A girl was removed from the care of a Welsh mother after claims the child was “severely malnourished”. The mother broke down in tears as arguments were heard in a Cardiff family court case over the possibility of being allowed more contact with the five-year-old.
During the hearing, Mrs Justice Morgan outlined the background to what she described as a “very unusual case”. The girl was a baby when Vale of Glamorgan Council successfully applied to have her removed from her mother’s care because she was allegedly not feeding properly. The judge said the girl was placed with her father under a care order and has since “recovered”.
Mrs Justice Morgan was not the judge in the original case, but said she had read out the verdict which found the council had made “serious allegations” against the mother. The allegations included that the baby was “really, really, seriously malnourished”. At this point in the hearing – which was held by video link – the mother began shouting at the judge: “I have evidence against all of this, evidence you can’t even begin to imagine. I don’t want another judgment on these lies.”
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When the judge warned her that she would be expelled if she did not stop interrupting, the mother angrily replied: “I am not a 10-year-old child. No one is going to look at my evidence.” After another warning, the judge continued with the summary of the original case, which ended with findings that the baby had “lost weight significantly in a very short period of time” to the point of “permanent stunting and impaired development”.
The mother then started shouting again: “She hasn’t lost any weight. It’s medically proven she hasn’t lost any weight.” She was then removed from the video call, but her barrister Rachel Vickers remained in touch. Ms Justice Morgan moved on to talk about the mother’s application last year to have the care order withdrawn.
The judge, who said the appeal was unsuccessful, said there had been a “serious incident” in the lead-up to the case. It was alleged that the mother had shouted at a social worker, intimidated her and refused to let her go during an argument over her lack of communication with her daughter. The mother denies this.
Since then, another order has been made renewing the council’s permission to prevent contact between mother and daughter. The mother has now returned to court and sought permission to apply for a no contact order with her daughter. Ms Vickers said her client was “filled with despair” at the thought of missing out on any time with her daughter. And the barrister told the court the girl’s father “will support contact between mother and child”.
Ms Vickers added that the father had “opened up positive lines of communication” with the mother and had recently sent her photos of the boy dancing, a video of him riding his bike and a message about his reading skills. “They have all been received with gratitude [the mum] and he shared this [the dad] joy at how good you are [the child] “By doing what she did, she is expressing that she is a smart girl,” he said.
The lawyer added: “The mother does not know whether the local authorities were aware of the father’s last contact with the mother or, if they were aware, whether they supported or opposed it. The mother did not provide the relevant videos for sharing.” [the child] for example, her, the mother’s reading. This was not done because, although it was something that had happened successfully and happily before, the view of the local authority was always that all contact should go through them.
“The mother is also aware that she doesn’t know what happened. [the child’s] his reaction would be a communication from his mother, given the time that had passed since he had last seen her. The mother was concerned that sharing her father’s last communication would get her into trouble and [an end] from any contact by any means. That is not his intention. He would have preferred the local authority to see this at face value — an attempt by the father to advance matters to his own advantage. [the child]”
Miss Vickers argued that if permission was not granted it was “unclear how matters would be resolved for this little girl who has grown up in the care of her father with no input from her mother”. But the judge said he was influenced by the findings of the previous decision that the father had “vulnerabilities” to the “persuasive” personality of the mother.
Before the hearing, the mother wrote in a statement: “Whatever this application may be, the court must know that; [my daughter] It should never have been taken from me. The decisions that have been made are wrong and should not be subject to intervention by the local authority which has done nothing but harm him and caused parental separation that was never needed, wanted, justified or justified.
“I have said this many times, I have ample evidence here to support what I say — I tried to appeal, but that was impossible after the abusive proceedings in which my daughter was forcibly taken from me. This evidence is here to be examined by anyone willing to listen to what I have to say — to right a wrong that should never have been made and that I have spent every day trying to right.”
Towards the end of the hearing, Mrs Justice Morgan said she was “surprised” the council had not provided Mrs Vickers with access to documents such as progress reports from the child care review meetings (the meeting where the child review service assesses whether the care plan meets the child’s needs). Mrs Vickers had been requesting such documents since last October but had not received them. The judge said that “whatever deficiencies” there were in the relationship between the mother and the council, those documents needed to be provided, adding that otherwise it would be difficult for Mrs Vickers to properly advise her client about the likelihood of her application being successful. The judge ordered the documents to be sent to Mrs Vickers and then adjourned the case to a later date.
If you would like a journalist to attend a Cardiff family court hearing, email us at conor.gogarty@walesonline.co.uk.