Council ordered to pay £100,000 legal cost to parents

[dutchman]

Coventry City Council has been ordered to pay £100,000 towards parents' court costs after it tried to put three of their children into care.



Judge Clifford Bellamy said the council had "fallen below accepted standards" in its decision making process.

The council had accused the parents of pretending their children were ill, but then withdrew its care application.

The judgement was made in February, but the judge has just allowed the council to be named.

Colin Green, director of children, learning and young people at Coventry City Council, said it had been a complex and difficult case but the children's welfare had always been at the heart of it.

He said he accepted that mistakes were made which the council regretted and that it would not be appealing against the order to pay the contribution towards legal costs.

The court heard that in June 2008 the council applied for care orders for three children, known as X, Y and Z.

In June 2009, in a final threshold document, the council said the parents had subjected all three to unnecessary hospital admissions, medical examinations and tests and that they had lied about or exaggerated the children's symptoms.

In January 2010, the authority gave notice it intended to withdraw proceedings for X and Y, but would continue with Z.

In February, it gave notice it wished to withdraw the proceedings relating to Z.

Judge Bellamy said the council had abandoned all of the matters it relied upon in its original documents by belatedly acknowledging it had little or no material in which to satisfy the criteria set out in its threshold document.

He also said the council had not taken steps to evaluate information in relation to the children's involvement with health services.

"In my judgement, the local authority's conduct of this case falls outside the band of what is reasonable," he said.