Helen Little in XJA & YJA (Children), Re (Care Orders: Domestic Abuse) [2024] EWFC 97
22nd Jul 2024 | Cases
Helen Little was instructed by Hepburn Delaney for the children in XJA & YJA (Children), Re (Care Orders: Domestic Abuse) [2024] EWFC 97; care proceedings, issued following concerns about the domestic abuse of the mother by the father.
The local authority applied for care orders under s31 Children Act 1989 for three children on the grounds that they were being subjected to physical harm and domestic abuse. The court found that the parents had failed to comply with safety plans to keep the children safe and that the threshold criteria for s31(2) had been met. The court granted care orders for the two youngest children due to continued risk and lack of parental compliance (by the time the matter reached final hearing, the eldest child was aged 17 and therefore was ineligible for a care order).
Whilst the risk factors identified were sadly all-too familiar, the Court highlighted the current inability of the Family Court to implement a Domestic Abuse Protection Order (‘DAPO’), which if accompanied by electronic location monitoring, has the capacity to alert a monitoring agency to the presence of a perpetrator of domestic abuse (in the present case, the father). Noting that monitoring and enforcement of such an order would not then rely upon the mother reporting a breach (where the Court found she has failed to do so previously was lacking in insight) or chance detection by the Local Authority conducting an unannounced visit, the Court considered that implementation of Part 3 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, enabling either the mother or the Local Authority to apply for DAPO which may change the calculus of risk leading to the conclusion that ongoing separation is no longer proportionate.
