A and B No 2 (care : welfare after findings of sexual abuse), Re

Facts

Slough Borough Council brought care proceedings concerning two girls: [A], who was about to turn seventeen, and her half-sister [B], aged six. Following a fact-finding hearing, HHJ Vincent, sitting as a section 9 Deputy High Court Judge, handed down judgment on 1 June 2026 finding that the threshold in section 31 of the Children Act 1989 was crossed, principally because of serious sexual abuse perpetrated on [A] by her step-father [Mr Z], the father of [B], who had threatened to kill [A] or her mother if she disclosed it. The judge also found that the mother's dependency on [Mr Z] and her alcohol misuse had impaired her ability to keep the children safe; that in April 2025 she had removed [A] abruptly to [Country D], taking her out of school and leaving [B] with the maternal grandparents without notice until her return on 23 June 2025; and that both girls had been exposed to arguments and to the mother's intoxication. [B] had lived with her grandparents since she was seven months old. [A] had spent a year in foster care, seeing almost nothing of her mother, brother, sister or grandparents, and her foster carers had just given notice. The welfare hearing followed, the local authority seeking a care order for [A] with a plan of continued foster care, against [A]'s own wish to go home.