Nick Goodwin KC in Kent County Council v A & Ors [2024] EWFC 412 (B)
3rd Mar 2025 | Cases
Nick Goodwin KC, instructed by GT Stewart Solicitors, led Stephen Chippeck, of 5KBW, in Kent County Council v A & Ors [2024] EWFC 412 (B). They represented an intervener in care proceedings in which the subject child, aged 16 months, had suffered subdural haematoma and retinal haemorrhages, having been admitted twice to hospital following two separate collapses in his care. The local authority also alleged that the intervener had assaulted the mother and threatened to kill everyone in the aunt’s house if he was stopped from seeing the child. The expert evidence was that the injuries were most likely to have been caused by a shaking episode, on balance on two separate occasions. At the conclusion of the case, the court was not satisfied that the child’s injuries had been inflicted, noting in particular the absence of any ‘scaffolding’ injuries, and the possibility that the bleeding had been caused at birth, or from a lumbar puncture, or from a panicked parental response to a brief resolved unexplained event (BRUE). The alleged assault against the mother was not proven, and the threat to kill had been “an idle threat”.
