Contact
with their father and with other relatives will not be straightforward and, for the foreseeable future, is likely to require considerable support from and management by the local authority. That factor underscores the desirability of a long term fostering arrangement for these children.29.I am satisfied that I should make care orders to the local authority with respect to P, Q and R and I approve the plan for them to remain in long-term foster care.Contact30.Contact between these children and their father and for P with GH is not straightforward. I deal first with P’s contact with his mother, GH. At the commencement of these proceedings, P was adamant that he did not wish to see his mother but, with the passage of time, P’s wishes and feelings changed. He now recognised that his father may have prevented contact between him and his mother and had come to understand that his mother had always loved and cared for him even though she had not seen him for many years. P now wished to establish a relationship with his mother and was very keen to meet with her. For her part, GH recognised that her past care for P, the extended period of separation and the trauma that he has experienced mean contact should proceed with caution. Contact between them may throw up challenges as P tries to make sense of what has happened to him and where the truth lies about his family relationships. Both P and GH will need a great deal of support from the local authority as they re-establish their relationship. No order is necessary to regulate that process as GH is accepting of the local authority’s plan that contact should proceed at P’s pace and with professional support.31.Contact between the children and their father is fraught with complexity. All three children have requested face to face contact with their father. I accept the assessment of the children’s Guardian that, for Q and R, this is a reflection of their loyalty and love for their father as well as an indicator of their lack of awareness of the long-term implications of their father’s behaviour. They want to see a father that they know they love and of whom they have numerous happy as well as more frightening memories. The situation is more complex for P who gave evidence against his father at the criminal trial and who has an understanding of the impact of domestic abuse on the family. From my meeting with P, it was clear that he had a moral standpoint on the crime for which his father had been convicted. He understood that, in murdering his stepmother, his father had deprived him and his siblings of their family life as well as taken the life of another human being. P wanted to see his father to tell him how angry he was and how much his father’s behaviour had affected him, his siblings and others. P told me that he wanted to see his father every couple of months or so.32.I note that Q and R have been told that the mother is dead and that the father was responsible for this. They do not know a great deal more of the details. Q believes that his father works for the police and may be in prison for a speeding ticket. He is very muddled about what has happened to his mother. It is unclear to me whether R understands that her mother is dead or that her father is responsible for this. All three children require skilled work to help them come to terms with what has happened and, in accordance with their respective ages and maturity, need to know the truth about their mother’s death. I understand that the children have been re-referred to Winston’s Wish, a charity which assists children who have been bereaved. 33.Turning to the father, he continues to maintain that he is not responsible for killing the mother despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Whilst he told me that he would do whatever was needed for the children, this plainly, on the basis of what he said to me, does not – at the moment – extend to acknowledging his guilt for the mother’s death. I consider it more likely than not that he would continue to profess his innocence to the children when they seek answers from him about why he is in prison and what happened to their mother. That narrative has the potential to be acutely damaging, distressing and confusing for all three children and would in my view undermine the children’s stability. I doubt that even very sophisticated supervision of contact could prevent the father from asserting his innocence to the children.34.I have thought very carefully whether P should be able to see his father in the absence of both Q and R. I accept that there may come a future time when a contact visit of this sort may be feasible, probably after the conclusion of the appellate process by which the father seeks to overturn his conviction. A visit before then runs the risk of being damaging and counter-productive. Any visit for P to talk to his father and confront him with difficult truths will require the most careful preparation and support for both P and his father before, during, and afterwards. My view is that a separate visit for P is, at the moment, not indicated and that it may also have the potential to damage the sibling relationship since Q and R would be unlikely to understand why they were not permitted to see their father but P was allowed to do so.35.The local authority sought permission to refuse direct contact between the children and invited my approval of its plan for the children to have indirect contact with their father every six months by way of an exchange of letters/cards. That exchange will be informed by letters to the father outlining the progress the children have been making in their foster home, at school and otherwise. Orders pursuant to s.34(4) of the Children Act 1989 are permissive orders which allow the local authority to adjust how contact takes place in accordance with the needs of the child and not with the demands of an adult. They give the necessary flexibility in the difficult circumstances in which these children have been placed by the actions of the father. The arrangements for contact will be reviewed every six months and, if necessary, adjusted in line with what is in the children’s best interests.36.Contact between the children and their wider family is governed by the qualified duty to promote contact under paragraph 15(1) of Schedule 2 to the Children Act 1989. The local authority will assess whether contact with the paternal family is in the children’s best interests should a request for contact be made by the family. The same applies to the maternal family.37.I make the order sought by the local authority with respect to each child and approve the arrangements for contact set out in the care plan.