![]() This court should therefore only interfere with findings of fact in limited circumstances, for example where there has been a material error of law, or the making of a critical finding of fact which has no basis in the evidence, or a demonstrable misunderstanding of relevant evidence, or a demonstrable failure to consider relevant evidence: Henderson v Foxworth Investments Ltd UKSC 41, per Lord Reed at. The judge has had the opportunity to make a comprehensive assessment of all the information – written, verbal, non-verbal and visual – when reaching a conclusion. ![]() 6 and 8." (para 80).įollowing Re B (A Child) UKSC 33 and noting at paragraph 92 that an appeal court will rarely even contemplate reversing a trial judge's findings of primary fact unless a finding is insupportable on any objective analysis it will be immune from review, the Court of Appeal held: These matters were treated in a manner that was discriminatory in terms of Art. ![]() The wider canvas showed no relevant family pathology, no mental illness or personality disturbance, and no relevant substance abuse. The family further argued that, the judge gave " undue prominence to their origins and assessed their religious and cultural identity in an unbalanced way. Instead, they argued, he developed a theory of his own and strained to fit the facts of the case into it. The parents and S's elder brothers appealed on a number of grounds, essentially arguing that Hayden J wholly failed to look at the totality of the evidence. This fact notwithstanding, Hayden J concluded that S's death was as a result of an attempt at FGM followed by strangulation, both committed by her mother. According to the Court of Appeal's judgment, FGM featured 'only briefly' in the evidence before the court, occupying only 1 page in the thousand page trial transcript. The retrial took place over 18 days between 21 January and 22 March 2019. Accordingly, the appeal succeeded and a retrial was ordered before Hayden J. ![]() The Court of Appeal in A (Children) EWCA Civ 1718 concluded that Francis J had not correctly approached the burden of proof in that he had not looked at the whole picture, effectively analysed the expert evidence about S's injuries or taken them into account when considering the manner of death. He found on the balance of probabilities that the local authority had not proved that S's injuries had been inflicted by a third party as opposed to accidentally. Her family in turn denied any wrong-doing and argued that S had died as a result of entanglement in netting on her bunk bed or in the alternative that she had been attacked by an intruder.Īn initial fact-finding by Francis J over 15 days in November 2017 resulted in proceedings being dismissed as a result of what he described as serious deficiencies in the police investigation and in police disclosure. The fact-finding proceedings concerned which if any of S's family, specifically her parents and elder siblings were involved in her death. The case concerned a second fact-finding hearing into the death of a 10-year-old girl, S, found dead in her bedroom with genital injuries and signs consistent with strangulation in the winter of 2016 a death which Hayden J in a judgment in June 2019 concluded was caused by S's mother after an attempt at female genital mutilation (FGM) followed by strangulation, hidden through collusion with S's father.įact-finding necessitated by care proceedings brought by the local authority with regard to S's siblings. The Court of Appeal has given important guidance, applicable by analogy, as to the approach to take to fact-finding hearings.
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