Case Law and Legal Summaries 2024 overview

To support navigation across the catalogue of Case Law and Legal Summaries, this page provides an overview of the cases organised by topic area, legal news and guidance summarised during 2024.

Introduction

Case Law and Legal Summaries are an important resource for practitioners to support decision-making in line with current legal and statutory obligations as well as relevant policy changes. They provide an up-to-date reference on how the law should be applied across social care practice. This overview provides links to summaries of key judgments from 2024 with more details of the case and of their impact on social work practice.

Case summaries by theme

Contact arrangements

• Re G  was an appeal against contact arrangements dependent on psychotherapeutic intervention.

• Re T  looks at findings of alienating behaviour by the mother and orders relating to contact between the child and father.

• Re T  considered whether contact should be allowed between a mother and child whilst an interim care order and bail conditions were in place.

• Contact after adoption special edition: This edition had a special focus on post-adoption contact. It reviewed two cases which adopted novel approaches to post-adoption contact, and a key messages from a report published by the Public law working group: adoption subgroup - Recommendations for best practice in respect of adoption.

• TM v TF and M (Children: Contact in Prison): Two appeals by mothers against decisions relating to contact with fathers, where the fathers had been found to have perpetrated domestic abuse. One appeal was allowed, the other was not. Social work reflections follow consideration of both cases.

Deprivation of liberty

• Re YR: lessons to be learnt about the way children subject to deprivation of liberty orders are assessed and the proportionality of care orders when section 20 is in place.

• Re J: Refusal of a deprivation of liberty for a child with significant disabilities. An intriguing case on the deprivation of liberty of children where Mrs Justice Lieven suggests this may be possible under a care plan without the need for a court’s oversight, in certain circumstances.

This case was also later updated stating the decision had been appealed to the Court of Appeal and was due to be heard in November 2024.

• Local Authority v A:  A 14-year-old boy, was subject to criminal exploitation, and not co-operating with attempts to keep him safe. The local authority's view was that the placement was not keeping him safe and they wished to place him elsewhere, but the placement they wanted to use was not yet registered. The proposed constraints upon him would be a deprivation of liberty, and therefore this was an application to deprive him of his liberty in an unregistered placement. The application was granted.

Alienation

• TJ v RC & Anor was a fact-finding hearing concerning a six-year-old, regarding allegations of abuse and alienation.

• Re T  looks at findings of alienating behaviour by the mother and orders relating to contact between the child and father.

Proportionality of hearings (following convictions)

• Ms X v Mr Y: This private law case addresses the proportionality of hearings following convictions, especially when one party exhibits coercive and controlling behaviour that impacts the welfare of children.

DNA testing

• D (Parentage: Local Authority Application): The refusal of a local authority’s application for DNA testing, despite the circumstances of conception causing ‘a welfare minefield’ that had the potential to cause emotional harm.

Allegations against a social worker

• Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea v NM & Ors: a judgment addressing whether the emergence of an email, the text of which suggested a conspiracy between the social worker and placement provider against the mother, needed fuller investigation to fairly decide the case. The judge decided it did not.

Care order envisaging adoption

• Re J: A care order for a baby had been made on the basis of adoption as the permanence plan, but there was no placement order application before the court, nor had the judge applied the right statutory and case law tests to make a care order in those circumstances.

A short update was also provided to this case in December 2024 when the case was considered again by the Court of Appeal in O, Re (Care Proceedings) [2024] EWCA Civ 696 (20 June 2024). Once again, a North Yorkshire finding that had been made (there, in a recital) was overturned by the Court of Appeal for procedural unfairness.

Treatment of young people with puberty blockers

• Re J and O v P &Anor: Two cases were summarised regarding the treatment of young people with puberty blockers where the parents of each child disagreed with the treatment.

A short update was given to O v P & Anor in December 2024 stating that the barrister for the mother had indicated that the mother has been granted permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal.

In March 2025 a further update was provided, detailing that the mother appealed with permission of the Court of Appeal. The mother had still not been granted a prohibited steps order, nor a declaration that the court's oversight would be needed for a child under the age of 18 to be prescribed puberty blockers. Instead, the Court of Appeal decided that the decision to discharge the interim orders was wrong. What the High Court should have done was to adjourn the case, leaving the issues, and the case, open. In saying that the case should have been adjourned rather than ended with no order, the Court of Appeal said that the issues about puberty blockers for children were in a state of flux.

Attempt to revoke an adoption order

• Re X and Y: Two children who were placed for adoption but years later wanted to be ‘unadopted’ in order to return to their birth mother’s care. Despite the adoptive mother being agreeable, the court refused on the basis that no power to revoke the adoption existed.

Hair strand testing/kinship care

• Re D was a successful appeal regarding the scrutiny of hair stand testing (of the mother and children) and contradictory results between different tests.

Suspected head injuries

• Two cases, D and A & A where the Court of Appeal had considered parents’ appeals where there were traumatic head injuries sustained by a young child are explored in this summary. Both appeals were allowed.

Circumcision of a child in care

• Re G: The court was asked by the parents of a 16-month-old boy in the care of a local authority to authorise his circumcision to take place before he was 18 months old. The court declined to make the order.