B (A Child: Uncertain Perpetrator), Re

Facts

Alfie, a boy aged between 18 and 21 months at the material time and now aged three, sustained a range of injuries — including a skull fracture, a fractured right radius and four rib fractures — while living with his mother and her partner, the intervenor. The mother, now 21, had cared for Alfie alone for eight months before meeting the intervenor, now 23, online in the summer of 2024; he moved in during September/October 2024 and took on a substantial caring role. The couple separated on 22 January 2025 and, the following day, the mother took Alfie to a minor injuries unit with a limp; the bruising seen there prompted a Child Protection Medical which revealed the fractures. Alfie was placed in foster care, care proceedings were issued on 31 January 2025 and an interim care order followed on 4 February 2025. After a 13-day fact-finding hearing at the Family Court at Swindon, HHJ Richard Case found in a 91-page reserved judgment that the intervenor had deliberately inflicted serious injuries on eight occasions and that the mother had failed to protect Alfie, but held that bruising to the groin, left ear and right hip could have been inflicted by either adult, making a 'pool' finding. The mother appealed against that pool finding alone; Peter Jackson LJ granted permission on 7 July 2026.