Too late to call a witness in family court??

[yosemite78]

I have a finding of facts hearing in a couple of weeks. After children’s services closed our case I asked the social worker if she’d be able to give evidence when I went to family court. She adamantly said no. Said they did not get involved in private law matters. As I was self representing I did not question this further. However, I have found out today that she could give evidence but is it to late to get the court’s permission to allow her to give evidence? Do I need to complete a C2or just email the court? I hope someone can advise me as I am extremely worried about this and angry she told me this in the first place! Many thanks

I’m really sorry this has happened. However it’s the self representation that’s caused you the problem. You have no clout. You could possibly have submitted a report from the social worker.

Also if SS has closed the case, how are they now involved?

Was the court in a previous hearing made aware of social services involvement? It should have been in the safeguarding report. If the court was aware of the involvement of SS why did the court not request a report from SS? Either the court made an error (unlikely as cafcass would, at the FHDHR hearing, have been chomping at the bit to shovel this in the direction of SS) or the judge considered getting a report but decided against, and gave reasons for that decision.

If you're worried about it you would have to issue an urgent C2 and ask that the final hearing be adjourned and a report ordered from the SW. Given you're so close to the final hearing it's likely the court will list it to be hard on the same day. You'd have to be prepared for the final hearing to go ahead in the event your application is refused.

SS hate getting involved in private law matters unless forced to do so with a section 7 report.
Can I ask if the SW directly witnessed events that the finding of fact hearing will be dealing with?

Thanks for the replies. Social worker conducted sec 47 and my child made direct disclosure to her. She gave statement to police but my child made no disclosure in police video interview. The court ordered disclosure from children’s services as well as police, which I have. Upon meeting with barrister she questioned why she wasn’t a witness as she can say whether she believed my child had been coached or not . I don’t want to risk none of my findings being made by her not being there if the other side are able to convince judge I put my child up making disclosure

If the section 47 forms part of the bundle for the finding of fact hearing, then if it expresses the view by SW that the child was genuine in her allegation(s), it is up to the other side to call her as a witness to try and undermine that view - if they want to claim she may be wrong. Reports can only be challenged by calling the author as a witness. So in other words if the report supports your view of events it may actually benefit you NOT to have her as a witness, if you see what I mean.

Thanks Arcadia. I’ve read through the report again and all the sw says is that my child displayed sexualised behaviour on one visit and described men putting willies on ladies heads. She did tell the cafcass worker that she felt it wasn’t a normal comment for a young child to make. Doesn’t really support me does it as it doesn’t say much more or support that I’ve not coached my child. Thankfully my child said similar things to safeguarding officer at school who is a witness.

Is the Cafcass officer that she spoke to about it going to be a witness?

No the Cafcass officer spoke very briefly to SW after the initial telephone conversation to verify what I’d said. All Cafcass have done so far in case is their safeguarding letter to court. It didn’t even occur to me to ask her to be a witness. I just hope the court will do an urgent order for social worker to attend if I go on Monday with a c2?