Care order – application by the Minister for a final care order and
a freeing for adoption order.
[2016]JRC191
Royal Court
(Family)
19 October 2016
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Before :
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J. A. Clyde-Smith, Esq., and Jurats Crill
and Thomas
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Between
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The Minister for Health and Social Services
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Applicant
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And
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A (the mother)
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First Respondent
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And
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Charlie (the child, through her Guardian ad
litem, Eleanor Green)
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Second Respondent
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IN THE MATTER OF THE CHILDREN (JERSEY)
LAW 2002
AND IN THE MATTER OF CHARLIE (CARE
ORDER AND FREEING FOR ADOPTION ORDER)
Advocate P. F. Byrne for the Minister.
Advocate C. Davies for the Second Respondent.
Advocate A. T. H. English appeared as amicus
curiae.
judgment
the commissioner:
1.
On 27th
September, 2016, the Court granted the applicant (“the Minister”) a
final care order in respect of the second respondent (“the child”),
who is aged 6 months, and freed her for adoption. We now set out our reasons.
2.
This was a
troubling case in which the mother, who had the intellectual capacity to parent
the child, had completely disengaged from the Children’s Service and
other agencies, the lawyer appointed to act for her and the Court process. She did not attend the hearing; the
Court resolving to continue in her absence pursuant to Rule 17(4) of the Children
Rules 2005.
3.
The mother
was born and brought up in Thailand.
She left school at an early age and went to work in Bangkok, working
ultimately in a bar there. She
described her work in this way, namely that customers would take her out to
dinner or drinks or a night club and would ask her to stay with them. She described some traumatic experiences
whilst working in this way. It was
through this work that she met Mr B from Jersey. She moved with him to Jersey and they
were married.
4.
The mother
suffered a still birth in Thailand and another in Jersey, but she gave birth to
two children with Mr B. She left
the family home in February 2013 to live in the Women’s Refuge, following
which private law proceedings were issued.
In those proceedings, she was assessed by Dr Carritt-Baker, a chartered
clinical psychologist, but refused to undertake the psychological work he
recommended. She asked for a
psychological assessment of the children in relation to their contact with her,
but declined to cooperate with the psychologist appointed, Dr James
Murray.
5.
Dr Murray
did interview the children, then aged 9 and 7. The eldest child in particular painted a
troubling picture of life with their mother, describing the mother as “hurting me a lot, kicking and
punching, and using bad words.”
She was scared of her mother and neither child wanted contact with
the mother. She described a
particular incident when the mother had assaulted the paternal grandmother in
public, to which the police were called.
The police reported that the children were visibly shaken, due to what
they had witnessed.
6.
The mother
dispensed with the services of the lawyer appointed to represent her in these
private law proceedings and on 31st October, 2013, the Court ordered
that the children reside with the father, with the mother only having indirect
contact, as recommended by the Jersey Family Court Advisory Service. She has not had any contact with these
children since.
7.
The Act of
Court noted that the mother had not attended Court in support of her
application or to collect the report of Dr Murray, despite being requested to
do so. The JFCAS officer had
informed the Court that she had tried on several occasions to contact the
mother, but she had been unable to communicate with the mother. The JFCAS report explained that it was
very difficult to engage with the mother.
She had been interviewed on two occasions with interpreters who
struggled to understand some of her comments, describing some of the things she
was saying as “bizarre”.
8.
The mother
became pregnant with the child around the summer of 2015.
9.
At around
the same time, there was an incident at the Homeless Shelter, in which the
mother was then residing and still now resides, when she assaulted another
resident. She pleaded guilty in the
Magistrate’s Court to grave and criminal assault and malicious damage and
was sentenced to 70 hours’ community service.
10. It was through the Probation Department, who
noticed in December 2015 that she was heavily pregnant, that concerns were
raised because she had not accessed medical care and seemed unaware of when the
child was due. This was of
particular concern in the light of her problematic obstetric history, the risk
of gestational diabetes (of which she had a history) and her intention of
giving birth on her own.
11. The mother appeared to have no plans as to
where she and the child would live (she could not have the child living with
her at the Homeless Shelter) and had made no preparation for the arrival of the
child.
12. While she did build some kind of working
relationship with the health team at the hospital, she demonstrated a
reluctance to work with the health care plan and accept the health
professional’s advice. She
failed to comply with dietary advice to ensure the child received essential
nutrients and sought to stabilise her blood sugars without medication. She was fully aware of her history of
gestational diabetes and the importance of complying with advice. She was given prescribed medication to
manage this; however, she failed to take it as prescribed and could not
stabilise her blood sugars through diet.
The mother was admitted to hospital because the gestational diabetes was
not being managed.
13. The pre-birth assessment of 10th February,
2016, highlighted extensive risks for the child and recommended removal at
birth. The mother had been
reluctant to work with the Children’s Service, refusing to name the
father or members of her family.
She gave the Children’s Service the impression of being dictated
to by the un-named father, who she said had told her not to get medical help
and not to tell anyone about the pregnancy. She refused to sign the Legal Aid forms.
14. The child was born by Caesarean section on 8th
March, 2016.
15. On 14th March, 2016, the Court
granted an interim care order to the Minister, approving a care plan providing
for the temporary removal of the child out of the jurisdiction with the mother
for an assessment, for the reasons set out in the Court’s judgment of
14th April 2016 (In the matter of Charlie (Care order) [2016] JRC082). The mother was fully aware of the
hearing, but did not attend.
Advocate English had been appointed on Legal Aid to represent her, but
despite extensive efforts, was without instructions.
16. The plan was for the mother and child to attend
a 12 week assessment at an assessment centre called St Michael’s
Fellowship in London. She displayed
a lack of enthusiasm for or engagement in that proposed assessment and the St
Michael’s Fellowship concluded that they could not work with her. Furthermore, the mother had refused to
sign the parish travel ID document, which would have enabled her and the child
to travel to London, because she wanted a passport. In the light of her stated wish to return
to Thailand with the child, it was felt that should she travel to London with
the child there was a real risk of her taking the child to Thailand. The child was therefore placed in foster
care, where she has remained ever since.
17. On 31st March, 2016, Advocate
English was appointed amicus curiae
and on 4th May, 2016, a further psychological report was
commissioned from Dr Carritt-Baker.
The mother was directed to provide the Minister with names and contact
details of any person who she wished to put forward as alternative carers for
the child, which she has failed to do.
18. The mother’s apparent ownership of a
house in Thailand has presented a barrier to her being able to claim Income
Support in Jersey. The mother has
only attended the Social Security Department once on 20th April,
2016, with their records showing that most of the contact with the department
has been by professionals, trying to support and enable the mother to receive
Income Support. She lives at the
Homeless Shelter which funds her accommodation and provides her with meals,
access to laundry and bathroom facilities.
She told the social worker, Diane Burgess, that she earns money through “being nice to men”, “going out with them” in the
capacity as an escort and doing “nice
things” to men, which led Diane Burgess to believe that she was a sex
worker.
19. In April 2016, Diane Burgess, approached the
manager of the facility at Midvale Road so that an extended assessment of the
mother could be undertaken there through contact. Steps were taken to put the necessary
funding in place. The mother was
uncooperative with this proposal, because she would be unable at Midvale Road
to go out more than three nights a week, as she was doing at the Homeless Shelter,
often returning at 6am.
20. At one stage, the mother did name a person as
the putative father (who absolutely denied paternity) but subsequently
confirmed that he was not the father.
The mother has talked about the father, but refused to name him. Diane Burgess had tried to explore
whether the mother and the child would be able to live with this man. The mother made it clear it would be a
really bad environment, as he always had some woman living in another room and
swops partners very often.
21. Throughout this period, the mother has been
attending contact sessions five days a week, and most of that went well in
that, in the words of Dr Carritt-Baker, she achieved a reasonable bond in the
circumstances and was attuned to the child, but contact had to be suspended on
two occasions, as a consequence of her very aggressive and abusive response, in
the presence of the child, to being given advice.
22. In July 2016, the mother refused to allow the
child her immunisations, becoming angry and aggressive with the health visitor
when she tried to explain their importance.
23. Diane Burgess consulted with the guardian
Eleanor Green as to whether it would be sensible to make another offer to the
mother of an off-Island placement. A meeting took place on the 1st
August, 2016, with the mother, Eleanor Green and Diane Burgess, in the presence
of an interpreter, and the mother was asked if she would be prepared to go to
the St Michael’s Fellowship in London with the child to have her
parenting capacity assessed over a twelve-week period. Despite the best efforts of the
professionals, they could not convince her to agree to this. She said that she would think about it
and at a further meeting on 4th August, 2016, she maintained her
refusal, accepting that this might mean that the child would be adopted. When the implications were explained to
her, she became angry and aggressive.
Eleanor Green told us in evidence that there was no question that the
mother understood what was being offered and the implications.
24. Dr Carritt-Baker found it difficult to engage
the mother in an assessment process, both in terms of getting her to attend and
in terms of meaningful involvement.
She talked in a tangential way, in which her answers often bore little
relation to the questions put to her. There was no evident reason to think that
she was experiencing pronounced symptoms of a mental health problem, although
the emphasis is on the word “pronounced”, as there clearly were
mental health issues which were not easy to pin down. The most likely, and possibly only,
characteristic is an anxiety disorder but she is also perhaps experiencing some
depressive symptoms.
25. From his assessment in 2013 and this
assessment, he had no reason to think that cognitive issues were very relevant
to questions of her parenting capacity.
In general, from the cognitive or intellectual perspective, she should
be able to provide parenting without support. In paragraphs 6.6 to 6.8 of his
report, he said this about her failure to engage:-
“6.6 Whilst it is difficult
to be sure why she has responded in the way she has to the current set of
circumstances, the issues that did emerge were:
she experiences anxiety and
jumbled thoughts when thinking about these issues
she reacts emotionally to
attempts to engage her and then shuts down
she has very strong thoughts
and feelings about her other children that interfere with her ability to engage
with this process
6.7 The question that arises in such cases
is whether these issues can constitute a barrier to having capacity. There are perhaps a few things to
consider here:-
A person is presumed to have
capacity unless it can be demonstrated that they do not
Making what are considered to
be ‘unwise decisions’ that are perhaps driven by emotional factors
is not a reason to determine that there is lack of capacity
A failure to engage in a
process is not, in itself, an indication of a lack of capacity: it is one of
the choices that people who have capacity can make
In more extreme cases, where,
say a person experiences outright dissociative episodes when engaging in the
process, it might be possible to say that they lack capacity
6.8 The thorniest component of a test of
capacity in such circumstances is perhaps whether she is able to use or weigh
the relevant information. This
aspect of the test has been described as ‘the capacity actually to engage
in the decision-making process itself and to be able to see the various parts
of the argument and to relate the one to another’. The ability to understand also extends
to understanding the reasonably foreseeable consequences of reaching a decision
or failing to do so. An ability to
engage in any way in the process might constitute a lack of capacity on these
grounds. However, in Ms A’s
case, I think she has demonstrated that it is because of her strong feelings
about the possible consequences that she finds it difficult to engage: I would
tend to take this as an indication that she is making use of the relevant
information even if in only a partial way.”
26. In his view the risks to the child stem from
the mother’s lifestyle and inability to engage appropriately with
services who were trying to support her in making changes. In the absence of sustained meaningful
engagement, the risks were really quite difficult for him to quantify, and in
his view the reasonable approach would be to assume that they are moderate at
least. If the mother had been able
to engage in the wider assessment process with other professionals over a
period of months, then it might have been possible to determine that she is
able to provide good enough care.
27. He explained that when the mother experiences
strong feelings, she either closes down or explodes out – hence the
volatility at contact sessions, but the priority for her was to protect
herself. It was a reflexive reaction
to avoid strong feelings or distress.
She could appreciate the child’s best interests some of the time,
but not enough of the time and to the necessary extent. Even if she could be placed with the
child in a house with money, it would be too risky. Her conduct with her older children was
very concerning, and in his view, she would be a risk to the child if left to
her own devices.
28. He advised that there was no realistic prospect
of the mother engaging in psychological treatment that might help to unpick the
issues behind her sustained lack of engagement with the services that would
realistically result in a sustained set of changes that would resolve the risks
present.
29. Eleanor Green, despite her best efforts, was
only able to achieve a very superficial engagement with the mother. She did not feel that she understood the
mother and only scratched the surface of the mother’s problems. The mother had a “scatter gun” way of expressing herself that was
difficult to keep a track of. It
was impossible to have a logical conversation with her – Eleanor Green
felt it was some form of disordered thinking. She could be quite explosive in a way
that was frightening to adults.
30. In her view, Diane Burgess had done everything
possible to engage the mother. Eleanor
Green had rarely worked with a parent who showed such resistance to engaging
with the services whilst simultaneously showing signs of engagement and
achievement at contact sessions.
The mother had not addressed her own vulnerabilities, which arguably
caused harm to her previous children, and must therefore pose a greater risk of
harm to the child who has no father to provide a safety net. There were serious concerns about the
mother’s ability to function consistently and safely. The unknowns were vast, due to her
failure to engage in any meaningful way with or without the parameters of legal
orders. She therefore supported the
care plan for adoption.
The mother’s position
31. Substantial efforts were made to encourage the
mother to attend the hearing, but without success. Advocate English met her with an
interpreter on 20th September, 2016, when she expressed these
wishes:-
(i)
that she
wanted contact with the child between then and the Court hearing;
(ii) that she would like the child to live with her;
(iii) that she understood the Court will make a
decision about whether the child would be freed for adoption or not and who is
to look after the child;
(iv) that she might attend Court to put her case and
give evidence with a view to asking the Court that the child be returned to
her; and
(v) if the Court does free the child for adoption,
she did not want the child to have anything to do with her family, including
the child’s Jersey siblings and grandparents, as it would be too painful
for the mother. Furthermore, in the
event of a freeing for adoption order, the mother does not wish to be contacted
by the Children’s Service or anyone else that has been involved in this
case about anything to do with the child, as it would again be too painful to
be reminded about the mother’s loss.
The law
32. In the matter of the T children [2009] JRC 231 is authority that when the Court is considering
parallel applications for a care order and a freeing order, it may consider the
evidence in the round, rather than dealing with the two respective applications
separately, and that is the approach we adopted.
33. We had regard to the guidance given in the
Court of Appeal judgment of Re F and G No (2) [2010] JCA 051 in terms of
the threshold criteria, the welfare test and freeing the child for adoption. The law is now well settled and need not
be repeated here, save a set out below.
34. The severance of family ties inherent in
adoption without parental consent is at the extreme end of the Court’s
powers to intervene in family life. In the matter of M [2013] JRC 234
applied the principles established by the Supreme Court in Re B (A Child)
[2013] UKSC 33, and by the English Court of Appeal in Re B-S (Children)
[2013] EWCA Civ 1146. Although the
statute in Jersey with regard to adoption is now significantly different from
that in England and Wales, In the matter of M confirms that the Court
should only make an order seeking to sever the relationship between a parent
and child where it is necessary within the meaning of the European Convention
to do so in order to protect the interests of the child.
35. At paragraph 170 of In the matter of M,
the Court considers the issue of “non-consensual”
adoption and refers to paragraph 22 of the Supreme court judgment that says
this:-
“The language used in Re B
is striking. Different words and
phrases are used, but the message is clear. Orders contemplating non-consensual
adoption – care orders with a plan for adoption, placement orders and
adoption orders – are ‘a very extreme thing, a last resort’,
only to be made where ‘nothing else will do’, where ‘no other
course is possible in [the child’s] interests’, they are ‘the
most extreme option’ a ‘last resort – when all else
fails’, to be made ‘only in exceptional circumstances and where
motivated by overriding requirements pertaining to the child’s welfare,
in short where nothing else will do’; see Re B paras 74, 76, 77,
82, 104, 130, 135, 145, 198, 215.”
36. In Re W (A Child)
[2016] EWCA Civ 793, the Court confirms the approach used in Re B whilst
cautioning against the use of the phrase “nothing else will do”
without linking it to a thorough overall evaluation of the welfare of the
child;
“Since the phrase
‘nothing else will do’ was first coined in the context of public
law orders for the protection of children by the Supreme Court in Re B,
judges in both the High Court and Court of Appeal have cautioned professionals
and courts to ensure that the phrase is applied so that it is tied to the
welfare of the child … The phrase is meaningless and potentially
dangerous if it is applied as some freestanding, shortcut test divorced from,
or even in place of, an overall evaluation of the child’s welfare. Used properly, as Baroness Hale
explained, the phrase ‘nothing else will do’ is no more, nor no
less, than a useful distillation of the proportionality and necessity test as
embodied in the ECHR and reflect in the need to afford paramount consideration
to the welfare of the child throughout her lifetime.”
37. In the matter of M (paragraph 172) further endorsed three important points emphasised
in Re B:-
“i. the child’s interests
include being brought up by the natural family, ideally by the natural parents,
or at least one of them, unless the overriding requirements of the
child’s welfare make that not possible;
ii. the
Court must consider all the options before coming to a decision; and
iii. before making an adoption order
the Court must be satisfied that there is no practical way of the authorities
providing the requisite assistance and support and Judges must explore
rigorously whether a Local Authority is seeking a ‘Placement Order’
because resource issues make it unwilling to provide the necessary
support.”
38. In the matter of M (paragraph 174) also confirms that in every case where the Court is
being asked to approve a care plan for adoption without parental consent, the
following guidance set out by the Court of Appeal in Re B should be
applied:
(i)
the need
for proper evidence from the local authority and the guardian which addresses
all the options which are realistically possible and contains an analysis of
the arguments for and against each option; and
(ii) an adequately reasoned judgment which includes
a ‘global holistic evaluation of all the options’.
Decision
39. Diane Burgess was on long term sick leave and
therefore unable to attend the hearing, but we had the benefit of her two
detailed reports and the evidence and advice of her manager, Ms Ceri Owens,
Eleanor Green and Dr Carritt-Baker.
We also had the benefit of the advice of the amicus curiae, Advocate English.
40. We agreed with the Minister and Advocate Davies
for the child that the threshold criteria was met – namely that the child
would be likely to suffer significant harm attributable to the care likely to
be given to her if no order was made, not being what it would be reasonable to
expect a parent to give the child and this for the reasons set out in the final
threshold document. In summary, the
relevant factors were:-
(i)
the
evidence of the mother’s violent treatment of the children from her
marriage to Mr B and the Court restricting her to indirect contact;
(ii) her conviction for grave and criminal assault;
(iii) the mother’s concealment of the
pregnancy, exposing the child to serious risk, if not death if she had given
birth to her alone;
(iv) the mother’s failure to take any steps to
prepare for the birth of the child;
(v) her aggressive and abusive conduct at contact
sessions;
(vi) her refusal to attend either the St
Michael’s Fellowship unit or the unit in Midvale Road;
(vii) her failure to engage with the Children’s
Service and other agencies;
(viii) her refusal to name the father of the child and
to give any information about the members of her family, thus preventing the
Children’s Service from exploring the possibility of others assisting in
the care of the child;
(ix) her continued refusal to accept help and medical
advice in respect of the child’s needs;
(x) her lifestyle;
(xi) her inability to put the child’s needs
before her own;
(xii) her failure to show a willingness to change for
the sake of the child.
41. Diane Burgess, Eleanor Green and Advocate
English had set out the options available to the Court with the factors for and
against each option. Those options
were:-
(i)
No order,
which would result in the child being placed back with the mother.
(ii) A supervision order, which would again result
in the child being placed back with the mother.
(iii) A care order, with the child being placed back
with the mother.
(iv) A care order with the child being placed with
foster carers for the foreseeable future.
(v) A care order, combined with an order freeing
the child for adoption, allowing the child to be permanently placed with
adoptive parents.
42. The Court could not countenance any order which
would result in the child being placed back with the mother, who would be
homeless (it not being possible for the child to be housed at the Homeless Shelter)
and without any means of support, and with all the risks to the child
identified above.
43. The mother’s refusal to engage with the
Children’s Service would mean that they would be unable to protect the
child from those risks. To allow
that to happen would, in the view of the Court, be grossly irresponsible.
44. The real choice was between the child being
placed in foster care or a residential unit for the foreseeable future and
potentially the whole of her childhood, or being given permanence through adoption. The former would no doubt suit the
mother, and would allow her to continue with her weekly contact, but it would
condemn the child to a future which was described to Re LRP (A Child) (Care Proceedings
– Placement Order) [2013] EWHC 3974 (Fam) in this way:-
“Long term foster care is an
extraordinarily precarious legal framework for any child, particularly one as
young as LRP. Foster placements,
long or short term, do not provide legal security. They can and often do come to an
end. Children in long term care may
find themselves moved from one home to another sometimes for seemingly
inexplicable reasons. Long term
foster parents are not expected to be fully committed to a child in the same
way as adoptive parents. Most
importantly of all in the current context, a long term foster child does not
have the same and enduring sense of belonging within a family as does a child
who has been adopted. There is no
way in which a long term foster child can count on the permanency,
predictability and enduring quality of his placement as can a child who has
been adopted.”
45. Advocate English, putting forward every
possible argument that could be put forward on behalf of the mother, suggested
the Court might consider some kind of “unless
order”, the purpose of which would be to give the mother a final
opportunity to accept a mother and child placement and to undertake therapy for
herself. If she were to agree, it
might, he said, clear up some of the uncertainties as to her parenting
capacity. A variant of that would
be an order allowing the Children’s Service to create a unit in Jersey
equivalent to that of the St Michael’s Fellowship for the mother and the
child (presumably on the assumption that the mother would attend such a unit).
46. We did not think it is open to the Court to
make some kind of unless order. It
could reject the care plan if it disagreed with it or if the care plan was
inchoate, and send the Minister away to re-think the care plan, but this was a
care plan with which the Court did agree and which was choate. Any delay in the Court making an
appropriate order would be prejudicial to the child (Article 2(2) of the Children
(Jersey) Law 2002—“the Children Law”) and it would be a
delay made entirely for the benefit of the mother, who had refused legal
representation, had not attended the hearing to ask for any such order and who
had shown not the slightest sign that she might accept such a placement.
47. As to the alternative, the Children’s
Service had indeed given consideration to the creation of such a unit in Jersey
for the mother, but it is a highly specialised unit which would need time to
create and to staff and this for a mother who had refused to attend either St
Michael’s Fellowship or the unit at Midvale Road. As the guardian said, it would be quite
disproportionate and unreasonable to expect the Children’s Service to
create such a unit in the circumstances of this case.
48. Eschewing the phrase “Nothing else will
do”, the Court had no hesitation in concluding that affording
paramount consideration to the welfare of the child (Article 2(1) of the
Children Law), it was both proportionate and necessary for her to be freed for
adoption, so that she could find permanence with an adoptive family.
49. That left the issue of the mother’s
consent, which had not been given to the child being freed for adoption. That consent could be dispensed with
under any of the grounds set out in Article 13(2) of the Adoption (Jersey)
Law 1961 (“the Adoption Law”) the following of which was
relevant:-
“The grounds ….. are
that the parent ….
(b) is
withholding …. her agreement unreasonably”.
50. As the Jersey Court of Appeal held in F and
G, the test is an objective one; quoting from paragraph 80:-
“80 The Royal Court turned next to consider
whether the mother was withholding her consent unreasonably (the father having
consented). It relied on the
explanation of this test as described by this Court at paragraphs 26-29 of Re
JS and BS [2005] JRC 108 and it applied the principles there set out. In particular as it noted, the test is
an objective one. A reasonable
parent will give great weight to what is best for the child (see the
observations of Lord Denning MR in Re I [1962] 106 LOS JO 611 approved
in Re “ [1971] 2 All ER 49) but a Court must be careful not simply
to substitute its own opinion for that of the parent. As the Royal Court put it:-
‘The question is whether the
parental refusal comes within the band of possible reasonable decisions, not
whether it is right or mistaken.
There is a band of decisions within which no court should seek to
replace the individual’s judgment with its own’. [para 18]
81 Helpful
in this context are the observations of Steyn and Hoffmann LLJ in Re C (A
Minor) (Adoption: Parental Agreement: Contract) [1993] 2 FLR at 272 as to
the test:-
‘Whether, having regard to
the evidence and applying the current values of our society, the advantages for
adoption of the welfare of the child appear sufficiently strong to justify
overriding the views and interests of the objecting parent or parents. The reasonable parent is only a piece of
machinery invented to provide the answer to this question.’"
51. A reasonable parent, not able to safely parent
a child or to demonstrate a willingness and ability to change within the
child’s timescale, would not in these circumstances condemn that child to
the precarious framework of long-term foster care so that the parent could
maintain contact with the child, thus depriving the child of the chance of
permanence through adoption.
52. We concluded, therefore, that objectively, the
mother was withholding her consent unreasonably and we therefore dispensed with
it.
53. We were satisfied, pursuant to Article 12(3) of
the Adoption Law, that in dispensing with the mother’s consent, it was
likely that the child would be placed for adoption – indeed the evidence
was that adoption could be achieved by the end of this year. In relation to Article 12(7) of the
Adoption Law, there was no one before the Court claiming to be the father of
the child.
54. In conclusion, the Court, having scrutinised
the proposals for contact in the care plan and having heard the parties’
comments on them:-
(i)
declared
itself satisfied that the threshold criteria had been met within the meaning of
Article 24 of the Children Law;
(ii) approved the care plan and made a final order
committing the child to the care of the Minister;
(iii) ordered that the child be declared free for
adoption pursuant to Article 12(1)(a) of the Adoption Law; and
(iv) Requested the Minister to provide the mother
with a translation of this judgment.
55. Finally, the Court commended Diane Burgess for
her exemplary work on this very difficult case.
Authorities
Children Rules 2005.
In
the matter of Charlie (Care order) [2016]
JRC 082.
In
the matter of the T children [2009] JRC 231.
Re
F and G No (2) [2010] JCA 051.
In
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In Re W (A Child) [2016] EWCA Civ 793.
Re LRP (A Child)
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[2013] EWHC 3974 (Fam).
Children (Jersey) Law 2002.
Adoption (Jersey) Law 1961.