Contact (law) - Contact in English Law

Contact in English Law

Contact Orders are made under s8 Children Act 1989 to require the person(s) with whom a child lives to allow that child to visit, stay or have contact with a person named in the order. Orders continue until the child is 16 years. So long as the child is not under the care of a local authority, the following people can apply for a Contact Order:

1. the parent or guardian of a child (s10(4)(a));
2. anyone who holds a Residence Order in respect of that child (s10(4)(b));
3. a married stepparent of the child where the child lived with the stepparent as a child of the family (s10(5)(a));
4. anyone with whom the child has lived for at least three years (this period need not have been continuous but must have been recent) (s10(5)(b));
5. anyone who:

a) where there is already a Residence Order in place has the consent of every one who holds that order or

b) who has the consent of the local authority where the chid is in their care or

c) has the consent of every one who has parental responsibility for the child.

If an applicant cannot apply for the order as of right they can make an application to the court seeking leave to issue the application. In deciding whether to grant the leave the court will consider under s10(9), amongst other things:

1. the nature of the application;
2. the applicant's connection with the child;
3. the risk there might be if the proposed application disrupting the child's life to such an extent that they should be harmed by it.

Under s11, the court must attempt to avoid delay in making an Order. The court will only make contact orders for children over sixteen years old in exceptional circumstances. Contact can either be direct e.g. face-to-face meetings with a person or indirect e.g. by letter, video, exchange of greeting cards etc. Some orders will be very specific as to times, dates and arrangements for contact, other orders will be more open with detailed arrangements to be made between the parties by agreement. These orders are not just obtained by parents for contact with their children, there can also be orders for contact between siblings or the child and wider family members. Sometimes the order will give directions that the contact is to be supervised by a third person. The order may also only be for a specific period or contain provisions which operate for a specific period. These are Orders of the court and a failure to comply can be a contempt of court with serious consequences.

Contact represents a change in fundamental concept to disputes involving the upbringing of children. Prior to The Children Act 1989 in the jurisdiction of England & Wales, an adult was usually granted 'access to' a child; now a child is to be allowed 'contact with an adult' . Sixteen years after the Children Act 1989 became law, judges and the media in England still on occasion refer to 'custody and access' instead of 'residence and contact', and some judges are making orders such as 'father to have contact with the child' contrary to 'the child be allowed contact with father' as it argued by certain legal establishments the difference is minimal and in nomenclature only. The law is quiet clear that 'a residence order' undoubtedly gives additional rights to the residential parent, and does diminish the parental responsibility of the non-residential parent, in various ways. . Therefore custody and residence, or contact and access can be in some circumstances be interchangeable concepts in family law. The argument that 'winner no longer takes all' in contact/residence access/custody disputes does not hold water.