Half-sister wins right to meet estranged siblings

The woman from Sheffield, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, can now see her young half-brother and sister, who for most of their lives had no knowledge that she existed, after a judge ruled the children had a basic human right to know who she is.

Lord Justice Thorpe overruled objections by the children's father that any contact with their older half-sister would have a traumatic impact on their lives.

The judge, sitting at London's Civil Appeal Court, said a previous ban on the woman, aged in her 20s, from having any contact with her siblings gave "insufficient weight" to the children's right to a "wider family life".

The contact embargo had "elevated their father's anxieties above the importance of the potential gain for these children", he said.

The woman's solicitor, Leanne Barton, said: "It is interesting that the judge said it was important that children should have knowledge of their wider family background, and should grow up with the knowledge of that family".

She added that, although judges routinely grappled with the issue of parental contact with children, the fraught question of "sibling relationships" was not often explored by the courts.

The two children's barrister, Jessica Pemberton, said: "The

significance here is the importance of children knowing the truth about who is in their family, and their identity.

"The children's right to know overrides any potential harm because it is so important for them to know where they are from."

The two children share the same mother as their half-sister, but live with their father and his new partner.

The father, who represented himself in court, objected to even limited contact because he feared it would be disruptive for his children, and risk re-introducing their mother, who has "dropped out of their lives".

For most of their lives the two children had no inkling that they had a half-sister, although a chance encounter in a Chinese restaurant two years ago brought them face to face for the first time.

They were with their father, but he declined to introduce them to their half-sister.

The father told the Appeal Court he feared that introducing their half-sister to his two children would send shockwaves through his fragile family.

When Lord Justice Thorpe suggested that "at some point they will need to know about her", he replied that he and his partner had "started telling them".

The judge acknowledged that the father is a "very sincere father with his children's interests very much at heart".

But there was no compelling reason to diverge from a court welfare officer's recommendation of limited "indirect" contact between the children and their half-sister, he concluded.

"This was essentially a question of balance which comes down firmly in favour of a positive approach, since the potential benefit to the children is real," he told the court.

He allowed the woman's appeal against a March 2010 Sheffield County Court ruling and permitted her monthly postal contact with her half-siblings for an "experimental" six-month period.

Domestic law 'deserts' alert

Legal "deserts" will be created in England and Wales by new legal aid contracts, the High Court heard yesterday.

Dinah Rose QC, said children and vulnerable people face being denied access to justice unless the courts declare the process unlawful.

The declaration is being sought by the Law Society, which argues that the tendering system will lead to a drastic reduction in the number of specialist firms winning publicly-funded family law contracts.

Rural areas would be worst hit, but there were also many sizeable towns where there would be no family legal aid provision.

The Legal Services Commission say the society's case is "unarguable" and that it has ensured public access to justice.