Case No. ZE22C50109

146.The local authority’s allegation of neglect is founded on three occasions identified by the parents in their evidence when T and S were left in a room together without an adult present:a.On the morning of 19 April 2022, just before dropping T to nursery, the mother put S in the carrycot part of his buggy, on the floor, and left both children downstairs while she went upstairs to use the toilet.b.On the evening of 21 April 2022, the mother was cooking in the kitchen and the father left the children in the living room while he took the bins out (initially the father estimated that this took five minutes; subsequently the parents have produced videos of them undertaking this task, which show that a more realistic time estimate is about 60-90 seconds).c.On the evening of 22 April 2022, the father left both children in the living room while he went into the kitchen for about three minutes, in the circumstances described in detail earlier in this judgment. 147.The local authority does not seek to suggest that the parents’ accounts are inaccurate. Its allegation is based entirely on their descriptions. 148.As Dr Cartlidge pointed out, parents vary in their attitude to risk. Some treat their children with kid gloves; others are more robust. During the course of a day caring for small children most parents will take the odd risk and make the odd misjudgement. Most of the time nothing bad happens and the parent breathes a sigh of relief. Sometimes things go wrong and the child is hurt, but unless the parent’s behaviour has crossed the line which divides ordinary real-life parenting from unacceptable negligence, the professional response – rightly – is to treat these events as accidents. After all, it would be possible, in theory, to prevent almost every accident if children were never allowed to run or jump or climb, and if their every move were monitored by an adult who remained within arm’s reach and undistracted at all times. But that is not how normal family life works. 149.My task is to determine, overall, whether the children were likely to suffer significant harm as a result of the care being given to the children by their parents not being what it would be reasonable to expect a parent to give: CA 1989, s31. I have no hesitation in determining that the three incidents described above do not come close to taking the local authority over the s31 threshold. In my view, this aspect of the local authority’s threshold case should not have been pleaded.