“This application is unreal. It is all part of what appears to be [the father’s] continuation of a battle which should have been resolved in October 2014. It is to be seen as part of his failure to return E just before Christmas to the mother’s care, an action in respect of which I had to make urgent orders on the previous occasion when I dealt with this case. As I seem to recall saying on that occasion, [the father] simply has to appreciate that a court order is a court order. It is there to be obeyed and it is not be changed unless circumstances have changed radically.”
“I accept the mother’s evidence that E has told her that during a trip to a museum, notwithstanding close professional supervision, the father was able to whisper into E’s ear the fact that he, the father, was feeling depressed. This, I think, was an action by the father which he could not control in his desire to let his daughter know his anxieties”
“allows his anxiety to spill out, both in his conduct of the proceedings in court and in his behaviour towards his daughter.”
“I can see no evidence that Judge Tolson was prejudiced against the father. The fact that the judge has repeatedly made findings against the father does not amount to evidence of prejudice. Equally, I am satisfied that this judge was fully aware of the potential disadvantage that the father was in as a litigant in person, and made all allowances for that fact in carrying out his assessment.”
“I should briefly repeat that [the mother] is not someone who is any way alienating the father. She is, so far as she is able, determined to promote a relationship between the father and the child, and she is far better placed to determine in future what the level of contact should be …. In this case it is the father who is, emphatically, the author of his own misfortune. Again, this afternoon, over the course of a hearing lasting some 40 minutes, it has been extremely difficult to concentrate the father’s attention on the points in question and to conduct a hearing which permitted both sides to speak. Again, the pressure of speech which [the father] has exhibited as well as the approach which he has taken demonstrate that all the old problems remain. Indeed, my impression is that things have distinctly taken a turn for the worse in that respect in recent months.”
“It looked last summer as if things were going to improve, or at least I was lulled into a false sense of security. I therefore asked to postpone the appeal. I was only given the option to drop the appeal which I duly did whilst pointing out I may need to re-liven it if the alienation continued. Here we are. None of the following has ever been reviewed at all in respect of permission to appeal. I ask that this be done now. The alienation of E from her father and family has gone on long enough.”
“Every single decision, of which there have been many over two and a half years of almost constant litigation in front of this judge, have followed precisely that which the mother asked for regardless of the interests of the child. This alone, to any observer, would present the impression of bias, particularly as the father has made no unreasonable requests …. The judgments of Judge Tolson have done two things: they have alienated E and her father further in their gradual reduction of time and they have supported the mother’s projected view of the father presenting mental illness.”
“As this judge has found against me, the father, a litigant in person, in every last decision I now have no confidence to make representations to him. It is difficult enough facing an abuser in court. To have to do this strongly feeling that you are not being listened to is enough to ensure a great difficulty in getting valid points across. I have suffered a great deal of stress and have previously developed an anxiety issue on the back of the judge’s judgments and the ongoing resulting alienation. For the reasons of health this case needs another judge, an impartial one.”
“[The father] would wish to resume the primary care of E himself. That has been apparent not in terms of any application before the court but from his submissions to me this morning. When listening to [the father] and when reading the lengthy statement which he has prepared for today’s hearing, I have to bear in mind that he is a litigant in person and I see him in the raw, if I may put it that way, unfiltered through any legal representative. I have to bear in mind that rough edges in that situation will be exposed that would not be the case if he were represented. Nevertheless, it was justified, in my view for Mr Lazarides, counsel for the mother today, as he has been in the past, to open his submissions with the observation that the father’s statement perhaps makes the mother’s case more effectively than anything which she might herself have said. I add that listening to [the father] advance his submissions at this interim hearing, the same point might be made. There is an obsessional and intense nature to almost everything which [he] writes or says of which he himself is quite unaware. It is easy to see how that approach will be carried over into his care of E. He will not see this either.”
“I can see no rational basis on which it might be argued that I am, or appear to be, biased, especially given this very narrow remaining issue and my order on the subject. I have decided important issues against [the father] in the past, but that does not amount to bias or even an appearance of bias. The father’s statement in support boils down to the contention that I was against him, and the contention that I was rude to him. I was against him (on the issues) but I was not rude to him. Should any further appeal process result in fresh hearings then I can see that it would be desirable for the matter to be heard by a different judge, but that is another matter. To the extent that [the father’s] application is for me to recuse myself from any wider consideration of his case now or in future, I refuse that also on the same basis.”