LV22C50093 - [2025] EWHC 1474 (Fam)

There are clearly risks and vulnerabilities, as well as positives and strengths, in both realistic options that have been placed before the Court. Having heard the oral evidence, the Court does not however consider this case to be as finely balanced as the social worker and guardian. In the Court’s judgment, the welfare arguments come down firmly in favour of N returning to Italy to reside with his father.

In its final welfare analysis, the Court has been guided at all times by N’s needs, the most important of which at his young age and given the trauma, uncertainty and instability he has endured are to be safe, to have all of his needs consistently met to a good enough standard, to benefit from a real and enduring sense of permanency and belonging and to have confidence that all his core family relationships will be fostered and maintained. He also has the right (and accompanying welfare interest) to be free from state interference into his private and family life as soon as is possible. In the Court’s judgment, all of those core needs and interests are best met in the care of his father.

Foster care has given N stability and security throughout these lengthy proceedings, and he has undoubtedly benefited from the excellent care ER has afforded to him. N is naturally attached to her. Furthermore, ER continues to offer N a degree of security and stability, with there being no question as to the genuine nature of her commitment to providing long-term care for both him and M. Whilst in long-term foster care, the local authority will hold statutory duties to promote all of N’s core family relationships, as well as his cultural and linguistic heritage. There are however clear risks and uncertainties about long-term placement in foster care. There are risks to N’s paternal family relationships and given the local authority’s past exercise of parental responsibility, risks to his cultural and linguistic identity.

Moreover, long-term foster care is qualitatively different from the life-long enduring relationship between parent and child. In the Court’s judgment that has real welfare consequences for N give his age and level of dependency. Foster care is at heart a transactional relationship and it always carries with it a risk of placement breakdown. In N’s case there are known tensions emerging given the challenging behaviours of M and the impact on placement stability if M cannot continue to be placed with ER, he votes with his feet or simply ‘ages out’. Although N’s relationship with M is clearly very significant and has been a constant protective factor for him throughout his life, it is not without its risks or complexities given their shared traumatic experiences. N’s individual care needs must not be lost in the desire to preserve an important sibling relationship. Given their different ages and individual permanency needs, continued placement together is clearly a relevant consideration in the welfare balance but cannot in the Court’s judgment be determinative. Continued placement in long-term foster care would mean for N he will spend the majority of his childhood in local authority care. That is a very significant prospect for such a young child.

To be balanced against the advantages and disadvantages of long-term foster care, Mr O has been positively, albeit cautiously, assessed as able to meet all of N’s needs. He has a strong, loving, established secure relationship with his son. He has demonstrated the capacity for emotionally attuned and child-centred parenting. He is willing to learn and accept support to respond in a therapeutically informed way to N’s trauma-based needs. Any deficiencies in his care and ongoing risks from domestic abuse are manageable with the assistance of the extensive support that will be mandated in Italy and with which Mr O has expressed a clear willingness and ability to engage. There are clearly risks. The commitment of Mr O to promote and maintain N’s core family relationships with his mother and siblings, as well as the current foster carer, is untested. However, whilst ongoing support may be needed, the assessments are cautiously positive about his growing insight into the importance of these relationships and his responsibility and commitment to maintaining them in N’s best interests. There will be significant change for N to contend with, but, in the Court’s judgment, the risks of placement breakdown are very small. Mr O has parented N before. This is an established relationship and there can be no doubting Mr O’s commitment to N, alongside that of the wider paternal family. Mr O offers his son a real sense of permanency and belonging; a home with a parent with whom he will have a life-long and enduring relationship into his adult years. In my judgment, with the risks at a manageable level and vital support in place from local child protection services in Italy, it is in N’s best interests to move to live with his father in Italy.

I therefore invite the local authority to amend its care plan, and to file a transition and support plan to facilitate N moving into the care of his father over the long summer vacation.