Care Orders
25.I have considered the proposed threshold document prepared by the local authority. On the basis of the certificate of conviction, I can conclude on the balance of probabilities that the father killed the mother and was responsible for hiding her body for six months. I am satisfied that this behaviour caused or was likely to cause significant harm to the children as they were deprived of both their primary carers and suffered emotional trauma arising from the mother’s disappearance and the subsequent discovery that she had been killed. I am also satisfied on the balance of probabilities that the children were exposed to harm from incidents of domestic abuse in which they were either struck by the adults caring for them or in which they witnessed adults assaulting each other and their siblings.26.Those matters satisfy the threshold criteria in section 31(2) of the Children Act 1989. I approve the local authority’s threshold document dated 5 October 2022 which should be appended to the final orders made in this case.27.There is only one realistic option for the children’s care, namely long term fostering. Following a parenting assessment, GH accepted she was not in a position to care for P. The father also accepted that, by reason of the life sentence imposed on him, he could not look after the children. The maternal family have been assessed and rejected and I note that there has been no challenge to those assessments. Members of the paternal family and friends have also been assessed and rejected by the local authority and those assessments have not been challenged either. In early October 2022, the father sought to put forward another of his brothers as a potential carer for the children but, by 19 October 2022, the father no longer suggested that the proceedings be adjourned for further assessment of this brother as a long-term carer for the children. Indeed, the father accepted that the children should remain with their current carers as this was what was in accordance with their wishes and feelings.28.In this case, there were no competing care options for the children which required me to undertake a holistic analysis of each of them, with the children’s welfare as my paramount consideration and by applying the welfare checklist set out in s.1(3) of the Children Act 1989. Nevertheless, I have carefully considered the local authority’s care plans and final evidence together with the helpful report of the children’s Guardian. Those documents make clear that all three children are settled and happy in their current foster home. They all wish to stay with their current carers and their carers are committed to them for the long term. This option represents the least change to the children’s current circumstances. Long term fostering also recognises that the children will retain a link to both their maternal and paternal families.