Re X and Y
(Children) [2018] EWHC 451 (Fam) and A Local Authority v X and Others [2019] EWHC 2166 (Fam)). However, as I noted in paragraph 52 of Re X and Y, a local authority should only be absolved from its duty to consult and to provide information to a parent in exceptional circumstances. The only way of authorising these departures from the local authority’s statutory duty was to permit the local authority to invoke the inherent jurisdiction and then to make declaratory orders.40.Section 100(3) of the Children Act 1989 requires the local authority to obtain the court’s permission before making any application for the exercise of the court’s inherent jurisdiction with respect to children. Section 100 (4) provides that the court may only grant permission if it is satisfied that (a) the result which the local authority wishes to achieve could not be achieved by either the making of orders otherwise than in the exercise of the court’s inherent jurisdiction or making orders for which the local authority were entitled to apply and (b) that there was reasonable cause to believe that if the court’s inherent jurisdiction were not exercised with respect to the child, the child was likely to suffer significant harm.41.In this case, the local authority submitted that the involvement of the father in the children’s life for the foreseeable future needed to be significantly restricted as it would be harmful to the children to understand that their father was so involved. It would also cause anxiety to both the carers and the children if the father had information as to the whereabouts of the children’s placement, their schools, their healthcare and their counselling/therapy.42.I decided that I should grant permission to the local authority to apply for the orders it sought because I was satisfied that the grounds set out in s.100(4) were made out. The harm that the children would suffer would be the emotional and psychological harm consequent upon them knowing, either at the time or at some later date, that their father had been given information about their circumstances and that his views about their welfare had been solicited. I cannot exclude the harm which might arise if the father were to use the information given to him by the local authority to undermine the children’s placement either directly or indirectly.43.The father has been convicted of murdering the mother and is not due to be released until all three children are well into their adult lives. Presently he maintains his innocence and has little insight into the profound effect on the children of his actions. They are in care because of what the father has done. Q and R have had their mother ripped from their lives in circumstances where their father has lied about what he did and has shown no remorse. Similar considerations apply to P who is, in my view, doubly burdened by a sense of responsibility for his siblings which he should not have had to shoulder. I find that, in these circumstances, it would be emotionally harmful to the children to know either now or at some later date that their father was involved in the arrangements for their care, as prescribed by both statute and the relevant regulations. For the avoidance of doubt, having undertaken a balancing exercise between the father’s right to family life and the children’s rights to privacy and a family life, I am also satisfied that these are exceptional circumstances in which the children’s rights outweigh those of the father. This is not a case where the local authority proposes to sever all the ties between the children and their father. He is to be provided with limited information to inform his indirect contact but I do not consider that he can constructively participate in discussion about what is in the children’s best interests when his selfish, planned and violent actions have comprehensively ridden roughshod over what was in the best interests of all three children. 44.I make the declarations and orders sought by the local authority with the caveat that, as the local authority accepted, it should provide the father with information if any of the children have a life-threatening health emergency. Likewise, if any of the children have a life-threatening condition which is not an emergency, the local authority should apply to the court without notice to the father if it seeks to withhold the information from him.