Oxfordshire County Council v M & Ors: chronic neglect, late parenting assessment applications, and long-term foster care

In Oxfordshire County Council v M & Ors [2026] EWFC 92 (B), Her Honour Judge Owens delivered judgement on 27 April 2026 following a four-day final hearing in Oxford. The case concerned three children — A (14), B (8), and C (a young child — who had suffered chronic neglect over a prolonged period whilst subject to Local Authority scrutiny. The mother, M, accepted she could not currently care for the children. The central question before the court was whether the father, F, was capable of doing so.

Background and threshold

Proceedings commenced in January 2025. The neglect was extensive: severe dental decay, nutritional deficiencies, squalid home conditions, deeply inadequate school attendance, and unmet hygiene needs across all three children. The threshold findings, largely uncontested, confirmed that significant harm had been suffered and was likely to continue. M sought minor additions to the threshold wording, which the court declined, finding no evidential basis for the qualifications she proposed.

F's position at threshold was more contested. He denied, until partway through the final hearing, having been aware of the home conditions, claiming he collected the children from the front door and rarely entered the property. The court did not accept this account. Records from Child Protection Conferences from January 2024 onwards placed F in the home on multiple occasions. His evidence shifted under cross-examination, and HHJ Owens found him to have been a regular visitor to the family home, as the Local Authority alleged.

Father's parenting assessment and the late ISW application

A parenting assessment completed in June 2025 reached negative conclusions about F's capability. The assessor — whose experience and qualifications the court upheld despite challenges — identified that neither parent had demonstrated an ability to mentalise the children or understand the impact of the neglect upon them. Dr Bues's earlier psychological assessment of F had reached similar conclusions, noting that he minimised concerns, offered simplistic explanations, and was at an early stage of accepting responsibility.

On the day before the final hearing, F applied for permission to instruct an independent social worker to conduct a fresh parenting assessment. The court refused the application. Applying section 13(6) of the Children and Families Act 2014, HHJ Owens held that a further assessment was not necessary to determine the proceedings justly. The only material changes in F's circumstances were that he was no longer working full time — through apparent compulsion rather than a child-focused choice — and that he had, belatedly, accepted some responsibility for the harm caused. That acceptance remained hedged with minimisation. The welfare impact on the children of extending proceedings by an estimated 16 weeks militated strongly against granting the application.

Welfare analysis and final orders

The court considered all three children's welfare against the s1(3) checklist with care. A's wishes to return to parental care were given appropriate weight given her age, though the court noted her strong loyalty to her parents and the likelihood that this tempered any articulation of risk. B expressed contentment in foster care. C, too young to give independent views, was settled with B and clearly thriving.

HHJ Owens found that placement with F carried an unmanageable risk of further neglect, given his limited insight and his inability to identify areas requiring improvement in his own parenting. The uncertainty around his accommodation — he had made minimal progress towards securing housing — added to the concern. Final care orders were granted, endorsing plans for long-term foster care: A to remain with her current carers, B and C to be placed together.

On contact, the court endorsed monthly supervised family time of 2.5 hours, with additional one-to-one contact for A with her mother and indirect mobile phone contact. The Local Authority was invited to amend the care plans to reflect a minimum of six sibling contact sessions per year, and to consider monthly video contact for B and C with their parents pending their permanent placement.

The court also encouraged the Local Authority to consider funding therapeutic support for M should NHS provision prove inaccessible — a step that, in the court's view, would benefit the children given M's ongoing role in their lives through contact.