Fact-finding hearing

Re K (children) (sexual abuse: Evidence) [2008] All ER (D) 85 (Oct)

K, aged 5, made a remark at school to a teaching assistant about her father’s sexually inappropriate behaviour. Private law proceedings were commenced by the mother in which the issue arose about whether inappropriate sexual behaviour had taken place in K’s presence. At a fact-finding hearing, the father submitted that there was no basis for the proposed five-day hearing. The judge rejected his submission and heard evidence from a jointly instructed expert that it was possible that K had been exposed to an inappropriate sexual experience; however, it was equally possible that she had not. When the father renewed his submission that a five-day hearing was unnecessary, the judge accepted it and vacated the remaining days listed for oral evidence. The mother appealed on the grounds that the judge should have permitted her to call evidence and to cross-examine the father.