The High Court has refused an application by an anonymised man to stop the Child and Family Agency investigating a retrospective allegation of child sexual abuse made by an adult relative of his wife. The court said the assessment could proceed, while ruling that an invitation for the man to attend an interview had been premature because the agency had not completed the first stage of its procedure.
The applicant sought to prevent the agency from investigating the allegation, deciding whether it was founded or unfounded, or telling third parties that he might pose a risk to children. He denied the allegations. The agency said it was acting under its statutory child protection responsibilities and did not intend to make a court finding of guilt or determine criminal liability.
The investigation had previously been challenged in judicial review proceedings. Those proceedings were struck out in November 2014 after the court was told the existing inquiry would end, without prejudice to the agency’s right to begin a new inquiry into the same allegations. The agency then started a fresh investigation under written procedures adopted in September 2014, appointing decision-makers who had not been involved in the earlier inquiry.
The new investigators interviewed the complainant in August 2015. The judge found that this was part of the first stage, which involves gathering information and deciding whether the assessment should continue. That stage had not been completed: there was no recorded decision, made under the procedure, that the investigation should proceed to the second stage. The agency’s invitation to the applicant to attend an interview therefore came too soon. The court also found that the complainant’s interview had not prejudiced the applicant’s ability to complete the first-stage process.
The judgment rejected the applicant’s claim to an automatic right to attend or cross-examine the complainant during that initial information-gathering stage. Under the agency’s procedure, a request to question a complainant or witness could be considered later, after the applicant had been interviewed, with regard to the circumstances of the case, fairness and child protection. The judge did not decide whether such a request should be granted in this case.
The court held that a finding that an allegation was “founded” required it to be established on the balance of probabilities, not beyond reasonable doubt. It stressed that the seriousness of an allegation affects how the evidence is weighed, and that stronger evidence is needed to establish a less probable event.
The application was refused. The judge said the second assessment could now proceed; the judgment did not determine whether the allegation was true or whether the applicant posed a risk to children.