The cases can be divided into short cases, average cases and long cases.
The length of the case is measured from the initial c100, or for the oldest cases c1, application form found in the case file to the point when that case exited the court system.
22 of the short cases were disposed of in a single hearing. These cases were often uncontested but a court order was required. For example, in B45 it was agreed by both parents that the child should go and live with his father and stepmother due to the mother’s poor mental health. A court order was needed to give both carers Parental Responsibility.
53 L Trinder and others, Litigants in person in private family law cases (Ministry of Justice Analytical Series, 2014). 54 E.g. C26 and C43.
55 See section 3.4.2, which starts on p50 and describes D8 towards the end.
Time taken No % of total
Completed within 6 months 69 35%
6 months to 2 years to complete 99 50%
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In other cases, the parties were largely in agreement but the court needed several hearings in order to allow time for Cafcass or children’s services to provide relevant information to the court. For example, in C14, the father had applied for residence on the recommendation of social services. The court had received a report from social services by the second hearing and a final residence order was made.
The largest category of medium or average time cases was comprised of cases which took between 6 months to 2 years.56 All of these had at least 3 hearings and most had between 6 and 10. In these cases the court progressed contact using a series of interim orders and time was required for the arrangements to be reviewed before progressing to the next stage. It can, therefore, in no way be concluded that these cases took longer because time was being wasted.
The long cases were characterised by serious child safety concerns, domestic violence, and multiple applications and cross applications to court as circumstances changed.57 In many cases, time was needed to prepare reports that adequately investigated safety concerns, or considered safe ways to foster better parent-child relationships.
In two extraordinarily protracted disputes the cases were in the system for the majority of the children’s childhood. In both cases both parents regularly breached court orders and the matters were only finally resolved when the children became old enough to voice a strong opinion to the court and thus end the disputes by making up their own mind.
E47 was a long running contact dispute. The daughter was 3 at the time of the initial application; when the final order was made 10 years later, she was 12.
The longest case was E36 which started in 2000 as a contact dispute and was still ongoing 13 years later. The parties returned to court at regular intervals either to enforce an interim contact order or due to breach of a non-molestation order. This was a highly unusual intractable dispute in which the primary care giver of the children had changed 3 times. There were 26 different orders relating to contact or residence within the 13 year period.
Cases took time to resolve because of delays caused in obtaining information but also because of the deliberate ‘wait and see’ approach of the courts. Where an unexpected delay arose, the courts generally used the time well.
Unexpected delay was commonly caused by difficulties in obtaining legal aid funding or because Cafcass or children’s services were overstretched and requested more time to complete reports. In C42, Cafcass wrote to the court and requested an extension ‘due to ongoing staffing difficulties and the high demand’ and in C32 wrote noting that ‘due to unforeseen circumstances regarding allocation we are unable to file a report by this time’. These kinds of delays were not confined to Cladford County Court but occurred in all our five courts.
In D1, Cafcass wrote a letter to explain that a Section 7 report would be late ‘owing to local staffing constraints’ and a backlog. Sometimes listed directions hearings had to be adjourned because the parties had not had enough time to see the completed Section 7 report: in E41 it was released the day before the hearing, in E43 the father had only received the report on the day and rejected most of its findings.
In busier courts, such as Dunam, it could take some time before adjourned hearings could be re-listed, due to time and space pressures.
56 99 cases.
57 Similarly, Smart et al found that protracted cases ‘were typified by more extensive problems’ and that ‘the families
involved appeared to live quite chaotic lives’: C Smart and others, Residence and Contact Disputes in Court: Volume 1 (University of Leeds 2003) p50.
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However, in many instances the courts had deliberately left the case in the list for future review to see how situations would develop.
In B55 the mother had left the country for two years, and returned to apply for a contact order. The father, with whom the infant-school aged child lived, was reluctant and understandably worried that the mother would simply disappear again. Contact had to be gradually increased over two and a half years from a couple of hours once a fortnight to one day per weekend. Whilst there were some interruptions caused by the father’s concerns and delays in obtaining a Section 7 report, this is not to say that this case could have been resolved better in less time.
In C8 the parties were given time for what the Cladford district judge termed ‘gentle extensions of contact’ and also to try their own agreed arrangement for three months before it was set down in the final consent order. The case, from start to finish, took just over a year (14 months).
In other cases, unexpected delays in obtaining information were used to build up the level of contact.
In E38, the police disclosures were delayed and this meant the fact-finding hearing had to be adjourned for three months. However, as the parties had agreed to start supervised contact; the parent-child relationships were developing during this hiatus.
As in many other cases, supervised contact was a way to avoid ‘wasting’ time waiting for information to come in from other agencies.