Parental responsibility encompassing all the legal rights and responsibilities for a child can only be revoked in exceptional circumstances. But how does this happen and how common is it? We look at the issues.
Parental responsibility encompassing all the legal rights and responsibilities for a child can only be revoked in exceptional circumstances. But how does this happen and how common is it? We look at the issues.
If you have a family law issue and you are concerned that you may require legal advice to understand your options, contact specialist family law solicitor Joanne Major. Joanne is the founder of her specialist family law firm and has spent her 25-year legal career specialising in family and matrimonial cases.
In what circumstances can parental responsibility be removed?
Unless a child is adopted, parental responsibility cannot be removed from a child’s biological mother. For it to be removed from a father, the circumstances would need to be exceptional and in the best interests of the child in question. Rare but possible justifiable reasons for removing parental responsibility include serious domestic violence, sexual abuse, or adoption, amongst other things.
A court will not remove a father’s parental responsibility for any of the following reasons:
- He doesn’t want contact with the child
- Being absent or inconsistent
- His child doesn’t want contact with him
- He won’t pay child maintenance
- He isn’t involved in his child’s life
If the court believes a father is having a negative impact on his child, it can restrict the father’s involvement by issuing either a Child Arrangements Order or a Prohibited Steps Order to protect the child and limit the role the father has in their life.
How is parental responsibility removed?
The only way to remove parental responsibility is through a court application, although they are rarely successful. As stated above, in order to lose parental responsibility, a father’s behaviour must have been extreme or exceptional. However, in the limited number of example cases, a father has usually been guilty of neglect, abuse, or criminal behaviour towards the child and the decision to remove parental responsibility has been taken away in order to protect the child’s wellbeing.
The law governing removal of parental responsibility is complex, with each case being considered on its own merits. The leading case law in this area shows that removal of parental responsibility has only been ordered where it has been acquired by unmarried fathers. These cases include examples where a father was found guilty of inflicting grievous bodily harm on the child, where a father pleaded guilty for committing sexual assault against the child’s siblings and a father being imprisoned for extreme domestic violence.
Where an application was considered for removal of a married father’s parental responsibility, the court found that they did not have jurisdiction to remove it, given that the parties were married when the child was born. This is despite meeting the threshold for removal. Here, the court limited the father’s parental responsibility by making a prohibited steps order preventing him from taking any steps in exercising his parental responsibility. Although this is not complete removal, it did at least render the father’s parental responsibility virtually unusable.
This places unmarried and married fathers on a two-tier hierarchy. In cases where parental responsibility has been removed from a father, they were all unmarried. Whereas if parental responsibility is acquired via the father’s marriage to the birth mother before the child was born, the court’s approach appears to be one of limiting parental responsibility beyond use but not completely removing it.
What is an example of extreme behaviour leading to the removal of parental responsibility?
In a recent case, a mother applied to have the father’s parental responsibility revoked and the child’s surname to be changed. She also made a further application to prevent the father making future applications to court for a certain period of time.
The mother was successful in removing the father’s parental responsibility, changing the child’s surname and obtaining an order preventing the father from making any further applications to the court until the child reached the age of 16.
In this case, findings had been made against the father in relation to raping the mother, and what the court believed to be a severe and extreme failure of parenting. The judge found the father had a very different view of parenting that was markedly different to the child’s mother who was the primary carer. Some of the father’s behaviour caused the child physical pain, and was, at times, excessive, such as spontaneously pulling the child’s leg hairs, and pushing him over. This was at best inappropriate, albeit at the lower end of the abuse spectrum.
What is the chance of having parental responsibility taken away?
The big take away is that parental responsibility will not be revoked for minor issues. Abusive behaviour, adoption, and withholding consent for medical treatment are all examples of when such a step will be considered. As said above, there are limited and specific circumstances where unmarried fathers can have their parental responsibility terminated. In the case of married fathers, where it is not possible for parental responsibility to be revoked other than through adoption, the court has the power to heavily restrict how parental responsibility is exercised. This can have a similar impact, so is worth bearing in mind.
Can parental responsibility be removed from a father subsequently found not to be biologically related to the child?
If it was subsequently found that the father registered on the birth certificate was not biologically related to the child, and the birth certificate corrected to remove the wrong father’s details and the correct father’s recorded instead, the originally registered father won’t lose their parental responsibility.
A negative paternity test and declaration of non-paternity also doesn’t automatically remove parental responsibility from a father. A person can only lose parental responsibility by order of the court, which will consider the welfare of the child when deciding whether to remove parental responsibility. The fact that the father is not biologically related may be a factor, although not necessarily conclusive.
Naming someone on a birth certificate as the child’s father knowing that they are not biologically related amounts to paternity fraud. This is because a birth certificate is a legal document and signed on the basis that the contents are true to the best of the informant’s knowledge and belief. The legal system recognises the seriousness of paternity fraud and provides remedies to address it. This may include adjusting or terminating financial obligations based on the true biological relationship.
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