The guidance contained within the Guidelines for Meeting Children who are Subject to Family Proceedings [2010] 2 FLR 1872 concerning children meeting with judges remains a workable framework. It encourages judges in appropriate circumstances to meet children as one way of helping them to feel more involved in and connected with proceedings that affect them in important ways. It makes clear that the judge decides whether, when and how a meeting will take place. Those decisions are very much a matter for the discretion of the individual judge in the individual case. The guidance emphatically stresses that the meeting is not for the purpose of gathering evidence. Another critical feature is that a meeting should help the child to understand that only the judge is responsible for the decisions in the case and that the outcome is never the responsibility of the child. Those arrangements are for the benefit of the child, not the judge. They offer a middle way between the unacceptable extremes of children never seeing judges and meetings becoming evidence-gathering sessions carried out by a judicial officer in the absence of the parties (paras 59, 68, 69).

The correct approach is for the judge to give close consideration to the guidance with its numbered guidelines when planning and taking part in a meeting with a child. This will increase the likelihood of the meeting being as valuable as it can be for the child whilst taking care to ensure that it is not allowed to develop into an evidence-gathering exercise. That risk may increase if it is a long meeting. By keeping the meeting to an appropriate length, its purpose will be clearer to everyone. Where the judge considers that something of evidential significance has arisen in the meeting, the parties should be made aware (para 70).

The guidance affirms that the primary purpose of the meeting is to benefit the child but it realistically acknowledges that it may also benefit the judge and other family members. That means no more than that a meeting with a child can provide an additional perspective for the judge. The meeting does not change the evidence but it may illuminate certain aspects of it. Provided that the judge observes the limits surrounding the meeting and the parties have a clear account of what has occurred, problems are unlikely to arise in the great majority of cases (para 71).