Court of Appeal dismisses challenge to finding that a mother injured her child

The Court of Appeal dismissed a mother's appeal against a Family Court finding that she caused her baby son's arm fracture, saying appeal courts will not interfere with findings of fact without very clear justification.

The Court of Appeal (Civil Division) handed down judgment in [2026] EWCA Civ 219 on 6 March 2026, after hearing the appeal on 26 February 2026. Lord Justice Baker gave the reasons, with Lord Justice Arnold and Lord Justice Dove. The appeal came from the Family Court at Portsmouth (HH Judge Magee). At the end of the hearing the court told the parties the appeal would be dismissed.

Background

The case concerns three young boys, anonymised as A, B and C. C was about 15 weeks old when he sustained the injury. The parents had an on-and-off relationship with several separations, and the children remained mainly in the mother's care.

In November 2024, after overnight contact with their father and paternal grandmother, the maternal grandmother saw that C's arm was "not right" and drove the mother and children to hospital. X-rays the next day showed an incomplete fracture of the upper left arm bone (the humerus). The father was arrested and interviewed; the mother was not. The local authority began care proceedings in December 2024.

The question

The trial judge had to decide, on the balance of probabilities, who caused the fracture. She found the mother did. She said she could not tell whether it happened before the children stayed with their father on 16 November or after their return on 17 November. She also found the mother failed to seek prompt medical attention. The mother appealed.

The decision

The appeal was dismissed. Four grounds were argued:

• The judge was wrong to find the mother inflicted the fracture. The mother said the judge gave too much weight to inconsistencies in the maternal grandmother's evidence and too little weight to inconsistencies in the paternal grandmother's evidence. She also said the judge did not sufficiently take account of the wider evidence, including factors said to indicate a propensity for the father to cause harm.
• The finding would have had such a preponderant influence on the evidence of both parents as a whole that there should be a full rehearing.
• The judge misdirected herself about the absence of evidence of propensity relating to the father.
• The judge failed to evaluate the evidence as a whole and to explain why she chose her outcome over other possible outcomes.

The local authority, the father and the children's guardian all opposed the appeal.

The reasoning

Lord Justice Baker said that assessing evidence, and the weight each piece deserves, are matters for the judge at first instance. An appeal court does not rehear the evidence and will not interfere with findings of fact unless there is very clear justification. He described the case as a paradigm example of one turning on the judge's impression of the witnesses and the reliability of their evidence.

He found the judge's comments on each witness considered and nuanced. He did not agree that she had "blended" her assessment of the mother's and maternal grandmother's evidence. The maternal grandmother's evidence about 18 November contributed to the judge's assessment of the unreliability of the mother's evidence. The judge had taken account of the points raised about the paternal grandmother's evidence and concluded they should not weigh decisively.

Expert evidence said the symptoms of an incomplete fracture were likely to be variable and non-specific. The judgment did not refer to it expressly, but he said it was implausible that the judge overlooked it. As he read the judgment, the important point was that the mother said different things at different times about when she first noticed there might be something wrong with C's arm.

Sources

• A, B and C (Children: Perpetrator Finding), Re [2026] EWCA Civ 219, Court of Appeal (Civil Division), 6 March 2026: https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ewca/civ/2026/219