law in relation to children Custom Essay

The assessment questions
1) John and Isabella met five years ago in London and started living together in 2011. They never married. Their only child, Mary, was born in London on 14 October 2013 and John is named on the birth

certificate as Mary’s father. The parents’ relationship has been marred throughout by John’s excessive consumption of alcohol and at times violent behaviour towards Isabella. Two weeks ago, Isabella left John

to stay with friends, taking Mary with her. John had just heard from a mutual friend that Isabella is planning to return permanently to live with her family in Spain later this week. John is worried that he will lose

contact with Mary and opposes Isabella’s plans.
(a) What legal steps could John take to prevent Isabella from removing Mary to Spain?
(b) How would your answer to 1 (a) above be different if John had not been named on Mary’s birth certificate?
20 marks
2) (Following on from the facts of the scenario at paragraph 1 above) John subsequently discovers that Isabella took Mary last week to live permanently with her parents in Spain.
(a) What legal steps could John take to have Mary returned to England?
(b) How might Isabella legally oppose Mary’s return to England?
20 marks
3) Mehreen is a social worker with the London Borough of Southwark and is carrying out an investigation pursuant to section 47 Children Act 1989 when she sees a 4 year old child, Dominic, at school.

Mehreen notes bruises to Dominic’s upper arms and under his left eye. She then visits Dominic’s parents, Brian and Catherine, at their home. On arrival she hears a male shouting at a woman who appears to

be crying, but when she knocks at the door, no one comes to answer. Mehreen returns to the family home some hours later and is able to speak to Catherine alone. Catherine explains that Brian does

sometimes get drunk and has been violent to her, but she denies that either of them has ever harmed Dominic. Catherine agrees to see Mehreen the following day with Dominic after school, but Dominic does

not attend school that day and Catherine does not keep her appointment. When Mehreen visits the family home, Brian refuses to let her in and says that she has no business interfering with them and stating that

neither he nor Catherine ever want to see Mehreen again.
Advise Mehreen as to
(a) the applications that the London Borough of Southwark could make to remove Dominic from his parent’s care, and
(b) the basis upon which the court could make an order to do this, and
(c) whether the court could make an order to remove Brian from the family home
20 marks
4) With reference to case law, critically evaluate the provision of Section 14 of the Children and
Families Act 2014 (formally Clause 14 of the Children and families Bill 2013) in seeking to limit the length of time within which courts should determine applications for care or supervision orders.
20 marks
5) Ivor and Monica married some years ago, but have been informed that they are unable to have children. A mutual friend, Ingrid, agrees to be a surrogate mother. They all agree to an arrangement for Ingrid

to hand over the child when it is eventually born and for Ivor and Monica to pay to Ingrid money to reimburse Ingrid’s reasonable expenses, including any medical treatment. They make arrangements with a

registered clinic for the embryo to be inserted into Ingrid’s womb. Ingrid carries the child, but after the birth, she refuses to hand it over to Ivor and Monica.
a) What, if anything, can Ivor and Monica do to enforce the agreement?
b) If Ingrid did eventually hand over the child, how could Ivor and Monica acquire parental responsibility for it?
c) How, if at all, would your answer differ if Ivor and Monica paid £50,000 to Ingrid in addition to her expenses?
20 marks

This assessment seeks to assess

the following module outcomes:
(a) knowledge and understanding of the syllabus.
(b) legal skills: Assimilation of the relevant statutes, research into the development and the
application of the law by use of case law, government reports and consultation documents and the
presentation of the material in a logical and relevant manner.
(c) transferable skills: Research for the purpose of understanding and presentation of a carefully
reasoned response to a problem.
(d) communication skills: The ability to give logical, understandable explanation of the law and of
how that law is applicable to the problems.
Credit will be awarded for this assessment based on the following criteria:
(a) Clear and concise analysis of the question.
(b) Application of that analysis to the issues raised.
(c) Avoidance of irrelevant material.
(d) Accuracy in presentation, spelling, grammar and sentence construction
(e) Keeping within the word limit imposed.
(f) Appropriate application of standard referencing system, OSCOLA

IMPORTANT- do not use any american referencing in this work. all must be british and wales law.