Fewer mothers to appear in court days after giving birth under new guidance
Summary
New guidance for judges in England aims to reduce same-day and short-notice court hearings for newborns in child-care proceedings. Courts should grant same-day hearings only when a child’s immediate safety is at risk, while applicants for urgent hearings must provide evidence explaining the need for them.Key Facts
- The guidance says same-day hearings should be extremely rare and limited to cases where a child’s immediate safety would be compromised without court intervention.
- Applicants seeking an emergency or short-notice hearing, held within five days, must provide evidence to justify the urgency.
- If a judge rejects the requested urgency, the case will generally be listed between days 12 and 18.
- More than half of urgent care hearings in England in 2024-25 involved newborns, according to the article.
- Research found that more than 70% of care proceedings involving babies in England were emergency hearings within two days of an application.
- The share of newborn cases in England and Wales with a same-day hearing rose from one in 10 in 2012-13 to one in five in 2022-23, according to Emma Smale of the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory.
- A new Newborn Baby Protocol calls for a Family Group Decision Making Meeting to be offered to parents before a care order application, in line with the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026.
Read the Full Article
This is a fact-based summary from The Actual News. Click below to read the complete story directly from the original source.
