Penny Booth: What’s sauce for the gander?

CW v SG [2013] EWHC 854 (Fam) provides an interesting reminder on the minimal requirements of being a parent and may reflect a somewhat ‘new approach' to parenthood - not since 1995 have we had quite this situation of a father ‘losing' parental responsibility reported upon.

In 1995 we were told by Singer J that the father in Re P (Terminating Parental Responsibility) [1995] 1 FLR 1048 at 1053 had forfeited his parental responsibility through his violent behaviour and serious assaults upon the child. That case almost twenty years ago now was one of parental responsibility acquired via a parental responsibility agreement - one which the court would not have agreed had the circumstances been known about and the application been made at the time.

Human Rights works both ways but seems in many reported cases in the media to travel in only one direction - very often the wrong one as far as the general public is concerned. Section 4 (2A) of the Children Act is...

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