Hardly surprising when the SCB is staffed by solicitors funded by solicitors and responsible to the

Hardly surprising when the SCB is staffed by solicitors, funded by solicitors and responsible to the Law Society – in effect the trade union for solicitors.This is a damning indictment not only of the SCB but of the profession. Then you find that the solicitor you put in charge of the transaction has made a terrible error and everything goes horribly wrong. After months of waiting, the deal has been done and contracts have been exchanged All those anxious months of waiting are over The escape from negative equity is nigh. That would lower the threshold prescribed.Lord Goff and Lord Mustill agreed Lord Browne- Wilkinson and Lord Lloyd dissented..

Imagine it: you’ve finally managed to sell your house. Unresolved judicial doubts and suspicions could no more form the basis of a conclusion that the second threshold had been established than that the first had been established.The three younger girls were not at risk unless D was abused in the past. If she was not abused there was no reason for thinking the others might be. To decide that the others were at risk because there was a possibility that D was abused would be to base the decision, not on fact, but on suspicion: the suspicion that D might have been abused.

There was no difficulty in applying that standard to the threshold conditions in both limbs of section 31(2)(a).The local authority’s case was based on the second limb – that the three girls were likely to suffer significant harm The starting-point was that courts acted on evidence. Built into the standard was a generous degree of flexibility in respect of the seriousness of the allegation. In cases involving the care of children the standard of proof was the balance of probability. Contrary observations were not an accurate statement of the law. The context showed that in section 31(2)(a) likely was being used in the sense of a real possibility that could not be sensibly ignored having regard to the nature and gravity of the feared harm in the particular case.The burden of establishing the existence of the conditions rested on the applicant for the care order.