Judge dismisses council care order in two-year-old fractured bones case

Two children are to be returned to their “exemplary” parents after a judge ruled they were not to blame for their son’s rib fractures.

The two-year-old boy, identified only as J, and his five-year-old sister have been living with their grandparents since October 2014 when the local authority issued care proceedings on the basis of medical evidence that the fractures were sustained non-accidentally.

The parents had taken J to hospital that month with an arm fracture and were shocked to be told that he had older rib fractures, said Mr Justice Keehan, sitting in the High Court at Birmingham.

The mother told staff that, in August, she was walking downstairs at a friend’s with J in her arms when she slipped, fell and grabbed J tightly to her, which made him scream inconsolably for a while.

The judge said the case involved two “perfectly decent, hardworking parents” in a stable relationship and leading a stable, comfortable home life with a strong support network.

They had no previous convictions and no previous involvement with the police or social services.

There were no previous concerns about the care afforded to either child, no history of domestic violence, drug use or alcohol misuse and no issues whatsoever of neglect.

On the contrary, the care they gave their children was seen to be exemplary both before and after the events of August and October 2014.

The judge said he entirely accepted that the absence of those factors and the fact of loving, dedicated and devoted parents did not mean that a loving, caring parent under the pressures of day-to-day life might, albeit rarely, lose control for a moment and inflict injury upon their young children.

But he was not satisfied that the local authority had shown it was more likely than not that one or other of them squeezed their young baby’s chest with such force that it caused rib fractures.

He accepted the parents’ account that there was a fall and the mother grabbed hold of her son.

He was satisfied they had been as frank with him as they were with the clinicians, the police and the social services.

The judge said he had rarely, if ever, read and come across a case where, in the circumstances, parents had co-operated so extremely well with the police and the local authority when they felt they had been done a great injustice.

Dismissing the care proceedings, he added: “Accordingly, I have absolute confidence in concluding that the local authority have not satisfied me that J’s injuries were inflicted non-accidentally by either his mother or his father.

“I am entirely satisfied that they were inflicted and sustained during the course of a fall downstairs in August 2014.”

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