Children 'wrongly removed from grandparents care' over grandfather's sex abuse crimes, judge rules

Three children should not have been removed from their grandparents’ care over concerns about their grandfather being convicted of child sex offences more than 40 years ago, the Court of Appeal has ruled.

The children, all aged under ten, moved to live with their paternal grandparents in 2022 because of their parents’ drug and alcohol abuse and concerns around domestic violence.

A local authority, which has not been named, began care proceedings in December 2022 and raised concerns over the grandfather’s three convictions for sexual offences, the last of which was in 1984, and two sexual incidents involving the children’s uncle.

A judge at East London Family Court ordered that the children be moved into foster care in June this year, with the children moved to live with carers they had never met, despite the grandparents seeking to appeal against the decision.

In a judgment on Wednesday, Lord Justice Peter Jackson, with whom Lord Justice Coulson and Lady Justice Elisabeth Laing agreed, allowed the appeal and ordered that the children be returned to both grandparents’ care.

In the ruling, Lord Justice Peter Jackson said: “Standing back, these children had been rescued from the inadequate and harmful care of their parents and had found a haven with their grandparents.

“That haven may not have been free of all risk, but it was showing every sign of meeting the children’s needs.

“On any view of the evidence, the welfare balance fell decisively against a plan that cast them off from their family and set them for the remainder of their childhoods upon what would for them be the open sea of public care.

“The arguments in favour of such a radical interference with family life fell far short of justifying these care orders.”

Lord Justice Peter Jackson also found that it was “disturbing” that the children had been moved into foster care despite the grandparents’ plans to appeal.

He stated he had “real concern” that the children were taken into care with “minimal planning” and said there had been “mishandling” of their removal, amid reports that the children were moved to a second foster carer after the youngest accused their first of slapping them in the face.

The judge said in a 26-page ruling that the children first came to the council’s attention in 2017 because of a history of neglect, and were moved into their grandparents’ care in July 2022 after two of the children were found walking by a main road unsupervised.

The children had made “good progress” since the move and “became thoroughly settled”, with “no suggestion that any of the children had suffered any harm in the grandparents’ care” and social worker reports “extremely positive”.

But concerns were raised over the grandfather’s three convictions for sexual offences, including indecent assault on two nine-year-old boys when he was aged 14, and indecent assault on a ten-year-old male when he was aged 22.

The uncle, who initially lived in the home but later moved out, had no criminal convictions, but allegations of a sexual nature had been made against him, some of which he denied.

An independent social worker told East London Family Court that while removing the children from their grandparents would be “traumatic and a dreadful situation”, the risk of harm in the home was “too much”.

Following a seven-day hearing at East London Family Court, a judge ruled that the grandparents had “met the needs of the children to a high standard” and “have given the children stability, consistency, love and nurture”.

But they continued that the children “cannot be kept safe in their grandparents’ care”, ruling that they should be moved into foster care.

The judge said: “My decision will be devastating for the children, and they will suffer a huge loss by moving from the care of their grandparents to a placement with people they do not know and who are different from them.

“However, the harm that could occur by remaining in a placement that is not safe from the risks that have been clearly identified outweighs this.”

The grandparents challenged the decision, with their barristers telling a hearing on October 13 that the judge’s ruling was “unnecessary and disproportionate”.

The council opposed the appeal, but Lord Justice Peter Jackson said that the judge had been “materially influenced … by matters that had not been proved or even investigated”, which was “not a sound approach to risk assessment”.

He continued that the judge’s decision “was not reasonably open to the court on the evidence before it” and was “manifestly wrong”, stating: “Sexual abuse is a great evil, but the court’s function is not to protect children from all risk at any price.”