Hannah McSorley in P, W and M [2025] EWFC 93 B
19th May 2025 | Cases
Hannah McSorley, instructed by Gemma Bound of Oxford Law Group, represented the children in Re P, W and M [2025] EWFC 93 B. This was a final hearing in long running care proceedings concerning three children whose mother had tragically died in proceedings and whose father was incarcerated and awaiting criminal trial.
At the time of the final hearing, the children, aged 6, 5 and 3 had been in foster care for 12 months. All of the children had been impacted by adverse experiences and were delayed in their language development and the older two children needed to be formally assessed for ADHD/ASD once in a stable placement. The foster placement was acknowledged by all parties as not meeting the children’s needs. The foster carers had struggled at times to manage the children’s behaviour, and the language of the household was not a language which the children knew. The father took part in the trial via video link from prison.
The local authority sought care orders in respect of all three children and a placement order in respect of the youngest. Regarding the older two children, the local authority’s care plan was for them to be placed in separate long term foster placements because their individual needs were each so high. That position was supported by the children’s guardian and the sibling assessor expert independent social worker.
The court concluded that the threshold for making public law orders was crossed and made a care and placement order in respect of the youngest child.
In respect of the older two children, the court made a care order however declined to sanction the separation of the siblings, on the basis that there was insufficient evidence to justify that. The court applied s22C(8) Children Act 1989 and came to the view that the two older children should be kept together in long term foster care. The rationale for this was that the children had not had either the Education, Health and Care Plans or the six month period of stable reparative parenting that had been recommended during proceedings by the parenting assessor. Instead, they had been accommodated for a long period in a flawed placement where they had nonetheless made some progress. The sibling bond had been viewed by the professionals through the lens of the foster carers and potentially been misjudged as a result. The court was not satisfied that no experienced therapeutic foster carers, able to meet both siblings’ needs, could be found.
The court made a Transparency Order the day before the judgement was given and the judgment was released after the conclusion of the father’s criminal trial.
