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Re A (Children)
2013 · England and Wales
The judge considered adoption appropriate for two boys only if prospective adopters met specific requirements. Otherwise, she considered long-term fostering the better option. She attempted to build those requirements into the placement orders. The local authority challenged the restrictions, and the mother argued that the placement orders should fall if the safeguards could not stand.
Re B (A Child)
2013 · England and Wales
Parents challenged a care order made with a plan for their daughter to be adopted. The concerns centred on possible future emotional harm, including fears about the mother's presentation of illness and the parents' ability to work with professionals. The parents had maintained regular contact and formed a good relationship with their child.
Re B (A Child)
2014 · England and Wales
Care and placement orders had been made without an adequate evaluation of the realistic options for the child. On an initial appeal, the judge recognised shortcomings but attempted to supply the missing analysis and uphold the orders. The father pursued a further appeal about whether that approach had been justified on the evidence available.
Re B (Adoption: Jurisdiction to Set Aside)
1995 · England and Wales
An adult adoptee wanted a 1959 adoption order set aside. He said the adoption had been based on a fundamental mistake about his ethnic and religious origins and the suitability of the placement. His application asked the court to revisit an order made many years earlier because the circumstances in which it had been made were deeply important to his identity.
Re B (Post-Adoption Contact)
2019 · England and Wales
A child's birth parents sought an order for direct contact after adoption. They appealed when the court refused to require that contact. The case examined the court's powers to order continuing contact and the weight given to the prospective adopters' position, alongside the evidence about this particular child's needs.
Re B-A (Placement Order and Contact Order)
2026 · England and Wales
A judge made an order protecting direct contact between two children and their father while they were being placed for adoption. The local authority challenged that order. The dispute was not simply whether contact was desirable: it concerned whether the children's relationship needed the protection of an enforceable order rather than an intention recorded in the court papers.
Re B-S (Children)
2013 · England and Wales
A mother whose circumstances had changed sought permission to oppose the adoption of her children. She appealed when permission was refused. Alongside deciding her application, the Court of Appeal examined shortcomings in the evidence and reasoning often used to support adoption without parental consent.
Re C (A Child)
2014 · England and Wales
The original judge refused a placement order for a child who had a close relationship with his older brother. The local authority appealed and obtained an order allowing placement for adoption. The parents were unrepresented at that hearing. The mother then challenged the resulting placement order in the Court of Appeal.
Re C (Recognition of Nigerian Adoption)
2025 · England and Wales
A child adopted in Nigeria remained there while proceedings in England addressed recognition of the adoption and related immigration difficulties. An adoption order made abroad does not always have the same legal effect here automatically. The court therefore had to consider whether the family's relationship could be recognised despite a problem with one of the traditional legal requirements.
Re F (R) (An Infant)
1970 · England and Wales
An adoption proceeded on the mistaken basis that the child's mother could not be found. That assumption mattered because it affected whether the adoption could go ahead without her involvement and consent. The case is included through the Supreme Court's later account of the historical appeal; the original judgment has not yet been reviewed for this database.