Family

The Court of Appeal allowed an appeal by a local authority and two professionals (SW and PO) in respect of their complaint relating to the judge’s finding that SW and PO, together with others had been involved in a joint enterprise to obtain evidence to prove the sexual abuse allegations, irrespective of the relevant professional guidelines. The court held that SW and PO were “parties” to the proceedings, having achieved “intervenor” status and that the Court of Appeal had jurisdiction to entertain their appeals on the basis that they each asserted that the judge had acted in such a way so as to amount to a breach of their rights under Arts 6 and/or 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The court further held that there had been a wholesale failure to achieve a fair trial in relation to the matters that the judge went on to find proved against them, which ]were outside the parameters of the issues in the case. Accordingly,