Local authority unsuccessful in appeal over supervision order

The case in F, G & H, Re (Return Home Under Supervision Order) [2026] EWCA Civ 713 (10 June 2026) concerned orders made by HH Judge Willans at the conclusion of care proceedings concerning three girls: F, G and H.

Outlining the background to the case, Lord Justice Baker said the parents lived in Grenada with F until she was six. At that point, the mother came to England, leaving F in the father's care.

When F was nine, the father brought her to live with the mother and her baby sister, G. Thereafter, the two girls, and subsequently H, lived with their mother, and saw the father occasionally when he visited from Grenada.

Baker LJ noted: “The relationship between the parents was volatile and characterised by domestic abuse. On several occasions, the mother made complaints about the father's violence but subsequently withdrew the allegations. In 2022, the family came to the attention of social services as a result of concerns about domestic abuse, and about a deterioration in the mother's mental health attributable to the abuse she had suffered.”

At one stage in 2024, when the mother was experiencing psychotic episodes, the children were accommodated for several weeks by the local authority for the area in London where the family was then living.

In April 2025, the local authority started care proceedings and interim care orders were made.

For the final hearing, the local authority filed a schedule of allegations on the basis of which it was asserted that the threshold criteria for making orders under s.31 of the Children Act 1989 were satisfied.

In summary, it was alleged that the father had been violent, abusive and coercively controlling towards the mother on a number of particularised occasions and that the mother's vulnerability to poor mental health put him in a position of trust and control.

In the event that the court found that the threshold criteria were satisfied, the local authority sought care orders for all three children.

Its plan for F was for her to be placed in long-term foster care. For the two younger girls, it sought placement orders under section 21 of the Adoption and Children Act 2002 with a view to placing them for adoption with a paternal aunt in Canada under the 1993 Hague Convention.

The children's parents opposed the plans and sought the return of the children to the mother's care.

The hearing before the judge took place over four days in February and March 2026. At the conclusion, judgment was reserved.

In his subsquent judgment, HHJ Willans recorded what he described as "some positive developments" about the mother.

These included that "she now has closer support from her sister who has moved in with her"; that her "housing issues have been addressed"; that the father was now out of the country, and that there was "good evidence of [the mother] being willing to engage with professional support both through the assessments within the proceedings, through programmes around domestic abuse and mental health and also with regards to medication".

The judge explained his reasons for not following the recommendations of the professionals, as follows:

"I have disagreed with the professionals as to the outcome for the younger children. This is because I have calibrated my outcome on findings made rather than allegations raised. Secondly, it is my duty to carry out the balancing exercise and I found the Canadian plan outside of the children's timescales."

He added that he intended to make "a focused non-molestation order" against the father, agreeing that his contact "should continue remotely" and that there would need to be a further risk assessment if he returned to this country. Finally, he said:

"I am making a 2-year supervision order unusually to reflect the level of support that will benefit the children. The applicant will need to prepare and serve a suitable support plan."

At the end of the hearing, the judge made two orders – an "approved final order" and a non-molestation order (NMO) against the father.

The approved final order included, under paragraph 9, an order that the three children are placed under the supervision of the local authority for two years.

It also included, under paragraph 12, an order dismissing the local authority's application for permission to appeal in respect of the two younger children, but, under paragraph 13, an order that implementation of the final order relating to the younger children be stayed for seven days.

The NMO prohibited the father from trying to contact or communicate with the mother or going to any place where she was staying, visiting or working.

According to Baker LJ, the provision as to the duration of the order contained a typographical error stating that it "shall remain in force until 4pm on 11.59pm on 20 March 2028".

Baker LJ continued: “The 'approved final order' also contained an error. As noted above, it provided that the supervision order would remain in force for two years. But under paragraph 6(1) of Schedule 3 to the 1989 Act, subject to other provisions in the Act, 'a supervision order shall cease to have effect at the end of the period of one year beginning with the date on which it was made'. Paragraphs 6(3) and (4) permit the court, on the application of the supervising local authority, to extend, or further extend, the supervision order, but the order may not be extended beyond the end of the period of three years beginning with the date on which it was made.

“A judge faced with the restriction in paragraph 6(1) sometimes indicates when making the order for one year that they anticipate that it may be extended under paragraph 6(3), but they cannot initially make the order for a longer period.

“I know from experience that this is the sort of detail that a judge may inadvertently overlook. Here, however, there were two puzzling features. The first is that none of the parties pointed out the error to the judge. The second is that, in addition to the final order approved by the judge, the court office also issued a separate order, headed "Supervision order", stating that "the Court orders [the local authority] supervises the children until 20 March 2027". At the hearing before us, there was no explanation for the second order, which correctly limited the duration of the supervision order to one year.”

Baker LJ speculated that the Family Public Law Portal, instructed to generate a supervision order, had done so automatically in accordance with how it had been programmed.

He said: “Following the hearing before us, we were informed by the parties that, on inquiry with the court office, this was indeed what had happened. This throws up the not uninteresting question of the status of such an order generated by the digitised system which is right in law but contrary to what the judge has unlawfully ordered.”

Later in March 2026, the local authority filed a notice of appeal to the Court of Appeal, advancing ten grounds of appeal.

The grounds of appeal started with an overview in which the local authority's contentions were summarised as follows:

1. the supervision order was made outside the court's statutory jurisdiction;
2. although domestic abuse is identified as central and findings are made, the judgment does not demonstrate Practice Direction 12J-compliant analysis of impact and future risk;
3. the court relied upon a "robust safety plan" and supervision while expressly not analysing the safety plan and directing that a support plan be prepared/served; and
4. the welfare and realistic options analyses are insufficiently reasoned to show why rehabilitation is safe and proportionate for each child.

There followed ten grounds of appeal:

1. error of law – supervision order made ultra vires (statutory duration);
2. failure to demonstrate compliance with PD12J (domestic abuse);
3. misuse of supervision order as a safety net;
4. inadequate reasons/lack of clear findings (domestic abuse and risk);
5. failure to conduct a structured welfare evaluation (s.1(3) Children Act);
6. flawed/contradictory risk assessment concerning the father and the mother's protective capacity;
7. rejection of professional evidence without adequate reasons;
8. failure to evaluate realistic permanent options/proportionality;
9. inadequate/unclear risk management and safeguards (including reliance on injunctions);
10. unclear legal framework and reasoning for transition.

In April, Peter Jackson LJ ordered that the application for permission to appeal be listed for an oral hearing, with appeal to follow at the same hearing.

Discussing the appeal, Baker LJ rejected the local authority's criticisms of the judgment.

He said: “Reading the judge's careful and nuanced analysis of the key issues of domestic abuse and the mother's mental health, and how they interrelate, I have no doubt that he had all the relevant evidence in mind. It is true that the judgment does not contain a separate section in which he addresses the parents' evidence. But he refers to it at several key points in the judgment, notably in his conclusions when he observed that he was satisfied that the mother 'has reflected and her position is genuine not amounting to lip service to the concerns'. It is also true that he made only a very limited reference to the parenting assessment, carried out at a stage before the parties had separated, but it is clear from the totality of the judgment that he had that evidence in mind.

“It is equally true that there is no direct reference in the judgment to the mother's psychiatric assessment carried out during the proceedings. We were told, however, that no party sought to cross-examine the psychiatrist who as a result did not give oral evidence. As noted above, the judge recorded in the judgment that it was 'clear and agreed' that the mother had experienced a settled period of mental health for most of the proceedings. There is no reason to think that the judge overlooked any part of the evidence about her health, or the domestic abuse inflicted by the father, or the impact of those factors, separately and together, on the care of the children. These were the central features of the case. They are comprehensively analysed in the judgment.”

He continued: “The local authority's principal complaint is that the judge only focused on part of the evidence about historical domestic abuse, and therefore wrongly made limited findings which distorted his assessment of future risk. There is no merit in this argument. I do not accept the assertion made in the grounds of appeal that the judge's analysis of the impact on the children of the domestic abuse of their mother and the future risk of harm failed to comply with Practice Direction 12J or previous case law. Reading the judgment as a whole, I find that the judge was fully aware of the history and took it into account in making his findings.”

Turning to the issue of the supervision order, Baker LJ rejected the local authority's submission that the error undermined the judge's whole analysis.

He concluded: “The children's welfare will not be compromised by substituting a lawful one-year order for the two-year order inadvertently made by the judge. If, at the end of the year, the local authority considers that a further period of supervision is required, it can apply for an extension under schedule 3 paragraph 6(3).”

He refused the application for permission to appeal.

Lord Justice Newey and Lord Justice Peter Jackson agreed.

Lottie Winson