Cases Archive

Joan Connell represented the Local Authority in the case: London Borough of Merton v SB & Ors [2017] EWFC B81.

Mark Twomey QC represented the Respondent Mother, who made a successful application for the transfer of care proceedings to Slovakia under the provisions of Article 15 of BIIR.

Issue in care proceedings relating to procedural basis for applying out of time for a Supervision Order. The case has change the law in this area. Mostyn J accepted Henry Lamb’s submission that the Court of Appeal has wrongly interpreted the law over the last 21 years

An international child law case where the local authority applied for, and was granted, a reporting restriction order

Application for a Care Order in relation to a 16-year-old child in a complex case with an international dimension

MacDonald J refuses Local Authority’s application for Interim Care Order in respect of a child at risk of removal from the jurisdiction to partake in a forced marriage on the basis that the existing Forced Marriage Protection Order adequately safeguarded that child against the risks

Christopher Miller represented the Local Authority in the third reported judgment in these proceedings.  Here, Moylan J deals with the proposed adopters’ application for an Adoption Order, which was opposed by the mother – supported by representations made on behalf of the Latvian authorities.  The application was granted.

The Court of Appeal provides definitive guidance on issues relating to the interface between ECHR Law, BIIa, the Vienna Convention and domestic adoption jurisprudence. The Latvian Ministry of Justice intervened in the appeal in opposition to the Local Authority and in support of the mother. The mother’s appeal was dismissed.  Christopher Miller represented the Local Authority.

Ronan O’Donovan, leading Ewan Murray, represented the Local Authority in this appeal, brought by a father against the making of a Care Order.  The appeal was dismissed and, in so doing, the Court of Appeal criticised the way in which the appeal was presented on behalf of the father.  The father had hitherto been a self-representing litigant but, when such a litigant secures the services of counsel, he or she should seek permission to serve a single, composite skeleton argument which incorporates all the submissions which counsel proposes to advance.  The detail of the submissions made at this appeal was not set out in writing, despite calls from the respondents to do so, and this had the effect of ambushing the Court and respondents