The High Court has granted the Child and Family Agency’s application to have further care proceedings concerning an infant identified as “R” heard by the courts of England and Wales. The decision concerns which jurisdiction should hear the substantive care proceedings; it does not determine R’s eventual care status.
Ms Justice Bronagh O’Hanlon delivered judgment on 26 March 2015. Applying Article 15 of the Brussels II bis Regulation, she found that R had a particular connection with the UK, that the courts of England and Wales were better placed to hear the care proceedings, and that determining his care status there was in his best interests.
The Agency submitted that R had a particular connection with the UK and that its courts were better placed to hear further proceedings. It relied on a pre-birth assessment dated 9 September 2014. The judgment records that the mother had told social workers on several occasions that she travelled from the UK to Ireland to frustrate an intention by UK social services to take her unborn child into care. The court ultimately found that she came to Ireland to avoid the relevant English social services.
The mother disputed aspects of the Agency’s case, including claims about her past parenting, engagement with professionals, and alcohol or drug use. She argued that updated assessments could be carried out in Ireland and that the Article 15 application risked transferring the child rather than simply transferring the proceedings. She also pointed to her ongoing access with R and her efforts to work with social workers. The guardian ad litem supported the view that UK social services and courts were better placed to assess possible family placement and arrange sibling and other contact.
R was born in Ireland on 25 October 2014. An Irish District Court refused an emergency care order application on 28 October, citing hearsay in the social worker’s evidence. On appeal, the Circuit Court granted an emergency care order on 30 October. R was removed from his mother’s care on 1 November. The judgment said the care order had been extended and was due before the District Court on 24 March 2015.
The High Court concluded that the UK connection arose from R’s British nationality and the family’s links with that jurisdiction, alongside the history of involvement there by the mother and UK services. It granted the relief sought in the Agency’s motion and said it would hear further submissions on the form of the order. The judgment did not set out that final form.