A father has regained the right to supervised contact with his two children at a Court of Appeal hearing.
The man had only been allowed supervised contact due to concerns that he might try to take the children back to his home country. However, when the contact centre involved with his family’s case said it was no longer willing to provide facilities for the man to see his children, he applied for the contact order to be ‘varied’ (changed) so the contact could continue. He also wanted to change the name of the younger child.
Instead the judge reduced the visiting arrangement to indirect only and also refused the man’s request to change the child’s name. The father successfully appealed.
The appeal court judges said the original judge had been required to investigate every option to continue the father’s supervised contact with his children but had not done so, and should also have ruled on the father’s desire to change the child’s name.
The appeal court reinstated the man’s right to supervised contact and sent his application for the name change back to the local county court for further consideration.
