[2024] UKUT 401 (AAC)

she denied ever having said that she did not want D to live with her;

she did not accept that D’s exhibited mental distress was linked to her home environment rather than a recognised mental illness; CAMHS’ view was that D was struggling with depression;

asked to comment on a social worker’s view that there were gaps in Children’s Services understanding of D and there was ‘more to be identified’, the Appellant said that the issue was not raised with her;

D went into foster care in 2017 because her father refused to have her. The Appellant wanted D to live with her, with suitable support, but D refused;

the Appellant had no contact with D following her move to foster care, save for them both attending two Looked After Child (LAC) review meetings. In response to further questioning, the Appellant accepted that D did not want the Appellant to attend review meetings. The Appellant complained that she was given very little information about D’s progress in foster care;

DBS’ counsel put it to the Appellant that the statement in her written representations to the DBS that she was “prevented from attending LAC reviews” was incorrect. The Appellant disagreed, replying that ‘[D] did not want me there’;

asked how she knew that D’s condition deteriorated while in foster care if she had had no contact with her, the Appellant replied by stating that D took two overdoses while in foster care;

the Appellant was taken to the foster carer’s witness statement of 13 February 2020 in particular: that social services’ suspicion of the Appellant’s controlling behaviour had been borne out; that D could be “very distressed by anything to do with sex or touching or any kind of intimacy; any indirect contact with the Appellant precipitated a ‘massive’ deterioration in her behaviour and her “self-harming would escalate”; and D’s great difficulty in disclosing a history of what the foster carer took to be sexual abuse. The Appellant was asked if she had any reason to think that the foster carer was dishonest. The Appellant replied that ‘I can’t speak for someone else’. The question was repeated, and the Appellant said she ‘can’t answer’;

the Appellant was again asked to comment on the foster carer’s statement that contact with the Appellant was followed by a ‘massive deterioration’ in D’s behaviour. The Appellant said she had no contact with D while she was in foster care. DBS’ counsel asked if she sent her letters to which the Appellant responded by saying she was encouraged to do so;

the Appellant was asked why she claimed that D’s condition deteriorated in foster care when there was no evidence to support the claim. The Appellant said she just knew that D took two overdoses while in foster care but, on further questioning, could only recall the date of one overdose in April 2019;

the Appellant was asked to comment on statements in D’s 3^rd LAC review report (2018) that D self-harms when ‘in contact’ with her mother and there were ‘no issues’ with D’s placement. The Appellant said that she lacked detailed knowledge of the placement but if D overdosed in foster care that must mean she was not doing well. At this point, the Appellant became upset, and the hearing was adjourned for five minutes for her to regain her composure;

the Appellant was asked why her daughter, two years after their last contact, would make allegations of sexual abuse against her. The Appellant replied that she could not answer that, and she did not know where the allegation came from;

the Appellant was asked again about her statement that she shared a bed with D following her return after living with her father for 17 months. The Appellant said that D had been ‘shunned’ at her father’s home, the Appellant asked D when she had last been hugged and her motherly instinct was to protect her. D embraced this when previously she was completely ‘shut down’. The Appellant added that she did not know what had happened to D during the 17 months that she lived with her father;

the Appellant’s attention was drawn to the foster carer’s statement that D was very disturbed by sexual references, such as on TV programmes, and asked if this was the case before she was in foster care. The Appellant said that she would not have watched programmes like that. She was asked if she observed any untoward reaction to the odd sexual reference and replied, ‘none at all’;

the Appellant was taken to safeguarding meeting notes dated 17 May 2019, which said that D had recently washed her hair for the first time in four months. The Appellant was asked if hair washing was a problem when D lived with her. She replied that she encouraged D to keep clean especially when she was having her period;