The court considered the benefits to a child of continuing parental contact while the child remained in care.
Simon Brown LJ said: ‘I recognise of course that the threshold criteria for a care order under section 31 of the 1989 Act require the court to be satisfied that a child is suffering or is likely to suffer significant harm attributable to inadequate parenting and that that inadequacy would normally be attributable to the quality of the parent/child relationship. Nevertheless, although the value of contact may be limited by the parents’ inadequacy, it may still be of fundamental importance to the long-term welfare of the child, unless of course it can be seen that in a given case it will inevitably disturb the child’s care. In short, even when the section 31 criteria are satisfied, contact may well be of singular importance to the long-term welfare of the child: first, in giving the child the security of knowing that his parents love him and are interested in his welfare; secondly, by avoiding any damaging sense of loss to the child in seeing himself abandoned by his parents; thirdly, by enabling the child to commit himself to the substitute family with the seal of approval of the natural parents; and, fourthly, by giving the child the necessary sense of family and personal identity. Contact, if maintained, is capable of reinforcing and increasing the chances of success of a permanent placement, whether on a long-term fostering basis or by adoption.’
Judges:
Simon Brown LJ
Citations:
[1994] 1 FLR 146
Statutes:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Down Lisburn Health and Social Services Trust and Another v H and Another HL 12-Jul-2006
The House considered when adoption law would allow an adoption without the consent of the birth parent where there had been some continuing contact between that parent and the child.
Held: (Baroness Hale dissenting) The appeal against the . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Children
Updated: 21 July 2022; Ref: scu.243094
