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Woman’s claims over son’s care dismissed by Court of Appeal

The Court of Appeal has dismissed another in a series of legal actions launched by a woman over her son being removed from her care.

The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said she suffered psychological harm and financial loss because of supervision orders and care orders made for her son between 2008 and 2010 and the subsequent legal battle.

Chief Justice Narinder Hargun found last year the case was bound, and she appealed to the Court of Appeal.

In a decision this week, the Appeal Panel dismissed the appeal as the statement of claim had no reasonable cause of action and the appeal was “frivolous and vexatious”.

Court of Appeal president Sir Christopher Clarke said in a written ruling: “I have said on an earlier occasion that the Court fully understands the distress that she describes as having been experienced on account of what she would regard as the loss of her son in 2010, over a dozen years ago, but that the court’s function is to determine whether she has a valid cause of action against those whom she seeks to hold responsible.

“She has now failed to establish that she has any arguable claim in law on four occasions in this jurisdiction and on one occasion before the Privy Council.

“This repeated launching of invalid claims must stop. It confers no benefit on her and causes continued distress to her and to her son.

“In addition, although less importantly, it takes up a substantial quantity of hearing and preparation time of the court and its justices, and deprives other litigants of the opportunity to have their cases heard speedily.”

The appellant brought claims against magistrates Tyrone Chin and Juan Wolffe, Ashley Smith, a court associate in the Family Court, and the Department of Child and Family Services in 2018 over the handling of her child’s case.

Supervision orders and care orders for her son were made between 2008 and 2010, but the appellant said she did not appeal the decisions at the time because she did not know she could.

Early in proceedings, the mother voluntarily removed both magistrates and Ms Smith as defendants after being warned that magistrates could not be held personally liable for decisions made in their judicial capacity and Ms Smith did not play a decision-making role.

The case against the DCFS continued, but was struck down in 2019 by Alexandra Wheatley, the Registrar of the Supreme Court, who found that the claims were vexatious and out of time.

The decision was later upheld by the Court of Appeal, which said that while the case was unfortunate, the appellant had not put forward anything to support her complaints of malfeasance by the department.

The court noted that the mother had consented to the supervision orders at the time they were made and did not seek to appeal them until years later.

The mother sought permission to appeal the case to London’s Privy Council, but the application was refused.

She subsequently relaunched her legal action against the magistrates and Ms Smith, but the Attorney-General’s Chambers called for the suit to be struck out at a hearing on July 26.

Mr Justice Hargun said in a ruling last year it appeared the Court of Appeal had already determined that any claims for damages arising out of the decisions made by the magistrates were “wholly misconceived”.

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