Identifying the perpetrator

In re A (a child) (care proceedings: non-accidental injury) (CA TLR 22 August)

Where the judge had found that a child had been non-accidentally injured but he was unable to identify the perpetrator, he was wrong to conclude that it was not therefore possible to exclude the parents, the night nanny or the maternal grandmother, from the pool of possible perpetrators. The test of ‘no possibility’ was patently too wide and might encompass anyone who had even fleeting contact with the child in circumstances in which there had been the opportunity to cause injury. In the present case there was no real possibility that either the night nanny or the maternal grandmother had caused the injuries. Where there is not sufficient evidence positively to identify a perpetrator, the test is whether there is a real possibility or likelihood that a person with access to the child might have inflicted the injury.