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These cases are from the lawindexpro database. They are now being transferred to the swarb.co.uk website in a better form. As a case is published there, an entry here will link to it. The swarb.co.uk site includes many later cases.  














Children - From: 1970 To: 1979

This page lists 25 cases, and was prepared on 20 May 2019.

 
Morris v Crown Office [1970] 2 QB 114; [1970] 1 All ER 1079
1970
CA
Salmon, Denning LJJ
Contempt of Court, Children
The applicants had been engaged in a calculated and coordinated campaign of disruption of the court. Held: The sole purpose of contempt proceedings is "to give our courts the power effectively to protect the rights of the public by ensuring that the administration of justice shall not be obstructed or prevented"
Young people are no ordinary criminals: "There is no violence, dishonesty or vice in them. They were trying to preserve the Welsh language. Though they have done wrong but must we show mercy on them and they were permitted to go back to their studies, to their parents and continue the good course."
Lord Denning said: "of all the places where law and order must be maintained, it is here in these courts. The course of justice must not be deflected or interfered with. Those who strike at it, strike at the very foundations of our society."
1 Citers


 
In re T(AJJ) (An Infant) [1970] Ch 688
1970
CA
Russell LJ, Cross LJ
Children
Russell LJ said: "But it must be borne in mind that the infant is a ward of court under the judge's order, and if anyone is minded to question or interview the infant they may well be at risk of being in contempt."
1 Citers



 
 In re D (Infants); CA 1970 - [1970] 1 WLR 599; [1970] 1 All ER 1089
 
In re T (AJJ) (An Infant) [1970] Ch 688
1970
CA
Russell, Cross LJJ
Children
Russell LJ said: "But it must be borne in mind that the infant is a ward of court under the judge's order, and if anyone is minded to question or interview the infant they may well be at risk of being in contempt."
1 Citers


 
S v S; in re S (An Infant, by her Guardian ad Litem the Official Solicitor to the Supreme Court) v S; W v Official Solicitor (Acting as Guardian ad Litem for a Male Infant Named PHW) [1972] AC 24; (1970) FLR Rep 619
1970
HL
Lord Hodson, Lord Reid
Children
Lord Hodson said: "The interests of justice in the abstract are best served by the ascertainment of the truth and their must be few cases where the interests of children can be shown to be best served by the suppression of truth. Scientific evidence of blood groups has been available since the early part of this century and the progress of serology has been so rapid that in many cases certainty or near certainty can be reached in the ascertainment of paternity. Why should the risk be taken of a judicial decision being made which is factually wrong and may later be demonstrated to be wrong?"
Lord Reid spoke of section 26 of the 1969 Act: "That means that the presumption of legitimacy now merely determines the onus of proof. Once evidence has been led it must be weighed without using the presumption as a make-weight in the scale for legitimacy. So even weak evidence against legitimacy must prevail if there is not other evidence to counterbalance it. The presumption will only come in at that stage in the very rare case of the evidence being so evenly balanced that the court is unable to reach a decision on it. I cannot recollect ever having seen or heard of a case of any kind where the court could not reach a decision on the evidence before it."
and "I must now examine the present legal position with regard to blood tests. There is no doubt that a person of full age and capacity cannot be ordered to undergo a blood test against his will. In my view, the reason is not that he ought not be required to furnish evidence which may tell against him. By discovery of documents and in other ways the law often does this. The real reason is that English law goes to great lengths to protect a person of full age and capacity from interference with his personal liberty."
Family Law Reform Act 1969 20 26
1 Citers


 
Poel v Poel [1970] 1 WLR 1469
1970
CA
Sachs LJ, Winn LJ
Children
The mother of a child of two and a half had obtained a custody order with weekly access given to the father. She wished to emigrate with her new husband and the expected child of that marriage to New Zealand. She applied to remove the child permanently from the jurisdiction. If they were not allowed to take the child with them they were prepared to give up their plans to emigrate. The county court judge refused the application. Held. The appeal succeeded.
Winn LJ said: "I am very firmly of opinion that the child`s happiness is directly dependent not only upon the health and happiness of his own mother but upon her freedom from the very likely repercussions of an adverse character, which would result affecting her relations with her new husband and her ability to look after her family peacefully and in a psychological frame of ease, from the refusal of the permission to take this boy to New Zealand which I think quite clearly his welfare dictates."
Sachs LJ said: "When a marriage breaks up, then a situation normally arises when the child of that marriage, instead of being in the joint custody of both parents, must of necessity become one who is in the custody of a single parent. Once that position has arisen and the custody is working well, this court should not lightly interfere with such reasonable way of life as is selected by that parent to whom custody has been rightly given. Any such interference may, as Winn LJ has pointed out, produce considerable strains which would be unfair not only to the parent whose way of life is interfered with but also to any new marriage of that parent. In that way it might well in due course reflect on the welfare of the child. The way in which the parent who properly has custody of a child may choose in a reasonable manner to order his or her way of life is one of those things which the parent who has not been given custody may well have to bear, even though one has every sympathy with the latter on some of the results."
1 Citers


 
Hewer v Bryant [1970] 1 QB 357
1970
CA
Lord Denning MR, Sach LJ
Children
The parental right to custody is: "a dwindling right which the courts will hesitate to enforce against the wishes of the child, and the more so the older he is. It starts with a right of control and ends with little more than advice."
One facet of the right to custody is the right to refuse consent to the issue of a passport.
As to the case of Agar-Ellis: "That case was decided in the year 1883. It reflects the attitude of a Victorian parent towards his children. He expected unreasoning obedience to his commands. If a son disobeyed, his father would cut him off with a shilling. If a daughter had an illegitimate child, he would turn her out of the house. His power only ceased when the child became 21."
1 Cites

1 Citers


 
S v McC; W v W [1972] AC 24
1972
HL
Lord Hodson, Lord MacDermott, Lord Reid
Children, Torts - Other, Health Professions
The distinction between the court's 'custodial' and 'protective' jurisdictions was recognised. The case concerned the ordering of blood tests with a view to determining the paternity of a child involved in divorce proceedings. This was not a matter of upbringing in which the child's interests (which might well be prejudiced by a finding that he was illegitimate) were paramount. (Lord MacDermott) "The duty of the High Court as respects the welfare and affairs of infants falls into two broad categories. There is, first of all, the duty to protect the infant, particularly when engaged or involved in litigation. This duty is of a general nature and derives from the Court of Chancery and to some extent also, I believe, from the common law courts which were merged along with the Court of Chancery in the High Court of Justice by the Judicature Act 1873. It recognises that the infant, as one not sui juris may stand in need of aid. He must not be allowed to suffer because of his incapacity. But the aim is to ensure that he gets his rights rather than to place him above the law and make his rights superior to those of others. The Official Solicitor, however, relied on something more than the protective jurisdiction. He relied upon what is commonly referred to as the 'custodial jurisdiction' - the second of the broad categories which I have mentioned already. This is an aspect of the prerogative and paternal jurisdiction of the former Court of Chancery. It is derived mainly from the administrative functions of the Court of Chancery in which that court had to make a choice between conflicting claims as to the custody and upbringing of the infant or the management of his affairs, or to determine the course to be taken in such matters even when not in actual dispute." (Lord Hodson) "In custody cases the child's welfare is the governing consideration when all the relevant facts, claims and the wishes of the parents are taken into account. I am not persuaded that the position is the same where a paternity issue has to be tried. True that, as in all cases where infants are concerned, the court will see that the infant is protected. . . . The court in ordering a blood test in the case of an infant has, of course, a discretion and may make or refuse an order for a test in the exercise of its discretion, but the interests of persons other than the child are involved in ordinary litigation. The infant needs protection but that is no justification for making his rights superior to those of others."
(Reid) "But even if one accepts the view that in ordering, directing or permitting a blood test the court should not go further than a reasonable parent would go, surely a reasonable parent would have some regard to the general public interest and would not refuse a blood test unless he thought that would clearly be against the interests of the child." (Sir Thomas Bingham MR) ‘I would for my part accept without reservation that the decision of a devoted and responsible parent should be treated with respect. It should certainly not be disregarded or lightly set aside. But the role of the court is to exercise an independent and objective judgment. If that judgment is in accord with that of the devoted and responsible parent, well and good. If it is not, then it is the duty of the court, after giving due weight to the view of the devoted and responsible parent, to give effect to its own judgment. That is what it is there for. Its judgment may of course be wrong. So may that of the parent. But once the jurisdiction of the court is invoked its clear duty is to reach and express the best judgment it can.’
1 Citers



 
 British Railways Board v Herrington; HL 16-Feb-1972 - [1972] AC 877; [1972] 2 WLR 537; [1971] 1 All ER 749; [1972] UKHL 1
 
Lancashire County Council v A and B (Death of Child Under ICO) [2017] EWFC B18
28 Apr 1972
FC

Children

[ Bailii ]

 
 Nash v Nash; CA 1973 - [1973] 2 All ER 70

 
 X v Netherlands; ECHR 1974 - (1974) 2 DR 118
 
Re L (Minors) (Wardship: Jurisdiction) [1974] 1 WLR 250
1974
CA
Lord Justice Buckley
Children
The court summarised the principles as to the return of a child to a foreign country without conducting a full investigation of the merits: "To take a child from his native land, to remove him to another country where, maybe, his native tongue is not spoken, to divorce him from the social customs and contacts to which he has been accustomed, to interrupt his education in his native land and subject him to a foreign system of education, are all acts (offered here as examples and of course not as a complete catalogue of possible relevant factors) which are likely to be psychologically disturbing to the child, particularly at a time when his family life is also disrupted. If such a case is promptly brought to the attention of a court in this country, the judge may feel that it is in the best interests of the infant that these disturbing factors should be eliminated from his life as speedily as possible. A full investigation of the merits of the case in an English court may be incompatible with achieving this. The judge may well be persuaded that it would be better for the child that those merits should be investigated in a court in his native country."
1 Citers


 
In re X (A Minor) (Wardship: Jurisdiction) [1975] Fam 47
1975
FD
Latey J
Children
A stepfather made the child a ward of court in order to try to stop publication of a book containing passages about the sex life of her deceased father. The jurisdiction to order that a child's name should not be made known, is not exercisable at all where the fact that the child is involved is wholly incidental to the proceedings and the child comes to court solely to prevent publication. The court explained the nature of the wardship jurisdiction: "The Crown has a duty to protect its subjects. This is and always has been especially so towards minors, that is to say now, the young under the age of 18. And it is so because children are especially vulnerable. They have not formed the defences inside themselves which older people have, and, therefore, need especial protection. They are also a country's most valuable asset for the future. So the Crown as parens patriae delegated its powers and duty of protection to the courts. Those powers and that duty so derived are not the creation of any statute and are not limited by any statute. They are there, in my understanding, to protect the young against injury of whatever kind from whatever source." It was one thing that the powers exist; it was another whether they should be exercised. The court should tread warily, but an injunction was granted.
1 Citers


 
In re X (A Minor) (Wardship: Jurisdiction) [1975] 1 All ER 697; [1975] Fam 47
2 Jan 1975
CA
Denning MR, Roskill LJ, Sir John Pennycuick
Children, Media
A child's stepfather obtained an order preventing publication of a book about the child. Held: The circumstances were novel, but 'The court has power to protect the ward from any interference with his or her welfare, direct or indirect.' There was no general remedy for infringement of privacy, because of the importance attached to freedom of the press.
Lord Denning MR said: 'I do not think that the wardship jurisdiction should be extended so as to enable the court to stop publication of this book.'
Roskill LJ said: "I would agree that no limits to that jurisdiction have yet been drawn and it is not necessary to consider here what, if any, limits there are to that jurisdiction. The sole question is whether it should be exercised in this case. The mere fact that the courts have never stretched out their arms so far as is proposed in this case is in itself no reason for not stretching out those arms further than before when necessary in a suitable case. There is never a precedent for anything until it has been done once." (Pennycuick) "It may well be, and I have no doubt it is so, that the courts, when exercising the parental power of the Crown, have, at any rate in legal theory, an unrestricted jurisdiction to do whatever is considered necessary for the welfare of a ward. It is, however, obvious that far-reaching limitations in principle on the exercise of this jurisdiction must exist. The jurisdiction is habitually exercised within those limitations. It would be quite impossible to protect a ward against everything which might do her harm. In particular the jurisdiction must be exercised with due regard to the rights of outside parties . . By 'outside parties' I mean those not in a family or personal relation to the ward . . Specifically, it seems to me, the court must hold a proper balance between the protection of the ward and the right of free publication enjoyed by outside parties and should hesitate long before interfering with that right . . It would be impossible and not, I think, desirable to draw any rigid line beyond which the protection of the ward should not be extended. The distinction between direct and indirect interference with a ward is valuable, though the borderline may be blurred. I am not prepared to say that the court should never interfere with the publication of matter concerning a ward. On the contrary, I think in exceptional circumstances the court should do so."
1 Cites

1 Citers


 
In re F (otherwise A) (A Minor) (Publication of Information) [1976] 3 All ER 274; [1976] 3 WLR 307; [1977] Fam 47
1976
FD

Children, Media, Contempt of Court

Administration of Justice Act 1960 12(1)(a)
1 Citers



 
 In re F (a Minor) (Wardship: Appeal); CA 1976 - [1976] Fam 238

 
 In re W G; CA 1976 - (1976) 6 Fam Law 210
 
The Ampthill Peerage Case [1977] AC 547
1977
HL
Lord Wilberforce, Lord Simon of Glaisdale
Litigation Practice, Children
There was a dispute about the legitimacy of an heir to the title. New evidence had been discovered after the trial. Held: The House considered whether a new trial of an action might be ordered after discovery of new evidence: "The law knows, and we all know, that sometimes fresh material may be found, which perhaps might lead to a different result, but, in the interests of peace, certainty and security it prevents further enquiry. It is said that in doing this, the law is preferring justice to truth. That may be so: these values cannot always coincide. The law does its best to reduce the gap. But there are cases where the certainty of justice prevails over the possibility of truth . . and these are cases where the law insists on finality."
However: "For a policy of closure to be compatible with justice, it must be attended with safeguards: so the law allows appeals: so the law, exceptionally, allows appeals out of time, so the law still more exceptionally allows judgments to be attacked on the ground of fraud."
Having a particular status in law means "the condition of belonging to a class in society to which the law ascribes peculiar rights and duties, capacities and incapacities." (Lord Simon of Glaisdale)

Lord Wilberforce considered the status of legitimacy: "There can hardly be anything of greater concern to a person than his status as the legitimate child of his parents: denial of it, or doubts as to it, may affect his reputation, his standing in the world, his admission into a vocation, or a profession, or into social organisations, his succession to property, his succession to a title. It is vitally necessary that the law should provide a means for any doubts which may be raised to be resolved, and resolved at a time when witnesses and records are available. It is vitally necessary that any such doubts once disposed of should be resolved once and for all and that they should not be capable of being reopened whenever, allegedly, some new material is brought to light which might have borne upon the question."
1 Citers


 
Constanda v M 1997 SC 217
1977
SCS

Scotland, Children
The child had been referred to a children's hearing on the basis that he was exposed to moral danger in terms of section 32(2)(b). Held: As the whole substratum of the ground of referral was that the child had performed certain acts which constituted criminal offences, the commission of the offences had to be proved to the criminal standard. This was despite the fact that the proceedings before the sheriff were civil proceedings, and in the absence of any rule laid down by the Act which required the criminal standard to be applied in any case other than where the child had been referred under section 32(2)(g) on the ground that he had committed an offence.
Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968 32(2)(b)
1 Citers


 
In re F (otherwise A ) (A Minor) (Publication of Information) [1977] 1 All ER 114; [1976] 3 WLR 813; [1977] Fam 58
1977
CA
Scarman LJ, Lord Denning MR, Geoffrey Lane LJ
Children, Contempt of Court
An allegation of contempt was made in proceedings related to the publication by a newspaper of extracts from a report by a social worker and a report by the Official Solicitor, both prepared after the commencement and for the purpose of the wardship proceedings. Held: What was published was "information relating to [the] proceedings" within the meaning of section 12. The Court drew a distinction between publication of information about a child (a ward), the publication of which was not of itself a contempt at common law, and is not a contempt under section 12, and, on the other hand, the publication of information relating to proceedings about the child (ward), which is in principle a contempt if the court has been sitting in private.
Section 12 of the 1960 Act does not mean that every newspaper report about award of court will be in contempt.
Scarman LJ said: "[The judge] construed the statutory words "information relating to proceedings before a court sitting in private" as having a wider meaning than information relating to an actual or imminent hearing. Indeed, he construed the words so as to include information about the ward irrespective of whether the information related to a hearing or not. He accepted that there was no reported case at common law which went further than to declare an account of the proceedings (or of the order made) to be a contempt; but, bearing in mind the nature of wardship, he interpreted "proceedings" as meaning "a continuing state of affairs for as long as the wardship lasts . . I do not so interpret the section. I think the judge . . gave too wide a meaning to "proceedings" . . Prior to 1960, as the judge recognised, no court is known to have treated as a contempt anything that was not an account of legal proceedings. By retaining the word "proceedings". Parliament must have intended to maintain the relationship between contempt of court and a court's proceedings. As I read the section, what is protected from publication is the proceedings of the court; in all other respects the ward enjoys no greater protection against unwelcome publicity than other children. If the information published relates to the ward, but not to the proceedings, there is no contempt; as North J commented in Martindale's case [1894] 3 Ch 193, 201, there would have been no contempt in that case had the newspaper confined its report to the fact of the ward's marriage". And
"The words, in their context, need mean no more than that there is a contempt in the absence of a defence recognised by law. If Parliament had intended to treat publication of information relating to proceedings before a court sitting in private as a contempt irrespective of circumstances, I would have expected express provision to that effect. Circumstances can and do arise in which Parliament must have intended the old law to continue, for example, where the court authorises publication or where by the passage of time 'the rule of publicity [is] resumed' (Lord Shaw of Dunfermline, Scott v Scott [1913] AC 417 at 483). Similarly, if, as I believe, the pre-existing law recognised a defence that the publisher neither knew nor ought to have known that the information published related to proceedings before a court in private, one would have expected express provision if such a defence was to be taken away."
Lord Denning MR said: "There is no suggestion anywhere that it was a contempt of court to publish information about the ward herself, be it favourable or adverse, helpful or injurious to her. But there are cases to show that it was a contempt of court to publish information relating to the proceedings in court about a ward … When the court . . sat in private to hear wardship proceedings, the very sitting in private carried with it a prohibition forbidding publication of anything that took place, save only for the formal order made by the judge or an accurate summary of it."
As to section 12 "the prohibition would, I think, apply, not only to information given to the judge at the actual hearing, but also to confidential reports submitted beforehand by the Official Solicitor, or social workers, or the like."
Geoffrey Lane LJ asked: "what is meant by 'proceedings'? Obviously a report of the actual hearing before the judge or part of it is included. But the words must include more than that; otherwise it would have been unnecessary to use the expression 'information relating to proceedings' . . The object is to protect from publication information which the person giving it believes to be protected by the cloak of secrecy provided by the court. 'Proceedings' must include such matters as statements of evidence, reports, accounts of interviews and such like, which are prepared for use in court once the wardship proceedings have been properly set on foot."
Lord Denning MR said: "The existence of wardship does not give the ward a privilege over and above other young people who are not wards. It does not give her exemption from comment on her activities, be they favourable or adverse, be they helpful to her or injurious. The remedy for defamatory remarks about a ward is the law of libel, not of contempt of court."
Administration of Justice Act 1960 12(1)
1 Cites

1 Citers


 
V-P v V-P (Access to Child) (1978) 1 FLR 336
1978
CA
Ormrod LJ
Children
The court discussed whether more potent encouragement to comply with court orders may be to contemplate changing the child's living arrangements. Ormrod LJ said: "I do not wish to issue threats, but the mother should, I think, realise this: the father has a home with the half brother in it, he is unemployed, he is available to look after both these children full time. The mother is fully occupied, so that the grandmother is playing a very important part in this child's life . . That being so, it would be a mistake on the part of the mother, in my judgment, to assume that the order for custody in her favour is inevitable; it is not and if the situation goes on as it is at present then it may be necessary to reconsider the question of custody."
1 Citers


 
L v F Times, 31 July 1978
31 Jul 1978

Latey J
Children
The court heard an application with regard to a proposed change of a child's surname. The child was living en famille with its mother, stepfather and half-sister. It heard evidence from a distinguished psychologist that "when they grew older, children were often greatly concerned with their biological origin" Held: The application to change the child's surname was refused. Latey J said: "Today divorce was commonplace. The fact that the children's surname was different from that of the mother and their half-sister would not cause embarrassment. The children would have a better sense of security if there was cooperation between the parents and the step-father."
1 Citers



 
 A v A; CA 1979 - [1979] 1 FLR 380

 
 Marckx v Belgium; ECHR 13-Jun-1979 - 6833/74; (1979) 2 EHRR 330; [1979] ECHR 2
 
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