Here are some facts from the hearing I witnessed on the fourth floor of the East London Family Court in December: a mother died during childbirth because of a pre-existing medical problem. Her distraught husband, who was said to have severe “health problems”, was incapable of looking after his newborn baby boy (a view apparently reached by both the local authority and the man himself). After six weeks in hospital, the child was placed with a foster family, pending a legal decision on his adoption. Nine months had lapsed since his birth.
The judge, the barristers for the families and for the local authority, all seemed determined to reach the best possible outcome for the boy. What followed over the next three hours suggested both the considerable logistical challenges faced by the Family Court and the strains faced by the social services and local authorities, strains which seem to have contributed to delays in the adoption of the baby.
A young couple, the baby boy’s maternal aunt and uncle, were present in court, eager to raise him as their son, but the assumption from counsel representing both sides was that the father’s family might challenge this.
Shortly before the hearing started, I chatted with the father’s barrister and it emerged that her job was complicated by the fact that he had not been willing or able to instruct her.
Adding to the complications was the fact that representatives of both parents’ families attended the hearing via video link from a foreign country. Their presence had only been confirmed the previous day, which meant that none of the lawyers could speak to them before the court date.
All but one of the family members on the video link were fluent in English but the one who wasn’t needed an interpreter. After a delay, an interpreter was found, but despite the commendable patience of the judge, it was soon clear that this man did not understand the procedure and therefore could not be used, prompting a postponement.
The judge went back to her chambers to work on another matter, proposing they resume in the afternoon. Meanwhile, the barristers for the father, mother and local authority used the pause to chat with the paternal uncle (who was representing the father’s family), via the video link.
It quickly transpired from this conversation that his side of the family was happy to have the boy adopted by the young couple from the mother’s side, with no dispute and no ill will. Both families agreed to work together in harmony, and the mother’s family agreed that the father’s family would have access.
When this became clear, the barristers asked the court clerk to request the judge’s return immediately, and the hearing resumed at midday.
It emerged that while the maternal family couple had been ready to adopt the child from the start, the process had been slowed by delays in issuing Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks and in social work assessments, exacerbated by a change in the social worker assigned to the case. Several months had been wasted.
The judge expressed her concern about the tardy progress, meaning the temporary foster care of the boy had lasted far longer than necessary, to the child’s detriment. “These delays in the receipt of assessments are extremely unfortunate because the families are in agreement despite the problem of a lack of response from the father,” she said.
She ordered that family members on both sides could begin having supervised contact from the start of the next week, with the length and frequency of contact increasing progressively, and that the families would meet together to discuss the child’s welfare in March with what might be the final court hearing set for a month later.
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Over the past four decades, I have covered well over one hundred court cases as a journalist and have twice served on juries. Most were criminal cases but some were civil, and yet all were adversarial – two sides at odds with each other (whether as the Crown and defendant in the Magistrates and Crown Courts or claimant and defendant in the County and High Courts). They were in legal combat.
No doubt the Family Court, which is a division of the High Court, also has its share of adversarial trials, but the hearing I was privileged to witness had a different tone. The family members, judge, legal counsel for the local authority who led the evidence, and the legal counsel for the families, all seemed to be working together to find a solution that would work best for a baby whose mother had died so tragically. The judge, clerk and lawyers were all women, incidentally.
Rules of reporting are also different from those in other courts, and the judge, clerk of the court and barristers made sure I understood this – in particular, that none of the parties should be identified in any way (for instance, I was advised by one of the barristers not to identify the country or continent of origin of the family members, and I also left out the nature of the mother’s medical issue and of the father’s health problems).
The idea behind the pilot project is to throw light onto the workings of the Family Court while retaining strict anonymity for the families involved. Some trials have been chosen for potential coverage, with the judge issuing a Transparency Order setting out what could and could not be covered.
The hearing I witnessed threw a positive light on this court. The process of arranging the adoption of a baby had previously been delayed by problems faced by the social services and the local authority, perhaps prompted by shortages of money and staff.
At first, it looked like the day in court would end in another frustrating delay, with adverse consequences to the welfare of a baby. Instead, through the determination of everyone involved, the hearing prompted a solution that should end in the baby’s adoption by the child’s maternal aunt and uncle– a couple who appeared enthusiastic to take on this role.
My three-hour glimpse at the workings of the East London Family Court left me with a sense of a creaking, underfunded social services that unnecessarily prolonged the baby’s stay with the foster family.
But it also left me with considerable respect for the Family Court lawyers, judge, and court officials who worked in unison to find to find their way around this, and towards a solution.
Blog post published 17th December 2024
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