Jonathan Bott recently advised and successfully represented the local authority in the High Court sitting at the Royal Courts of Justice on an application for injunctive relief against a father post final public law orders.

Following the making of final care orders, the father had attempted to contact and harass the child at school and in the foster carer’s care, which had put the child at risk of emotional and physical harm and had also led to the unfortunate breakdown of the child’s long term foster placement.

The issue related to the need for the kind of injunctive protection available under a Family Law Act 1996 (‘FLA’) injunction with a Power of Arrest (which was unavailable under the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court), but the difficulty being that the local authority was not a connected person under the FLA and therefore could not make an application of right, and there appeared to be no other person who could make such an application.

The solution was to make an application under the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court and thereafter, and within those proceedings, invite the court to make an FLA non- molestation order under s42(2)(b) of that Act under its own motion.

Following the hearing of submissions, the Court granted an injunction under the inherent jurisdiction coupled with a non-molestation order under the Family Law Act 1996 with a Power of Arrest attached protecting the child not only from further harassing and pestering behaviour, but preventing the father from attending at the school, any foster carers and removing the child from the care of the local authority.