S (A Child) (Post-Adoption Contact) (Judgment No 2), Re

Facts

S, a boy born in May 2022, was made the subject of an interim care order that month and lived with his mother in a residential parenting assessment for his first four to five months; that assessment concluded in September 2022 that neither parent could care for him independently, given concerns about the father and about the mother's ability to protect him. From October 2022 until January 2025 S lived with the same foster carer. Care proceedings before HHJ McKinnell concluded in October 2023, direct family contact ended in late 2024 with wish-you-well contact for the mother and maternal grandmother, and S moved to the prospective adopters on 27 January 2025, aged 2 years 8 months. The prospective adopters applied for an adoption order, supported by the London Borough of Haringey and the Children's Guardian, together with permission to change S's last name. In a first judgment dated 27 May 2026, Re S (A Child) (Permission to oppose adoption) [2026] EWFC 201 (B), HHJ Lazarus refused the parents' and maternal grandmother's applications for permission to oppose the adoption. There remained the adoption application itself and deemed applications by the mother, father and maternal grandmother for post-adoption contact orders under section 51A of the Adoption and Children Act 2002.