Case No. KH18C00272

62.In November 2020, the findings schedule filed for this hearing contained 90 allegations. At a case management hearing listed in December 2020, I expressed the view that a number of the allegations appeared to the court to be unnecessary for determination as the outcome would have limited relevance to the welfare determinations that might need to be made in the future. A further case management hearing was fixed for 14 January 2021. By that date I had read a great deal of the evidence in the bundle and gave the Local Authority clear indications concerning the matters that I viewed as necessary determinations in the proceedings and those that I did not. Mr Thomas made submissions to the court seeking to justify the presence in the findings schedule of some of the matters that I had referred to as unnecessary. It is right to record now that my reading between the hearing in December 2020 and the hearing in January 2021 had assisted me to understand the reasons why the Local Authority persisted with some allegations that appear to be more peripheral. 63.On 18 January 2021, the Local Authority filed a further findings schedule. Many of the allegations had been amended but only 4 of the allegations had been removed. I accepted the amendments and the limited redactions and the trial commenced. 64.On 25 February 2021, following the Local Authority’s review of its case, a further schedule was filed. 18 allegations have been removed from the schedule. I will consider below the evidential consequences of those allegations not being pursued by the Local Authority. However, the Respondents submit that the Local Authority’s review of its case does not go far enough and they submit that the court should exercise its case management functions, following the guidance given by MacFarlane J, as he was then in A County Council v DP, RS, BS (By the Children’s Guardian) [2005] 2 FLR 1031. That decision was considered by the Court of Appeal in Re F-H (Dispensing with Fact-Finding Hearing) [2008] EWCA Civ 1249. The Court of Appeal endorsed the approach taken by MacFarlane J as the correct framework for deciding whether to determine disputed allegations: “[26] There is no doubt that in family proceedings the court has a discretion whether to hear evidence in relation to disputed matters of fact with a view to determining them. In A County Council v DP and Others [2005] EWHC 1593, [2005] 2 FLR 1031, McFarlane J, at para [24], helpfully identified, by reference to previous authorities, nine matters which the court should bear in mind before deciding whether to conduct a particular fact-finding exercise. I have no doubt that, notwithstanding that in the present case a decision had been made in the exercise of such a discretion to arrange for the disputed facts, in relation in particular to the allegations against A, to be determined at the hearing fixed to begin on 7 April 2008, Her Honour Judge Hughes also even at that stage retained a discretion to decline to conduct it. Nevertheless, in my view additional considerations fall to be weighed by a judge who is considering, at the outset of a prearranged fact-finding hearing, whether in effect to abort it. That judge should weigh, with appropriate respect, the previous decision that the exercise should be undertaken and should ask whether any fresh circumstances, or at least any circumstances freshly discovered, should lead her or him to depart from the chosen forensic course. Equally she or he should weigh the costs already incurred in the assembly of the case on all sides and the degree to which a refusal at that stage to conduct the hearing would waste them. Furthermore, she or he should weigh any special features such as, in the present case, the facts that a girl then aged 16 had been shown the court room, that she had participated in discussions with the guardian as to the way in which she would prefer to give evidence and that she was thus expecting that she would imminently be giving oral evidence in some way or another, although the judge should not on the other hand ignore the girl's likely apprehension at that prospect. What needs, however, to be avoided at all costs is a sudden decision to abort a hearing in circumstances in which, later, the findings not then made might after all be considered to be necessary. So, a judge in the position of Her Honour Judge Hughes on 8 April should in my view act most cautiously before putting the forensic programme into reverse”.65.At the commencement of this hearing, I agreed that it was necessary and proportionate for the Local Authority to pursue the findings that remained in the schedule, accepting as I did the submissions made by Mr Thomas concerning certain of the allegations that I had expressed views about. I have read with care the submissions filed on behalf of each of the Respondents but I am of the view that my decision at the commencement of the hearing was the correct one and, although it is accepted that I have the jurisdiction to review that decision now, to do so would require an evaluation of the evidence that I have already determined to be inappropriate for this half-way stage. 66.It is crucial in case as complex as this that the court is able to assess all the evidence relating to all of the allegations as a whole. As is recognised by the Local Authority, some of the allegations may not be proved on the evidence before the court. In my judgment an unreliable allegation is as important to the court’s consideration of the facts in this case as those allegations the Local Authority asserts to be reliable. 67.It is the function of the court to survey all the material available to reach a decision. Having permitted the case to proceed on allegations that, it is submitted were weak from the outset and so weak say some to obviate the need for witnesses to be called to face cross-examination, I can see no advantage to the fact-finding exercise but many disadvantages to now removing those aspects of the case from consideration. How the evidence on one issue might fit together, or not, with the evidence given on other issues remains to be seen. 68.During the oral submissions all advocates expressly, or by stealth, avoided inviting the court to express a view on the evidence. As I have described above, Family Court judges express views about the evidence they hear, or are to hear, as a necessary pre-cursor to the case management decisions that they make. I have given no indications of my views other than to invite the Local Authority to keep its case under review. At the stage these proceedings have now reached, I have concluded that all that is now required is for me to hear evidence from the Respondents on the allegations that the Local Authority still seeks to prove. To do otherwise requires the court to assess the detail of each allegation, the evidence both for and against and decide whether it can now be said that the evidence is so weak as to require the Local Authority to again justify why the court should hear further evidence. That is a hugely timeconsuming exercise and should now only be undertaken once all the evidence has been heard. 69.I have received very detailed and helpful written submissions from the Respondents addressing what they say are the weaknesses in the Local Authority’s case against each Respondent. The Local Authority did not engage with the detail of those submissions in its responses. As a result, I will have all those alleged weaknesses in my mind as I hear the remainder of the evidence in this case without concurrent knowledge of the Local Authority’s response.