A (A Child), Re (Rev 1)

SIR JAMES MUNBY PRESIDENT OF THE FAMILY DIVISION In the matter of A (A Child) ____________________

Mr Crispin Oliver (instructed by the local authority) for the applicant (local authority) Mr Alan D Green (of Hewitts) for the first respondent (mother) Mr Martin Todd (instructed by Freeman Johnson) for the second respondent (father) Mr Keith Leigh (of Teesside Law Limited) for the fourth respondent (child) The third respondents (the paternal grandmother and step-grandfather) appeared in person Hearing dates: 26-28 November 2014 ____________________

This echoes what the Strasbourg court said in Y v United Kingdom (2012) 55 EHRR 33 , [2012] 2 FLR 332 , para 134:

It is a common feature of care cases that a local authority asserts that a parent does not admit, recognise or acknowledge something or does not recognise or acknowledge the local authority's concern about something. If the 'thing' is put in issue, the local authority must both prove the 'thing' and establish that it has the significance attributed to it by the local authority.

Leaving on one side the important difference between "evidently untrue" and "highly probable", the simple fact, as the father asserts, and I believe him, is that, although he was aware of the various non-sexual offences the mother was charged with, it was not until he was at court, after A was conceived , that he first learned that she had been charged with, and indeed convicted of, sexual offences.