Judge criticises parents who secretly monitored children’s movements

A judge has criticised a father and mother who secretly used tracking equipment to monitor the movements of their children, who were involved in care proceedings.

Sarah Tweedie, Associate Solicitor in our Family Law team, reports on this recent case.

His Honour Judge Sharpe, sitting in the Family Court, found that devices had been concealed in toys and a bag given to the children by their parents while they were in foster care. The mother admitted buying and hiding the trackers, but the court ruled the father was also a “full participant” and rejected his claims of ignorance.

In his fact-finding judgment, Judge Sharpe said: “I do not believe what the parents tell me and I reject their evidence, not just when it conflicts with other evidence before me but when it does not too. In my judgment the decision to use tracking devices was a parental decision and one in which [the father] was a full participant.”

The judge said he was “inclined to the view” that the father was probably the driver behind what turned out to be “a disastrous diversion from the progress the case had been making”. He added that the mother’s oral evidence further undermined her earlier account, while both parents delayed handing over their phones for examination and even left a hearing when told they would have to produce them.

“It all adds up to a concerted effort to conceal the truth,” Judge Sharpe said.

The court concluded that the trackers were part of “a wider plan to know where the children were either in terms of where they were living or from where they could be snatched. And probably both”. He described the use of devices as “a serious effort to remove the children from foster care or from the protective care of the local authority”.

Judge Sharpe noted that assessments of the parents had previously been “reasonably positive” and might have offered prospects for reunification. But he said the decision to deploy covert devices undermined their case: “In creating the circumstances for covertly tracking the children the parents are only providing answers” to the question of why the children should not be returned to their care.

The findings will now inform the next stage of care proceedings, in which the court must decide the children’s long-term arrangements.

For more information about the issues raised in this article or any aspect of family law please contact Sarah on 01434 603656 or click here to send her an email.