AEY v AL (Family Proceedings Civil Restraint Order) [2018] – Family Law Week case summary

29 November 2018

Knowles J refused seven applications by a father for permission to appeal and made an extended civil restraint order.

In her judgment, having determined the matter on the papers, Mrs Justice Knowles helpfully set out the court's approach when determining applications for permission to appeal.

Since 2013, the family had been involved in legal proceedings with the father seeking that his three daughters (A, S and N) should live with him or spend substantial time with him. Prior to that, in 1992, the father had been convicted and imprisoned for conspiring to take a child out of the UK without consent of the child's carer. In October 2013, the father was convicted of assaulting the mother.

In around 2012, S had been taken into care and placed with foster carers under section 20, Children Act 1989. Proceedings in 2014 resulted in the father spending 3 hours each week with N along with telephone contact. A was found to be unwilling to have any contact with her father and no orders were made in this regard.

In 2016, the father again applied for N to live with him and raised concerns, echoed by HHJ Tolson QC, that S remained in local authority care when the mother had not met with S's social workers in over two years. Care proceedings in respect to S began and resulted in a final care order being made. The father's application for a child arrangements order in respect to N was dismissed. HHJ Tolson QC recorded that the father had made repeated private law applications and that his most recent request for permission to appeal had been refused and certified as totally without merit.

Read the full summary here.