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15 October 2010 / Dorothea Gartland
Issue: 7437 / Categories: Features , Child law , Family
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Child law update

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Dorothea Gartland reports on an unusual assessment

Practitioners may be aware of the decision Re A (Residential Assessment) [2009] EWHC 865 (Fam), [2009] 2 FLR 443 by Mr Justice Munby (as he then was). The case concerned care proceedings where the baby girl was accommodated by the local authority with foster carers a fortnight after her birth and was later made the subject of an interim care order.

The parents had agreed that threshold was met and accepted that they were not able to care for the child. The paternal great grandmother and paternal aunt were joined as parties to the proceedings and given leave to apply for special guardianship orders. Both the aunt and great grandmother were positively assessed in a viability assessment of them as carers for the child. By 8 December 2008 the local authority had filed a special guardianship report that supported them as special guardians for the child.

The case was listed for a hearing in the family proceedings court on 16 December 2008. At that stage the

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