E (A Child) (Special Guardianship Order: Public Law Proceedings), Re

Facts

E was born in March 2020 to a mother who had come to the UK from another European country in 2016. Shortly after the birth, concerns raised by a health visitor led to E being removed into police protection, and the mother was detained under the Mental Health Act 1983, having experienced a puerperal psychosis later re-diagnosed as bipolar disorder. The first care proceedings, begun in May 2020, ended on 6 July 2021 with a Special Guardianship order in favour of the maternal grandmother, apparently by consent, the order reciting that the threshold criteria were agreed but that no public law order was required. E lived with the grandmother and mother from September 2021. Following a referral on 7 March 2024 from a self-described friend of the grandmother making serious allegations — most of which were later abandoned — E was removed on 12 March 2024 and care proceedings were issued on 14 March 2024. E remained in foster care under an interim care order, moving to her present carer in August 2024 after the first foster carer was arrested for drink driving. At the final hearing the Local Authority and the Guardian sought a Special Guardianship order in favour of the foster carer; the mother and grandmother sought E's return. Recorder Roche KC made the order on 4 February 2026, and both appealed.