Implacable hostility

Re C (a child) (residence) [2007] All ER (D) 187 (October)

The parents of L were not married and separated after a short relationship. The father’s contact with L continued for about a year, but stopped when the mother ceased to make her available for contact. At the time of the final hearing of the father’s application for contact, L was aged six. Orders were made, but ignored by the mother except on two occasions. The first was a success when L was comfortable and close to her father, which so displeased the mother that she deliberately sabotaged the next meeting. The judge found that the mother’s attitude was one of implacable hostility, but that imprisonment was not appropriate. The welfare of L was paramount and although she had not suffered significant harm, she was likely to suffer future emotional harm through denial of contact with her father and from her social isolation. Accordingly, the judge ordered L’s immediate change of residence from her mother to her father. The mother’s appeal on the grounds that the judge had made only a passing reference to the welfare principle and had been motivated by a desire to punish her rather than to put L’s interests first, was dismissed by the Court of Appeal. The judge had made it abundantly clear that he had to have regard to the welfare checklist. The essential balance that had to be struck, and that had been struck, was between the likely effect on L of a change in circumstances, and the harm that L had suffered or would be at risk of suffering. The option of transferring residence was one that been properly within the range of options that the judge was entitled to consider.