Appeal by a father, D J, from an order placing a restriction on the father’s ability to make any further applications to the court pursuant to section 91(14) of the Children Act. The order was made in the context of an application by the father for contact to his daughter,
Held: The District Judge went too far: ‘the power to restrict applications to the court is discretionary and in the exercise of its discretion the court must weigh in the balance all the relevant circumstances. The third one, an important consideration, is that to impose a restriction is a statutory intrusion to the right of a party to bring proceedings before the court and to be heard in matters affecting his/her child. Fourthly, the power is therefore to be used with great care and sparingly, the exception and not the rule. Fifthly, it is generally to be seen as a weapon of last resort in cases of repeated and unreasonable applications. Of course any attempt to define circumstances in which this very useful power is or is not employed always falls foul of some specific factor, but I do bear those matters very much in mind. However, I think, as I have indicated, that on this particular occasion this extremely experienced district judge went further than he should or needed to in the circumstances.’
Judges:
Coleridge J
Citations:
[2006] EWHC 1491 (Fam), [2006] 2 FLR 1213
Links:
Children
Updated: 21 July 2022; Ref: scu.279018