Bridge LJ said: ‘The judge was exercising a discretion. He saw and heard the witnesses. It is impossible to say that he considered any irrelevant matter, erred in law or applied any wrong principle. On the view I take, his error was in the balancing exercise.
He either gave too little weight to the factors favourable, or too much weight to the factors adverse to the father’s claim that he should retain care and control . .
If in any discretion case concerning children the appellate court can clearly detect that a conclusion, which is neither dependent on nor justified by the trial judge’s advantage in seeing and hearing witnesses, is vitiated by an error in the balancing exercise, I should be very reluctant to hold that it is powerless to interfere.’
Bridge LJ
[1976] Fam 238
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – In Re P (Minors) (Contact) CA 15-May-1996
The father appealed an order refusing him direct contact with the child. The judge had made the order because he considered that the mother’s hostility to contact made it likely that her health would suffer if contact was ordered, and that the . .
Cited – G v G (Minors: Custody Appeal) HL 25-Apr-1985
The House asked when a decision, on the facts, of a first instance court is so wrong as to allow it to be overturned on appeal.
Held: The epithet ‘wrong’ is to be applied to the substance of the decision made by the lower court. ‘Certainly it . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Updated: 25 July 2021; Ref: scu.241339
