ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the nature, role and weighting of the welfare principle in contested private family proceedings occurring largely but not exclusively under the aegis of the Children Act 1989. A natural mother is held to be inherently vested with full parental responsibilities for the child. A natural father will have no parental responsibilities unless he acquires same or they are vested by court order in him. The parent with a residential order, or with possession, who flatly refuses to comply with contact arrangements agreed by the court, fundamentally challenges the capacity of the latter to safeguard the welfare interests of the child concerned. The effect of a wardship order is to establish the welfare of the child as the over-riding objective, to permit a broad exercise of judicial discretion in pursuance of it and to ensure that welfare is determined not by a brief adjudicative process but by on-going and permissive judicial management.
