This is the first appeal to reach the UK Court of Appeal since the model was introduced
The UK Court of Appeal has permitted in part an appeal of a ruling issued under the novel Child-Focused Court model – the first CFC appeal to reach the appeals court.
The Law Society Gazette reported that Family Division president Stephen Cobb partially greenlit the appeal of the decision in Re C (Child Arrangements Orders; Domestic Abuse; Child Focused Court) with the assent of lord justices Antony Zacaroli and Andrew Moylan. In the appeal, a woman challenged a child arrangements order issued by the family court in Wrexham in April.
The woman had accused the father of her four children of domestic abuse and coercive and controlling behavior. The father had confessed to abusing the woman and the children in the past, as well as to circumventing agreed contact arrangements.
The family court’s order imposed restricted supervised contact between the father and the children. The court denied the woman’s application for a non-molestation order that would be prohibit the father from contacting her and the children; moreover, it shot down her application for the removal or curtailment of the father’s parental responsibility.
The family court also issued an order that until April 2027, neither parent could file an application for orders involving the children without the court’s approval. The woman filed an appeal against all of the court’s orders; the appeals court permitted the appeal involving the restriction on the woman but rejected the rest of her application.
The judgment noted that the family court judge “indicated that he intended to conduct it in a manner consistent with the ethos of the Pathfinder model, to which he made express reference several times,” per a snippet published by the Gazette. Moreover, the judge was “under no illusion about the seriousness of the domestic abuse” that occurred before the proceedings were resolved in 2024.
Cobb determined that the judge did not err in issuing the order for restricted supervised contact between the children and the father.
“It was clear to the judge, as it is clear to this court, that the father accepted that he had in several respects wrongly pushed the boundary of supervision. The father’s conduct was, in my judgment, sufficiently well understood by the judge to enable him to address the relevant risks within the framework of his order,” Cobb said in the ruling, a snippet of which was published by the Gazette.
Cobb decided that the judge’s approach was completely consistent with the “Guidance for Judges and Magistrates: Fact-Finding Hearings and Domestic Abuse in Private Law Children Proceedings.” The appeals court indicated that it would “rarely interfere with judicial discretion as to the best order for meeting a child’s needs when arrived at after careful reference to the welfare checklist,” per a statement published by the Gazette.
The appeals court emphasized that the CFC model’s introduction “has not altered the substantive legal framework,” per a snippet published by the Gazette.
