Thread by @louisetickle

Just come out of a (remote) hearing at Manchester Family Court. I asked for, and got, permission to report the following:

This was a case in which @TamesideCouncil
removed children from their family, and placed them in LA care: there were issues with the manner of their removal which means the LA now needs to apply to a court to regularise that ongoing separation from their family.

At a hearing earlier this month, the children's Guardian agreed that an interim care order should be made, but she did not believe the children should be separated from their family...

The Guardian's recommendation was then, and continues to be, that "the best place" for the children is with their parents.

At a hearing earlier this month, a family court agreed a safety plan that would have allowed the children to remain with their family, but that collapsed around an hour after the hearing concluded.

There has not been, since that date, another safety plan put in place that would have allowed them to be returned to family/parents.

It has taken up till now for a new safety plan to be created (details of when the first hearing took place in July are deliberately blurred) but this plan still needs more time to be assessed.

The mother, father and Guardian have reluctantly agreed that there appears to be no other way ahead at this point, and so they have agreed to an adjournment for another week or so.

There is no current application that this was an illegal removal of children into care, though the case was referred to in the hearing by the mother’s advocate as “sensitive”, and there is clearly concern among the parents’ representatives at how the process has been managed.

I want to add that when I proposed that there were some parts of what I'd heard in the hearing that I wanted to publish, the judge (Recorder Anderson) referred himself to the President's Guidance as to reporting of the family courts...

Namely this paragraph:

He very constructively suggested we briefly adjourn - I appreciate this takes court time and advocates' time - to work out if we could reach agreement on what could be reported.

We did so, and in about 15 minutes I reckon, I had typed out for myself what I wanted to be able to report, and a conversation got underway with the advocates.

We reached a substantial level of agreement, and one contested point was decided (in favour of reporting) by the judge. Everyone engaged constructively in this process, and I want to thank Mr Carey, Mr Mehta, Ms Greenhalgh, Mr Lord and the judge.

It has meant that I could report a fair bit of what happened in this hearing, and importantly identify the local authority involved. It's obvious that this is a much bigger and more involved case than my attendance at one afternoon's hearing could realistically report on...

But I think it's important that journalists do attend, do ask to report, manage those sometimes sticky moments when someone doesn't agree with you, make their case, and then, as today, report something, fast, of what has happened.