Held, application granted. Having conducted the required balancing exercise of the relevant factors, the father’s relationship with the child did not have sufficient constancy and substance to suggest the existence of de facto family ties and therefore to meet the necessary threshold to invoke the protection of article 8 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. In the absence of any article 8 rights, article 6 was not engaged. However, the right to receive a copy of Form C6A existed for the benefit of every father whom a local authority “believes to be a parent without parental responsibility for the child” irrespective of whether that parent could establish the protection of article 8. The threshold for determining that it was not appropriate for a birth parent to receive Form C6A was lower in the case of a parent who did not have the protection of articles 8 and 6 than one who did, but the decision not to serve such a parent still had to be justified on the facts and both risk and welfare were important factors to be considered. It was important for the children involved that attempts were made to engage with their birth father and therefore when considering whether to give permission to a local authority not to serve a birth father with Form C6A the starting point was twofold: first, it was normally deemed to be in the interests of the child that their birth father should receive a copy of the form thereby enabling him to apply for party status so that he could participate in the proceedings; and, second, the child and their mother ought not be put at risk of harm as a result of seeking to engage the father in the proceedings. It was a matter of balance, whether or not the father was entitled to the protection of article 8 and article 6. Here, therefore, where the father was not entitled to the protection of articles 6 and 8, the local authority was not required to establish the high level of exceptionality justifying a decision to allow the article 8 rights of the mother and the child to override his article 6 rights. Based on the available evidence, although the risk to the mother was moderate she would still be placed at risk were the father to be served with Form C6A. Accordingly, the local authority would be given permission not to serve the father with notice of the proceedings (paras 31–33, 35, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 51).

Pawandeep Singh v Entry Clearance Officer, New Delhi [2005] QB 608, CA and In re M (Notification of Step-parent Adoption) [2014] EWHC 1128 (Fam) applied.

Per curiam. The decision to permit a local authority not to give notice of care proceedings to a father who does not have parental responsibility is not necessarily irrevocable; circumstances may arise during the course of the care proceedings that may require that issue to be revisited. Particularly, in a similar scenario, were the local authority to come to the conclusion that the mother should be ruled out as a long-term carer for her child and the assessment of maternal family members is negative, the local authority may wish to contend that nothing but adoption will do for that child. Before accepting that to be the case the court would have to consider whether the birth father should be given notice of the proceedings in order to facilitate consideration of the possibility that a paternal family member may be a suitable long-term carer for the child. The court may consider that that avenue must be explored before it could properly conclude that nothing but adoption would do for that child (paras 49–50).