Split child care hearings

AP v Vale of Glamorgan Council and others [2007] EWCA Civ 1265 30 November; SJ 14 December p 1596

A man seriously harmed his baby nephew, A, then aged about 3 and a half months, by shaking him. The incident may have been an isolated lapse of self-control on the part of a normally caring man, who seemed to have been a good parent to his own children. The question that arose on this appeal is whether the judge jumped too far, too soon, in concluding as a result of the incident that the man’s own children, one of them as old as six, were likely to suffer significant harm so as to satisfy the threshold criteria under s31(2) of the Children Act 1989. The case highlights points of practice of some importance when a care case is being considered in stages with a split hearing.