Janet Bazley QC, leading Mark Jarman of 4 Paper Buildings and instructed by Freemans, Solicitors, has obtained a significant judgment from the President in a private law case involving an application by American potential adopters for an order under s.84 Adoption & Children Act 2002, granting them parental responsibility for British children with a view to adopting them in the USA.

Janet and Mark successfully argued, on behalf of the birth father, that the test in Re B-S (Children) [2013] EWCA Civ 1146; [2014] 1 FLR 1035 that ‘nothing else will do’ had to be satisfied before the prospective adopters could succeed in their application. Neither the immigration requirements in the USA nor the applicants’ family relationship with the children displaced this requirement. The President acceded to the father’s application that the proceedings should end at the interlocutory stage on the basis that, there was no realistic prospect of the applicants satisfying that test.