A seven-year-old child had been the subject of private law proceedings for some time before the local authority initiated care proceedings. She had been in connected persons foster care for a year and a 15-day hearing on the subject of fabricated or induced illness was listed to start on 20 April. A final pre-trial review took place on 3 April, two weeks after ‘lockdown’. The parties and the judge all accepted that the hearing could not go ahead as planned and that, having seen some advice from MacDonald J describing successful remote hearings, it was agreed that the hearing would be conducted by Skype, the mother joining in by herself from her home. The President, hearing about the proposal, called the case on for further consideration. The local authority and the children’s guardian were both anxious for the case to proceed as the child had experienced one adjournment already and needed a final decision. The mother’s counsel explained that they had agreed to the remote hearing, but having since experienced the difficulties of those hearings and seen further guidance, felt that the case was not one that was appropriate for a remote hearing. In addition the mother had suffered coronavirus symptoms, meaning that she would be unable to have contact with anybody to support her during the hearing. The President agreed, citing the complexity of the subject matter, the details of the case that meant that the mother would need to have access to her legal team throughout the hearing and the need of the judge to be able to watch the mother’s reaction to the evidence throughout. Taking all matters together, he decided that a trial of this nature could not be fairly conducted without the mother present in the courtroom

中文翻译：

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英格兰和威尔士

在地方当局启动护理程序之前，一名 7 岁儿童一直是私法诉讼的对象。她已经在关连人士寄养中心呆了一年，关于捏造或诱发疾病的为期 15 天的听证会被列为于 4 月 20 日开始。最后的预审审查于 4 月 3 日进行，也就是“封锁”两周后。当事人和法官都同意听证会无法按计划进行，并且在看到 MacDonald J 描述远程听证会成功的一些建议后，同意听证会由 Skype 进行，母亲自己从她的家。总统在听取提案后，要求进一步审议此案。地方当局和孩子的监护人都急于让案件继续进行，因为孩子已经经历了一次休庭，需要做出最终决定。母亲的律师解释说，他们同意远程听证会，但此后经历了听证会的困难并看到了进一步的指导，认为此案不适合远程听证会。此外，这位母亲患有冠状病毒症状，这意味着她将无法在听证会期间与任何人接触以支持她。庭长以案件的复杂性为由表示同意，因为案件的细节意味着母亲需要在整个听证会期间接触她的法律团队，以及法官需要能够观察母亲对案件的反应。证据贯穿始终。