Case No. LV21C01158

256.I have made my findings under this heading earlier in this judgment. If returned to his mother’s care then he is, in my judgment, likely to continue to suffer significant physical and emotional harm. She is likely to continue to hit him too hard. She is likely to pursue this campaign of trying to prove that he is the victim of sexual assault by F, the foster carer and various staff at after-school clubs and that may extend to others over time. 257.He is also likely to have his relationship with F either diminished or lost. F is the only father figure in his life.258.In my judgment, A’s welfare needs are best served by the Court making a final care order and refusing the application to adjourn for further assessment of D. Having listened very carefully to his evidence and making all due allowances for the fact that his evidence was given through an interpreter; that he was sitting outside of his home using a mobile telephone; that he was given extremely short notice of the Court’s agreement to hear from him and he was unsupported, I am not able to find that he is a runner as a potential carer.259.My reasons are: (a) these proceedings have been ongoing now for some 15 months, so this is not an application to extend the 26-week period pursuant to section 32 of the Children Act. These proceedings have already taken two and a half times that long. 260.It is impossible to say how long the delay would be caused by further assessment; a CFAB assessment ordinarily taking 12 to 16 weeks. It is impossible to be confident that such an assessment would be of a standard that would meet the Court’s requirements. 261.My assessment of D as a witness is that he was less than straightforward, contrary to the submissions of Miss Edmunds. In my judgment, he was unaware that the mother cannot read and write, recorded in the Court order in April this year as her excuse for not filing and serving of statement of evidence. Yet, in the screening assessment he is reported as saying that she had had a good upbringing. 262.When I probed him on the issue of the mother not being able to read and write, I made it clear that I was concerned that A’s education could be impacted by living with D. He went on to explain as follows:“She did not go very far in education. It is very complicated. There were family problems. Balls in different directions. She went to live with her mother. It was quite complicated”.263.When I probed this with him further to try and understand what the problems were, he said:“I put the child in school. She did the first and second year. There was discourse, so she went to live with her mum. That is when everything went awry”. 264.I probed this further. He went on:“I tell you about the problems. I was a teacher. They would arrange me right, left and centre. I had to go where they sent me, so I left the children with their mother. That is why the child did not develop. I am trying to say I am a teacher. I have a family in Libreville. They send me away to village schools and the children stay with their mother and there is not the same kind of monitoring by the mother without the father”.265.Earlier in his evidence he told me that A would be brought up by his wife if he came to live with them. He did not explain how the mother was living with him in the first place. I understand that his brother, the mother’s birth father, had left when she was young to go to the Congo. The whole picture appeared to me to be pregnant with what was left unsaid. 266.D claimed to have provided the mother with a good upbringing yet was unaware of her inability to read and write until I told him. I find that the mother has not put him forward as a potential carer when asked to do so by the Court, and D told me that he was unaware of the proceedings until he was told by Social services. That is very late in the day and the impact on A’s welfare of adjournment for further assessment is likely to be detrimental. 267.A cannot lay down any roots to quote the Children’s Guardian. Whilst there is a superficial attraction to Miss Edmunds’ argument, that there is no objective evidence of harm to A by these ongoing proceedings, in my judgment, such emotional harm is often latent and manifests itself in teenage years. The Court cannot naively accept such an argument however well-intentioned and well-made.268.Section 32 and its time limit were introduced for good reason. It is harmful for children to languish in the care system for many months whilst adults attempt to make decisions about their lives. 269.I shared the views of the Local Authority and the Children’s Guardian that D had shown insufficient commitment to the process. Even making those allowances urged upon me by Miss Edmunds, the record presented to me by the Local Authority left me diffident as to his real commitment to care for A, and his acknowledgment that it would be his wife who would be caring for him was significant. I did not hear from her.270.This is a balancing exercise, as identified by Hayden J, which does reveal a tension within the Children Act. In my judgment, the balancing act favours a final care order being made rather than an adjournment for further assessment. Key to that decision is that the Local Authority are not seeking a placement for adoption and the Local Authority’s acknowledgement that more must be done to forge links between A, his heritage and his Gabonese family, and I am confident that it will be. 271.I approve the permanence provisions of the care plan, and I make a care order in favour of the Local Authority. The care order based on that current care plan is necessary, proportionate and consistent with A’s welfare. That concludes this judgment.