Interim contact: do private and public law proceedings apply different criteria?

Simon Heaney St John’s Buildings Chambers

Decisions about interim contact are fraught with difficulty. Judges are asked to decide and sanction arrangements when they don’t have all of the information evidence and assessments to hand all of which are integral and vital to such decision making. Is there a difference in approach to this exercise when the court is considering private law proceedings on the one hand and public law proceedings on the other? Having recently appeared in the case of T Re T (Interim Care Order: Arrangements for Contact) Simon Heaney looks at the mechanisms and procedures under each area and discusses whether as a result the court has in effect developed distinct approaches.

The private law arena has it seems had a sharper focus on considerations of alleged harm resulting risk and impact upon children as a result of interim decision making whilst public law appears to have focused upon direct contact taking place unless circumstances are extreme. The Court of Appeal though has now refocused the central consideration being the welfare of the child.

The...

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