The court expressed concerns about the professional response to the death of a 13-month-old child who had died suddenly and in unexplained circumstances whilst in her parents’ care. In particular, it criticised the police failure to undertake any real investigation until nine months after the child’s death and the local authority’s failure to take legal […]
A judge’s refusal to hold a fact-finding hearing to clarify whether a father, who had been allowed unsupervised contact with his children, had committed indecent assault many years earlier could not be criticised.
A finding of fact of sexual assault in welfare proceedings was upheld in circumstances where the interview and preparation process for a child’s Achieving Best Evidence interviews was sufficiently robust so as to enable the recorded and written records to be taken as a source of reliable evidence and where the judge’s characterisation of the […]
There might be occasions, in which a sexual offences prevention order under the Sexual Offences Act 2003 s.104 was made to protect a child of a defendant, where the family court’s jurisdiction should be reflected in the order because of the additional flexibility it provided. In the circumstances a s.104 order was varied to provide […]
