HER HONOUR JUDGE MADELEINE REARDON :
Introduction1.This is my judgment on an application under CA 1989, s14D for leave to discharge a special guardianship order. The child who is the subject of the proceedings is T, a boy aged 5. The applicant is his mother (‘M’). The respondents are the special guardian, who is T’s maternal grandmother (‘MGM’), and the local authority, the special guardianship order having been made at the conclusion of care proceedings in 2017. 2.M also makes an application for contact with T. Supervised contact was taking place regularly until December 2021 when it broke down. M does not need leave to apply for contact (CA 1989, s10(7A)), and so these proceedings will continue in some form regardless of my decision on the leave application. 3.T himself is not currently a party to these proceedings. It is not clear to me whether FPR 2010, r.12.3 requires the child to be a respondent to an application for leave to discharge (as distinct from an application to discharge once leave is granted). In the present case I am satisfied that it is not necessary for T to be made a party, and a guardian appointed for him, prior to the issue of leave being determined: I have sufficient information from the local authority and the other parties to be able to determine the leave application, and an independent overview of T’s welfare is not necessary at this stage. The position will, of course, be different if leave is granted. 4.T’s father (‘F’) has not played any significant role in his life and did not engage with the care proceedings, although he was notified of them. He has a significant criminal history and was in custody at the time of the final hearing. In M’s application it was stated that he does not have parental responsibility for T. During the course of preparing this judgment I received an email from M’s solicitors to say that was an error and F is in fact named on T’s birth certificate, although M has no contact details for him. In the circumstances I am satisfied that it is appropriate to deal with this application without making further efforts to locate F at this stage, but his position will clearly need to be re-considered when the matter returns for directions.