[2024] UKUT 401 (AAC)

the Appellant was taken to the transcripts of D’s ABE interviews. She was asked about D’s statement that the Appellant would be present in the bathroom when D took a bath or shower. The Appellant said she would be present when D was ‘little’ but ‘no, not at all’ after they moved to their home near the seaside (when D was still in primary school). The Appellant gave the same response, and did so forcefully, when asked to comment on D’s allegation that the Appellant sexually abused her when supposedly drying her. The Appellant also denied that any sexual touching took place in the living room, saying ‘no it’s not right’;

the Appellant denied having been aware, before seeing the foster carer’s witness statement, that she was viewed as manipulative and controlling. Asked whether the foster carer made up that the Appellant sought “total control” over how [the foster carer] supported [D] in her placement, the Appellant replied ‘Yes, I didn’t do it’;

it was put to the Appellant that the foster carer, like D, had no motive to lie about the Appellant. The Appellant replied that she had tried to meet the foster carer but no one explained the position to her;

having been taken to the father’s / ex-husband’s witness statement in which he reported D saying that “Mum was trying to control her too much”, the Appellant was asked whether it was just a coincidence that both D and the foster carer saw her as controlling. The Appellant replied that he was her ex-husband and ‘won’t say anything nice about me’;

the Appellant was asked to comment on the foster carer’s statement that the Appellant “bombarded the head and the teachers with demands and wanted weekly updates”. The Appellant disagreed with the statement, saying that she just acted like any concerned mum. She could not explain why the foster carer described her contacts with the school as a bombardment;

the Appellant was taken through some of her correspondence with staff at the school attended by D before she entered foster care. She was asked if it was just a coincidence that she thought both schools failed to communicate with her in the way that she felt entitled to be dealt with. The Appellant said that she had not made unreasonable demands and simply sought support and open communication;

the Appellant was asked to comment on her ex-husband’s statement that she “has the capacity to overstate things about the children especially [D’s] healthcare”. The Appellant said that her ex-husband’s statement had only told half the story concerning D’s sprained ankle. Her actions were those of a concerned parent responding to a child who could not walk. Regarding the statement that, when D was with her father, there was no sign of the ‘severe asthma episodes’ for which the Appellant had sought medical help, the Appellant said that D was diagnosed with asthma and there was an occasion on which no inhaler was available when D had an attack while staying with her father. The Appellant replied ‘yes’ when asked if the ex-husband’s witness statement was completely wrong regarding asthma;

it was put to the Appellant that, in reality, D’s mental health problems were in very large measure caused by the upbringing she experienced with the Appellant. The Appellant’s view was that D’s problems were caused by her parents splitting up;

the Appellant denied her ex-husband’s statement that she had tried to talk to D when collecting her two sons from school, when they attended the same school as her. She also denied that statement that, at a school merit award ceremony, she “ended up running up and down the rows of seats chasing her”. The truth, according to the Appellant, was that D ran off and the Appellant left her to it. She also had ‘no idea’ why her ex-husband stated that D reported that the Appellant “chased her through the Arndale centre trying to talk to her”;

the Appellant was asked whether she used D’s mobile telephone bill to contact D’s friends. The Appellant said she already had contact numbers for D’s friends but accepted that, initially, when D was staying with her father she did contact her friends. The Appellant was asked whether she had asked D’s friends what D had been saying to which the Appellant replied she probably asked them how she was;

the Appellant was asked if her ex-husband was telling the truth when he stated that he had received at least two calls from unhappy parents regarding the Appellant’s calls to their children. The Appellant said she had no conversations with parents along the lines described in her ex-husband’s witness statement;

it was put to the Appellant that the reason why she had no relationship with her daughter was because she abused her at age 11/12 and had tried to manipulate and control her life. The Appellant replied, ‘No, I’ve never abused, I’m not perfect, nor is my ex-husband. I’ve never, ever abused my daughter. I’m not manipulative. I’m a human being. I say here categorically no’;

it was put to the Appellant that her daughter’s self-harming and refusal to eat was a mechanism to get people to listen to her and remove her from the Appellant’s care. The Appellant rejected this, saying that D started self-harming when living with her dad, no one had ever asked her she self-harmed in her father’s home, and ‘only D knows why she self-harmed and what happened to her’. Yes, it was a cry for help but no one knows why, and ‘the self-harm started when D was staying with her dad’.