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View from the Foot of the Tower: Adoptions outside of care proceedings
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As practitioners will know the legal test for the court making a Placement Order (and thereafter an Adoption Order) in care proceedings is that 'nothing else will do' following the Supreme Court’s decision in
Re B (Care Proceedings: Appeal) [2013] UKSC 33
[2013] 2 FLR 1075 and the tranche of Court of Appeal case law flowing from this.
What has been somewhat less clear is whether 'nothing else will do' is also the test for a court when considering an adoption where the mother is relinquishing the child for adoption or in step-parent adoptions.
Fairly recently the courts have dealt with each of these and given some guidance.
The decision on step-parent adoptions is now very clear. The Court of Appeal dealt with this in
Re P (Step-Parent Adoption) [2014] EWCA Civ 1174 [2014] 2 FLR (forthcoming).
In that case the original trial judge considered an...
Read the full article here.
