Lancashire County Council v B

Ratio Decidendi

Facts

A baby girl, A, was looked after partly by her parents and, while they were at work, by a paid childminder whose own baby, B, was a month older. When A was seven months old she was found to have sustained serious non-accidental head injuries - subdural haemorrhages, retinal haemorrhages and cerebral atrophy - inflicted in at least two episodes of violent shaking. The judge found that the perpetrator was A's mother, A's father or the childminder but could not decide which, and dismissed the local authority's care order applications in respect of both children. The Court of Appeal reversed his decision in relation to A, and A's parents appealed to the House of Lords.

Judgment Summary

The House of Lords unanimously dismissed the parents' appeal, holding that on the facts found by the judge the threshold conditions were met in relation to A. Lord Nicholls held that 'attributable to' connotes a causal connection - a contributory causal connection suffices - and that the care in question must fall below an objectively acceptable level; but in the special case of shared care where the court cannot identify which carer provided the deficient care, 'care given to the child' embraces the care given by any of the carers, since otherwise the child would remain unprotected. He recognised that wholly innocent parents may in consequence face the possibility of losing their child, but the factor outweighing all others was the prospect that an unidentified, and unidentifiable, carer might inflict further injury. Lord Clyde gave concurring reasons, and the parents' argument that continuing the proceedings infringed article 8 of the Convention was rejected because the steps taken were no more than reasonably necessary to protect A from further injury.

Key Quotes

Subsequent Treatment