The Court of Appeal has upheld costs awards to the guardians of two children who brought contempt motions after the Child and Family Agency failed to provide special care placements despite High Court orders requiring their admission.
The children, identified as H and K, were both made subject to special care orders on 8 February 2024. Several weeks later neither had obtained a bed. Their guardians warned the CFA that contempt proceedings would follow unless placements were provided and subsequently issued motions seeking declarations of contempt and, formally, attachment or committal of the agency's chief executive.
The contempt applications never reached a substantive hearing. K was allocated a special care place in late March, while H entered special care on 19 April. The CFA maintained that the allocations were made independently of the contempt motions.
The remaining dispute concerned costs. The High Court awarded the guardians their costs, finding that their real objective had been to secure beds for two highly vulnerable children rather than to imprison a CFA official.
On appeal, the CFA argued among other things that the guardians lacked standing, that procedural flaws meant the contempt motions could not succeed and that the relevant costs 'event' had gone in the agency's favour because no contempt finding was made.
Ms Justice Faherty rejected those arguments. She held that guardians appointed under the Child Care Act could act to vindicate the children's interests and that the High Court had been entitled to focus on the practical outcome rather than rigidly treating a formal contempt finding as the decisive event.
The court also declined to determine alleged technical defects in the contempt motions because those issues had not been sufficiently raised and decided below.
The appeals were dismissed and the High Court costs orders affirmed. The Court of Appeal left the costs of the appeals for a further hearing on 21 May 2025.