"Insufficient evidence" led to siblings being put in foster care

Saturday 20 January 2018

The Royal Court has admitted that "insufficient evidence" led to siblings being separated and put in foster care for a month as part of an interim care order they signed.

The care order was granted after an incident involving one of the siblings coming into contact with acid and allegations of domestic abuse.

After granting the temporary care order, upon request from the Minister for Health and Social Services, the Court ordered a fact finding hearing. In a judgment outlining their conclusions following that hearing, Royal Court Commissioner Sir Michael Birt and Jurats Pamela Pitman and Paul Nicolle said: "The Court was clearly troubled by the fact that the concern for the children appeared to arise almost entirely as a result of this one incident; on the other hand, there were conflicting versions from the parents as to how it had occurred."

The Court heard evidence from a number of witnesses, which included social workers, a pediatrician and a Force Medical Examiner.

Advocate Claire Davies, told Court, on behalf of the Minister, that the parents had given "...so many different versions of what had happened that their evidence could not be relied upon. In particular, if, as they were now saying, this was an accidental injury caused as a result of an innocent tussle between the father and the mother as the father sought to take the container or its lid from the mother because he was concerned about the liquid, why did they not say so at the beginning?"

The Court noted: "In the light of these different versions, the parents have only themselves to blame for the fact that the Children’s Service have not known who to believe and have accordingly become sufficiently concerned about the risk of significant harm to...and the other children to apply for an interim care order."

The Royal Court Commissioner and the Jurats considered various possibilities. They however felt "on the balance of probabilities" this was an "unfortunate accident" during which mother must have opened the container "out of curiosity" and that the father, seeing this, had tried to take it away from her. "This was done out of concern as to the content of the liquid rather than for any other motive; a minor tussle took place as he took the container from her and in the course of this some of the liquid splashed or spilled out of the container; the child was by then in the vicinity having crawled there; some of the splashed or spilt acid came into contact with his lip accidentally."

Pictured: The Royal Court granted an interim care order but then said there was not enough evidence to do so.

They noted in their judgment: "We think that the most likely reason for their having given false explanations of what had happened initially was their fear and embarrassment at being thought responsible for the injury to the child because it was their actions which were directly responsible for the liquid spilling on to him.

"However, we are satisfied that it was accidental. (...) The irony is that, if they had told the truth from the outset, it is highly unlikely that any interim care order would have been applied for by the Minister, let alone granted by the Court. "

Domestic abuse was mentioned as part of the report accompanying the application for the care order but the Court said that the mother blew "hot and cold on this aspect, sometimes saying that it has occurred but on other occasions denying it."

The mother's mental health was also taken into account and the Court noted she was behaving "...somewhat strangely in the days shortly before the incident and in its immediate aftermath." She was however  assessed by mental health experts who found no evidence to a mental health problem and it was concluded that her conduct was "...likely to have been caused by stress."

As a result, the Court concluded that there was "insufficient evidence" to believe the siblings "had suffered or were likely to suffer significant harm." "The evidence before us in terms of observations from social workers, the doctors and the school were that the older children were essentially happy and well-adjusted and had an excellent relationship with their parents, who were in turn concerned with the children’s wellbeing and loving towards them. Given the evidence in relation to the older children, there is no reason to conclude that the position is any different in relation to the younger ones.

"Naturally, there are concerns at the possible existence of domestic violence and the risk of the mother again behaving strangely if stressed but, in the light of the evidence as to their current wellbeing and the other evidence before us, our provisional view was that there was insufficient to satisfy the threshold test for an interim order in accordance with Article 30(1) of the Law."

The Health Minister withdrew his application for a care order the day after the fact-finding hearing and the interim care order fell away.