CHILDREN

Cancelled registration of childminder - appeal - justices to consider matter de novoTameside Metropolitan Borough Council v Grant: FD (Wall J): 17 September 2001The council notified the respondent that it was cancelling his registration as a childminder.

On the respondent's appeal under section 77(6) of the Children Act 1989 the justices, without conducting a hearing de novo, held that his rights under art 6 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms had been breached in the cancellation process.

The council appealed, contending that the justices' duty had been to examine the substantive merits afresh and that the bench hearing the matter has been improperly constituted in that only two of the three justices sitting were members of the family panel.Jason Coppel (instructed by Borough Solicitor, Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council, Ashton-under-Lyne) for the council.

Kathryn Korol (instructed by Smith & Tetley, Ashton-under-Lyne) for the respondent.Held, allowing the appeal, that, because not every breach of sections 66 and 67 of the Magistrates' Courts Act 1980 represented a breach of the Convention and there was no suggestion of bias or lack of independence and impartiality, the constitution of the bench was not sufficient to vitiate the outcome of the proceedings; but that, since the purpose of an appeal under section 77(6) of the 1989 Act was for the whole matter to be examined afresh, considering all the available and relevant evidence, to decide whether the cancellation of the registration had been correct, the justices had been plainly wrong in looking only at the procedural defects in the administrative process; and that the decision would be remitted to a fresh bench for a hearing de novo.