(N.B. This news release summarises the judgment handed down in this case, but forms no part of the judgment)
- In a judgment handed down today, the Court of Appeal has refused a Muslim father, who originates from Pakistan and is a member of the Pathan community, permission to appeal against a decision placing his children in care with long term foster parents who are non-Muslim, English and white in what the local authority acknowledged was a culturally and religiously inappropriate placement.
- It is thought that this is the first time in which conduct based “honour” within an ethnic minority community has reached the Court of Appeal in a care case.
- The facts are chilling, and are set out in some detail in the judgment. They include the children’s mother applying white spirit to the nightclothes of one of the children and setting fire to the house in which she lived with the children and the father in an attempt to incriminate her sister-in law, who had fled from violence in the family home in which she was living and whose infant daughter had been murdered by the mother’s brother. The mother is currently serving a five year sentence for arson.
- The judge decided the case primarily on the basis that the physical safety of the children was paramount and that the father was not capable of caring for and protecting the children on this own. He had also been found by the judge to have made an attempt, in conjunction with others, to locate the children. The local authority recognised that the placement did not cater for some of the children’s needs, and its care plan contained a number of measures designed to ensure that the children grew up with a knowledge of their birth culture and ethnicity.
- In relation to the facts, the principal judgment concludes with these paragraphs: -
…..the time has surely come to re-think the phrase “honour killings”. It is one things to mock the concept of honour – as, for example, Shakespeare does through Falstaff in I Henry IV Act V, Scene i. It is quite another matter to distort the word “honour” to describe what is, in reality, sordid criminal behaviour. I put on one side the murder of a baby in this case, since brother 1’s motivation for the murder is not known. However, the remorseless pursuit of the baby’s mother who, the judge found, was a woman fleeing from domestic violence; the fact that the mother of the subject children in this case sprayed the night clothes of one of them with white spirit and set fire to her house in order to implicate the intervener; the fact that the mother will not identify her brothers in the conspiracy for fear of reprisals; the fact that the grandfather appears to believe that the death of the baby was an accident and the will of God - these things have nothing to do with any concept of honour known to English law. They are, I repeat, acts of simply sordid, criminal behaviour and a refusal to acknowledge them as such. We should, accordingly, identify them as criminal acts and as nothing else.
The Muslim scholar in his evidence did not suggest that such activities can be encompassed within Islam. The most he said was that they formed part of the older generation Pathan culture. The message from this case, which must be sent out load and clear, is that this court applies a tolerant and human rights based rule of law: one which, under the Act of 1989 regards parents as equals and the welfare of the child as paramount.
That is the law of England, and that is the law which applies in this case. Arson, domestic violence and potential revenge likely to result in abduction or death are criminal acts which will be treated as such.
In this case, the family may wish to reflect on the fact that it has lost five of its children: one by death, one by the legitimate flight from gender based violence inflicted on his mother, and three to the care system. None of this, in my judgment, has anything to do with any concept of “honour” and all of it is manifestly contrary to the best interests of children.
Notes to Editors
- The full judgment is available from the judicial website
- For further information, please contact the Judicial Communications Office on 020 7073 4852.
Ends
