Halton Borough Council v A Mother & Ors

1. This matter is before the court for a combined fact finding and disposal hearing in relation to Halton Borough Council’s application for care orders in relation to three children: A, B and C. A is aged 16. B is 6 and C is 4.

2. Halton Borough Council have been represented before me by Mr Tughan KC and Miss Cracknell. It is their case that there should be care orders in relation to all three children. A should stay in the residential placement where he is currently living and be prepared for independent living. B and C should continue to be looked after by the long-term foster carers who are currently looking after them. The Local Authority acknowledge that the father has recently made progress in demonstrating that he might be able to look after the younger two children, and that returning the children to his care might be something they will consider in the future.

3. The mother has for some time played little part in these proceedings. She is living in the Turks and Caicos Islands. A link to the hearing was provided for her, but she did not join it on the first day. She did however attend the second day and the third. She was due to give her oral evidence on the third day but after being sworn in, and before confirming the truth of her written evidence, the connection appeared to fail. She did not rejoin the hearing thereafter. It did emerge that she had made contact with the father that evening. He related this when questioned. He said that she had said she had problems with her ‘phone. Mr Ekaney KC and Mr Gorton have represented her. She had acknowledged that the criteria set out in section 31 (2) of the Children Act 1989 (‘threshold’) have been met as to all three children. Her position in writing is that she accepts that A should stay where he is. Her counsel have acknowledged that the realistic options facing the court for B and C are that either (i) they remain with their current foster carers or (ii) they return to the care of the father. They say that the mother is likely to support the return of the children to the care of their father.

4. The father of the younger two children is represented by Ms James KC and Ms Channa. He opposes the care plan of the local authority for the younger two children and says that the threshold has not been met. He wants the younger two children to live with him. He acknowledges that he currently lives in a YMCA hostel but it is his case that if the younger children were returned to him he would be able to lease a one or two-bedroom property. He does not argue with the local authority’s care plan for A. (To make references easier, I shall refer to him as the father in this judgment.) A point made on his behalf which I hold in mind throughout is that B and C want to be returned to him.

5. The children are all represented by the same Guardian. Ms Bennett replaced Ms Calvert who had been the Guardian but became unwell in September 2025. Ms Bennett has been represented before me by Ms Burnell KC and Ms Fitzharris. Until December 2025 the local authority was proposing that the younger two children were placed for adoption, Ms Bennett had been against that, arguing that their relationship to their father was too much part of their identity for adoption to be appropriate. Given the current care plan of the local authority is for long-term fostering of the younger two children she now agrees with the local authority’s proposals. She supports the making of a care order and the care plan for A.

6. I note that these proceedings have been running at the time the hearing started for 100 weeks. The applications for care orders were issued on the 28 March 2024. There is no doubt that it has not been in the children’s best interests to leave their future uncertain for so long, nor can it have helped any other party. I shall not in this judgment focus on why that delay has occurred. I can see that there have been unusual problems presented by the need to get information from Turks and Caicos, by the illness of the previous guardian and the change in the care plan. Further, I am aware from my involvement in the case that there have been problems meeting court deadlines. My strong preliminary view is that none of the problems inherent to the case warrant such a delay. I ask the local authority to reflect on what has caused these delays, and would urge them to set out in writing any suggestions they might have as to how the case could have been dealt with better either by the courts or by themselves addressing those suggestions to me. (I would ask them to propose a timeframe for the suggestions upon receipt of this draft judgment.) I do not intend this to give rise to any form of satellite litigation but I will take it upon myself to consider what is said and, if appropriate to raise points with other members of the judiciary. If any of the other parties want to contribute to this exercise they should feel free to do so.

7. The hearing (like the proceedings) ran over time. It was delayed by a number of factors: most significantly, Ms Akram attended to give evidence without having reread her evidence and reports so had to be rescheduled, and LN did not attend until a witness summons had been made and an arrest warrant discussed. As a consequence this judgment is being written over a week since the conclusion of the hearing and will need to be sent out electronically. Background

8. The mother is a Haitian citizen. She is 35 years old. She moved from Haiti to Turks and Caicos in about 2009 when she was about 17 or 18. A was born in the October of that year. A’s father, we are told by her, is now dead. She had another child, a girl, P in 2012. P is a half-sister to all the children in these proceedings. She for much of her childhood lived with her father but more recently has been living with the mother in the Turks and Caicos islands.

9. The mother and the father started a relationship in about 2012. The father is a citizen of the Turks and Caicos. He is aged 43. He has largely lived with her since and played a significant part in looking after the children, including A. There are allegations of domestic violence in their relationships, and there is evidence (contested) that the father was convicted of ABH having hit the mother in 2016.

10. B was born in October 2019. The next year, in August 2020, the father was stabbed as part of gang violence. He was flown to Jamaica for hospitalisation for some 2 months, and later returned to have a stoma (with which he had been fitted) removed.

11. There are three particularised allegations of domestic violence in 2021 before the birth of C which I will detail below.

12. In November 2021 C was born. The next year the father witnessed a murder, which is said to have put him at risk. There are two particular alleged incidents of domestic violence which occurred after that which I will also detail below.

13. In August 2023 A moved to the UK, an arrangement having been made between the mother and LN, the father’s sister, for him to live with her in her home in this jurisdiction.

14. In September 2023 C and B moved to live with LN too.

15. In October 2023 the father moved to this jurisdiction to live with his sister and the boys. I am told that the father and the children moved here as part of a witness protection scheme provided by the Turks and Caicos government following his evidence to the courts there in relation to the murder. He tells me that as part of the witness protection scheme flight costs were met and money was provided to LN for looking after the children. There were some six other children and young adults living with LN and her partner RT.

16. On 23 December 2023 following an incident at LN’s home, to which the Police were called, the father left that home. Allegations were made against the father that he physically assaulted A and the other children in interviews conducted after the December incident. These allegations led to him being arrested on the 12 January 2024 on suspicion of child neglect and being made subject to police bail preventing him having contact with anyone under 16.

17. The local authority became involved over January 2024. In March 2024 they applied for interim care orders, which were made in April 2024. I am told they had been relying on the bail conditions preventing the father having contact with any child before then. The police, however, had decided to take no further action on the allegations of child neglect and the bail fell away.

18. The children continued to remain living with LN. In April 2024 an incident occurred between LN and her partner RT, and he left their home. The children continued to live with LN and the father had contact with the children managed by the local authority (which contact was not without incident) thereafter until January 2025.

19. In January 2025 LN said A needed to leave her home after an altercation between him and RT, who had moved back in with her in September 2024. In February 2025 the local authority commissioned Accolade to help provide support to LN in managing C and B. LN refused to allow Accolade into her home and she refused to care for C and B if they continued to see A.

20. As a consequence C and B were moved to emergency foster care, from where they were moved on to longer term foster carers. They have since been moved twice more. They are difficult children to look after. They have been with their current foster carers since September 2025. A was moved to a residential placement. He been in the same placement since 24 April 2025.

21. The father tells me that in May 2024 he was convicted by magistrates of an offence in relation to the December incident, but that in October 2024 the conviction was overturned on appeal to the Crown Court. During the course of our hearing I was helpfully provided by HHJ Steven Everett, the Recorder of Chester, with the appeal papers from the Chester Crown Court. They confirmed that the appeal was successful.

22. The father has endeavoured to maintain contact with C and B throughout this time. There have been a number of significant fall outs between him and the local authority which have led to suspensions of contact. It is his case that the problems are to do with Anisah Akram, who was for a period the allocated social worker. The local authority say that he made threats and acted aggressively when things went against him. Indeed Anisah Akram says that on one occasion (22 April 2025) the father said to her that people like her would be stabbed and killed back home. Further, the father sent threatening voice mail messages to the then foster carers in May 2025.

23. In September 2025 Ms Akram was replaced as the social worker by Anna Stepanian. The father would point to this as the event which has caused a positive change in the attitude of the local authority to him.

24. His case in short is that he has been unfairly the victim of prejudice and the mistakes (sometimes malicious) of others throughout these proceedings but that judged fairly, as the local authority are now beginning to see, his care of B and C not only does not put them at risk but is in their best interest. Police Reports from the Turks and Caicos

25. I have a report from the Police Incident Logging System dated the 7 August 2021 which relates that the mother (her name is misspelt) contacted them to complain that the father hit her on the head and does not want to leave her house. I am told that an officer went to the scene: the mother said she only wanted the father to get all his belongings and leave her house. The father said that he was going to work and when he got off he would take his stuff and leave. There appears to be no follow up.

26. I have a report from the Police Incident Logging System dated the 19 August 2021 which relates that the mother reported that the father had beaten A and she was tired of it. The father (or someone identifying themselves as such) takes the phone and tells the operator that ‘he would fuck the operator up and to [sic] suck his mothers stinking pussy’. Police attended the place where the person identifying themselves as the father said he would be waiting for them but they could not locate him. There appears to be no follow up.

27. I have a report from the Police Incident Logging System dated the 31 October 2021 which relates that A contacted them to say that the father constantly ‘beats him for no reason’. The mother says that she had reported the father for beating and abusing him but nothing was done. The father had moved out but had just moved back. The police attended and the mother gave an account that, when she opened the front door to her home to get light to cook breakfast, the father, who was still sleeping, hit her with a rock and bruised A on his face. The father was not present when the police attended. The police advise civil action and an investigation by Social Welfare. There does not appear to have been any further action.

28. I have a report from the Police Incident Logging System dated the 9 December 2022 which relates that the father called them worried about A. He said he ‘went to spank him’ and had ‘hit him in the balls with a pcp pipe by mistake’. They spoke to the mother who said the father was always beating A and she make reports but nothing gets done. She says the father threatened to kill A. Police attended. A was taken to the hospital. The mother related that the father hit A several times. The father ‘confirmed the report’ and said he will do it again if A ‘don’t listen and obey his rules’. We are told that the father was warned.

29. I have a report from the Police Incident Logging System dated the 18 February 2023 which relates that a sister-in-law of the mother called the police saying that the mother had told her that the father had assaulted her and had said he would burn her house down if she ran. She had run, and saw him set fire to a small structure in front of the home. There were children in the home aged 11, 3 and 1. Police and Fire Rescue were dispatched. The fire we were told was extinguished. The mother confirmed her report to the police. Her daughter confirmed the report to the police, and said her stepfather attacked her and her younger brothers. He was attempting to force them into the fire. The police did not meet the father but were told by those at the scene that he fled when he saw the flashing lights approach. We are told that further investigation will be carried out, but do not have any record of it.

30. I have an Intelligence Unit Criminal Profile for the father dated the 30 October 2023. This tells me: • He was a murder witness in 2022; he was accused of cruelty to a juvenile in 2022, and he was accused of A.O.A.B.H (assault occasioning actual bodily harm) in 2019. • He has a recent conviction for A.O.A.B.H in 2016 (apparently 5 December 2016) for which he was ‘place on bound’ for 6 months and was to have no contact with the complainant, the mother. • That there was information received in March 2023 that there were plans to kill him and A as they are witnesses to a murder. • That in June 2018 he was seen selling drugs • That he has criminal convictions in the Turks and Caicos Islands, that he is said to be a substance abuser and that he has been involved in many domestic disputes which resulted in him assaulting people in his household. Witnesses

31. I heard from Ms Stepanian the social worker now allocated to the case. She was an impressive witness. It was clear that she had managed to make a working relationship with the father where there had been a breakdown in the relationship between him and the local authority before she became involved. It was clear that she cared a great deal for the children and worked hard to make the arrangements for them as good as possible. It was also clear that she was pleased that the care plan had now shifted to one of long-term fostering. She was frank about the problems she had with the current foster carers, though firm in her view that they had listened and improved their care. She even expressed the hope – which she considered realistic - that the father could in the future be a carer for the children notwithstanding what she considered his history of domestic abuse. She praised him for his attentiveness to B and C during contact and his current good attendance.

32. It is to be regretted that she is not to remain the allocated social worker after this hearing but as she explained, that was the nature of her role.

33. In relation to the foster carers she did not shy away from acknowledging that they had not put in the level of commitment that the children needed at first, even that she raised complaints about them. She was convincing when she said that the foster carers had learnt from what had happened, and now had assistance from the local authority to help them manage. She singled out the good masculine relationship between the male carer, with B, and the loving relationship between the female carer and C. She accepted that the carers were not black, though the children were, and the carers were not a cultural match. She accepted it would have been better if there were, but drew attention to the shortage of foster carers which faced the local authority.

34. She was clear that though she could acknowledge positives about the father there were many negatives about trusting the children to his care. Among them she enumerated: that he could be physically violent; that though he said he was not using cannabis now there was no drug test evidence to support that and he had a long history of using it; that he was still homeless; and critically that the good relationship she had observed between him and the younger children occurred during short, supervised contact sessions.

35. Put shortly, she was not confident that he would cope with round the clock caregiving and, in the light of what had happened in the past and these children’s need for stability, she did not trust him enough to run the risk of returning the children to him yet.

36. In particular she was worried about his denial of domestic abuse and the damage that he (and the mother) had done to the children. Without an acknowledgment of that and being able to face up to what he had done she did not believe he could be trusted to deal with the pressures of being a parent without reverting again to domestic violence.

37. The children she considered would be irreparably damaged by being returned to him now and the ‘placement’ with him breaking down. Once there was evidence of a sustained change by him then a return could be considered by the local authority as part of the IRO review, or by the court if the father were to return the matter to it.

38. I heard from Ms Akram , Ms Stepanian’s predecessor as the children’s allocated social worker. She gave her evidence remotely (being engaged in another case in another court). The sometimes-poor connection did not help her give her evidence and I take that into account. Ms James cross examined her forcibly as to whether she, and her attitude to the father, was what had gone wrong in the local authority’s handling of this case. In particular, Ms James pointed out that Ms Akram’s predecessor, Ms Reynolds, had prepared a broadly positive parenting assessment in July 2024, and when Ms Akram prepared an addendum parenting assessment of the father on the 11 October 2024 it was negative.

39. Ms Akram answered questions defensively and on occasions aggressively. She did however have a fundamentally coherent response. Namely, that the initial assessment of Ms Reynold had left significant gaps (which Ms Reynold’s had highlighted in that report), such as the allegations of domestic violence and drug use. Ms Akram had needed to investigate these gaps. The father had refused to engage in her addendum parenting assessment. He failed (at that time) to take a drugs test. He ‘deflected’ when she attempted any discussion of domestic abuse. The issues he said were all mistakes of professionals.

40. In particular there had been repeated problems about the father’s contact with the children. She was particularly ‘disappointed’ when it was put to her that she was responsible for the contact arrangement breaking down in acrimony. It was her account that she made contact happen by being prepared to supervise it when others refused to do so because of the father’s behaviour.

41. The contact problems were, amongst other things, she says: • On the10 September 2024 (after being allocated on the 3 September 2024) she had to intervene when the father on her account aggressively pulled on B’s arm to get him to clear up. She said this left B upset. The father says this did not happen. I am not asked to make a finding of fact on it but I can see no reason why Ms Akram would make it up. I can see obvious reason why the father would say it did not happen. If I were asked to make a finding I would say that on the balance of probability Ms Akram is telling the truth. (This reflection, and those that follow, are made having taken into account the father’s evidence as well Ms Akram’s.) • On the12 September 2024 the father made threats to physically harm staff and their families at a contact centre when the children were not there (as they were planned to be) for contact. This, and the following threats are disputed but I reflect on them as above. • On the 13 September 2024 the father made threats to harm Ms Akram and contact centre staff if he did not have contact with the children. • On the 19 September 2024 the father threatened to harm contact staff if they report his contact negatively. • Then, subsequent to the addendum parenting report, on 17 April 2025, the father refused to say goodbye to the children in the contact centre, as Ms Akram says was agreed at the request of the foster carers (he denies this), and barges past her, saying ‘you people can’t tell me what to do with my kids, if I want to say bye in the car I will, this is my time.’ The father disputes this, and says the relevant CCTV was not produced. The local authority says there was no internal CCTV. There is a further witness to this incident for the local authority Ms Lamb. She did not attend because she was ill. The father takes issue with her statement. I have read that statement and note the statement of truth attached to it. I would draw the same conclusion on this issue as on the other contact disputes.

42. And, at a subsequent meeting on the 22 April 2025 (conducted remotely), she related that he said, ‘watch what happens to you when it comes to my kids… you know how we deal with people like you back home, you’d be stabbed, killed, and when it comes to my kids I will kill for them’.

43. As mentioned above, the father left a threatening message for the foster carers in May 2025. I have a copy of this. It is not disputed, but the father says that having recorded it he sent it by mistake. That explanation is not plausible, and, if true, does not much diminish the point.

44. In the light of these events it was reasonable for Ms Akram to not feel it appropriate for Ms James to label her as the problem in the relationship between the father and the local authority and it was understandable why she provided a negative view of his ability to care for the children.

45. The impression that I formed of what was happening over this time has two parts: one, the father became fed up with the local authority – he had co-operated with them at first, when he fell out with his sister and left her home and the children remained with her - now he wanted his children back and Ms Akram was standing in his way; two, Ms Akram pushed him on hard questions – domestic violence, physical control of his children, drugs – and he did not want to be pushed and he responded badly. It might well be that to some extent she did ‘get up the father’s nose’ (my words) but I must have regard to how he responded when things did not go his way. (I make clear that in forming this impression I take into account her evidence and the evidence of the father that I will refer to below.)

46. I heard from Ms E and Ms F as to an occasion when B said first to Ms E and then both of them that the father beat him ‘all over my body. He beats all the kids.’ This was on the 10 January 2024 after the 23 December 2023 incident which was reported to the police. There was some confusion as to whether B was calm, or, agitated and moving his hands over his body when he said this, but it was quite apparent, notwithstanding criticism that neither had ABE training, that he had said this or something very similar to it.

47. I heard from LN . She was called by the local authority but was reluctant to attend. She had not given a statement in these proceedings but had given a statement to the Police in relation to the December 2023 incident between the father and A, and in that statement she had made trenchant criticism of the father’s treatment of B and C. That statement is signed as being true to the best of her knowledge and belief, and makes clear that if wilfully false she would be liable for prosecution.

48. LN said by email in advance of the hearing that she could not remember the events and she gave the statement at a time when there were issues between her and her brother and things were said in anger. I issued a witness summons on the first day of the hearing. LN did not attend on the day required. Her reason for not answering the witness summons was that she was in poor health. I indicated in the morning that I would hear an application for her arrest at 2 pm and held out the possibility of remote attendance. She did then agree to attend the hearing remotely. I accept that she did appear to have mobility issues when she attended and I am grateful that she did attend remotely, so I draw no negative inferences from her reluctance to give evidence.

49. LN made clear that she no longer considered her witness statement right insofar as in it she said that the father assaulted A. She said she was not in the room at the time of what she thought had been the father’s assault. Her mother was. Her mother has since told her that what happened, namely that A attacked the father and what she though was the father’s assault on A was in fact him pushing A away from him to stop A ‘being in his face’.

50. LN also confirmed what she had said in email that her emotions were heightened when she gave her account to the Police. She was keen to convey to me that the father is in a ‘much better place’ (my words) now than he was then. Although she had not seen him for two years, she told me that when she spoke to him (I assume by video call) he looks much better and he and they don’t argue as they used to. She commended his efforts to sort himself out, by drinking less (she said he used to drink a lot) and (on his own account) no longer using cannabis.

51. She did say to me on a number of occasions that the father had had a terrible childhood himself where he had been awfully abused. This was something she wanted me to hold in mind when I was considering what progress he had made.

52. She wanted me to know that she now understood that the mother was a liar, whereas when she wrote her statement for the police she considered that the mother was truthful. The reason she changed her mind was to do with A. She said he was a very difficult young man and the mother had sent him to her without telling her properly about his difficulties. The effect of this was that whereas she had credited the mother’s account of domestic violence being committed by the father on the mother and on A she no longer did.

53. When LN was pressed about the accounts that she had given to the police about the behaviour of the father to C and B she said that when the word hitting or abusing was used I should understand it as spanking. Physical chastisement is perfectly normal in Turks and Caicos she told me and the father back in 2023 had still to adapt his parenting style to the English way.

54. This was entirely unconvincing. In the conclusion to her police statement she made the following points: • Everyone has heard the sounds of hitting and smacking and both children screaming immediately after. • She would go into his [the father’s room] to tell him to stop hitting the children and would pick up C to keep him safe. • She would take C away from the father as he would simply not stop hitting him no matter how loud he was crying. • She believes C gets physically abused a lot more simply because [the father] does not want him and does not want to continue to care for him.

55. None of these points fit with chastisement.

56. She did continue to agree that she had heard the father say to C, ‘I HATE YOU’, ‘YOUR MUM SHOULD HAVE KILLED YOU. I DON’T WANT YOU AROUND’. (I adopt the capitalisation from the statement she gave to the police.)

57. She asserted that the police had made a mistake when in her statement they had written that she had seen the father hit B with a belt while continuing to ‘shout curse words’. She said really the father was hitting a bed with a belt to scare B, having already spanked him with his hand. This was entirely implausible given she had signed this (and every) page of her statement and the statement made great play of the clarity of her view. ‘When the father hit B with the belt I was stood approximately 4-5 feet away from the father, visibility in the room was clear as the bedroom light was on and there was no obstruction to my view as the door was pushed fully open.’

58. LN did make the point to me that she would not want the children to go back to the father if she really thought that he would abuse them. I do balance this thought in my mind. I do also consider that she had given her statement to the Police when emotions were running high between her and the father. Her attempts now however to explain away what she had said to the Police as no more than a culturally different view of chastisement are obviously untruthful. When I turn to consider her evidence in relation to the threshold criteria I will need to treat her evidence with care and hold in mind all the complexities that arise when someone has not told the truth.

59. The father gave his evidence over 2 days. I stopped his evidence on the first day because it had been going on for some time, the examination was robust and on occasions confrontational, and he appeared to me to be getting tired. For the most part on the first day he gave his evidence with grace. There appeared to be little animosity in his replies to counsel and he reflected that they were doing their job. Indeed for much of the time he engaged with the process with courtesy and an occasional smile. His presentation during cross examination by Ms Burnell on the second day was markedly more confrontational. It was as if he had had enough and felt a need to assert himself.

60. What soon emerged was that his case was based on a view that everyone had conspired against him. The documents from the Turks and Caicos Police were, he said, forgeries. When pressed as to why the local authority would have been sent forged documents his answers varied: perhaps because the Police had it in for him as a result of problems he had had with them in his youth, perhaps (and this became his preferred case on the second day) because his sister (LN) had family connections in the Turks and Caicos Police. The mother, he said, had given false evidence in her written evidence when she said that she and A were assaulted by him. He wondered whether this was because he had said to her at one stage that he was going to look after C and B without her. His sister had given false evidence against him to the Police in this country because either she was looking to protect her daughter or because she was wanting to collect money from looking after his children. The nursery school teachers had given false evidence against him because Ms E was a friend of his sister (something she had denied) and they had all had a meeting in which they hatched a plot to say that B alleged he was beaten. The drug testing company had been biased against him because they had been instructed by Ms Akram. And Ms Akram was biassed against him, perhaps for racist-like reasons.

61. There is a question in my mind as to whether the father is delusional or simply dishonest. There were occasions when I considered him straightforwardly dishonest. The most obvious was, when, with a rhetorical flourish (indeed a tricolon), he told me that while in Turks and Caicos he had never been arrested, he had never been charged and he had never been to prison. Later that afternoon, when asked about difficulties in his relationship with the mother, he did relate that in 2016 he had been before a judge following an incident between him and the mother, but that he had not been convicted of anything. On further questioning he did accept that on this occasion he had been arrested and he had been taken before the court. (I record here that he told me that this was an incident when, after the mother striking him in such a way as to draw blood from his forearm, he ‘whipped her’ on her backside with a branch from a tree.) Even then he did not accept that he had misled the court earlier, because, he told me, his earlier statement was in relation to a particular sort of crime. The view I have come to, not that this view is central to the decisions that I need to make, is that there is some disconnect in his mind between his view of himself and what has actually happened. He does not consider that he is a violent man, and so when someone says that he has been violent they are wrong, or making it up, or have some other agenda.

62. I shall need to go through each of the points that local authority ask me to find and his evidence on those points below, but before leaving these general remarks it is necessary to note that the father accepted entirely that if someone had done that which the local authority accuses of him of doing, then it would not be appropriate to leave them with the responsibility of looking after children. What the local authority say he has done, he was clear, cannot be considered appropriate by the differing standards of childcare in the Turks and Caicos.

63. I heard from the children’s guardian, Kirsteen Bennett . She was cross-examined for some time by Ms James. Ms Bennett had had other commitments which meant she had not been present in court save for the day on which she gave evidence. She told me that she had read notes of the hearing but it did appear to me that she did not have a close feel for the evidence which preceded hers. Further, because she was a ‘replacement’ guardian she did not have the knowledge of the history of the proceedings that someone who had been involved from the start would have had. Ms James put to her a number of points with some force: • Her first one, in essence was Ms Bennett had put the cart before the horse in that one of her big concerns in relation to the father was that he denied that he was a perpetrator of domestic abuse when there had still to be a fact-finding hearing. The logic of this point is at first blush forceful. Ms Bennett replied that he accepted that he had perpetrated domestic abuse in the light of the ‘whipping’ he had referred to in oral evidence. That is of course a backwards looking justification of what she had written in her report because the admission had not been made until the hearing, and her report was written well before. Ms Bennett did say that time often does not allow for a separate fact-finding hearing and so it is necessary for her to look at the totality of the evidence and do the best that she could. Here the totality included what LN had said, what the mother had said, and what the nursery had reported. I would add that (although it is denied by the father) we are also told that there he has a conviction for assault on the mother in Turk and Caicos. The weight that I attach to this criticism must depend upon what I find on the pleaded threshold criteria advanced by the local authority. I do however record that Ms Bennett told me that the reason that this concern was one that weighed heavily on her was that until the father accepted that he had a problem on which he needed to work there was little that could be done to enable him to manage himself such that he did not physically abuse the children. There would be no point sending him on a course if he thought he was only doing it to please the local authority rather than he accepted that he needed help to deal with the children and other relationships. • Ms James second significant point was that this case needed cultural knowledge which the evidence here did not provide. There was no one who could put in context the father’s different approach to corporal punishment; there was no one who could help us understand different nuances of words, such that hitting, beating, and even spanking, were maybe really just smacking; and there was no one who could help us understand the likelihood of corruption in the Turks and Caicos Police. Ms Bennett’s response was that the local authority were aware that the father (and the children) had come from a different culture and they had taken that into account. She remarked that the father was staying with his sister who had gone through the same transition and was able to help him. She pointed out that it was his own case that in Turks and Caicos no one spanks children under five years old. And she pointed out that hitting children was wrong. I would add to this that the father had said himself that no one who had done that which the local authority say he has done should be left to look after children. And I would add that I had taken LN through parts of her police statement substituting the word spanking for hitting or beating and it was immediately apparent that hitting and beating were not being used as synonyms for corporal punishment. • Ms James put to Ms Bennett that the current foster parents were ‘sub-optimal’. Ms Bennett responded in two ways (i) she was not wedded to the local authority using these foster carers (ii) that after a difficult beginning they seemed to have settled down and that that boded well for the future. Ms James pointed out that CAMHS had expressed the concern that they were not meeting B’s emotional needs. Ms Bennett reflected that it was always difficult at the beginning of a placement. • Ms James put to Ms Bennett that the father was very good managing the children and that the children were very attached to him. Ms Bennett agreed that they were very attached to him. She pointed out, as had Ms Stepanian, that the father was with the children for controlled, managed, short sessions. That he could manage the children well for those sessions was very different to managing them as a parent. The children’s enjoyment in seeing the father was in part because they were able to have fun with him in the managed sessions. • Ms James put to her that the local authority could use their resources to help the father look after the children rather than help the foster carers. Ms Bennett responded that it would be a ‘catastrophe’ for the children to go back to the father and then need to be removed. They would invest heavily in their return to their father and should it not work out they would struggle to maintain any relationship thereafter. It would be incomparably worse than a breakdown in a foster placement. • In response to a question from me as to whether, if I were not to return the children to the father he would enter into a downward spiral which would destroy the possibility of children being returned to him in the future, she said to me that she hoped it would be the occasion for the father addressing his problems and showing that he can manage to engage properly with professionals and the court.

64. Finally I record that Ms James put to Ms Bennett that she only met the father face to face once. Ms Bennett responded that she had read the papers carefully, that she had other forms of contact, and that she had not been in the case from the beginning. I can understand why from the father’s point of view that left him feeling that Ms Bennett was not engaged but it was clear to me that she was. She was not someone who just agreed with the local authority as her earlier resistance to their plan for adoption demonstrated. She had clearly applied herself independently to considering what was in these children’s best interests and I must take her expert views seriously. Outline of other evidence

65. I received a late short statement from the father’s mother, BN . It was accepted and she was not cross examined. She records that the father pushed A away on the 23 December 2023. A had ‘come at him like he wanted to fight with [him].’ The father had then been hit in the face by LN’ daughter, FN with her ‘phone and he had started to bleed.’

66. The broadly corresponds to the information that I received from the Chester Crown Court.

67. I note that BN says that while she was at the house she saw the father look after the children well, that she did not see him hit or physically chastise them, and though she saw him drink alcohol she did not see him drunk or high. She records that he did not smoke joints around her or the children.

68. BN, I remind myself was a very occasional visitor. This Christmas trip was the father’s first meeting with her in a long time.

69. I received a number of reports from Alpha Biolabs . They show that the father has used cannabis and alcohol (sometimes heavily) and (other than the first test) cocaine. The father persistently challenged the use of cocaine. Cannabis and alcohol he accepts he did use, though there is debate as to how much. There is no other report of him using cocaine. The scientific evidence does on the balance of probability lead me to conclude that he has used cocaine but I will bear in mind that nobody has reported to me that his use of cocaine has caused any problems.

70. The mother has left a large hole in these proceedings by her absence. She has given written evidence, mainly in responses to the threshold criteria of the local authority, which is in turn in accordance with the Turks and Caicos Police reports, as to her and A being violently assaulted by the father while in Turks and Caicos. She has also given contrary evidence to the Local Authority (recorded in their Care Plan of the 1 September 2025) in which it is recorded that she denied that there was any domestic abuse. All parties acknowledge that by her not attending the father has been denied the opportunity to cross examine her. The court, I record, has lost the opportunity of considering what she has to say on some of the odd parts of this case, such as her apparent desire to continue a relationship with the father when she appears to have been a complainant to the Police that he has tried to burn her house down, and her desire to have him look after the children given her accounts that he is a domestic abuser.

71. Speculation on these issues, as well as speculation on why she has not attended to give evidence, is not going to take me anywhere. I will have to consider the evidence that I do have, noting its limitations. Threshold

72. The relevant date for consideration of the threshold criteria is as long ago as the 28 March 2024, when the application was made for the care order. I am reminded that events that have occurred subsequently may be relied upon to prove the state of affairs at that date. I remind myself that the court can only make a care order if a child is suffering or is likely to suffer significant harm and that harm is attributable to the care being given, or likely to be given if the order were not made, not being what it would be reasonable to expect a parent to give the child, or the child being beyond parental control.

73. I am reminded that the burden in on the local authority to prove their case on the balance of probabilities.

74. The threshold has been set out in four categories: (1) Physical and Domestic Abuse; (2) Drug and Alcohol Abuse; (3) Inability to meet Needs; (4) Criminality. I will consider them in turn.

75. I am going to consider the particular factual points set out in the threshold document separately below and then consider whether the facts that I have found are such as to lead me to a conclusion that each of the children has suffered or are likely to suffer significant harm as a consequence of their care.

76. Physical and Domestic Abuse. There are 12 points raised. The first 6 relate to events in Turks and Caicos. Each then involve consideration of the weight to be given to the reports that I have from the Turks and Caicos Police, and the fact that the mother has not attended court to give evidence. I record at this stage that on the balance of probabilities I reject the father’s case that the reports are fakes. As will be seen below some relate to incidents that he accepts occurred but in relation to which he gives a different account. It would be very tricky to fake reports for events he agreed occurred. And further I have a ‘position statement’ from a solicitor, Mr Douglas, which exhibits an email chain in which the Turks and Caicos Police Records Office confirm that the reports are authentic. I accept that it is logically possible that this is a mistaken account but that is overwhelmingly unlikely. I have already noted the difficulty I have given that the mother has not given evidence before me. In relation to many of the incidents she is the complainant.

77. Conviction of father for assault against the mother in 2019 . Mr Tughan tells me this is a typographical error for 2016. The documents from Turks and Caicos record a conviction in 2016. It was the father’s case in writing (before the typo’ was corrected) that he was not charged and not convicted and that he has a clean police record in Turks and Caicos. The father in his oral evidence related that he was arrested for an assault having ‘whipped’ the mother in 2016 and taken before the court, but denies that he was convicted of anything.

78. The father has produced a certificate of character dated the 24 July 2024, provided for the purpose of private sector employment, which does not show this conviction. That has been explained in an email to Mr Douglas, on the basis that the offence would be classified as spent, under a rehabilitation ordinance, and so is not disclosed on a standard Police record. That email however confirms that the father does have previous convictions.

79. Ms James objects that 2019 cannot just be amended to 2016 as a typographical amendment. She says that the father required to know with clarity what case he is answering. There is some force in this. It is however clear that his response was not aimed at merely 2019, it was a general response as to no convictions. Further when this event was explored with him orally he accepted that he assaulted the mother in 2016 (albeit putting it into context of a two-way fight) and he was taken before the court.

80. I conclude that he was convicted of assault in 2016, that this was an assault on the mother. I therefore have a solid reason to think that his relationship with the mother did involve domestic abuse.

81. On the 19 August 2021 the father assaulted A by hitting him and when the mother called the police he was abusive to them . The account from the Turks and Caicos Police and the mother’s evidence is relied on by the local authority. The father denies this incident occurred and said he was recovering from surgery (the stoma reversal) at this time and would have not been able to assault A.

82. In relation to the assault, the evidence that I have is the Police account of the mother’s allegation, and the mother’s written evidence in these proceedings. It is urged on me by Mr Tughan and Ms Burnell that looking at the evidence in this case in its totality I should prefer the Police account and the mother’s evidence to the father’s denial. I must note here that the Police account is only the allegation made by the mother. I do not on this occasion consider that the mother’s hearsay evidence, albeit one part is contemporaneous with the event, outweighs the direct evidence of the father. I do not know what the mother might have said to questions on this issue. I do take a different view on the Police account of the verbal abuse which they say the father gave the telephone operator. The father denies this as part of his denial of the whole incident. I consider on the balance of probabilities that the operator would not have recorded the father’s abuse if it had not happened, and the possibility that it was someone else pretending to be the father is far-fetched.

83. I do not make a finding of assault on this incident. I do make a finding of verbal abuse of the Police operator.

84. On the 31 October 2022 the father assaulted the mother by hitting her with a rock and A causing a cut to his face . The evidence in support of this is the Turks and Caicos records, and that the mother in writing accepts it. The father says it is fabricated and if this had happened he would have been arrested.

85. Here the person who contacted the police was A. The Police do attend and record the mother’s account. The Police do report a cut on A’s face.

86. I do not consider the father’s account that this is made up credible. I find that the Police have recorded what they have been told. However, where I have not had the opportunity to hear the evidence of the mother (or indeed A) I do not consider that the evidence that I do have is sufficient on the balance of probabilities to make a finding of assault in the face of the father’s denial.

87. I do not make a finding of assault on this incident.

88. On the 7 August 2021 the father assaulted the mother by striking her to the head. The evidence in support of this is the Turks and Caicos records, and that the mother in writing accepts it. The father’s case is that this is untrue and he had just come out of surgery. Again, I do not consider on the evidence that I have is sufficient to make a finding of assault. I do consider that the Police have been called out on a complaint by the mother and that they have recorded what they were told.

89. I do not make a finding of assault on this incident.

90. On the 9 December 2022 the father hit A in the testicles and penis with a pipe necessitating hospital treatment, further he made threats to kill A and further assault him if he did not follow his rules . The evidence in support of this is the Turks and Caicos records, and that the mother in writing accepts it. The father accepts that an incident did take place between him and A. He says A stole some of his property. A tried to run away and in the process a roll of paper or cardboard that the father had in his hand hit A on the leg. He further says that if A had gone to hospital with an injury why are there not medical records.

91. The person who contacts the Police on this occasion is the father. The Police record that the father says he went to spank A and he hit him in the balls with a pcp [plastic] pipe by mistake. For the reasons I have already expressed I consider the Police report to be genuine. I have here in the Police report the father’s own contemporary account of what happened. On the balance of probability it is far more likely to be right than the current account of an accidental knock with a roll of cardboard while stopping A running away. That is a later attempt to diminish what occurred.

92. I find that the father intended to discipline A by striking him with a plastic pipe and that went wrong and he hit A in the testicles. I do not consider that this was considered appropriate discipling by the standards of Turks and Caicos not merely because it is outlandish to consider beating with a plastic pipe would ever be considered appropriate, but also because it is recorded that the father was warned by the Police after the incident. I have no evidence to consider that the injury was significant other than it being painful enough for the father to consider it necessary to call an ambulance. I do not make a finding on the threats to kill A (which appears in the Police report as an allegation of the mother) but I do find that the father did say to the Police, as they report, that he would do it again (which I understand as beating or spanking) if A does not obey him.

93. On the 18 February 2023 the father the father assaulted the mother, and threatened to burn her house down with the children inside if she ran, and when she fled he set fire to a small structure in front of it. The evidence in support of this is the Turks and Caicos records, and that the mother in writing accepts it. The Police report says that it was a sister-in-law of the mother, who is a sister of the father, who called the Police. The Police say that the mother confirms the sister-in-law’s report, and that a daughter, P, confirms the report. The Police do not speak to the father about this.

94. The father said in writing in his statement of the 18 June 2024 (which differs from the much shorter ‘response to final threshold’ of 31 October 2025) that this was not true. The father’s account was that there was a fire in the outbuilding. That might have been caused by him smoking. When he came back from the store he saw it and got the children out. He says he spoke to the Police the day after the incident.

95. An allegation of a deliberate attempt to burn a building down with children (two of whom are yours) is a serious matter. I consider that the father makes a very forceful point when he says that if the Police thought he had done this there would have been an investigation and possibly a prosecution. I do not consider that the record I have is false and I accept that what it relates the Police were told is what the Police were told. However, I must ask what is there that I do not have. I record that I have been told that the local authority have asked for follow up reports and account of interviews and have received nothing further. I have to balance here on the one hand what I am told the Police had reported to them at the time of the fire and the mother’s written evidence, and, on the other hand, the inherent unlikeliness of such a crime not being prosecuted without good reason and the mother not giving evidence to me. Balancing these I reject the allegation that the father deliberately set fire to the mother’s home after assaulting her.

96. On 23 December 2023 the father assaulted his stepson A by pushing him on the top of the chest, such that he fell to the floor. I can take this briefly in the light of the evidence of BN relied on by the father and not challenged by anyone else. What happened was that A pushed the father, and ‘came at him like he wanted to fight’. The father pushed A back. BN does not record that A fell to the floor. I note there was a conviction for assault that was overturned. I accept A is a difficult child. I find that there was a physical incident, the weight to be attached to it remains to be considered.

97. During December 2023 the father hit B with a belt and smacked him whilst he was being showered by way of chastisement . I deal here with the belt because it was on the belt that the evidence and argument I heard focussed. The evidence relied on is LN’s statement to the Police – which she now says is wrong in relation to the belt. The father denies the allegation and says he does not have a belt because of his operation.

98. LN’s attempt to distance herself from her statement in her oral evidence was entirely unconvincing. She did not say she had exaggerated her allegation to the police, but that the Police were mistaken in recording her evidence as striking B with a belt. She said that in truth the father was striking a bed with the belt. I have already said that the Police statement made a point of the good view that she had. This cannot have been a mistake of recording. I need to consider whether in truth LN gave false evidence to the Police, notwithstanding that I reject her misrecording argument. I remind myself that there are always many reasons to lie. I remind myself further, she might be saying the Police misrecorded this incident because she is reluctant to admit that she lied to the Police. And further still that she asserted that there was exaggeration in her statement to the police.

99. As a small point in my overall consideration on this issue I do note that her case requires on either construction that the father had a belt in his hand (whether or not it was his) contrary to his case.

100. I take the view that it is more likely that LN was not telling the truth in her evidence to me on this point and she was telling the truth to the Police. She was concerned to help her brother achieve the return of his children in these care proceedings. This was obvious in her attempt to reclassify beatings as corporal punishment. Her new account of this incident – that the father was beating the bed with a belt - is of itself implausible. All the more so when one considers the admitted whipping of the mother with a tree branch and what I have found about beating A with a pipe.

101. I find that the father hit B with a belt.

102. In November 2023 the father shouted shut up at C and hit him causing him to scream . The evidence relied on for this is LN’s statement to the police. The father denies this.

103. In her oral evidence LN did repeat that hitting is in fact her word for corporal punishment, and that is more normal in Turks and Caicos, but she did accept that she had thought she heard C (who was a difficult sleeper) being hit (or smacked) and crying after being hit. She did not say that her statement to the police was wrong when it records her as saying she heard the father shout shut up at C.

104. I prefer her evidence to the father’s denial. I consider that it is highly likely that the father was struggling to cope in his crowded sister’s house with two young children and he became cross and violent.

105. The father has physically and verbally abused C by slapping him on the shoulder, shaking him, swearing at him, and saying, ‘I hate you’ ‘Your mum should have killed you’ and ‘I don’t want you around’. The evidence relied on for this is LN’s statement to the police. The father denies this and says he would never say this to his child.

106. LN was as clear in her evidence to me as she was in her evidence to the police about what the father said. I prefer her evidence to that of the father. Given she appeared to be trying to lessen the impact of the allegations that she had made against the father in the context of these care proceedings, I consider it notable that she maintained that she had heard what she told the police. LN, I repeat did say that slapping was a form of corporal punishment. As I have said already I found that unconvincing. I do not however on this point make a fresh finding of slapping or shaking.

107. In mid-December 2023 whilst on a video call to mother the father struck C with his had causing him to fall and hit his head against the bathroom door. The evidence again is LN’s police statement, but it is an account of what the mother said to LN that she had seen. The father’s account is that this is a misrepresentation of a fall. I do not find that this occurred in the manner set out by the local authority.

108. On 10 January 2024 B said to Ms E that ‘Daddy beats me … all over my body. He beats all the kids.’ I have heard from Ms E and Ms F who have confirmed this is what was said. The father’s case was that this had not been said, and that Ms E had conspired against him. A line of attack was developed during the case that Ms E had disbelieved B when he subsequently made an allegation against LN. It was accepted that is what happened. And it remained Ms E’s view (and the local authority’s view) that B was making up the allegation against LN. Why, it was asked, was one allegation believed and the other not?

109. First, I find that B did say what he is reported to have said. This is not something Ms E has made up as part of a conspiracy. Second, whether it is a true allegation is something I need to consider in the light of the other evidence. That other evidence points me to a conclusion that B is telling the truth on this occasion notwithstanding that I hold in mind that B may not always be telling the truth. Third, I am not in a position to judge whether the allegation against LN was or was not right.

110. I turn now to Drug and Alcohol abuse . The three particulars can be taken together: (a) the father has presented under the influence of drugs and/or alcohols during all the occasions of physical/domestic abuse, (b) that he has a long standing history of cannabis use, and (c) that he has tested positive for cannabis, cocaine and chronic and excessive alcohol use during the course of these proceedings.

111. The father’s response is that there has been no physical or domestic abuse, he accepts he has used cannabis for a long time but says that is entirely normal in his culture and he is reducing now (he says he last smoked a joint on New Year’s day) and says that cocaine can only be seen in his test results if it has been passively ingested because he has never knowingly taken it.

112. I record that it was accepted by the father and asserted by LN that the father drank alcohol when he arrived in this country. The father denied that he drank heavily but the testing does indicate, some of the time, heavy drinking. LN did consider there was a correlation between drinking and cannabis use and his ‘spanking’ of the children. I obviously am not going to find that on each occasion he was abusive he was drunk or high. I do consider however that the father drinking alcohol heavily and his cannabis use is likely to have contributed to his care of the children not being what it would be reasonable to expect. I have no evidence to lead me to believe that his use of cocaine, which as I have already recorded I find that he has used, has affected his care of the children.

113. Inability to meet needs : there are five points pleaded here which I will consider separately.

114. The local authority say that A moved to this country because of the assaults on him by the father but nonetheless she permitted C and B to move with the father thereby exposing them to risk .

115. This is a point against the mother. She says the children moved with the father for their safety and protection. That I assume is reference to their risk from the gangs in Turks and Caicos. The mother has provided no explanation as to why she put them in the care of their father given the allegations she has made against him. I can suppose that she might say balancing of risk – but that is mere supposition.

116. Further, there is debate as to precisely why A moved here (if indeed it was for a single reason) on which the evidence has not focussed.

117. Absent the mother’s presence at the hearing and given other points that are to come I shall not deal with this further.

118. Since the 30 October 2023 when they moved here the mother has not had any in person contact or care of the children. She accepts this. It is clear to me that the children have suffered harm as a consequence of this.

119. The mother failed to communicate with the police or social care as regards investigations in the children’s welfare. She says she did not know with whom to speak. Given the allegations she has made against the father it is remarkable that she has not engaged fully with the local authority here and she has not engaged with these proceedings.

120. Whilst living with the father in the UK the father failed to feed B and C appropriately. I do not consider in the circumstances of this case this is a material point.

121. Finally, Criminality. It is said that (a) the father was a witness to a gang related murder which caused threats to be made to his life and A’s life, and (b) the mother and daughter remain in Turks and Caicos and have been subject to further attempts on their lives.

122. As to (a) while I accept that having a threat to one’s life is a significant harm this is not a proper threshold ground because what has happened here is that the father and children have moved to this country to be safe from that threat. As to (b) the mother accepts this, but I do not understand how that can be pleaded as a reason to make care orders in relation to C, B and A. Conclusions on Threshold

123. Having considered my findings above I determine that all three children have suffered significant harm as a consequence of their care not being what would be reasonable to expect a parent to give to them. Further A is beyond parental control.

124. As to A, there is no way the mother can control him from Turks and Caicos, and the father has no interest in controlling him, and can be seen to be unable to do so adequately by the confrontation on the 23 December 2023.

125. I have found that the father was convicted of assaulting the mother in 2016. The father has not acknowledged that. There is (or at least has been) domestic abuse in the relationship of the mother and the father. That is likely to have put all the children at risk.

126. I have found that the father has beaten A with a plastic pipe in December 2022 and though that did not cause significant physical harm it will have caused significant harm in the relationship between the pair of them. Given this, the mother has not protected him from his father by allowing him to live with him in this country.

127. I have found that the father has physically and verbally abused C and B and it will have been harmful for A to have witnessed this.

128. I do note that the father does not want A to live with him but I do record that if he were to do so A would be at risk of further physical harm and emotional harm by doing so. Until the father is able to understand that what he is facing is not a multi-layered conspiracy but a failure on his part to cope when things go wrong, then the father cannot parent him adequately.

129. The mother cannot care for A for so long as he is living in this country and she is living in Turks and Caicos.

130. As to C and B, I make the same point as to the assault on the mother in 2016 and the consequence that there has been domestic abuse between the parents.

131. I repeat the finding in relation to the beating of A with a plastic pipe in December 2022. That the father can behave in this way to their half sibling puts them at risk of significant harm.

132. I note I found that in December 2023 the father hit B with a belt. I do not find that harmed him significantly physically but it would have done so emotionally.

133. I note that I have found that in November 2023 he hit C and shouted at him, very hurtfully and abusively. I do not find that harmed him significantly physically but it would have done so emotionally.

134. I note that I have considered that the father has been a heavy drinker and a user of cannabis and this is likely to have contributed to his care of his children not being what is reasonable to expect.

135. I find that these children would be at risk of further significant harm if they were to return to the father because of his care for them. I repeat what I said before in relation to A: until the father is able to understand that what he is facing is not a multi-layered conspiracy but a failure on his part to cope when things go wrong, then the father cannot parent them adequately.

136. It is clear to me that when the father struggles to cope he may resort to physical violence, so far as his children are concerned. When things do not go his way with professionals he resorts to threats of violence. And he can resort in relation to his family and others to violent verbal abuse.

137. I do however want to give some balance to those observations. I do not want anyone to think that I am condemning this father. I have kept in my mind that C and B are keen to see him and want to live with him. It must be the case that he is giving them something that they want. I have seen – mainly on the first day of his evidence – that he can be charming. I am told that he is loving to his children and they reciprocate that love. I can understand why everything got too much for him stuck in his sister’s house with two young children; relocated to the suburbs of wet and cold Liverpool from the Caribbean paradise (as he relates it) where he lived.

138. I do see force in Ms James observations that things are done differently here and I understand that might have contributed to the sense of everyone conspiring against him, and a sense that he is being unfairly condemned. I hope he has understood now that one organisation speaking to another is not evidence of conspiracy but of an attempt to co-ordinate the care of children, and that hard questions on points of concern come from the same desire to look after children.

139. I do pause to reflect on Ms James criticism that this case has proceeded without an assessment from an independent social worker who could have given evidence as to different cultural norms: such as physical chastisement, use of language, Rastafarian beliefs and use of cannabis, and issues relating to Caribbean Police investigations. I do not however consider that any of the threshold facts that I have found would have been considered within the norm for the father’s culture. I am fortified in this by his own observations that what he was being accused of would not be considered alright in Turks and Caicos. Welfare

140. Having made the findings that I have and reflected on them as I have above this stage is relatively straightforward. I record that I have considered the revised care plans, which were sent to me during the hearing, and on which I have heard not argument.

141. There is only one option for A; leave him where he is.

142. There are two for C and B. Return them to the father (perhaps with a supervision order) or leave them in long term foster care with regular family contact, particularly with the father.

143. I remind myself of the welfare checklist. I record again that these children want to go back to their dad. I consider their physical, emotional and educational needs. The father cannot at the moment reliably fulfil their needs because when he struggles he lashes out physically and emotionally. Their foster carers can fulfil these needs. I consider the likely effect of a change in circumstances, and remember the Guardian telling me that it will be a ‘catastrophe’ for these children to return to the father for that ‘placement’ to break down. I reflect on their age, sex and background and remind myself that their father shares their ethnicity; their carers do not. That must weigh in favour of returning them to their father. I consider harm that they have suffered and are at risk of suffering. They have suffered significant harm with their father and run the risk of suffering further significant harm if they return to him. I consider how capable the father is of meeting their needs, and reflect on a good day he could, but on a bad day, as yet, he could not. I consider my range of powers and find that I have set out the two realistic options.

144. I step back and ask myself am I being too cautious here? The children want to be with the father. The father, it might be said, if he attends some courses might be able to manage to look after them. Why wait for him to take the courses? Why not take the plunge now? The answer is in the advice of Ms Stepanian and the caution of the Guardian, if it goes wrong now it will be a catastrophe. The father needs to acknowledge his problems now. He needs to do work now to address them. In short he needs to learn how to cope like a parent when things go wrong rather than lose his composure, lose his control, lash out and blame everyone else. When he has had done the necessary work then the risk might be taken. Conclusion

145. So I conclude I will make the care orders as sought.

146. Finally, I want to thank counsel for the help that they have provided to me in the hearing of this case. Mr Justice Trowell 16 March 2026