Frances Harris appeared on behalf of the successful Appellant Mother in this appeal concerning the decision of a Recorder at a DRA at which he summarily determined two of the three fundamental issues between the parties (that the interim contact arrangements progress to being both unsupervised and overnight) without permitting testing of the ISW’s evidence and without factual findings of domestic abuse being determined (they had been adjourned by the previous judge to be heard at the final hearing). Garrido J stressed the importance of Judges at first instance, however briefly, reminding themselves and the parties of the wording of paragraphs 25 to 27 of PD 12J and going through the welfare checklist so that they can properly conduct the global holistic welfare evaluation required.
A link to the judgment can be found on Lexis Nexis here.
