Father gives up right to care for son
Announcing the latest decision in long-running litigation over the fate of the boy, now aged 12, a judge described it as an “extraordinary case”.
In a written ruling yesterday, Judge Clifford Bellamy, sitting as a deputy judge of the High Court, said that on July 21 an order was made “by consent of all parties that the boy should continue to live with his mother”.
The judge said: “On July 21, 2010 a wholly deserving father left my court in tears having been driven to abandon his battle to implement an order which I had made on January 4, 2010, that his son, S, now aged 12, should move to live with him.”
The child, who can only be referred to as S, faced having to move into his father’s full-time care on March 27 following “introductory meetings”.
He moved into foster care on March 18 and contact with his father began the next day.
But the judge said that during each of the contact visits which took place during the next week the boy put his head in his lap, put his fingers in his ears, refused to eat and drink and generally refused to engage with his father.
On March 25, on the recommendation of the boy’s social worker, the father agreed to the boy returning to live with his 42-year-old mother in the Midlands.
The intention was for further work to be undertaken with the child with a view to moving him into his father’s home in the London area. By July the local authority, Warwickshire County Council, and the boy’s guardian had become concerned about his mental health.
The 43-year-old father agreed that he would not seek to have face-to-face contact with his son unless the boy requested it and that in the meantime he would have only indirect contact through photographs and school reports.
The parents, who are both professionals, had married in 1996 and separated before the boy was born.
In his ruling the judge said the case raised serious issues about children who had become “alienated” from a parent and about how professionals and courts should deal with such cases.
