CA-2025-001313 & CA-2025-001318 - [2025] EWCA Civ 1044

In Re H-D-H (Children), Re C (A Child), [2021] EWCA Civ 1992; [2021] 4 WLR 106, it was said that decisions about the scope of fact-finding are core case management decisions with particular consequences for the length and cost of proceedings, the impact of the litigation on parties and others, and the allocation of court time. It was confirmed that the long-standing approach set out in the Oxfordshire case (A County Council v DP [2005] EWHC 1593 (Fam); [2005] 2 FLR 1031) remains valid and that the factors it identifies should be approached flexibly in the light of the overriding objective of doing justice efficiently in the individual case. Decisions about whether to investigate particular events are not always easy and the factors typically do not all point the same way: most decisions will have their downsides. Overall, the court must ask itself whether its process will do justice to the reality of the case. It should be able to make its ruling quite concisely by referring to the main factors that bear on the individual case, and identifying where the balance falls and why. The reasoned case management choice of a judge who approaches the law correctly and takes all relevant factors into account will be upheld on appeal unless it is shown that something has gone badly wrong with the balancing exercise.

These appeals provide an acute example of a case management decision of this kind. The judge (His Honour Judge Willans, sitting as a Deputy High Court Judge) is conducting care proceedings about a young mother’s second baby. The question for him was whether to direct a fact-finding hearing in relation to the death of the mother’s first baby, which had occurred 6½ years earlier at a time when the mother was herself a child. For reasons given on 28 May 2025 in a high-quality reserved judgment, he decided that it was not. The local authority and the children’s guardian now appeal. The issue for us is whether the judge’s conclusion was wrong or unjust.

I would dismiss the appeals. This was a difficult and intensely case-specific decision. The proceedings were at week 18 and there had been five hearings, all conducted by the judge himself. He was therefore familiar with the mass of evidence about the family history over the years, and with the shape of the case, by which I mean the range of realistically possible outcomes and the means by which they might be reached. In short, he had a feel for the case. He directed himself correctly in law and he took all relevant factors into account. It follows that we could only intervene if the only course open to him was to make findings of fact about the first child’s death. As to that, the appellants had arguments, substantially based on logical reasoning, and the judge addressed them. Their arguments might have prevailed, but the reality of the case included the fact that this baby has been in her mother’s care since birth and that there is no present intention to separate them; further, that the process of investigation itself would be exceptionally lengthy and onerous. I consider that the judge’s decision was one that was open to him and that, taking account of the latitude that is due to informed judicial case management, it was at all events not wrong.