Family law

The threshold of “significant harm”, in the context of making of care orders pursuant to s 31 of the Children Act 1989, was not comparatively low. In a case where there was a likelihood of a child suffering harm it was necessary to establish that there was a real possibility that he would suffer significant harm.

While having to show no more than a real possibility of harm made the threshold a low one, it still had to be a real possibility of significant harm. The harm had to be significant whether dealing with harm which had been suffered, or when dealing only with the likelihood of it being suffered. Therefore, the word “significant” had to be given its proper meaning in the scheme of the Act.