Judge backs council over vaccinations of child in care, rejecting application by father for injunction

In A v Gateshead Metropolitan Borough Council [2025] EWFC 224 (09 June 2025), His Honour Judge Stephen Smith, sitting as a judge of the High Court, concluded that it would be “consistent with the local authority's corporate parenting function” to arrange for the standard vaccinations, “administered pursuant to UK public health guidance”.

The case concerned C, a young girl in the care of the local authority, and applications made by her father (A).

Introducing the legal framework, HHJ Smith said: “It is common ground that there are certain parental responsibility decisions that are of such magnitude that it would not be appropriate for a local authority to take in its role as a corporate parent without the guidance or supervision of the Court. Such cases often involve questions relating to medical treatment.

“It is now well established however that in so called ‘routine’ vaccination cases, that is where a question arises as to whether the local authority should be permitted to administer routine recommended vaccinations to an otherwise healthy child, it is not necessary for the local authority to apply for leave to invoke the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court for authority to administer the vaccine. In such cases, the onus is on a person seeking to object to the administration of such a vaccine to apply to the High Court to prevent a vaccine from being administered.  That is what A has done in these proceedings.”

The thrust of A's objection lay in what he said were his own adverse reactions to having been vaccinated in the past.

The mother, B, outlined concerns of her own about the proposed course of vaccinations, and the “accelerated pace of administration”.

HHJ Smith said: “C has never been vaccinated, [the mother] stressed. She is a healthy young girl. The vaccinations which she is to be subject to would ordinarily have been administered on a gradual basis over the course of a child's life. The local authority in these circumstances proposes to administer all vaccines over an eight-week period on three separate occasions. B also reports her own adverse reactions to having been vaccinated.”

The local authority obtained advice from C's GP that there were no obvious contra indications in C's health records to suggest that she should not be immunised with the standard, routine vaccinations that are recommended for children of her age.

In April this year HHJ Smith directed that A and B would be able to file details relating to their own medical histories which would then be put before the treating clinicians responsible for the care of C, in order for them to offer a view as to whether or not they considered that their views in relation to the vaccination of C should be revisited.

On the morning of the hearing, A applied for an adjournment on the basis of procedural unfairness, which was rejected by the judge.

Analysing the evidence, HHJ Smith said: “I respectfully consider that the evidence before the Court of A's own claimed adverse reactions is, even taken at its highest, incredibly thin. The medical evidence itself consists of a summary, prepared by A himself, of his own medical records. In those records he is reported as having said to a practice nurse, and later a GP, in August 2012, that he considered that he had experienced adverse reactions to a hepatitis B vaccine that had been administered to him in January of that year.

“[…] Taken at its highest, the only evidence pertaining to A's own claimed adverse reactions showed a self-reported concern some eight months after having received the vaccine. In the form it was provided to Dr G and Dr N, it is difficult to see how A's medical evidence could have led to any other conclusion to that which was ultimately reached.”

He added: “The same is true in relation to B: there was no evidence of her own adverse reactions to past vaccinations such that the general position in Re H could be displaced.”

A also submitted that the correspondence that he sent to the local authority had not been put before the doctors.

The judge disagreed, pointing to evidence of an email sent from a local authority solicitor (Ms H), which attached the statements from the parents, and an email from one of the doctors (Dr N) in response.

The email said: “Hi [Ms H], I can confirm that I have received and reviewed parents [sic] statement.

“Regarding recommendation by Dr G […] for catch up immunisation the schedule suggested it was consistent with UK guidance for children between two and ten years old. According to Dr G's letter the GP Nurse [...] had reviewed C's medical record, and there was no obvious contra indication to immunisation. This suggests that C is safe to be vaccinated as long as she does not fall into the categories of contradictions listed in the G Book. I haven't prepared a formal letter because in correspondence below you mentioned that an email from me would suffice. Let me know if you need anything else."

HHJ Smith said: “I should observe that Ms H having ‘mentioned that an email from me would suffice’ was not an attempt by the local authority to tell Dr N what to say, as A submitted. On the materials before me, it was simply clarification as to what the local authority considered Dr N would have to do in order to provide sufficient information to this Court to comply with my order [in April].  

“It was not necessary for Dr N to go into any further depth when opining that the vaccination could take place in a manner consistent with C's health requirements.”

Concluding the case, the judge said: “I note that C has not been vaccinated previously. That is a matter which the local authority, Dr G and Dr N have considered. […] However, as the summary of the law helpfully set out by Ms Dodd [for the local authority] makes clear, the views of parents, no matter how strongly expressed, are not determinative in the circumstances of these proceedings.

“I also note that A provided a number of materials in the bundle from an organisation based in Italy. The organisation…. is a support group which exists, it is said, to provide advocacy and support to the families of those who have been harmed by the consumption of vaccines. In my judgment, there is nothing in those materials which gets remotely close to the peer-reviewed threshold which is set out at paragraph 55 of Re H, which must be surpassed in order for the general position, as endorsed by the Court of Appeal in Re H, not to apply.”

He added: “Drawing this analysis together, therefore, I am satisfied that the approach the local authority proposes to take is one which is entirely consistent with the powers that it enjoys under section 33 of the Children Act 1989. There is no basis for this Court to issue an injunction prohibiting that conduct from taking place.”

Refusing the father’s application for an injunction, HHJ Smith granted the declaration sought by the local authority that it would be consistent with its corporate parenting function to arrange for the standard vaccinations, administered pursuant to UK public health guidance, to be given to C.

Lottie Winson