential for permanence with Mr and Mrs A must be given priority over the mother’s indication she will cut all ties with her son. Equally, I place the need for permanence above the preference for CS to remain in the local area, where contact with the mother and his sister CP would be easier to arrange.[97]I sincerely hope the mother does not cut ties with her son. Indeed, I remain quietly optimistic that will not be the case. Taking a long view of her relationship with her mother and siblings, there is evidence that it has blown hot and cold over the years. That seems especially clear from the medical records. In April 2017, the mother informed health workers that the grandmother was there if she needed support and had even sent over a food parcel. In September 2017, the mother informed professionals that she wanted to relocate ‘closer to her mum, who is her main carer’. In January 2018, she told professionals that her mum was ‘supporting her and looking after her’. In February 2018, she told professionals they had ‘fallen out’ but by May 2018, she was seeing the grandmother ‘every second day’ and reported that she spends time ‘with her Mother and step siblings’. The grandmother is consistently referred to in the medical records as a ‘protective factor’.[98]There does appear to have been a turning point in the mother-daughter relationship since the time the local authority became involved with CP. I am unable (nor do I considerate it necessary) to pinpoint the exact time and cause of this most recent deterioration. I cannot help but feel that an end to court proceedings will only assist. I hope that both the mother and the grandmother will be able to reflect on how best to move forward, if not for themselves then for CS. In that vein, I would ask that the local authority keep the level of contact with the mother under review and offer to fund any reparative or mediatory work they are willing to engage in. I would also remind Mr and Mrs A that they are to be placed in a position of considerable trust in which they will be expected to make every effort to ensure that CS maintains a positive image of his mother. Conclusion[99]I make a final care order in favour of the local authority and endorse the care plan for placement with Mr and Mrs A. I approve the immediate implementation of the transition plan that will see CS move to their care in a matter of weeks. I would ask that the final order include a commitment from the local authority to return this matter to court in the event that they should later seek to remove CS from the family placement.[100]In reaching this decision, I have considered the Articles 6 and 8 ECHR rights of CS and the mother. Plainly, the parties’ European Convention rights are engaged and – to the extent that such rights will be interfered with – I consider that the orders I have made are both necessary and proportionate. Mr Recorder Rowbotham Monday, 16 March 2026

order

(a) In November 2015, the mother informed health services that ‘from the age of 9 years old to 11 she was sexually abused by a family friend who was 15 years old, he used to touch her inappropriately’;(b) In April 2017, the mother informed health services that ‘she was sexually abused when she was nine years old by a girl who was four years older than her …’; and(c) In August/September2017, the mother informed health services that ‘she had been molested at 8-9 years of age by a young girl who was two years older than her. Their mothers were friends and [the mother] told us that she “used to touch me”. This abuse continued for a year before her mother found out and stopped their meeting … She denies any other episodes of abuse’. It cannot escape mention that the above references do not corroborate the mother’s narrative in 2026, of intrafamilial abuse known to and facilitated by the maternal grandmother. There is no reference to a cousin, aunt or other family member having abused her. The last reference at (c) would appear to confirm that the grandmother had no knowledge of the abuse and that, once she did, she intervened.