B1/2002/0711
Neutral Citation Number: [2002] EWCA Civ 686
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE
COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM THE LIVERPOOL COUNTY COURT
(His Honour Judge Lynch)
	Royal Courts of Justice
	Strand
	London WC2

	Thursday, 2nd May 2002
B e f o r e :

LORD JUSTICE WARD

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J-S  (a Child)

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The Applicant Father appeared in person.

The Respondent Mother did not appear and was not represented.

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J U D G M E N T
1.	LORD JUSTICE WARD: This is an application by the father of a young boy aged three for permission to appeal against the orders made by His Honour Judge Lynch on 15th March, when the judge stopped the direct contact the father was enjoying to his son and ordered instead indirect contact. Secondly, the judge refused an application for a parental responsibility order. 
2.	I will give permission to appeal because there is a real prospect of success, which perhaps, to avoid confusion, I ought to explain means no more than that the chances of success are not fanciful in this case. There is a proper argument to be deployed by the father that the judge failed to give sufficient weight to the benefit to the child of the contact that was being successful enjoyed, as against such harm as may have been suffered, or perhaps will be suffered, by the boy from the renewal of complaints to the Social Services Department and other allegedly emotional behaviour by the father in respect of the boy. That matter needs to be looked at, as does the judge's application of the principle he referred to in Re: H (Minors)(Access) [1992] 1 FLR 148. The question is whether in this case there was cogent reason for denying contact which was working well. 
3.	As for parental responsibility, the question there is the extent to which a desire to control the mother's life is, in the circumstances of this case, a sufficient reason for denying a parental responsibility order, which I have time and time again endeavoured to explain is more a matter of status than a matter of conferring a right on a parent. 
4.	So there will be permission to appeal. The matter will probably be heard before three judges, one of whom can be a Queen's Bench judge and one of whom should preferably be a Family Division judge (if there is one available), and I should probably be a member of the court, although it is not totally essential. We will need half a day for this hearing. I will ask the office to endeavour to obtain the release of the video currently held at the Liverpool County Court, so that I at least can have a look at it. 
Order: permission to appeal granted; directions given as above.