Judge refuses Tusla application to put three children of sex offender into care

The CFA had made the ICO concerning the children’s two parents as it believes the children’s mother has an inability to accept the risk posed by the father and to safeguard the children. File photo

A judge has refused an application by Tusla, the Child & Family Agency (CFA), to put three children of a convicted sex offender into care.

At the Family Law Court, Judge Bernadette Owens said that the CFA application had reached the threshold for the making of an Interim Care Order (ICO) in the case.

Judge Owens stated however it would be “disproportionate” to put the three children into care stating there have been no other concerns over the children’s welfare.

The CFA had made the ICO concerning the children’s two parents as it believes the children’s mother has an inability to accept the risk posed by the father and to safeguard the children.

In reaching her ruling on the CFA reaching the threshold for an ICO, Judge Owens stated that the father was not honest with two experts who had interviewed him and he had sought to minimise what had occurred in the past.

Judge Owens said: “Therein lies the risk - until such time that the man has a level of honest engagement and a level of support and therapy, there is a risk to his children. Their mother needs therapeutic support so she is best placed to protect her children and she has not received that support.” 

Judge Owens said that none of the three children concerned or any child since the man's sex offence conviction from 1999 had made a disclosure of child sex abuse against the man.

Judge Owens did grant the CFA a 12-month Supervision Order after both parents gave undertakings that there would be no unauthorised access of the children for the father and they would not see each other. Both parents were opposing the ICO application but were consenting to the Supervision Order.

The father's 1999 conviction

The children’s father was convicted in 1999 of the sexual abuse in 1995 of two girls under the age of 12 and he received a four-year suspended prison sentence.

The man also received the Probation Act in a court in 1982 after three of his sisters made complaints of a sexual nature against him.

In the case, the CFA only acted after an adult son of the man from a previous relationship made a disclosure in 2018 expressing his concern for the risk posed by his father to the three children aged under the age of 18.

In the final day of the four-day hearing, an adult son of the couple said that he was “devastated” when a social worker told him that his father was a sex offender.

The sex offender had kept his sexually deviant past a secret from his partner and their children.

Giving evidence on behalf of this mother, the adult son told the court that his siblings “are very upset. They don’t want to leave home. My mother is a very good Mum. She looks after us very well. I wouldn’t be here without her”.

The children live with their mother while the children under 18 haven’t seen their father since last September as part of a CFA ‘safety plan’ for them.

The adult son told the court that he monitors his mother’s phone daily to make sure there is no contact with his father in order to make sure that his siblings are safe.

Judge's ruling

Judge Owens stated that the CFA has not made all efforts to source necessary therapeutic interventions for the mother and the children and said that this should be done.

Judge Owens said that she found the evidence by the court-appointed independent voice of the children, the Guardian ad Litem (GAL), to be very helpful.

The GAL told Judge Owens that it would be “devastating” for the children to be removed from the family home and that removing the children “would be a difficult removal”.

She stated that removing the children from the family home at this time “would be detrimental to their welfare”.

The GAL told the court that the children “have been very vocal and have made it clear that they are sick of all of this and have no intention of leaving their home or being uprooted".

The GAL said that she has spoken to the father and that “he is very apologetic for everything that has happened to his children particularly the threat of them being removed from their mother’s care”.

She said that the father “regrets deeply the deceit and silence over the years”.

The GAL said that the mother had no knowledge of the man’s previous convictions and what was said in court about him having a sexual interest in children and told her that “if she had known that she would not have entered into a relationship with him”.

The GAL stated that it is very raw for the children having the information about their father’s past “and the information is very well known in their community”.

She stated that the three children “are united in fear” over being removed from the home and being put into care.

The GAL described the children as ‘remarkable’. She stated that the children see that they have done nothing wrong. The GAL told Judge Owens: “I think these children deserve a chance.” 

Judge Owens adjourned the case to September and also ruled that the father can have highly intensive supervised access with the children when therapeutic supports have been progressed for everyone.