In the matter of M (A Child)

Permission to Appeal application lodged

Case summary
Permission to Appeal
Previous proceedings

Case summary

Case ID

UKSC/2026/0069

Parties

Appellant(s)

The Mother

Respondent(s)

The Father

Issue

Did the Court of Appeal err in law in allowing an appeal against a costs order made against one party in private law proceedings under the Children Act 1989?

Facts

This appeal arises in the context of private law proceedings under the Children Act 1989 (“CA 1989”) concerning the young son of the appellant mother (“the mother”) and the respondent father (“the father”). The son shall be referred to as “M”. The proceedings were initiated in September 2023 when the father issued an application for a Child Arrangements Order under section 8 CA 1989. The parties proposed that a one-day hearing which had been listed in the Magistrates’ Court should be used to consider interim child arrangements following the involvement of an Independent Social Worker (“ISW”). Unexpectedly, however, at the outset of the hearing on the 25 March 2025, the Magistrates indicated their intention to make a final order. The mother objected but the father agreed. The Magistrates ascertained the views of the ISW but heard no oral evidence from the parties. The Magistrates then adjourned the hearing and proceeded to make a final shared care order, which was handed down on 2 April 2025 and included no order for costs. For differing reasons, both the mother and father were dissatisfied with various procedural and substantive aspects of the Magistrates’ order, and on 23 April 2025 the mother filed an appeal which was soon followed by a respondent’s notice from the father raising his cross-appeal on 7 May 2025. The appeal and the cross-appeal were heard by HHJ Rowe KC (the “Judge”) on 28 July 2025 and she handed down her judgment on 6 August 2025, allowing the mother’s appeal and dismissing the father’s cross appeal. The mother had also applied for an order that the father should pay her costs of the 25 March 2025 hearing before the Magistrates and of the appeal to the Judge. After inviting the parties’ written submissions on this issue, the Judge handed down a further judgment (the “Costs Judgment”) on 1 October 2025 without any further oral hearing. In the Costs Judgment, the Judge declined to order costs against the father in respect of the 25 March 2025 hearing before the Magistrates, but did make a costs order against the father in respect of the appeal. The father appealed against that aspect of the Costs Judgment to the Court of Appeal. On 27 March 2026, the Court of Appeal allowed the father’s appeal. The mother now appeals to the Supreme Court.