Council ordered to pay damages to boy over delay in revoking placement order

A Family Court judge has ordered a council to pay a 10-year-old boy £5,000 in damages after it failed for three years to seek to revoke a placement order.

In B (A Child) [2016] EWFC B10 (29 January 2016) His Honour Judge Rundell had made a care order and placement order for the boy (B) in February 2011.

He had also continued an order authorising Worcestershire County Council to withhold contact between mother and son; this was considered necessary to protect B from the harmful impact of potential contact.

Worcestershire’s plan for the boy, in 2011, was that he should be adopted. However, as a result of his behavioural difficulties, this was seen as always likely to be a difficult task. He has been with his present foster carers since June 2010.

Judge Rundell said the inevitable reservation whether the adoption plan would prove feasible had been "entirely justified". No appropriate adopters able and willing to care for the boy were found.

At a looked after children (LAC) review in November 2011, the plan for the boy was changed to one of long-term foster care. This was agreed by the appropriate local authority panel in February 2012. His mother was then informed of the changed status.

Judge Rundell said the local authority should at that stage have sought to revoke the placement order. “Had they done so, the matter would have returned to court, a Guardian (in all probability the same Guardian who acted for B in the care proceedings) would have been appointed to protect his interests. His mother would have had the opportunity, if she was so minded, to seek contact with him.”

However, none of this happened, the judge said. “A succession of LAC reviews took place (some 7 in all) before, in February 2015, the local authority presented an application for revocation. During the course of that three-year period the Independent Reviewing Officer (‘IRO’) took no adequate action to progress the matter.”

During the subsequent legal proceedings, the mother did not oppose the local authority’s application. The man thought to be his father did not engage with the case.

The boy’s Guardian indicated an intention to make a claim, on his behalf, against Worcestershire in respect of alleged breaches of his Article 6 and 8 rights under the European Court of Human Rights, pursuant to the Human Rights Act 1998 s6(1).

The local authority accepted in principle that declarations about the human rights breaches should be made and apologised, but it resisted the claim for damages.

The boy was said to be thriving in his foster care placement.

Judge Rundell concluded that this was an appropriate case for an award. He said: “In this case, given the length of time involved and the severity of the breaches of B's convention rights, taken together with the impact of such breaches in the form of his loss of access to justice and the lost opportunity, over three years, to develop a relationship with at least one of his half siblings, I consider that it is appropriate, just and proportionate to make an award of damages.

“In my judgment there has been here a lost opportunity for this child to make contact with members of his extended family; the passage of time is likely now to make this more difficult.”

The judge also ordered Worcestershire County Council and the IRO to pay the entire costs of the proceedings.