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	England and Wales Family Court Decisions (other Judges)
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> England and Wales Family Court Decisions (other Judges) >> Medway Council v W (Fact Finding: Familial Sexual Abuse allegations and Local Authority's Approach) [2014] EWFC B190 (1 October 2014) URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWFC/OJ/2014/B190.html Cite as: [2014] EWFC B190

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IN THE FAMILY COURT

		Sitting at: Medway County and Family Court Anchorage House, 47-67 High Street, ME4 4DW
		Wednesday, 1st October 2014

JUDGE CAMERON:

Introduction

1. This has been a complex, multi-layered case with two Interveners having to be joined to the public law proceedings as a result of allegations the Local Authority wished to pursue against them, as well as against the parents. The Court has conducted a thorough forensic fact finding hearing over some 22 or 23 days, ultimately with 14 lever arch bundles of evidence and transcripts. For diverse reasons the case has taken far, far longer than anticipated or wished for by any party or by the Court. Some of those reasons lay squarely at the door of the Local Authority, as I will deal with shortly.
2. The four children who are the subject of these care proceedings are two boys and two girls, all the children of their married parents, the mother (aged 32) and the father (aged 31) who met at college when they were both teenagers in 2000 and who lived together with the children until February 2012. After a pregnancy scare in October 2000 they went on to have Child A in 2002, who is now aged 12 years. Child B was then born in 2003 and he is therefore aged 11 years. The couple married in July of that year, 2003. Child C was then born in 2004, and is therefore aged 10 years. The youngest girl, Child E, was born in 2009 and is now therefore aged 5 years.
3. A fifth child, Child D, was born to the couple between Child C and Child E and she is now 8 years of age. Although the family parties use the same phrase in relation to her placement, that is, that it was because the mother was said to be suffering from post-natal depression that Child D went to live with her paternal grandparents, when she was only 3 weeks of age, I do not believe that post-natal depression as such has, in fact, been supported by any medical diagnosis.
4. In any event, all four children who are the subject of these proceedings have complex emotional and behavioural needs. Child A has suffered complex and chronic constipation and bowel problems from the age of 3. Child C currently has a diagnosis of ADHD, although more recently there has been some doubt in relation to this, but he does have global developmental delay. Child E, too, has global developmental delay and had started to exhibit toileting problems also. Only Child B in this family appears to have emerged unscathed from any diagnosable syndromes or behavioural complexities.
5. Although the mother apparently had considered that to be only a temporary respite arrangement, as it were, to allow her to recover from the birth of Child D and to deal with the already challenging care of Child C and the other children, Child D never returned to the family home. The weeks turned into months and the little girl was said to be settled, although the mother did evince some wish at times to regain her care. The other children seemed to have some understandable confusion about their sibling relationship with Child D and why she lives with their grandparents.
6. In October 2012 private law proceedings relating to Child D culminated eventually in a Special Guardianship Order being granted to the paternal grandfather, who is now 52, and the paternal step-grandmother, nearly 50, an earlier Residence Order having been in their favour made on 13^th June 2012. I may in fact have been the Judge making the Special Guardianship Order, I am now not too sure.
7. The paternal grandparents also have their own children: Child F, now 18 (19 this month), and a younger son, Child G, who is 8½, so very close in age to Child D. They each have two other children from previous relationships. In his evidence the paternal grandfather reminded the Court that his wife was already pregnant with Child G at the time that Child D joined them and at that stage they did not need or want another child to deal with as well as their own new baby. The mother has regular contact with Child D, as do the siblings.
8. The whole issue had been subjected to a very thorough assessment by the well-respected Independent Social Worker, Amanda Barden, in October of that year. She had no hesitation in recommending the granting of a Special Guardianship Order to the paternal grandparents. The mother had said to her, "She (Child D) got settled and they love her. I was in full agreement". Ms. Barden reflected in her report that the paternal grandparents presented as friendly and caring people who clearly have the ability to relate and to interact with others of all ages. They had cooperated well with the assessment and had been willing to discuss their lives with an honest approach. They had been open about the difficulties that they had experienced in their lives. She found them to be an inclusive family. She also said this:

"[The paternal grandparents] do provide a good deal of support to The father and The mother in their care of the children. [The paternal grandfather] had also advocated on their behalf with professionals who have contact with the family. He has supported [the father] and [the mother] in understanding [Child C]'s, complex needs and challenging behaviour. There was some concern by children's Social Services that [the paternal grandfather] may take control in situations rather than enabling [the father] and [the mother] to make changes.

[The paternal grandfather] explained to me he has stepped in when The father has felt isolated and unable to articulate his opinions to professionals, particularly concerning [Child C]. [The paternal grandfather] has reflected upon this, and although he remains passionate about his views, he tries to sit back. The support he offers is information and advice and practical help, and to ensure that the families have regular contact which can be respite for [the mother] and [the father].

[The paternal grandparents] intend to be involved in the Family Group Conference arranged for 9^th October 2012 and their offer of support. They are an essential support to both [the father] and [the mother]. [the paternal grandparents] can relate to people of varying ages and can adjust their interactions accordingly. It is evident when they started the process of applying for the SGO, they spoke with [Child D's] school and told them about the application. This demonstrates good liaison with professionals and in [Child D's] best interests. They had a wide and robust support network which was also evidenced by the referees interviewed and within their local area, including their family."

9. Much of the Local Authority's slant in this case has been an ongoing negative feeling about the paternal side of the family manipulating and controlling the mother, and wielding perhaps too much power over her and the children's lives. The difficulty about all of that became apparent when considering the mother's case and her evidence, and appreciating the limits of her abilities, and the sad fact that she has had simply no one else to rely on at all. In essence, the father's family have filled a real vacuum in her life providing emotional, practical and financial support. She has willingly invited them in to do so, as I find but, as an understandable part of human nature, perhaps wishes that that had not been necessary throughout these years.
10. For completeness, I record here that Mrs N who is now the father's partner, although they do not currently cohabit full time, has her own daughter, Child H, now aged 7 or 8 by her estranged husband, and there are private law proceedings concerning that child. She and the father have also had the very sad still birth of their own son, Child I, in November 2012.

Chronology of the Local Authority input

11. Social Services involvement had occurred briefly in April 2002 when there was an anonymous referral that Child A had bruising on her face and a cut lip, and that the young parents went out leaving the baby, who would then have only been some 3 months of age, with anyone who would have her. The mother alleged at the time that the father was violent to her and lost his temper when the baby cried and had thrown the baby to the floor. Nothing actually came of that at all and all was quiet until September 2007 when a further anonymous referral expressed concern that the children's basic care needs were not being met, and that they presented as unkempt and dirty and were being neglected. It was said that they had constant head lice and were being shouted at by their mother. Child A's poor school attendance was also raised.
12. In March 2009 Child A had said at school that her father had hit her in the mouth. The mother stated during a joint Police and social worker visit to the school that her husband was aggressive to her and referred to a previous arrest of him, an untrue statement which she later withdrew.
13. There were then a series of incidents in late 2011. The event that precipitated this application and ongoing Social Services involvement occurred at about 10 p.m. on 28^th January 2012. A domestic abuse referral was received from the Police and the hospital after the mother attended at hospital with facial bruising and concussion diagnosed, allegedly caused by her husband. I will deal more fully with that incident later on in this Judgment. Child A had witnessed some of the event or its aftermath.
14. At that time the parents were still living together, albeit under some tension, the mother fearing in November 2011 that her husband was seeking women on the internet or having an affair. Her concerns, in fact, were justified as the father had indeed met Mrs N in that way in late 2011. The mother subsequently withdrew the complaint against her husband and would not cooperate with any Police investigation, as had been her similar behaviour in the past on occasion.
15. A week later on 5^th February 2012 the mother had walked out saying that she did not care about her husband or the children. There had been an argument apparently because the mother had discovered the father had been using a chat room. Ultimately, and there was a discussion at a bus station about which the Court does not need to go into any detail at all, she went to stay at the paternal grandparents' home to "defuse the situation", as it was put, really having nowhere else to go. The father, earlier in that event, had himself threatened to leave.
16. The parents were said to have been reconciled with all issues between them resolved and back together again on 8^th February. That was a report given to the school and others. The father reported to the social worker that all was fine but he, in fact, left finally on 14^th February, Child B's birthday very sadly, and bizarrely exited by a window, as some of the children seem to have witnessed.
17. The mother made it very plain at a meeting at the school on 10^th February that year that she did not wish to move into a refuge with the children to get away from the situation. She also made it plain that she actually did want her relationship with the father to continue, and did not think that she could cope with Child C's behaviour on her own.
18. The father was said to be staying with a family friend. He stated to the social worker on 2^nd March 2012 that he could not make up his mind whether or not to return to the family home, so there was that vacillation in him. He was living partly with Mrs N, sometimes at his parents' home (he having viewed the paternal step-grandmother as his mother from the age of 6), sometimes in his car, and latterly also at a room in another property that he rented later on after bail conditions were imposed upon him. He told the Court in his oral evidence that he still has that room and receives State Benefits accordingly.
19. He told the Court he has never worked, bar (I read) some helping of his father in an off licence business that the paternal grandfather seems to have had at some time. He therefore has always been at home full time co-parenting for the first few years of all these children's lives.
20. There was an Initial Child Protection Conference on 14^th March 2012 where upon the children were made subject to child protection plans under the categories of neglect and emotional abuse. It had been noted that the mother, then on her own with these four very challenging children, required a high level of support. This was offered to her with varying degrees of uptake and success.

Developments

21. As more became known and understood about the family, it became apparent that there were issues of significant long-term neglect, and possible physical and emotional abuse which had caused the children real harm and was impacting on their respective developments. A Review Child Protection Conference held on 10^th July that year (so five months or so after the parents had separated) disclosed heightened concerns about the children's wellbeing and the lack of any positive changes on behalf of the parents to improve matters for their family.
22. March 2012 produced a written agreement with Mrs N that The father would not visit her home or have contact with her daughter, Child H. In August 2012 Lorraine Heptinstall had undertaken a core assessment in relation to Child Hand that was prompted by a call from Mr. N, Child H's father, after Child H had told him that The father had been sleeping in the house for the past few nights. Mr. N said that he believed that The father should not be having any contact with children due to allegations made against him.
23. Accordingly and eventually the pre-proceedings procedure was instigated. The Initial Pre-Proceedings Meeting was held on 13^th July with care proceedings then being issued formally on 20^th August 2013, that therefore being the relevant date here. Initially the children were left at home in the mother's care but she was really struggling to meet all their complex and demanding needs.
24. On Tuesday 3^rd December 2013 the father had kicked down the toilet door and allegedly smacked Child A hard when she had refused to go to school and would not be persuaded out of the toilet by her father. That refusal of Child A to go to school has been a real strand in this case and the mother seemingly very much encouraging that.
25. Ultimately all four children were removed from the family home on 12^th December 2013 and placed initially in three different emergency foster care placements under a s.20 arrangement, Child B and Child A being placed together. The upshot of that was that the children had been in the sole care of their mother, who has her own major learning and other difficulties, for a period of some 19 months or more, and were privy to all that she felt, experienced and expressed to them. Moreover, as recently as 2^nd June this year, even with close supervision at contact, she has been witnessed undermining particularly Child A and Child B's placement, and again very much feeding them her own views.
26. There were then disclosures made to, and behaviours observed in the older children by, the respective foster carers and social workers, particularly in relation to Child C in January. However there was then a real delay by the Police in arranging and conducting ABE recorded interviews of the children's allegations. Child C, having made those comments in January, was not interviewed until 9^th April. Child A and Child B were both interviewed on 22^nd March, and Child A then for a second time on 23^rd April, when they had made their own allegations back in February. The Court is highly critical of that unhelpful delay by Kent Police which was not child-focused in any shape or form.
27. As a result of what was said by Child C, the grandfather was arrested on 10^th April of this year for an offence of rape. He gave a no comment interview on legal advice and a prepared statement was read into the record on his behalf. The father too was arrested and interviewed under caution. His response at that time was that these things had been said out of revenge to get back at him for leaving the family. The children were emotionally affected which had triggered these allegations. Child C had picked up the word "shagging" from school or elsewhere,

he believed. Both he and Mrs. N state that the allegations concerning them are unreliable, untruthful and contaminated.

28. At the start of this trial the Court was very concerned that the parallel criminal investigation unhelpfully seemed to have been kicked into the long grass with no decision as to charge at all. The men at that stage had been bailed until the 22^nd September this year with, as stated, no charge at all or any proper review of the evidence, which the officer said in her oral evidence to this Court was planned at some stage. In fact, once Detective Constable Diprose had given her oral evidence in this case and been cross-examined about the over-involvement of the very experienced Intermediary, Ruth Marchant, during the two lengthy interviews of Child C (not in accordance with the Guidance about such interviews of vulnerable children), and once she had watched the ABE interviews herself, a decision was rapidly taken by her superiors that the criminal proceedings were to be concluded with a "no further action" decision.
29. The bail conditions and worry about what had gone on has had serious repercussions not only in Mrs N's household (Child H going to live with her father away from her mother's daily care) but the paternal grandfather having to, as he put it, "sofa-surf with friends" and sleep in his car on occasion because of the presence of Child D and Child G in his own home. Accordingly the lives of seven children in all have been severely affected.
30. The case has had to be heard, most unhelpfully, stressfully and expensively in two lengthy tranches of 13 days, then a break for the advocates' and parties' summer holidays, and then a further nine days. The Court had hoped for, and indeed had strongly urged upon Mr. Tucker for the Local Authority, a review of the Local Authority's stance during the summer break, some of the evidence having been heard, and a decision to be taken at management level about the appropriateness of going forward with all the allegations, some of which seemed by then to be unsustainable on the evidence adduced. That was particularly because of the very defensive and unhelpful attitude adopted by the social worker having conduct of the case, Miss Yvonne Kapungu, when giving her oral evidence at times, and when being challenged about her approach to the case. In fact, so distressed did she become under pressure at points that certainly one whole day, and I think other time also, was lost too.
31. There was then an application upon resumption of the hearing that a member of the Local Authority's management team should be present for the remainder of her evidence. I refused that application wanting Miss Kapungu to be able to focus wholeheartedly on answering all the remaining questions honestly, fully and accurately to assist the Court in its task, rather than her gauging the impact of her answers on her superiors who might face the prospect of civil proceedings, for example, for falling below the standard of care expected by a Local Authority in such a case, or in relation to any potential disciplinary proceedings.

Social Worker's Approach and Evidence

32. Miss Kapungu had become employed by the Local Authority only one month before she was allocated this very far from easy case, and had only graduated with a social work degree in 2010. It gives the Court no pleasure whatsoever to have to conclude that significant criticism must be levelled at the Local Authority for its preparation of this case, for a lack of critical analysis in that preparation and at its social worker for her misconceived, flawed and unsafe approach at times, sometimes bordering on deliberate dishonesty, and some defiant intransigence, unhelpfully, in response to questions.
33. At first I am bound to say I considered that there might be a lack of actual comprehensibility or understanding in her. She is, I think, American in origin and may well not have received any secondary or her first tertiary education in this country. I was simply not clear and to be fair did not venture to ask, not wanting to personalise the matter overmuch. However, in her oral evidence over many, many hours in the witness box she failed to see the need for crisp yes or no, black and white responses to questions perfectly properly put by Counsel, both to assist the parties in the understanding of the case against them, and also the Court in this difficult exercise. She tended to go off into what were reveries or speeches of her own on occasion, not pinned down to the question actually put.
34. It became abundantly plain that although initially she asserted that she had read some of the documents, including the father's first witness statement, and sought to answer questions as if she had, she then retrenched and accepted that she had not. She appeared not to be cognisant of truthfulness as to whether an account by the mother or by Child A could actually be true. For example, Child A had maintained that she had run from her own home to her paternal grandparents on occasion wanting to complain about her father's treatment of her when that simply could not have been factually true, full stop. It could not have occurred and Miss Kapungu would have known that from visiting the two properties. She had that advantage over and above the Court.
35. Having asked to reflect upon all of this, she then gave a most unhelpful answer, "I can only report what her truth was". She manifestly did not help the Court or properly scrutinise the case put by the Local Authority in its many copious bundles and miscellaneous allegations, which had not been properly adumbrated and focused, even at the complete conclusion of evidence and closing submissions. All of this displayed enormously worrying and dangerous confusion.
36. In relation to both the complex mother and Child A, Miss Kapungu told the Court that she accepted they were telling the truth at the time about domestic violence and oppression by the father and his family in the case of the mother, and allegations of violence by the father from Child A. She did so by relying on her wholly misconceived reading of the mother's body language, and Child A's too at times. She told the Court the mother was sobbing and trembling and saying repeatedly that she was scared, very scared of the father and his family. Miss Kapungu said that during her last conversation with the mother in June of this year the mother still remained fearful of the paternal family and Miss Kapungu believed that, saying that she had nothing else at all to suggest otherwise, whilst also acknowledging that she did not make any further enquiries of the paternal family at all.
37. Eventually she said in cross-examination by Mr. Chippeck, "Yes, I possibly would have approached things rather differently if I knew then what I know now". She accepted in cross-examination by Mr. Doman for Mrs. N that her colleague and her predecessor, Krista Martin, had informed her that the mother had a tendency to make allegations that were then not followed through. However the first time that Miss Kapungu had gone through the Police records in any detail was when Mr. Chippeck had to put them to her in cross-examination during the trial. She accepted now that she should have been alive to a potential pattern of deceit in the mother and the Police not taking any action in the past about arguably false allegations at times.
38. In essence, Miss Kapungu did not get it, if I may use that colloquialism. She could better have prepared herself both to give evidence and to deal with the case and the family dynamics overall. She was asked about the very friendly, affectionate texts between the mother and the paternal grandfather during the currency of these proceedings, and said that she had heard about these from a colleague, Deirdre Baker, but had not seen the contents. The mother had said in some of those texts to the paternal grandfather, "I really do feel for you, I do hope things will work out for you in the end". These are hardly the texts of a woman with a real grievance and fear of the paternal family.
39. When Miss Kapungu was faced with what Dr. Leslie French had said about the sheer inadvisability of relying on body language, Miss Kapungu denied she had a clear agenda or closed, settled mind, and did not have a truly open mind about the father's family being violent and about feeling that the father was a liar and the paternal family being controlling. She said, "They [the paternal family] could have seen it that way". Ultimately Miss Kapungu said that she would stick with her 3^rd February this year statement that the father had been unable to see the cause of concern in relation to the domestic abuse and the nature of the relationship that he had with The mother. He continued to state that all the actions he took in relation to his children were in their best interests.
40. It is disappointing to have to say that I found much of Miss Kapungu's approach to the case very glib and cavalier. While she denied that she had decided the father was a liar and said she would not give him that label, she had proceeded on the erroneous assumption that all that The mother said was true about fearing him and about being manipulated and silenced by the paternal side of the family. She accepted that there had been no significant discussion with the paternal step-grandmother at all who was, in fact, said to have actually watched some of the alleged sexual abuse of Child C. She said, "Well, thinking about it now, yes, I can agree that was an omission". There was no other evidence that she could think of now in the witness box in relation to Child F or Mr NL, about whom Child C had also commented in relation to sexual matters, to discount them. She denied that the Local Authority had cherry picked possible perpetrators and let others off, possibly leaving therefore paedophiles in the community.
41. There was also the worrying thing of "not prioritising", was the words she used repeatedly, some contact for Mr and Mrs M (paternal uncle and his wife) as they had disagreed with the assessment of them which had recommended only one child, and not two, being placed with them potentially in the future. That barring of the door to them, in essence, had wholly failed to take into account that the children thereby had been denied contact for many, many months with extended family members which might have assisted their wellbeing and also their settling in in foster care. Miss Kapungu actually had to be counselled in a café by the Guardian during the days of the hearing about the need from the children's welfare point of view to see both their full-sibling, Child D, and Child G, their uncle, as well as the Mr and Mrs M. All of that had got rather lost in the plot in the children being settled in their placement for many, many months and the Mr and Mrs M being side-lined, as I find they have been. It was not that it had not been prioritised, it had never happened at all.
42. There was also the issue of the children receiving such a "plethora" of Christmas presents, to use Miss Kapungu's words, that some of them were not passed on contemporaneously leading the children to be left feeling that some of their relatives had simply ignored them now that they were in care. A thought process was missing here about the children's feelings and their sense of attachment to the family, and they were left feeling really bereft at times about all of this.
43. I found it startling and worrying during her very lengthy cross-examination that Miss Kapungu plainly had not read all the documents and all the hospital records that Counsel and the Court had had to plough and plod through laboriously for many, many hours in their respective preparation for this case. I have dealt already with the fact that she admitted ultimately not having read the father's first witness statement and yet, of course, had read the second which referred to the first statement in turn. That disadvantaged her as she failed to take into account his views about the care plans for his children.
44. It became clear Miss Kapungu had not read Amanda Barden's Special Guardianship Report either from which I have deliberately quoted quite extensively. That was an important piece of material, it seemed to me, which very much put things into sharp context, nor had she read the S section encompassing the school's causes for concern records and so on and so forth. While these materials were on the system, as she ultimately admitted, she had not had time or taken the opportunity to read them and had formulated the care plans taking into account the experts' evidence. Therefore time had to be taken up for her to do some catching up to read all the materials, again haemorrhaging Court time. As a result the proper timetable and attendance of other witnesses on public funds had to be revamped, not in keeping at all with the Court's overriding objective.
45. Miss Kapungu also accepted not having read the Police documents which meant she had denied herself the important opportunity to carry out some basic investigation to establish whether what the mother was saying was the truth. She baldly proceeded on the assumption that there had been a lot of violence in the marriage and many Police visits about domestic violence to the family's home address. In fact, I saw in several of the ongoing case conference records that there is an assertion that there has been domestic violence and I think Miss Kapungu inherited that rather sloppy thinking.
46. In several years there have actually been only three contacts with the Police. One of those was in September 2011 when both parents admitted arguing with each other when a neighbour had called the Police having heard some form of disturbance and possibly someone being hit. The father had been arrested on that occasion and gave a "no comment" interview, while the mother seemingly failed to act when given information about a domestic violence liaison officer being appointed. No further action was taken at all in relation to that matter due to insufficient evidence. The paternal grandfather was only later told about this episode by his son, and was not involved on that day at all.
47. Mr and Mrs M, understandably, were very distressed when they were suddenly told by Miss Kapungu that there had been a lot of domestic abuse in the parents' household because they had not known about that themselves. Miss Kapungu also found it difficult to accept that the foster carer of Child C had given unchallenged evidence to the Court that she was simply not given enough information that clearly was needed if she was best able to help Child C with his challenging needs. Miss Kapungu agreed that it was not a lengthy discussion - less than an hour - and she had given the foster carer just a brief overview of what she knew of Child C at that time, that he had ADHD. That plainly was not sufficient preparatory work to place such a troubled young boy with Child C's particularly complex needs and behaviour, while the Court, I hope fairly, fully acknowledges that the Local Authority was suddenly faced with having to place four children, three of them with challenging behaviours, at short notice. A second foster care placement proved disastrous and poor Child C had to be moved yet again to a more formal, non-family, setting.
48. While there was eventually some rather grudging acceptance by Miss Kapungu of some of the stinging, as it was, criticism of her and her approach to the case, the final issue of contact notes left the Court quite aghast. Parties had been pushing for a complete set of the logs through the early parts of the hearing and onwards, and the Court had had to make several interim Orders about those issues, becoming quite exasperated about this issue and making it plain that they simply must be sought and provided. It eventually transpired that some of the December contact actually had been supervised by Miss Kapungu herself and the missing notes were hers. She said about this, "It completely slipped my mind".
49. All of that seemed most obstructive and bizarre when Miss Kapungu had sat in Court throughout and knew just how many times the Local Authority had been asked to pursue tenaciously with the contact supervisors the outstanding logs. Mr. Tucker frankly had been left struggling in the face of the Court's criticism. Yet, Miss Kapungu was sitting on some of those notes herself which became available piecemeal many days into the hearing, I think it was on day 13 or 15. It is quite extraordinary for the Court to have to state that. About this she finally relented saying:

"I have no excuse. It was a mistake on my part. I clearly have not done enough searching back at the office. At the time my mind was all over the place. It just didn't come to my mind at the time. I was focusing on other aspects, it did not come to my mind."

50. It is suggested that that omission could have been purposeful as these notes demonstrated positive contact with the father, and really could not have been overlooked fairly given the Court's determined and reiterated requirement for those notes to be produced. Bad practice at the lowest has occurred here wholesale as I find.
51. I was concerned also that when Child A had said she was scared to go back to the foster carer, and the mother had referred to this, Miss Kapungu said to Child A that should she carry on with her complaint against the foster carer (that was of allegedly being hurt by the foster carer) she could be split from her brother as Miss Kapungu could not guarantee that Child B and she could be placed together. That was, it seems to me, a far too adult approach to a disturbed child who had been manipulated and destabilised by her mother enough that day already. It could have been dealt with in a much more child-friendly sensitive way.
52. Miss Kapungu began to accept that there were failings in her approach to the case, but she denied saying to the paternal grandfather when he asked what he was supposed to do about Child D and contact with her siblings, that Child D was not her concern it was up to him. She said she would not have used the term, "I don't care"; that was not professional. She would have commented only that Child D and Child G were not her priority at the present time, the priority was to settle the four children (A, B, C and E) in care and provide a routine for them. It is the case though, and I have referred to the Mr and Mrs M already, that many months down the line there has not been that important familial contact.
53. Miss Kapungu seemed to fail to grasp that she was there representing the body corporate, the Local Authority, and needed to accept responsibility for errors made by the Local Authority and her own errors also. While there was some concern about some of the statements Child A had made, including her father hitting her on the arm and back on 1^st January this year when the foster carer and Miss Kapungu were present, and it was obviously therefore a made up story, Miss Kapungu said it was not clear why Child A said certain things and what had brought her to this position. She said she was trying to get someone with a mental health background or CAMHS to understand why Child A was saying these things about people in her family network, but the mental health service have taken a very long time to respond and, in fact, it had offered an appointment next week, that was, during the hearing.
54. Her analysis now though was that Child A was indeed being manipulated by her mother. She had come more recently to that view before Child A had said, "I want what mum wants, the way mum feels, I feel" and had sent that email to the Local Authority's legal department about that.
55. The trouble was that nobody at contact could pre-empt what the mother said, once it was out of the mouth that was it. She said the Local Authority did believe Child A's allegations about Mrs N and asked the Court therefore to make those findings sought against Mrs. N. The Local Authority relies on Child A in some respects, she said, but not others, but does rely on her ABE interview.
56. While the Court, again, reflects fairly, I hope, that this was an enormously difficult and complex task for Miss Kapungu to inherit at the very start of her career with this Local Authority, she has not served the Local Authority, the family, the Court or the search for truth well at times, and caused the whole case to be more prolix and challenging than it needed to have been. Sadly she had reduced her own integrity and credibility as a professional who needs to be trusted and reliable, and the validity therefore of some of her evidence thereby too has been reduced. That failure to analyse critically and fairly meant that the Local Authority's policy and tactical decisions already had been taken and the case was set on a particular course. Moreover, the abject refusal of the managers to allow and to instruct Mr. Tucker to try to bring some sense and proportion to the Final Threshold document, before finally five other advocates had to prepare their detailed closing writing submissions at the very end of the case, has further hindered the final stages of the case.
57. I had deprecated on day two of the hearing the old fashioned and unruly way in which the bundles had been prepared with indiscriminate photocopying of every page, often duplicated, particularly in relation to the very substantial medical reports. Just as the raft of medical reports, nearly three bundles in all, have simply been thrown at the Court for it to trawl through in addition to an extra 1,000 or so pages of documents during the hearing, so were all these bundled up allegations left at the Court door for it to try to do the best it can without any real further analysis at all about what could be sustained and pinned down regarding threshold, the matters having been ventilated so fully in the hearing.
58. There could and should have been more forensic analysis to assist the parties and the Court. That is simply not a proper way to conduct such a case, although I make it plain that no criticism attaches to Mr. Tucker who has been fair, hardworking and steadfastly conscientious throughout, never losing sight of the sensitivities in this case in which he really should have had more professional support from the faceless management which dictated his approach. I hope never again to have to make such extraordinary trenchant comments about a Local Authority or about a social worker, and I bear in mind that resources are stretched very tightly indeed.
59. The "fudging", as I called it, of the sexual allegations originally set out in s.3 of the threshold document I dealt with in a separate extempore ruling on 24^th September which should be read alongside this Judgment. Only on the morning of the day set aside to hear the oral submissions was a concession made finally that those sexual abuse allegations could not be sustained. That was particularly after DC Diprose's concession. There was then a last ditch attempt to try to revamp them and keep them in somehow. That did not serve justice and did the Local Authority no credit whatsoever. The Court is aware from what Mr. Tucker has said that management are considering this case as very much a learning, a could do and must do better, tool in case management and preparation of these taxing sort of cases in the future.

The Law and the Court's Approach

60. All the evidence here has been subjected to critical scrutiny over many, many days to reach decisions as to whether the Local Authority has made out its case to the appropriate standard of proof. I remind myself that the starting point is the threshold test as set out in s.31(2) of the 1989 Children Act. That provides that a Court may only make a care or other order if it is satisfied that the children concerned are suffering, or are likely to suffer, significant harm which is attributable to the care given to them, or likely to be given to them, if the order was not made, that care not being what it would be reasonable to expect parents to give to them. Each case, of course, is fact specific.
61. The threshold test is there to provide protection for children and also protection for the parents from unjustified intervention in their lives by the State, contrary to their Article 8 rights. As was said in the recent case of Re S [2014] EWCA Civ.25 para.21:

"The threshold is not concerned with intent or blame; it is concerned with whether the objective standard of care … has not been provided."

62. Re G (Care Proceedings) [2001] 2 FLR established that the Local Authority is also entitled to rely on events occurring since the relevant date, therefore since August 2013 here, which are capable of proving the state of affairs at the date of that intervention.
63. The burden of proving the allegations and the facts required to establish that criteria rests, and remains on throughout, the Local Authority which brings this case. There is no burden or obligation whatsoever which switches or reverses to the Respondents to come up with alternative explanations. That was so held in Lancashire County Council v D and E [2010] 2 FLR 196, and was confirmed very recently also in Re M [2013] 2 FLR 874. It is well established law that the standard of proof required of a Local Authority is the usual civil one, the simple balance of probabilities, neither more nor less, as Baroness Hale stated in the case of Re B (A Child) [2009] UKSC 5. The case of Re S-B (Children) [2009] UKSC 17 confirmed that the test for identifying any perpetrator is, again, the simple balance of probabilities.
64. Lord Hoffman observed in Re B:

"If a legal rule requires facts to be proved, a judge must decide whether or not it happened. There is no room for a finding that it might have happened. The law operates a binary system in which the only values are 0 and 1."

65. I remind myself also, as stated by Munby J (as he then was) in Re A (A child) (Fact finding: Speculation) [2011] EWCA Civ.12, that:

"It is an elementary proposition that findings of fact must be based on evidence including inferences that can properly be drawn from the evidence and not on suspicion or speculation."

66. So the Court does not proceed on vague or mere suspicions or by indulging in unsubstantiated or unfounded assumptions about what evidence there might have been, no party requires the Court to do that. The Court's task is to evaluate the facts and it has regard to the relevance of each piece of evidence to the other evidence. It exercises that overview on the totality of the written and oral evidence that it has received and all the circumstances.
67. I also remind myself that I, and I alone, have had the huge and unique advantage of seeing all the parties and all the witnesses in Court during the lengthy days of hearing. I have been able to gauge their demeanour, their affect, their credibility, their veracity, reliability and honesty during not only the time when they have been in the witness box but generally in the Court too. The importance of that global picture was recognised by Coleridge J in B v Torbay Council [2007] 1 FLR 203.
68. The characters and personalities of the parents and the other parties here, and the impression they made on me, are important components to the evaluation of the primary facts. These children deserve and need to understand in the future, as it is appropriate, why they have had to be removed from the care of their family. Therefore each of the parties needed to deal with their evidence with absolute candour and frankness. As was said in Re K (Adoption: Freeing order) [2004] 3 FCR 123,

"It is the public interest that children have the right as they grow into adulthood to know the truth [that was in relation to who injured them when they were children and why]. This is a heavy burden for any child to bear. Children need to know the truth if that can be ascertained."

69. I have regard also to the guidance given to juries in criminal matters in the Lucas direction that people may lie for all sorts of reasons. They may do so out of guilt, fear or shame, perhaps to go back on a previous story, or out of a desire to protect one another or to implicate or indeed exculpate another out of misplaced loyalty perhaps, or to support a genuine explanation. Just because a person is lying or telling the truth about one matter does not mean that he or she is necessarily lying or telling the truth about another matter.

Threshold

70. I have had the opportunity of reviewing the cumulative evidence here very thoroughly indeed, and there is a considerable amount of it. I remind myself that it is not necessary at all for the Court to have to make findings on every tiny point that has been raised in the evidence, and there have been very many points here, only enough so that the Court finds sufficient matters proven to the requisite standard to establish threshold. If reliable evidence is not available to support an allegation being true then, on that binary approach just referred to, the Court is bound to find the matter not proven.
71. I am not going to, and do not need to, review every individual item of evidence over the very many days of the Court hearing and contained in those 14 trial bundles. That is unnecessary and disproportionate, and many of the allegations are overlapping and repetitive and refer to the same factual evidence. Rather unhelpfully there has been no attempt by the Local Authority to rationalise or refine the 16 separate subheads under the overarching two heads that are left of neglect and emotional harm and physical harm.
72. The mother has conceded that threshold is met. The father too made helpful concessions during his evidence. He accepts that hearing their parents arguing and the Police turning up on occasion is not right for any child to witness, and he accepted that both Child B and Child A were harmed in that way and he has apologised for that. He accepted that they were caused to suffer emotional harm when the children were exposed to heated verbal arguments in which bad language admittedly was used by the parents.
73. Towards the end of 2011 when the parental relationship had broken down and the parents were not sharing the same bed, the father accepts they were arguing a lot. It is acknowledged by him that the inevitable pressures in the household by reason of those relationship issues would have led to the children suffering emotional harm. Fourthly, he accepts that the heated argument which led to the "clash of heads", as he calls it, and the attendance of the Police would have caused the children to suffer emotional harm.
74. In relation to head one of neglect and emotional harm which restates the threshold criteria:

(a) The parents being unable to meet the needs of the children as individuals emotionally and physically

The Court accepts entirely Krista Martin's evidence in relation to this. There was the collusive behaviour about failing to take Child A to hospital on 3^rd April 2013, this being inconvenient for the parents and/or the mother not having enough money. Child A was said by Child B to be even whiter than the walls on that day. She was doubling over and had assumed a foetal position on the floor and she was seen to be rocking to and fro. Ms. Martin noted that the dosage of laxatives had changed when the child was actually seen by Dr. Patey which meant that she would have been taking too many laxatives if she had not been reviewed. The father had stated he had been informed that Dr. Patey was not in the hospital that week, countermanding Ms. Martin's clear assertion that he was and was willing and available to see Child A who needed to be seen. She was not seen, in fact, until the following day. It was unhelpful and not child-focused by either parent.

75. The Court accepts that it was a concern that neither parent chose to take advantage of seeking medical advice for Child A that day when she was clearly highly uncomfortable and unwell. While the father was able to say in his oral evidence:

"Well, I had left the family home by then. I did not have day to day custody, and I would always offer the children breakfast and give any medications necessary both to Child C and Child A when they were with me, and we were potty training Child E before I left but the mother was not consistent and would put a nappy on her if she had an accident".

76. He was living at home and he was co-parenting for the first several years of each child's life. Child A's toileting problems went right back to 3 years of age or so. The father said in oral evidence that the Health Visitor had told them that she would grow out of it. Ms. Martin considered that neither parent had managed this effectively, and as early as November 2009 Child A had had to be admitted to hospital and to be manually evacuated due to the severity of constipation. That was not the only occasion when that had had to happen. Dr. Patey had opined as follows:

"The main reason for not making progress is due to the fact that her family do not seem to support her adequately in terms of ensuring she is eating, drinking and taking laxatives appropriately, becoming stuck in this problem, not making progress as the family do not seem to take up ownership of the problem."

77. Although there were two appointments with Dr. Nina Marvan, the Senior Clinical Psychologist at Canada House in February and March 2013 to try to begin to analyse the reasons for Child A's deep-rooted and perpetuating bowel problems (at one of which unhelpfully all four children were brought by the mother), I am aware that there has been no thorough, expert psychological opinion provided at all about this ongoing difficulty.
78. Dr. Marvin assessed that Child A and Child B are vigilant about their mother's wellbeing, correctly in my view. She considered that while there was uncertainty about Child A's future care, it was unlikely that any therapeutic input about the toilet phobia would be of benefit while Child A was, as yet, unsettled. Consequently I think that it would be invidious and unfair to attribute Child A's soiling and a lack of desire to get better, as she has expressed, to either parent's failure to care for her properly. It is highly significant that in mid-September the Court was informed that actually the same problem has prevailed in the foster carer's home too, and Child A had had to be hospitalised recently yet again.
79. Dr. Leslie French had commented that there is generally a significant contribution of psycho-social circumstances to the management of diet and fluid intake which is a key part of treatment and management. Weekly hospital attendances, as she said, are at best disruptive for Child A and in fact may represent a way in which Child A, who has low self-esteem, seeks attention and care. Accordingly, while there is enormous suspicion and speculation in relation to that, I am not prepared to make a finding in relation to the toileting issue as against the parents.
80. The mother's complete abdication of responsibility of dealing with the "dirty job", as The father called it, of helping to clean up Child A after she has leaked, or sat and soiled yet again, had the inevitable outcome that The father has had to clean his growing daughter at times. He accepted in his evidence he was using wet wipes to wipe her when she was quite content to sit in her own excrement and smelling and leaving herself open to sore skin and possibly infections. The Local Authority made it very clear, as did the Court, that it was not being asserted at all that the father had gained any sexual gratification from helping Child A to shower or when cleaning her, that has never been part of the case. However Child A, in a letter written once she was in foster carer, said that she found it inappropriate and uncomfortable for her father to do so at her now age of 12+.
81. She had said to a teaching assistant at school that she does not wish to get better. When Ms. Martin discussed this with the mother, the mother' response was one of surprise, stating, "[Child A] says that all the time at home, everyone in the family knows about it". Ms. Martin felt this to be worrying as it indicated to her that the mother does not see her children's wellbeing and physical and emotional health as important. Ms. Martin's opinion was that the mother's own neglectful upbringing means that she has never experienced parenting which was responsive and intuitive to the changing needs of a child. Therefore, she simply did not have the insight or capacity to meet her children's emotional needs in a satisfactory manner. There are volumes of examples which highlight that which I will deal with later on in this Judgment.
82. The mother had a completely wretched start to her own life and presents as a rather bereft, down-trodden woman who becomes easily confused. She was very nervous in the witness box and matters had to go very carefully, she having what was described as a panic attack at times. The Court appreciates that it is always an ordeal to sit there having everybody looking at you when giving evidence.
83. Soon after she was born she was admitted back to hospital twice for sickness and feeding difficulties but neither parent, who already had another daughter born the previous year, came to visit the mother or to pick her up, so her discharge was delayed. Her parents rapidly separated. She spent some time in care and was then placed with her father. There were ongoing concerns about her father's ability to safeguard her with numerous allegations made of sexual assault from individuals and also from groups of males in the community, including a report by the father himself to the Police of that occurring when his daughter was only 6 and 7 years of age. There was never any charge actually pursued against anyone. Of course it was not up to the mother to pursue evidence as a vulnerable child.
84. The mother had poor school attendance, she was neglected, and she was found to be distressed about her home life in 1995 and her father abused alcohol. In 1996, following several allegations of sexual assault, the mother was placed in Local Authority foster care, her father actually refusing to accommodate her. Two years later when she was only 15 or so, her father was murdered by two men in a most horrific and particularly gruesome way. There was a lot of publicity at the time and both men received life sentences. That may feed into a comment that young Child A had made erroneously about her grandmother which I shall deal with later.
85. The mother had been assessed at that time as having learning needs, her IQ then being the markedly low 55, although more recently it has been assessed by Mike Crimes as 70, so very far from the lowest figure that the Court often deals with in these sorts of cases. Whilst she was assessed at the time by Dr. Elizabeth Tilden as needing urgent therapeutic input, preferably at a specialised community setting, it never transpired. Within two years the mother had met the father and was pregnant with Child A without any intervention whatsoever having been provided for her. Accordingly the mother has no good template of parenting and coping at all.
86. When suddenly left by the father for another women, it was understandable that she would want him back to carry on coping with all the children's demands, particularly Child C's very disturbed behaviour. Ms. Martin stated as follows:

"I strongly believe that [the mother] does not have the insight or capacity to meet her children's emotional needs in a satisfactory manner. I believe that due to her own neglectful upbringing she has never experienced parenting which was responsive and intuitive to the changing needs of a child. She loves her children by the way she physically cares for their immediate needs. I do not believe she is able to emotionally demonstrate the love she has towards them. As a result I believe there are significant gaps in the children's emotional needs and this has been translated into their attachment styles and their inter-sibling relationships.

One home visit on 11^th March 2013 was particularly distressing for me to observe, and illustrates my belief that [the mother] is unable to respond appropriately to her children. During the course of my visit [Child C] was behaving in a manner as out of control. He disobeyed [the mother's] request not to overeat prior to dinner, he spat, shouted and swore at his mother and physically fought with her attempts to place him in a corner of the room for time out. He also urinated on himself and threw objects around the room hitting [Child E]. I do not believe that [the mother] was in control of [Child C] in any respect. Neither [Child A] nor [Child B] intervened nor appeared upset by any of this, and when I later asked them how they felt seeing their brother behave in such a way, neither had a view."

87. While there has been much talk of the mother being manipulated or controlled by the father's family, I accept that she did not like having Social Services being involved in her children's lives, having had them in her own childhood, but she did discuss matters with the paternal grandfather in particular and did look to him for practical support and guidance. The father also said in his evidence that they always checked with the mother what she wanted to say and discussed how they would deal with conferences. While he may have been dismissive on occasion saying the father has "a lot on his plate" which might have excused the father' behaviour at times, the mother had nobody else to rely on whatsoever. It is accepted by the father that he very much dominated the care of Child C who tended to respond to him better than he did with the mother.
88. The mother does now have a relationship with a slightly younger man, Mr P, who is about 29. The children have been disappointed by her choosing to prioritise going to see him at weekends in Essex rather than enjoying the full complement of contact with them. Sadly they have become used to being let down by their mother while loving her dearly. Child A has called her mother an idiot and said, "She just can't be bothered to see us, she'd rather be with her boyfriend". The mother had been asking the father in earlier times after he left to have the children for extra days so that she could spend time with her boyfriend.
89. The paternal grandfather explained to the Court about his Indian family background. They are a very close family, and that they had in fact bought all the necessary things for the father and the mother when they had moved to a new property, and carried out the decorating and so on.
90. The mother was able to speak to social workers and others on her own but she had wished to have the protection and support of the father's elder family around her, and at some of the early meetings and case conferences. Accordingly the Court does not, as a finding of fact, find that the mother was not able to have individual conversations if she wished to do so with social workers.
91. The father is not, as his Counsel rightly acknowledged, everybody's "cup of tea". He is an idiosyncratic man, an old-fashioned sort of person. He has that rigid, concrete thinking. He uses particular phrases almost as a mantra and is not subtle. I do not believe there has been any psychological assessment of him at the present time. I gave up counting, after the first 50 or so, the number of notes that he passed to his Counsel during the hearing. He was forever popping up and down passing instructions or comments to Mr. Chippeck.
92. As a result of some bother about trying to get Child C into what he thought was the right school for him, the father had taken to talking to professionals in a way which Dr. Stathopoulou had railed against at times, and also recording everything to protect himself. He has become very tenacious about how he deals with authority and his own father seems to have supported him in that. He does like to boast in trying to portray himself in a good light, although that has backtracked on occasion, for example, promising on two occasions to bring lasagne to contact and the children being disappointed when that had not materialised.
93. He is a fun man for the children at times, as the Court heard, doing backflips, robot dancing and magic tricks. He has thought things through and he has improved his interaction with the children at contact as the more recent notes indicate.
94. Dr. French had considered that Child C's behaviour would be likely to regress with change, and he has had a lot of change over the last two years or so. Although he exhibited no signs of sexualised behaviour with the first excellent foster carer, Mrs W, with whom he stayed for only 7½ weeks between December and February of this year, that position changed greatly upon his second move to Mrs X where he was motioning sex and saying, "Are you going to shag me?" standing naked in front of a window and often with his hands down his trousers.
95. The school informed Mrs X that Child C had been spitting and biting and stabbing his teacher with a pen, and leaving marks on her hand, and Child C was perturbed about a bearded man coming into his bed. Later on he had expressed fear of his father in his bedroom. He tended to be fearful and subdued when seeing his mother at contact, she disappointing him on those several occasions by not materialising, but then being loud and very different after seeing his father by being noisy and aggravating and making silly noises back at his foster placement.
96. Mr. Q, the master at Child C's School, also gave oral evidence to the Court. He commented about Child C's very specific sexual phrases that he used, not mimicking other children. While Child C had a very limited vocabulary he had made numerous allegations against particular people including staff pushing him out of bed, or putting him into a cupboard, or hitting him, which plainly were not true. He too had those toilet training issues, at 6½ still being in nappies.
97. He presented with many injuries and the Court was taken through the log of those. On occasion he said that daddy had hit him across the face or mummy had scratched him behind the ear. Dealing with that: that occurred on 25^th February 2013. The mother's explanation was that a cat or a kitten had scratched the child. There was a s.47 joint enquiry about that but it remained unsubstantiated due to no clear cause of injury. That really was the case with a lot of the other injuries. On 1^st July 2012 he had used the odd phrase:

"You cowboy fucking wanker, I'm going to punch you really hard and make your ear really ache. I'm going to punch you go to hospital."

98. The next day he said that he had stayed at [the home of one of mother's friends and another female friend] was there, mentioning the word pervert and said mummy says, "Shut up pervert wanker and fuck off". The mother had been instructed by the social worker not to have any contact with this man while caring for the children. Child C had been very upset one day at school on stating that he had seen a pervert, or the pervert, in a car near his school. On another day he had cried so much that he had wet his trousers with his tears, having been told his father would pick him up. Although there has been a suggestion that this reflected fear of his father, it may be more likely to be reflective of his condition, his really uncertain condition at the moment, and/or his upset about a change in personnel, or change in cars, and so on and so forth.
99. There had been an issue about him being very difficult about wearing a seatbelt on the school bus. The father and grandfather were very antagonistic about the school's approach to this which was to require Child C to have a day off the next day and to stay at home to "reflect on his behaviour", which I am bound to say the Court did not find a helpful approach either because it disturbed his usual routine.
100. When the father was still living at home Child C was indulging in extraordinary behaviour at school. On 27^th January 2011 (13 months before the father left) the school recorded that: he had pulled his bum cheeks apart, he had taken poo out of the toilet and had thrown it on the floor. He said his willy was bleeding and was pulling his foreskin right back, and then said his bottom was sore and poked his fingers up his bottom. Later he made rude remarks with his Play-Doh saying, "Look at my willy". He gyrated on the teacher, Mrs. S's, leg and then punched her in the face. Overall the school were left with the belief that it was likely that Child C had been harmed by his family or sexually abused. They had queries about even their unit being a suitable situation for him. He was very much at the upper end of the spectrum of behaviour that they experienced.
101. It is plain that the mother's traumatic background has ill-equipped her to respond emotionally to her children. The parenting and sibling assessment and onwards demonstrates that very limited emotional warmth and care the mother showed to the children, she being a passive and vulnerable individual herself.
102. Very sadly Child B has said that he felt alone all the time and presented to Dr. French as a sad, vulnerable boy. Dr. French's conclusion was that the children had been harmed in the care of their parents, and the Court echoes that conclusion. This does not mean, she found, that the parents have not tried their best or that they do not love their children. Child A consistently reports a frightening and unpredictable environment while Child B, unable to speak clearly about his experiences, has identified his grandparents' home as something of a safe haven for himself.
103. The father has been there in the home for the majority of Child C's life and Ms. Martin said she did not believe at all that Child C's behaviour had suddenly unravelled with the father leaving the home, so the finger points entirely at both parents in relation to neglect and emotional harm of their children.
104. While the father did not fully accept it, Krista Martin was very concerned about the way in which the father would go very close up near the children's faces and shout at them. He had said in his evidence that this was his way of nipping in the bud Child C's "kicking off" and escalating his behaviour, as slipping off the sofa would be a sign that Child C was about to misbehave. The trouble about that explanation was that The father was seen doing much the same to young Child E when she was obviously much younger and smaller and less likely to be troublesome. The father sought to characterise this as putting into action what he had learned at the parenting programme (which, to his credit, he had undertaken) by going down to the child's level, but this was seen as untoward and intimidating by Ms. Martin.
105. The father said that he is more patient now. He divides his time more equally including the other children too and he has worked on that. He now has more empathy and can see things through his children's eyes.
106. Overall I find that those four very damaged and needy children were exposed, at times, to a frightening and unpredictable home environment where the mother had ceded many practical tasks and behavioural control to her husband. When he did tend to belittle her and shout at her rather a lot, she may well have reciprocated by shouting back at times. I find there was a lot of shouting to the children by the father in particular. I find that there was a long, conflictual and unhappy period before the father put his escape strategy, as it were, into place to live with a women with whom he could have a more equal relationship. The children were certainly exposed to smacks on occasion for perceived poor behaviour and when there was that heightened tension at home.
107. The mother and father's sexual relationship seemingly had come to an end although the mother alleged they had slept together at Haven, the caravan park, after the father had actually started up his relationship with Mrs N and was already having a sexual relationship with her. The father had described to Dr. French an overwhelming isolation in the marriage where he had had to take responsibility for everything. I add that the father also attempted to say and make rather belittling comments about his wife outside the school gate certainly on one occasion.
108. In relation to 1(a) the Court finds all the strands in that allegation established.

(b) Showing insight into the children's health needs

109. The mother accepted that it was not appropriate to leave the hospital before Child A's injured arm had been assessed on 8^th July 2013 when she reportedly had rolled off the top bunk bed. The mother plainly also has kept Child A off school on several occasions for spurious reasons, leading to Child A expressing that she does not like school anymore, and prefers to be at home with her mother. That impacts on her learning and her important relationship with her peer group.
110. It is also the case that Child C, at times, has been seen at school as zombified and with glazed eyes by Mr. Q and others. His very extreme behaviours arose partly from his not having breakfast at home causing his slow release medication not being metabolised correctly in the body. Much time was spent by the school nurse, Ms. R , with The mother and Child A looking at how to fill out stool charts and educating them on the importance of Child A using the toilet and taking her medication regularly.
111. However, on 21^st November 2012 Child A was off school with soiling and leaking and had to be admitted to hospital. Her school attendance at that stage was down to 69%. It was felt that there had been no lasting discernible change or improvement in her toileting difficulties. Even when with father and Mrs. N, and perhaps on a healthier regime there, there has still been those occasions when father has had to wash and help her.
112. Back in November 2009 when Child A was in hospital and refusing to go to the WC, nurses had been very concerned to see father picking her up, kicking and screaming, and taking her to the WC where the screaming continued for ten minutes. It was recorded that the Child did not open her bowels on that occasion.
113. The fact of the father not accepting on 4^th April 2013 that Child A was very poorly and needed medical assessment has been raised already. That was one of the occasions when The father had been tape recording conversations with medical staff in order to cover himself as he did not accept that Ms. R's or the social worker's insistence that Dr. Patey was available to see Child A that same day was right.
114. That feature of recording has been indulged in by both the father and the paternal grandfather and has led to some disquiet, particularly outside Child C's school when other children unwittingly could have been filmed. The father was written to by the school in March 2011 asking him not to do that. A contact supervisor on another occasion had been disquieted by being asked to sign something to record what had occurred. The paternal grandfather explained that they wanted to show that as the bus arrived his son was under supervision.
115. There was also the strange issue of the children having what certainly Child A called "cameras" in their rooms. She said it was so the Police can keep an eye on them, a very adult thing to say. Child C had been seen by his foster carer as lying very still, like a statue, and Child E's foster carer independently had witnessed her lying very straight and not getting out of bed until given permission to do so. While the father sought to downplay that saying it was simply one baby monitor because Child C had set light to the house, and used to mess himself and smear faeces around his bedroom, the Court was left with real disquiet about that issue.
116. Overall therefore, the Court finds that the children did not have sufficient insight shown into their health needs.

(c) The parents not having insight or capacity to meet their children's emotional needs

And

(d) Being able to respond appropriately to the behaviour of the children

117. As well as the matters already highlighted, the Local Authority relies on Krista Martin's report of the Child Review Conference which took place in July 2013 and her full report. She summarised her parenting assessment in this way:

"Another area in which I felt [the father] demonstrated a lack of empathy was when he would react in a punitive manner towards [Child C] and [Child E] when they would misbehave. Sometimes their behaviour was not so much misbehaving as behaving as children would do but he did not approve of, i.e. sliding down the sofa. It concerns me that [the father] would, at times, grab the children and make them sit upright or would talk very loudly in their faces in order to obtain his wanted behaviour.

[The father]'s poor ability to respond to the children when they were seeking his attention is an indication of a poor level of empathy towards the children, in my opinion. Especially when I had addressed the issue previously with him he still was not able to separate himself out to respond to the children in a timely and consistent manner. It was disheartening at times to observe the children, particularly [Child B] and [Child A], try to get their father's attention but then to give up as they would have no response. I firmly hold the view that if [the father] was more in tune and empathetic to their needs he would have been able to reassure his children in some way."

118. The mother does, I find, need prompting to react and to reach out and soothe her children, and does not automatically emote with them; that is not in her essential nature. Child B desperately needs to build self-esteem and a belief in his future. When he was taken to A & E in May 2012 following a bump to his head, the mother was seen not to offer him any comfort or emotional support at all. As Child B did not seek these out the social worker believed he had learned long ago that his emotional needs would not be met by his mother and therefore had stopped seeking them out.
119. Child C seeks out his mother's attention negatively by indulging in challenging behaviour or by repeatedly asking for something which she has already refused him. On 26^th October when Child E had hurt Child C on the hand and he cried, he did not seek his mother's comfort, and nor did she reach out to soothe him again, until prompted to do so. In relation to the father, if Child C or Child E had his attention Child B and Child A too would try to gain his attention by saying, "Dad, Dad, Dad" repeatedly until he answered or they gave up. On occasions Child C had said, "I hate you Dad" when his father had failed to respond to him. Child C had escalated his behaviour in order to gain his father's attention by banging on a chair, for example.
120. It was also revealed by Krista Martin that both the health visitor and she had separately observed Child E behaving in a cruel manner towards a kitten within the family home which indicated to her, "a lack of empathy to another living being and a lack of understanding of consequences to her behaviour". That empathy and understanding of consequences comes from parents.
121. It was also dealt with at the conference that Child C's school had seen him acting in a sexually and verbally aggressive manner at school on 8^th July 2013. He had been observed and recorded on CCTV footage to expose his penis and tell teaching staff to, "Suck my cock and eat my poo" as well as threatening to smack staff in the face. Child C's actions have concerned her the most as the school feel the behaviour observed is a return to old behaviours not seen during the past school year. Miss Martin said this:

"I believe that the only real change in [Child C]'s day to day circumstances in this time has been an increase in contact with [the father]. This has increased over the previous couple of months and I believe that [Child C]'s behaviour is an indication of emotional distress as a result. At the conference [the mother] and [the father] did not seem to accept the enormity of the concerns raised in relation to their children. In particular, [the mother] did not appear to accept professionals' concern in the change in Child C's behaviour."

122. It was felt there was a lack of positive change; the parents individually could not improve matters for the family, and neither of them accepted that amount of concern. In this regard I will now mention the further complaint in June 2013 to the Police about the elderly neighbour not disclosed by the mother directly to the social worker or other professionals working with the family, and the mother not wanting to have Child A's injured arm examined in July. There were all of those concerning ongoing behaviours by the children and the parents not responding appropriately and not having insight.
123. Ms. Martin felt that Child A had suffered from her parents' poor ability to prioritise the health needs because of the chronic constipation which had not improved despite weekly intervention from health professionals. I have dealt with that already. Child B also suffered from his parents' poor ability to acknowledge and address his individual emotional needs. He is seen to be the most capable or able of the children but still presents as withdrawn and resigned, and does not seek out parental attention. She said:

"I believe this is due to having learned his needs are not as important as his siblings' needs are. I am concerned that [Child B] will suffer from mental health difficulties later in life as a result of parental negligence."

124. She felt that Child C does not feel safe in either parents' care as demonstrated by his out of control behaviour at home, his sexually and verbally aggressive behaviour observed at school, and the father' punitive setting of boundaries towards him. I therefore find (c) and (d) properly made out.
125. In relation to (e), (f) and (g), firm and consistent boundaries and inability to safeguard the children, poor history of engagement, (again all of these matters, and the evidence, do rather overlap as I have stressed already); the father being rather loud and punitive and close up in the faces of the children, rather distorting the guidance given at the parenting course to get down and deal with the children on their level; and the mother struggling to provide appropriate guidance and boundaries for the children which really does not come naturally or inherently to her at all.
126. She had had some very careful PAMS modelled type work from Miriam Higgins, by breaking the strategies and techniques up into some small bite-sized pieces of information, and the mother recalled in her oral testimony the 1-2-3 magic approach. However, those approaches do not seem to have effected change as, at times, she had attempted to physically pull Child C into the corner of the lounge when he acted out or became aggressive towards her, or Child E, or the social worker, or she would simply tell him that she would call his father and the father would "get" Child C. She accepts that he was sometimes out of her control. She tended not to explain or give any warning to the child but just said, "Go and sit on the naughty step" and that was not child friendly or helpful.
127. Valuing Parents Support Service have also been involved supporting the mother by Mrs. Silk attending the hearing and being here throughout to support her. They too have noted Child E behaving in a spiteful way, kicking out, hitting out, slapping or pinching and not wanting to share her mother's attention. Laura Lambleyclark of the Triple P Parenting program has done work with the mother between February or March and August 2012, so very soon after the father had left. The mother was perceived as really starting from scratch and not having had the opportunity to acquire any skills because The father had very much run the home and, as it were, deskilled her in that way. To the mother's credit it was said she engaged pretty well, although she cancelled or missed ten out of 25 sessions with Miriam Higgins.
128. The Court acknowledges that while all the various agencies were trying to do their best with their initiatives, The mother very quickly became overwhelmed. She could not respond positively and productively to all that was required of her and to all the various initiatives, instructions and charts, well-intentioned though that input plainly was. She was trying to do all of that while coping alone with four children, two or three of them with particularly challenging difficulties.
129. Although the father did apparently come back at weekends initially after the separation, which Krista Martin considered gave very mixed messages and generated unfair confusion in the mother and the children about his real intentions, the Court cannot forget that this disadvantaged mother, already hampered by her own learning difficulties and challenges, was suddenly required to step up to the plate and parent these four children and really was not up to that unequal task at all. Indeed, she was never going to be equal to that struggle but had to manage alone for all those months. As has been recognised, even Child C requires two carers and has that dedicated support now at Child C's residential unit.
130. The mother was left bereft both emotionally and practically. She had no network of family or friends to turn to for any support at all. The father's family were it, in essence, in the background. That was shown to be the case when, after The mother phoned the Police on 5^th February 2012 reporting that argument between her and the father (she discovering that he had been using a chat room), although she described The father's family as controlling she actually moved to their address, as I have commented already, to defuse the situation. She had no back up, no contingency and no other help at all.
131. In February 2013 the mother disclosed to Social Services that the father had been having the children for overnight contact at Mrs N's home, and those arrangements were suspended at that time but later allowed again which gave the mother some respite.
132. The mother did report to the Police her concerns about the elderly Spanish neighbour several times, including only one month after the father had moved out on 13^th March 2012, and again on 19^th June 2013. While she accepted in her evidence receiving a mobile phone from him, she denied that he gave her £40 which he said he had, although then said a few minutes later that, yes, she might have done that but could not now remember. She denies seeking him out. I consider that that was one of those friendships which she welcomed at times, arising out of her own neediness, but then it may have been misconstrued by him, allegedly attempting to kiss Child E and slapping Child C at one time, but then delivering chocolate for the children at Christmas time. All of that caused yet more worry and confusion in the mother and spawned further Police involvement.
133. On 7^th September 2012 she had also recorded with the Police an unknown male being verbally inappropriate to herself and Child A while at [a friend's] home. The Court takes fair cognisance of the fact that the Police and Social Services work very much hand in glove today, and any report inevitably would have been shared with the Local Authority and, in fact, a s.47 enquiry was held about that matter.
134. Although the mother did start going out more and had some friends that brought its own difficulties. She alleged at one time that one of the two women she had met had demanded money from her. There was also drunkenness, bad language and parties which regrettably the children did attend and did witness. The father believes that Child C, in particular, may have picked up sexualised behaviour and language from that source. There is simply no more evidence for the Court about that at all, there are just those suspicions.
135. While the obvious, trite conclusion might be that the mother cries wolf and has made false allegations in the past, I bear in mind that some of those emanated from her father when she was only a very young child, and later on at a time when she was a highly vulnerable young adolescent. The Court adopts a neutral stance in relation to those, some of which may well have been genuine. The Court is in no position to say anything further about this.
136. There was a historical lack of engagement noted in relation to Child C. He had been referred to the speech and language therapy service back in January 2007. However, despite numerous appointments being offered to the parents, who were then thoroughly together, he did not attend until April 2008 when he was 4 years old. He still has that language deficit noticed by Dr. French, although he suddenly can say a long sentence, and did so when making allegations of a sexual nature as he has both at school and during his ABE interview. It was a shame that Dr. French was not able to access that visually recorded ABE interview. Child C very noticeably looks at people's faces and tries to understand what their reaction is to what he is saying and doing.
137. While no one would ever wish to demonise a child, and this is not a blaming exercise intended to show that a child has lied, an analysis of all the records and evidence here shows that Child A has told plain lies and acted evasively and deceptively with her mother which certainly was not in her best interests as a young girl. She has a particularly complex psychological profile which has not yet been properly explored. Although the mother too denied point blank saying certain things, and said in her oral evidence "100% it did not happen" or "100% it did happen", and denied acting in a particular way at contact, I am satisfied that the mother does not have clear regard for the truth and what actually has happened, making this case even more taxing to hear and determine. She really imperils her children's emotional wellbeing.
138. There is a whole list of these matters which the Court will record swiftly:

Child A had said that her grandmother had died a few days ago after a gang of boys had attacked her with knives and guns.

She was then absent from school and tried to evade her teachers with her mother at the local shops .

She attended school with her arm in a sling, telling her teacher she could not use her arm and the hospital had given her the sling. She was then seen through a window to be perfectly able to use her hands but the mother again, in that enmeshed relationship they have, supported her child by saying she could not use it. Having checked through the hospital records the Court noted that in the past in 2006 Child A did have a greenstick fracture of the right radius after falling at the grandparents' home. Certainly in September 2011 she had fallen off a ramp and had broken her left wrist, so she has been treated at hospital for those matters but certainly had no injury and did not need a sling at the time that the school dealt with this matter.

The mother had persisted in bringing Child B to school despite him being very unwell.

Child A said she was not allowed to go to her dad's at the weekend because he had been mean to her and he was not going to take her out.

On one occasion mother attended at school really wrapped up and looking very warm, and Child A was looking disabled, walking with an awkward gate and had just a short coat and leggings on.

A teacher had seen the mother and Child A by the Spar during school time when plainly Child A should have been in school. Child A saw her teacher and tried to hide behind her mother.

In February 2013 the mother had asked the school if they would give her a note to say that Child A did not have to go to school so that that could be passed on to the social worker. When the school perfectly properly refused to do so, Child A had gone to school crying, and mother was heard to tell Child A that if she carried on doing this the social worker would take her away and put her into care. Again, Child A was crying about all of that. That was a most unhelpful way to send a damaged young girl into school, and again showing that collusive behaviour between mother and Child A.

On 25^th February 2013 Child A had been seen running around at the Gillingham football match with the "joys of spring", as was described, contrary entirely to what the school had been told earlier about her being unwell.

Later on 20^th March 2013, a teacher had seen Child A in no pain at all despite having left the school with mother earlier that day saying she was in pain.

In relation to her medication Child A told the teacher on the 28 April, 2013 that she had taken 15 tablets, and on another day the mother had indicated she had been taking 20 tablets and would not be in school the next day. The mother and child were rather predicting whether or not Child A would be able to go to school, all very unhelpful to her psychological difficulties.

Child A had also said she had coughed up blood and her mother knows about this. When this was checked with the mother she knew nothing about this and said the tablets were, in fact, spread over three days.

There was then extra medication given and Child A missed two days of school.

She did tell her foster carers that she watched 18 certificate films and perhaps other inappropriate things on occasion.

She said also that she had not messed and was wearing knickers now. The foster carer's evidence about that was that the mother was really underwhelming in her response and did not praise her daughter for moving on and having a better approach to her bowel difficulties.

Child A was seen hoarding chocolates and sweets when not allowed to because of the bowel medication.

She also told a lie when she said a bone in her foot had snapped, that she had had it x-rayed and operated on and had stitches put in that injury. Again, on checking the medical records the right knee was x-rayed on 11^th March 2011 but no abnormality was detected at all then. It appears with these very frequent attendances at hospital, Child A deliberately manufactures injuries to avoid school, and really, in essence, to please her mother to stay at home because the mother plainly likes her company.

Placing Child B with Child A at the foster carers has exposed him to some of her lies and also to some of her greater needs too.

139. The mother had behaved wholly improperly in contact on 2^nd June this year by sharing inappropriate adult issues with her damaged children. That had led on to poor Child B on 3^rd June telling all of his teachers at school that he was going to new carers that evening, he will be split up from Child A and is moving out of the area, possibly to London. The manufactured stories continued. His teacher had said it was as if he had reverted right back to how he was when he lived with mother. This shows the dramatic effect on the children of what the mother says at contact to them. I accept contact supervisor Aimee Weedon's evidence that the mother was whispering at contact and led Child A to ask, "Will she hurt us?" referring to the foster carer. The mother was holding her injured hand, Ms Weedon remembered, over her mouth trying to pass insidious messages, most unwisely and unfairly, to her own children.
140. Child A reported that her mother wanted the placement to breakdown; then they could live with her and she would kidnap them. Child A was later scared that she had got her mother into trouble as her mother had stated that they should not have opened their mouths. The foster carer recorded that Child A, in fact, wet the bed that night.
141. The mother stated shockingly to the social worker that she is not responsible for how her children feel, and she is not to blame should they be upset. There is also a reference by the mother to there being a fact finding in July about the children's allegations. Mother had told Child A about Child C's disclosure of sexual abuse, saying "[Child C] said Dad put his willy up his bottom", and that was before those allegations were revealed in the ABE interviews, and before the matter was known by the other children whatsoever. Child A had said again prioritising her mother's needs most plainly, "Mum is important, what she wants is what I want".
142. Mother had a meeting with the social worker about this a couple of days afterwards on 5^th June, and she confirmed that Child B had made allegations against the foster carer, but that Child A did not make any allegations. The social worker informed mother perfectly properly that these allegations were not repeated by Child B to her, and she questioned why the mother had not mentioned them to the contact supervisor and the social worker who were actually present during that contact on 2^nd June. The mother admitted that she was initially upset and wanted the children to be moved from their current placement, however she said she no longer wished for them to be moved.
143. The mother denied making the various statements to Child A but did admit telling her that when she (the mother) was in foster care she had run away, an unhelpful thing to say to a little girl away from home. She did admit also telling Child A about the investigations into the allegations against the father and his family, but did not go into the specifics about what she had said. She was reminded that as part of the written agreement which governs such contact, she must not discuss these allegations with the children.
144. The mother also denied telling Child A that there was a Court hearing on Friday, and that the Court hearing was not in February but in March, despite all of that being completely unchallenged evidence. She responded to Child A's query about why the mother did not have her mobile phone and why the Police had it by saying this was about being a witness to a sexual assault. Again, a wholly improper response. When challenged by the contact supervisor about talking quietly to the children and putting her hand over her mouth, she was heard saying, "Can't tell you here". All of this is deeply deceptive and highly worrying and not assisting the children in care and just before the Fact Finding Hearing.
145. On another occasion in May of this year, Child A had suddenly volunteered to the foster carer:

"I'm going to tell you something and you mustn't tell anybody, not Yvonne, not Katie. Once my dad threatened me with a knife. You mustn't tell or my dad could go to prison, then that would be all my fault."

146. The next day she said that when she lived with her mother she used to do the ironing because her mother could not be bothered. Again, that reference to prison and suddenly saying something which had never been mentioned before, the Court is satisfied, very much emanates from the mother's approach to the children and what she feels necessary to share with them to their detriment.
147. The day before that when Miss Kapungu had been visiting the children and asked Child A who she wanted to live with, Child A and responded with Mum or Mr and Mrs M" but said she did not see them very often, she was then absolutely sobbing later on that evening and said:

"It's all my fault, if only I had kept quiet. I was trying to protect Child B, Child C and Child E from being hit. Let me go back to mum's, I'll take the hits and smacks for them, I don't mind. He's done it so many times it doesn't hurt anymore. Why did I speak out? I want to kill myself."

148. The mother has that highly enmeshed, co-interdependent relationship with her young daughter, treating her more like a friend or a confidante or a sister than a child. All of this has put Child A under enormous and unfair pressure having inappropriate adult information shared with her, including on 28^th January being told that Child C would not be coming to contact anymore because he had made allegations about "Dad and sex". There was then the rehashed stealing of Child D theme which, again, has run like a thread through this case, no matter that the Court had made that final Order back in 2012and approved that approach after Child D had lived with her grandparents for really all of her life.
149. The mother sadly has emotionally manipulated her own daughter who now both mirrors and prioritises her mother's feelings, and who has taken on a lot of guilt about the family's current situation. No matter how badly and caddishly the father treated his wife, and he did, it is simply not fair to use your daughter to target people such as Mrs. N who have had some responsibility in breaking up the family unit. I do find that the mother has tried to fight some of her own battles, as it were, and share overmuch with Child A which has not been helpful at all. I find those matters proven in the neglect and emotional harm section.
150. Turning to head two, the physical harm, I deal first of all with (b), the particular incidents and domestic abuse between the father and the mother. As a matter or record the father, as a child, had been found to be aggressive at school. His mother had been required to attend to sit with him. The paternal grandfather told the Court in his evidence that his son used to eat crayons, and at school he was generally a handful between the ages 8 to 10, being easily distracted, then getting into a bit of trouble at secondary school. The paternal grandfather had been called in three or four times about his son not doing any work, turning up late and hanging around with friends. There was a caution for robbery against the father and that was in relation to another boy's bike when he was a teenager. There was also another matter but those do not greatly concern the Court at all at the current time.
151. The paternal grandfather said he was aware of arguments between the father and the mother, and sometimes the children did look a bit scruffy, Child C had a tendency to pull at and chew his jumper. Child A had actually asked once if she was scruffy as that word apparently had been used to her by the social worker. The paternal grandfather received calls always from the mother about arguments once every month or two. He recalled to two particular incidents when he was called to the house. On one occasion at their previous address the mother had phoned to say that the father had hit her. The paternal grandfather went straight round there, grabbed his son and pushed his head up against the wall and asked, "Why are you hitting her?". He tended to downplay this rather more when asked further about it, and said it had not been a grabbing by the lapels or anything like that, but he had got hold of his son. The father had responded, "I haven't touched her, what are you talking about?". The mother had simply stated, "Well, he thought about it".
152. When asked about his possible overreaction in taking hold of his son in that way, the paternal grandfather explained that he was angry at the thought that his son had assaulted the mother, and that is why he had been prepared to go straight around there and tackle his son about it. On a separate occasion the mother alleged that the father had thrown a hairbrush at her. Challenged by the paternal grandfather again the father had said that, yes, he was in a temper, he had thrown the brush onto the floor and it had bounced back and simply touched the mother's leg. The mother had not made any comment to that explanation so he thought that his son's version of events was right.
153. There was also the allegation that Child A had been hit at 3 months by the father which the Court finds must have come from the mother, there is no other route for that to have been fed to Child A. It was extraordinary that the mother still seems to say that Child A can remember this and denied telling her about it. The paternal grandfather said he had heard only in Court about other allegations of aggression by his son but then the mother withdrawing these statements.
154. The mother denied making untrue allegations at all, saying it was in the past, there was not enough evidence and the Police did not believe her, so no charges were ever pursued. I have dealt, in essence, with that matter already.
155. Dealing now with the head-butting incident which occurred on Saturday 28^th January 2012. The parents have given their own sworn oral evidence about this nearly 2½ years after it happened and gave conflicting explanations. The father described it as a clash of heads as his wife came close to him, face to face, angry about the chat room and confronting him. He had put his head back against the front door which was behind him, and unwittingly as her head came towards him, and in automatic reflex, his head had come forward and head-butted her. He denied lying about this.
156. As the mother went across the road as if to run to the house of a women friend of hers with whom he did not get on and who he said would be likely to make things go from bad to worse, he 'phoned his father to come and look after the children. He had panicked as he did not want to be arrested for something he had not done and to have an investigation so he left the scene. He wanted to get himself out of the way and to get legal advice. The Police had arrested him before in September 2011 when the neighbour had heard the disturbance, and he had given a no comment interview then. He made himself scarce on foot and then he attended the Police station but not until two days later with a legal representative.
157. Clearly there was a very difficult and tense atmosphere operating around the family at this time. The mother was by then well aware that her husband was looking elsewhere for a relationship, and no doubt felt enormously stressed and panicked by that thought and what it would mean for her and the children.
158. The mother's version of events was supported more or less contemporaneously by both a neighbour and the Police who were called to the scene by that neighbour, and then also supported by the attending hospital records. [A female neighbour] was inside her property at around 10 p.m. and heard a female screaming outside. She felt immediate concern as the screams were very distressing, she told the Police, and she said it did not sound like people messing around to her. She went outside and saw the mother, whom she did not know therefore there is no loyalty owed to her at all, who was on the grassed area to the left of her house. The mother was said by her to be very disorientated, clearly distressed and stated straight away that she had just been head-butted by her husband. That was her word used straight away.
159. [The female neighbour] did not see the suspect but took the mother in and called an ambulance. Another neighbour in an upper flat, who had also witnessed what had happened outside, was the person who called the Police. [The female neighbour] accompanied the injured party to hospital and took her back home afterwards and had waited for the Police to arrive. Those very publically spirited ladies were not spoken to by the Local Authority at all and their evidence, of course, is not challenged. They it were who had the first chance therefore to witness the mother's affect and demeanour. At hospital the mother was perceived to have concussion but eventually was let home after some hours, no doubt with the usual concussion and head injury guidance.
160. The paternal grandfather had stayed with the children meanwhile in the son's absence, and his memory was that the mother had returned four or five hours later. He said he just walked passed her, took a glancing look, and had not noticed himself any facial injuries at all. A couple of days later the mother had characterised the event as an accident to the paternal grandfather. She had also said at a Pre-Proceedings Meeting that it was "or more of an accident". Certainly, she did not want to press charges about this and the paternal grandfather denied there had been a sort of family conspiracy persuading her not to tell the Police the truth. That definitely had not emanated from him, he said. Again, the mother had wanted her husband home to help her with the children.
161. The Police log records the mother as being extremely distressed, crying and visibly shaking when they arrived. She was seen to have reddening and swelling above her right eye, and swelling to the right hand side of her cheek. She was unsteady on her feet, disorientated and kept stating that she was going to faint. The father could not be located at all by the Police patrol who went out to search for him.
162. In her oral evidence to the Court the mother said that Child A was with them in the lobby just by the front door and had said, "Stop fighting Dad, I get scared". Child A was wrong that anything was said about money, the mother does not remember that conversation at all. It was right though that what Child A had said about, "My Dad head-butted my Mum and Mum pushed him to move out of the way". Child A had also said that she herself had hurt her foot on the radiator, but there is no evidence substantiating that.
163. The mother said, "I can't believe she'd remember that far back", again, completely underestimating the impact of witnessing that sort of incident on the children. She said she did think that the children knew what was going on was not right and, yes, they had witnessed many arguments between their parents. The father was wrong about that. He was wrong also about Child A being in the living room when this occurred, she was in the hall according to the mother.
164. On 30^th January, Child A and Child B's school recorded that the mother attended with Child A and Child B and still had visible bruises on her face. She had told the teacher that she and the father had had an argument on the Saturday which had led to the father beating her up, he had run off and the Police were still looking for him. She said that Child A had seen the incident and that both children had been very upset all weekend. The school objectively noted that both the children were upset when they arrived at school, and the mother was worried about leaving them and also worried about going home on her own.
165. On the balance of probabilities the Court accepts the mother's recollection of events as being the more accurate and credible. She came off the worse for wear, there were facial and head injuries, the father has made no mention whatsoever of injuries to his face or head at all. The mother was also seen by several witnesses immediately after the event to be extremely distressed. In cross-examination the mother said it was a full-on head-butt and claimed she still has pain and headaches even now from that. I do not necessarily accept that that last part is the case. I think that may be some embroidery by her just as Child A tends to embellish a great deal.
166. The father leaving the scene as he did also supports his knowledge that he was the guilty one that night. In essence, that was the only direct physical assault aimed upon his wife's person. I prefer the Mother's account in relation to that matter and accept that Child A did indeed witness an unedifying incident between her parents which was frightening. However, I accept that that was an isolated physical incident, taking place at a particularly troubled and intense time for the family during that marital break-up. It does not form part of a bigger picture of actual violence aimed at the Mother, although there was certainly frequent noisy arguments between the couple, as I find.
167. I also have no hesitation in finding that Child A did not call the Police that night, did not pull her parents apart or separate them, and did not hear her father saying anything like, "Give me your money or otherwise I'm going to head-butt you". That was all a further example of Child A's very vivid imagination and calling attention to herself, making herself feel more important about the matters. The mother, in fact, acknowledges that Child A does fib sometimes, gets confused and may lie.
168. There was then further confusion for the children a week later on 6^th February when The father took Child B to school and announced that the parents had split up over the weekend, the mother had walked out and the children were living with him, although Child A was not at school that day because she was said to be very upset. He told the teacher that the mother was not to be allowed to collect the children. On 7^th February, the very next day, the father said over the phone that all was fine and they were back together again.
169. Furthermore, on 1^st March that year, the mother had arrived at school in a very flustered and upset state saying she was having a panic attack and had had to call an ambulance out at the weekend for that same reason. She explained she was distressed as her son was being taken away from her and she wanted to take Child A and Child B home as soon as possible out of school. All of this would have deeply upset and unsettled the children.
170. Certainly in July 2012 Child A had been seen at school to be very accident prone, she was not her usual self and she appeared to be very vacant, as if in a trance at times, and concerned that she may be taken into care. That shows that the mother was sharing those adults themes with the children again.
171. Dealing next with what has been called the bathroom incident on 3^rd December, again, there were startlingly conflicting accounts from the parents about this. The mother, who had been unfortunate enough to sustain what was obviously a very nasty and painful fracture to her finger on the way back home from school that day, produced a very melodramatic account of Child A leaning out of the front first floor window and screaming and shouting, so frightened was she when her father had gone into the house wanting her to go off to school that day and had knocked at the closed bathroom door.
172. No neighbour was called to substantiate that that had happened. No Police were called that day either. I am clear that if Child A had indeed been leaning out of an upper bathroom window screaming and shouting to the extent that the mother asserts neighbours would have been alerted and the Police would have been alerted and perhaps the NSPCC might have been involved; none of that followed here. The mother said she did not think Child A was faking illness that day, she was quite poorly and the school had already been informed that Child A would not be in that day. The father plainly thought this was another of those occasions when the child should be at school but instead was being kept at home to keep mother company.
173. The mother said in her oral evidence that she thinks she phoned the father's dad because the father can be quite aggressive to Child A. In fact, that day the father and Mrs N had been planning to take the mother out, showing that what has been called that triumvirate works well and is civilised and cooperative now, the support of Mrs N also being given to the mother, taking her shopping and so on. The mother also thought that she had gone back into the house, although she had given the father permission to break the door down once he had come back downstairs and reported that Child A was simply not answering his knocks or calls at all.
174. The mother said she saw Child A coming downstairs quite emotional, scared, upset and crying and said that Daddy had slapped her on the back of the leg. The mother descended into the detail that Child A was just wearing a pull-up at that time and she could see, as she demonstrated in the witness box, a red hand mark on the outside upper thigh of Child A's leg. However that injury was not complained about by Child A immediately to the paternal grandfather when he arrived. He found her fully dressed downstairs; nor did Child A report being hit by her father to her teachers when she was taken straight away into school. That has never formed any part of Child A's complaints.
175. The paternal grandfather had been called yet again by the mother. He said he did go over whenever they were called, if possible, but stressed that he has his own life, he has a wife who has MS (happily currently in remission), and he has those three other children at home including adult Child F as well. He and his wife actually were already dressed and ready to go out to take his mother-in-law to the doctors and shopping that day but they did whizz over to help her out. He said the mother was crying in pain with her hand which was obviously very upsetting for her. He told her to call the father when she had phoned him but she said the father was already there. The father found Child A dressed in her school uniform. When he asked her what all this was about, locking herself in, she apparently had just put her head down. I got the impression of her being rather sheepish and being found out by her grandfather.
176. The father said he had tried to entice Child A out and had threatened to call the Police and the fire brigade, not especially subtle in my Judgement, but that she would simply not answer at all. He said he was so worried by her silence that he went downstairs and got his wife's permission to kick the door in and proceeded to do just that to find that Child A was perfectly fine, sitting on the lavatory seat and just defiantly not answering him. His evidence was that the mother stayed in the car throughout nursing her obviously very painful hand and did not come into the house at all.
177. I prefer the father's and the paternal grandfather's account about all of that. I find that the mother has manufactured and added detail which is simply sadly not true.
178. Dealing with other matters, the mother does not remember the father hitting the children with a belt at all. One of the boys, I think Child B, had recalled being struck, not with the buckle end of the belt, he said. The father' evidence about this was that he had never even owned or worn a belt because of his IBS condition and had certainly never used such on the children. The mother said she recalled him whacking the children with a ruler and certainly smacking or whacking them with his hand, describing an open palm slap. She said that Child C does make a lot of allegations including once saying his teacher had made a mark on his ear. She referred also to the father giving what she called a normal punch to Child C's arm, "Not, like, really hard".

2(a) The father and Mrs N having physically assaulted and/or inappropriately chastised the children

179. It is unhelpful that these allegations are all bundled up together and have not been separately analysed at all in order to assist the Court. I am also surprised that, having had the matter very fully explored in cross-examination, which effectively did not sustain the allegations, the Local Authority has continued to require the Court to make findings in relation to some of these matters. That is unfair and unhelpful but there we are.
180. The allegations against Mrs N come solely from Child A and concern wholly her, and are not corroborated by any other evidence at all. Accordingly, as a preliminary point, the allegation is misconceived referring, as it does, to "children" in the plural. Lorraine Heptinstall, the social worker, gave brief evidence confirming her October 2012 Pre-Birth Core Assessment visit to Mrs. N and report. Initially Mrs. N was angry about the referral because all the allegations against the father were unfounded and were causing too many problems in their relationship, and they were focusing on the needs of their own children and she was reluctant to engage with the assessment. However, once the situation had been explained, she calmed down and fully engaged. The outcome was no concern in Mrs N's household and no role for social care.
181. Ms. Heptinstall found Mrs. N to be open and honest; able to access appropriate medical care for the children; able to manage her relationship in a dynamic and mature way putting the needs of the children first; able to access support and community services appropriately; able to manage her own household budget so as to parent competently; and she found her to be a kind, optimistic person who can exercise sound Judgement which feeds into safeguarding in a positive way. Ms. Heptinstall concluded that there was no evidence to suggest that Mrs. N could not be an entirely effective, loving and nurturing parent.
182. Mrs Y, the very nice foster carer for both Child A and Child B, confirmed to the Court that sometimes Child A was, as she put it, not very comfortable in telling the truth. The mother had said too that Child A can fib and tell lies as I have referred to already. For example, Child A had said that the bed-wetting alarm which she did not like was not working and Mrs Y had said it very clearly was. She said that Child A does push and Child A knew that she was going to get into trouble if she did not own up to it.
183. Child B initially was fairly non-committal and glared at Child A if she ventured to say something about the family. He would correct Child A if she said something wrong or, as time went on, he would nod and say, "Oh yeah" sometimes if he remembered something that she was telling Mrs Y about. Sometimes he would say that Child A was lying, for example, when she said she had done her homework and clearly that had not happened.
184. It was on 19^th January this year that Child A told Mrs Y that her father's partner had slapped her, usually across the arm. On 12^th March Child B told Mrs Y on the way home in the car after contact with their father, having seen dad's partner after contact, that dad's girlfriend used to hit him as well as Child A on one occasion when he did not eat his dinner. Allegedly she slapped him and threw him on the bed. He said that was not the only time, she had hit all of them. I presume therefore that is where the allegation about "children" comes because this is two children here only, not all four certainly in relation to Mrs. N.
185. This all harks back to information received by the Local Authority from the maternal grandmother, which had prompted an announced visit by Stephanie Paulette on 12^th August 2013 to the foster carer's home. Allegedly Child A had told her grandmother that Mrs N hits her and that Child C had stopped breathing over the weekend. I am satisfied that information could only have come with the cooperation and collusion of the mother contacting her mother and giving her that information as to where the children were and when and whom they were with. It is only recently after the separation that the mother has started having anything to do with her mother who so let her down during her own childhood.
186. Both the father and Mrs N denied both of those events. Child A had smiled and said, yes, when she was asked if she liked staying with her father and stepmother. When she is naughty she simply gets told off and sent to her room. She denied ever being hit by Mrs. N and looked very surprised indeed when she was asked about this. Ms. Paulette considered that the child's body language was congruent with her response, and that she had no concerns with that negative explanation that Mrs. N had not hit Child A.
187. A happy home was seen with excellent conditions and positive interactions. The children were well-presented, they were playing ring a ring o' roses in the lounge, and they had had lunch and were eating fruit. Child A said that she had been to the toilet three times and pooed each time, and that she was taking her medicine regularly. Seemingly Child A and Child B had never complained to anyone at school that Mrs N had hit them. To Dr. French, the consultant clinical psychologist who had seen her in October 2013, Child A made no mention at all of Mrs N hitting or slapping her, Child C or Child B. She referred only to her father whacking Child C hard on his leg about two weeks earlier when he did not move up on the sofa, and he was then put on the naughty step.
188. To Detective Constable Diprose on 2^nd April this year, Child A made no allegation that Mrs N had hit her. In fact she said that Mrs N had stood up for her when her father had said that she could not put up the Christmas decorations but that Mrs N too makes her eat up all of her dinner. She said Child H can be a bit of madam sometimes.
189. Child B had no idea why the Police Officer might have come to visit him. He simply said that Mrs N was nice and kind, because she lets him play with her daughter's toys, and only makes him sit on the naughty step if he misbehaves. He said Child H does not share.
190. In her ABE interview on 22^nd March this year Child A said that Mrs N wanted her to eat up her spaghetti bolognaise as she was a bit slim and skinny which was not a good thing, and had then started hitting her and kicking her saying, "Eat it, eat it, otherwise you go upstairs and I will slap you while you're walking up the stairs". She also alleged that Mrs. N kicked her in the back when she was wearing high heels. That was on the living room floor and that since then her spine had been hurting, yet another occasion of Child A relying on medical matters. She said on another occasion her ribs were hurting or something like that.
191. There was also a separate occasion, it would seem, the previous Christmas when she had been told that she could not put up the decorations as she would not eat anymore of her food, and that she had sneaked in, she said, and put some decorations up. She was seen by Mrs N and was slapped on the cheek. She has said also that Child C had been, "Slapped and slapped and slapped" by Mrs N and his father about ten times, and that he comes home with bruises every time he comes back from his father. Just referring to the physical harm, the father relied, on occasion, that the children had been playing blind man's bluff and Child C had stumbled into a radiator or damaged himself in that way. Certainly there were lots of bruises and scrapes and so on seen on the children who were very physically active at home and often did hit each other.
192. On hearing Mrs. N evidence the Court found her to be a bouncy, articulate, pleasant woman. She was very clear in her evidence that she simply would not tolerate any violence to any of the children in her house. It had never happened that the father had been inappropriate to her daughter Child H either and she said he would not be in her house if he had been. She said she would never hit any of the children herself, that would be a lie, nor would she allow the father to hit any of them. She never wears high heels anyway, and mainly lives in flip-flops, she said. It did not happen at all that she had slapped, kicked or hit Child A, Child C or Child B. She said, "I would never let it happen, I would stop it".
193. She described the father as being really good with the children, a brilliant father who entertains them with magic and card tricks and backflips. She does not believe any of the serious accusations made against the father and she knows the relationship that the children have with him. She said when asked if she saw him hitting a child when Child C allegedly would not move up on the sofa, that she would not protect the father, she would put a stop to it immediately.
194. If she had seen anything that made her feel uncomfortable or inappropriate, any punching or kicking, she would not cover up for the father but would let the authorities and the Police know as it would not be right and should not be happening. In essence her relationship would not carry on if any of that had been occurring. If the children were naughty they would simply go on the naughty step or not take part in playing monopoly or something like that. She denied also threatening the mother, when allegedly telephoned by Child A asking her to pick her up over the spaghetti bolognaise incident, that she would slap her as well. I find that that did not occur and is another example of Child A's imagination.
195. Intriguingly and significantly Mrs. N had not hesitated to call the Police early on in their relationship on 22^nd March 2012 when there was an unseemly altercation between them. The father had tried to take a DS Nintendo card that it was thought he had bought for Child H. Mrs. N had tried to grab the card and accidently her hand had come into contact with his head. At that time, due to the strain of Social Services being involved with his children, he had called for a few things and left. Mrs. N said that was all in front of Child H which was not good. The written agreement had then been signed at that time, but later on that month she found out she was pregnant and Social Services had said the father could then go into her home.
196. She said she felt herself to be quite a placid, laid back person who did not become agitated. Child A was quite a well-behaved child who did not really play up and she would simply encourage her to eat a bit more of her food, just some of it, not all of it, while being sympathetic to her bowel problem. I do not find that there was any essence of force feeding or anything like that here, or anything unfair said to this young girl about her appearance. She said that they had kept a few bits and pieces for Child A to put on the Christmas tree the next day on the Sunday so that Child A did not lose out. I think Child A properly reflected that saying Mrs. N had stood up to her in front of her father.
197. While she and the father are living separately at the moment, depending on the findings in this case, they do hope to be together again as a couple but they are taking it slowly. She felt that she did get on really well with Child A who gave her cuddles. Child A had written her that affectionate letter which the Court saw since these proceedings begun, there is also the letter to the father. Looking at some photographs which were produced to the Court, she said that she styled Child A's hair for her all the time, Child A liked her doing it and that was particularly for the school prom.
198. I should say Child A is a very pretty girl as I have seen from the ABE interviews, and the other children are very attractive children too, as is Child H, of course. Mrs. N said she had not felt comfortable or interfered when Child A's father was helping Child A in the shower with the bits that she could not reach, but would offer to get all the shampoo out of her hair. Child A would regularly invite her to come into the bathroom to do so, just as Mrs. N did for her own daughter, Child H.
199. Mrs. N explained the start of her relationship with the father. She knew that the couple were not getting on and had actually split up but that he was staying there for the children. He had then got a room in Canterbury Street. They had hit it off and got on really well, "It had just felt right", she said. Although he had introduced himself initially as Lee with one son, also with a different name, and she knew that Krista Martin had been very critical of her acceptance of that and her welcoming him into the home and the life of her young daughter so readily, she responded that The father had apologised for all of that. They had talked it through thoroughly and they had put it behind them and just got on with the relationship.
200. Ms. Martin also expressed concern that Mrs. N fully trusted the father carrying on spending time with his wife and family, and going shopping with them and so on as he had done in the early stages of the separation, but Mrs. N did have that trust. She and the father's family now all get on really well, they do take all the children there, and she, the paternal step-grandmother and the others chat. She has spent quite a lot of time with the father and his children at her house and she has never seen anything to cause her any concern at all. She said that the sad loss of Child I had brought them even closer together.
201. On 23^rd December 2013 the contact supervisor, Laura Rooney, recorded that Mrs. N had brought into the contact room, at the end of father's contact session, a sack of Christmas presents each for Child A, Child B and Child E. Child B and Child A were pleased immediately to say hello to her and Child E was particularly pleased to see her. This was one of the missing contact records that the Court and other parties had been pursuing for some time, and which eventually was produced on day 13 on 13^th July this year. All of that willingness to be friendly to Mrs. N rather spoke volumes about their relationship.
202. Mrs. N is a woman of previously impeccably good character. She has had no Police involvement or Social Services involvement in her life whatsoever, and Child H is seen as a delightful little girl who has met all her milestones and has a very sociable, normal life. There was only that one-off Police involvement by Mrs. N very properly in the incident I have referred to already.
203. I find it inherently unlikely that Mrs. N would become a liar now at this stage in her life, and to tell untruths at Court on her oath to protect the father, possibly to the prejudice of her own relationship with her own child. Moreover, in the sibling and parenting assessment undertaken by Krista Martin in July of last year, she was found to be that kind and optimistic person, although underestimating and underappreciating how very difficult it would be for both her and Child H to introduce the father's four children (A, B, C and E) into her home, and her being overwhelmingly positive about that. That, of course, is no longer what the couple seek, wishing, as I understand it, for perhaps one child, I am not entirely clear, to join them as they carry on their relationship. That is a matter for stage two.
204. Ms Martin highlighted all the positives about Mrs. N. The interactions between Child A and Mrs. N were said to be good and positive. She was encouraging Child A to eat and drink and use the toilet regularly, and Mrs. N and the father demonstrated a strong relationship currently and an ability to cooperate in all parenting tasks including setting appropriate boundaries and being affectionate with the children. Krista Martin believed that Mrs. N, in particular, would have insight into the ways to provide appropriate stimulation for the children, and was attuned to their requests for attention. The father has probably grown by watching her in relation to that.
205. In essence Mrs. N presented to the Court as a very child-focused mother, and Ms. Martin said in her oral evidence that she was impressed by Mrs. N's parenting abilities. Moreover, in her interview with Dr. French, the Mother, having explained how entirely understandably she had felt devastated when she had heard the father's relationship and the pregnancy with Mrs. N confirmed to her, she too said that she now got on quite well with Mrs. N and did not have any worries herself about the children being in the care of their father and his new partner, describing the father as a good father. Dr. French considered that the mother now held no active, resentful feelings towards Mrs. N at all. That is very much to the mother's credit. It could not have been easy.
206. The mother's suggestion which surfaced in her oral evidence this year that Child A had made allegations to her about Mrs N hitting or hurting her simply do not withstand the test of scrutiny at all. Just as the social worker, Miss Kapungu, came to struggle with regard to the inconsistency and unreliability of Child A as a witness of truth, given also that Child A had said Yvonne was there at the contact session when the father struck her, which simply had not occurred, the Court cannot, and does not, find that the allegations against Mrs. N are true. While the Court does not relish finding that a child deliberately does so, I cannot but help hold that those uncorroborated allegations are lies, Child A having most regrettably developed a pattern of telling patent untruths mirroring her mother's approach and propensity to do so.
207. Child A is not believable and there is no other evidence that the Local Authority can point to in support of these allegations. Child A, I find, has been influenced by her mother to say these matters. There is no other reliable evidence to support these allegations, and accordingly I am bound to dismiss them in relation to Mrs. N, and I find that the threshold against her is not established. This is not a wicked stepmother but a kind, considerate and caring person in the children's lives, who has had to be embroiled in very considerable proceedings and a lot of intrusive investigation into her own life.
208. I regret, I make it plain, that the Local Authority could not have made concessions about that, and that the allegations did have to be pursued right through to closing submissions and fact finding by the Court, when it was known from the word go that only the evidence of a now 12 year old girl with all her attendant difficulties was being relied upon.
209. In relation to the father I do not find that there has been this sort of punching, hitting and kicking as described by Child C and Child A. Sometimes the children were seen to fight at home and hurt each other. Dr. Stathopoulou, the Consultant County Paediatrician, reported in April 2010 that she had been seeing Child C for a number of years. He has behavioural problems which she thinks are related to parenting, but the parents were looking for a medical diagnosis, the father at that time insisting on Tourette's syndrome in Child C. She had noticed in the clinic that Child C suddenly hit out at Child E but the parents did not even move from their chairs or make any attempt to protect the little girl from being hit by Child C. Child B's assertion that he had told his teacher, Mrs. T, that his father had been hitting him was helpfully investigated by the Guardian and Mrs. T recalled no such assertion whatsoever.
210. Certainly there has been slapping and smacking and aggressive shouting in the face, and I have dealt with that already, and there was that grabbing or yanking described by Krista Martin which ties in with (d) their inability to control Child C's behaviour. In fact Child C has been seen by professionals to have behaved much better in the home than at school where he has that really extremely challenging and violent behaviour. I say about the school at this juncture that certainly his father, and intriguingly it would seem staff at the residential unit too, do not feel that his needs have been particularly well served at his current or previous school, and that has raised his anxiety because he feels unsafe or uncontained, I am not quite clear which.
211. It was noted at a Case Conference that Child C likes being removed from the class, and will manipulate a situation to his advantage. The paternal grandfather said that Child C will often create a scene when the family are out shopping and he definitely can pick his moment. In relation to both Child A and Child C, they rather behave as they wish and that is an ongoing problem, and they need to be reminded that they are children and that they do not rule the roost.
212. Although Child A told the Police that her father would slap her in front of Mrs N from the age of 6, 7 or 8, that, again, was a demonstrable lie as her father did not meet Mrs N until Child A was already 10 years of age. Child C has also alleged that other people, including Mr. U at school, hit him on the bus and at other times. He has also been seen self-harming. That came across both through the oral and written evidence.
213. Child B had fallen over perfectly normally as children will do and had split his lip, and had also been injured on his bike, so there were those thrills and spills of normal childhood. The allegation of the father taking hold of the children by their clothes and dragging them around the carpet so that they got carpet burns, and Child B and Child C still having scares from that, was not supported by any other evidence at all. Certainly the mother did not seek to say that she had witnessed that when she and the father were living together. Accordingly, I do not find that there has been anything beyond normal chastisement meted out to the children and that the father is not naturally a violent person. There was only that one-to-one direct head-butting incident in relation to him and the mother. I think there has been a good deal of slapping and smacking which has rather raised tension in the household and for Child C in particular.
214. In relation to (e), I find proven the allegation that the mother had gone out to visit a friend and the children were found wandering around outside in the roadway in their pyjamas which put them obviously in a very unsafe scenario. That is in relation to inappropriate supervision. Again, that very much overlaps what I said already about the father's treatment of the children.
215. Finally, in relation to (f) and (g), I do not find those proven to the requisite standard. Intriguingly the school had been concerned once when Child C came in with two large scratches across his left cheek which had large red lines of about 1cm, which looked, I suspect, suspiciously like pressure marks from fingers. The mother was telephoned and explained that the kitten had scratched Child C but the school was left with some concern. The children alluded in their ABE interviews to their mother offering protection and comfort from their father and do not speak of any fear of her whatsoever. She had said on those several occasions that the father had hit the children but never followed through with any cooperation with the prosecution of her husband, and in her own evidence referred only to normal chastisement by way of slapping them. There were the scratches referred to in February 2013 where the Section 47 inquiry produced no clear cause of the injury to Child C's face.
216. Accordingly I do not find that the mother has failed to protect the children from physical or other harm or chastisement beyond the concern perhaps about taking the children into the home of other people, people whom clearly the father thought were inappropriate for the children to spend time with.
217. It is hard to know what to believe in relation to what the mother says about the harm in the community, the Spanish neighbour and the drunken man who, it is said by her and by her alone, wanted to have sex with Child A and all about [her three friends], and so on. At one stage I think the father admitted that he did not encourage the mother to see her family or to have friends. He was very concerned about the impact they would have on her. Once she was free of his daily presence in the home she set about doing just that.
218. On one occasion Child A and her mother had simply been walking in a local park and the man was there sitting on the grass very drunk and may actually have touched Child A. While the mother plainly is vulnerable to being targeted by inappropriate adults in the community, I do not find there is sufficient evidence to support that allegation of failure to protect from physical or other harm or chastisement.
219. I am also not convinced to the required standard that the paternal grandfather was aware of any improper chastisement of his grandchildren and failed to protect them as alleged in (g). He did not witness that himself and he certainly reacted swiftly when informed of any domestic violence against the children's mother. Although Child A said she had told her grandparents about her father hitting them, there is actually no evidence of that, and clearly Child A did not trot over that day, it being impossible for her to do so given the distance between the two properties.
220. At the end of it all the Court is left in no doubt whatsoever that the four children have indeed suffered neglect and emotional harm through their parents' behaviour towards them at times, but is less sanguine about actual physical direct harm on all the evidence adduced, given Child A's real ability to lie and to dramatise events and to seek attention and approbation in that way.
221. The father has been less than sensitive about Child A's own modesty and autonomy at times, particularly when he was absent from her daily life for those 19 months or more, and would very probably have had to assume that Child A on her own, or with the combination of her mother's assistance, had managed to clean her up adequately during that time. I find that he perhaps should have been a little bit more circumspect about all of that, and perhaps only offered to go in and check her back once she had done her best in the shower or bath. I accept though that he had been given instructions and the necessary lotions to use by the hospital staff, and felt entrusted to use those, and also to sit in and see if Child A had passed a motion as there was stool and colour charts that were supposed to be filled in and so on and so forth.
222. She had said at one stage that she was scared about going to the toilet because other people keep on coming in, and in essence she could not relax. How life is managed for her now at the foster carer's the Court is not entirely sure. That will need understanding at stage two. The Court has been made aware that she may now very worryingly have potentially a permanently stretched lower bowel through all this impaction over the years and the treatment that she has necessarily had to have.
223. While reflecting that the mother has had a thoroughly miserable time, and as Krista Martin said, her reaction was so extreme when she had the father's ongoing relationship and the pregnancy of Mrs. N confirmed to her, the Court was critical of her at the end for dumping so many adult themes and issues on her daughter's young shoulders. That was done in the absence of anybody else being able to share with her. To a certain extent I think that the daughter has parentified her mother and had to do this for her. She is so highly protective of her mother's emotions and mental state that that has been very concerning and detrimental to her childhood. It is hoped that at the present time Child A has a more normal child's life and lets the adults organise things for her.

Conclusion

224. One could go on and on dealing with the enormous multiplicity of issues raised in the voluminous files and the miscellaneous days of evidence, but the concessions already made and the findings that the Court has made now establish the threshold criteria without a doubt. Accordingly the Interim Care Orders will continue. As to the way ahead, I will canvas Directions about that in one moment. The mother, it has been stated, would welcome an appropriate assessment now that she does not have the care of all four children on her own as a daily responsibility. The Court is unclear at the moment as to what her actual intentions are. Now that she is no longer in a relation with The father or his family to the extent that she was previously, and with a new partner, it is submitted on her behalf that with proper input and support she would be able to parent one, or some perhaps, but not all of her children. Whether Mr P features in any proposal will have to be considered obviously most carefully. He is an unknown quantity as yet.
225. Mr NL has been considered already as a carer for Child E and needs full assessment. Mr and Mrs M, it seems to me, deserve further proper consideration whether it be for one or two children. As to the father and Mrs. N, if they are to go forward as a couple the issue of Child H's future and her usual residence will need to be factored in and there are those parallel private law proceedings currently concerning her.
226. The father relies, the Court was aware from what he said in the witness box, on what he felt to be a very positive parenting assessment that he had undertaken, and him being very willing to take on board advice and to improve his parenting. Child C has still been saying recently that he hates his Mummy and Daddy and the most careful thought will need to go into his future. I noted that as a result of Dr. Stathopoulou recently saying that she did not believe that Child C had ADHD, there was then a trial of stopping his medication whereupon he started displaying very severe sexualised behaviour which will require proper consideration in the immediate future.
227. That concludes the Court's Judgment. Great gratitude is owed to all the advocates who have pursued their individual cases valiantly and fearlessly. It has not been an easy case for anybody, the Court is well aware, but the threshold criteria are made out and we must move on to the next stage to deal with the children's welfare and their disposal.