It certainly is not the first time that a Judge has engaged in a spot of hyperbole, nor will it be the last. A Senior Judge has magisterially declared what jobbing lawyers, up and down the country have known for quite a while now – ‘the family justice system is in crisis’. The very top Family Judge has chipped in to support his Brother Judge, heir apparent, stating that he was ‘fully justified’ to say this, as he too believes that there is a ‘crisis’.
Apart from hyperbole – defined in the dictionary as ‘exaggerated statements or claims, not meant to be taken literally’, the stereotypical Senior Judge also loves to state the patently obvious. Two for the price of one, with this recent offering! Apparently, the crisis has been fuelled by a glut of applications to take vulnerable children into care. This is true, tell us something we don’t know! It is however stretching things a bit too far to say that the situation is ‘untenable’, as the system has a duty to prioritise all cases which expose children to neglect, or worse, from poor parenting, no matter what.
In May 2018 there were more than 1300 care applications, one of the highest of such figures in the last 5 years. Last year 14,218 applications were made.
