C (A Child)

Thus far, everything had proceeded as might have been expected. At this point I need to go back to the beginning.

In about May 2011 the appellant became aware of the adoption proceedings. On 6 June 2011, and again on 20 June 2011, his sister approached the local authority. She was told that they should seek independent legal advice. The first directions hearing followed on 15 August 2011; the order made on that occasion recorded the local authority’s agreement to carry out a DNA paternity test.

Judge Redgrave’s judgment is not that long. Given the importance of the matters at stake I must deal with it in some detail. Having summarised the history, in the course of which she referred more than once to C’s brother, M, Judge Redgrave directed herself as follows (paragraph 5):

“It was established in Re P that an application for leave to defend adoption proceedings under Section 47(5) of the Act is governed by Section 1 of that Act, which means that the paramount consideration of the court must be the child’s welfare throughout his life. The application has two stages; first, the court has to be satisfied on the facts that there has been a change of circumstances, and only if there has been is the court under a duty to exercise its judicial discretion, applying the paramountcy test to decide whether to permit a parent to oppose the adoption proceedings.”

“In this case all parties agree that there has been a change in circumstances since the placement order was made, in as much as it is now known that the [appellant] is C’s father. At the time the care and placement orders were made the local authority had no reason to disbelieve the mother and R about C’s paternity and could not, in my judgment, be reasonably expected in the circumstances to launch an investigation to determine whether this was true.”