D (A Child) (Recusal) deals with a High Court judge’s denial at a hearing hearing three related appeals. The decision also considers the direct use of AI by litigants, which the Court of Appeals finds “fully understandable,” but cautions against relying on AI-generated case citations.
The parties to the lawsuit are D (child A) (not attending school) The two are the parents of a boy, D, born in 2023. The October 2025 Court of Appeal hearing, handed down in December, relates to three related appeals. The original case was a child arrangement application brought under the Children Act 1989.
In May 2023, D’s father applied to Manchester Family Court seeking access to D, but his mother opposed this by raising allegations of domestic violence and applying for a sexual abuse restraining order.
The first fact-finding hearing took place over three days in October 2024 in St Helens before District Judge Hutton. Both parties had litigated directly and had competent legal representatives available for cross-examination.
The mother raised 12 allegations of abuse, six of which were unproven, and the remainder were not proven to be abuse, welfare concerns, or pose any danger to Ms. D. There was “no finding” that a sexual abuse restraining order was necessary, DJ Hutton said in a Nov. 5, 2024, written judgment. The mother’s application was rejected, and no “compelling reason” was found to deny custody to the father. Following a hearing, an order was made giving direction for case management, including the provision of a Cafcass report.
A dispute resolution hearing was scheduled for February 24, 2025, and further instructions were given regarding interim child arrangements. In his reading of the order, DJ Hutton said he had received a “long document” from the mother and considered it before handing down the final version of his sentence.
The mother sought permission to appeal on November 8, 2024. In a 25-page document, the mother made numerous detailed criticisms of the judge’s findings and reiterated claims and assertions about the father’s conduct.
Mr Justice Greensmith dismissed the application in January 2025, noting that “the district judge had carefully, clearly and precisely identified the court’s role in the decision and the purpose of the hearing”, but was unable to understand “how the judge’s decision was wrong or where there were significant procedural irregularities in the proceedings”.
However, he informed the mother that the decision was made without a public hearing and that she had the right to ask for reconsideration at an oral hearing.
In late January, the father filed a second application to have the interim order enforced.
The mother then wrote to DJ Hutton asking him to decline the appeal, citing “serious concerns about misrepresentation of evidence” and claiming the district judge “undermined the fairness of the trial”. [the] What was discovered in these legal proceedings. ”
The letter included a 60-page document in which the mother spelled out her dissatisfaction with the verdict and findings.
The Court of Appeal referred to this document in its judgment, stating that “a number of passages were quoted from the judgment, each followed by extensive objections and criticisms of the mother…The document contained many citations of reported cases. Some of the citations were correct and appropriate…However, the other cases cited were not authority for the propositions proposed, and in some cases there was none at all.”
On 3 February 2025, St Helens Family Court made an order on the father’s first execution application, which was transferred from Manchester. The court acknowledged the link between the father’s first application and the mother’s subsequent application, but said it could not confirm whether the latter had been concluded, and referred the matter to DJ Hutton to consider whether the matter should be transferred to St Helens.
On 6 February 2025, DJ Hutton made two orders, the first withdrawing the father’s application and the second transferring the mother’s application to the Family Court in St Helens.
On 14 February 2025, an oral renewal hearing on the mother’s application for leave to appeal was granted by Mr Justice Greensmith in Manchester. Judge Greensmith directed the mother to produce various documents and, upon receipt, would provide further supervision and list an appeal. The father’s application for a child arrangement order was stayed pending the determination of the appeal.
On 27 February 2025, the father filed an application seeking an order to maintain the Manchester listing and reserve the matter to DJ Hutton.
On March 31, 2025, Judge Greensmith, after reviewing the documents provided and the transcript of the hearing before DJ Hutton, entered a further order allowing the mother to seek reconsideration of the decision at oral hearing, that such request must be filed within seven days, and limiting the grounds of appeal to two claims.
The mother did not file a motion for reconsideration at the oral hearing and did not seek leave to appeal on the limited grounds of appeal.
On 21 July 2025, the mother’s appeal hearing took place before Mr. Justice Greensmith, with the mother appearing in person and the father represented by solicitor Linda Sweeney. Sweeney’s mother initially objected to Sweeney appearing in court on her father’s behalf and asked him to withdraw, but was refused.
The mother mentioned DJ Hutton’s shunning and suggested it showed he had admitted to bias.
Mr Justice Greensmith noted that there was nothing on record to suggest that this was DJ Hutton’s inference, but said:
“The judge agreed to resign without giving a reason, but I don’t understand what District Judge Hutton’s decision means for that reason.”
The father was refused permission to appeal.
The next day, Sweeney’s mother filed a further application to have her removed. On July 24, the father filed an application asking a district judge to explain his decision to resign. Both applications were dismissed as “completely without merit” by Mr Justice Greensmith, who warned both parties that further applications would result in the court considering a civil injunction.
Meanwhile, on July 28, the father filed a notice of appeal with the Court of Appeal against DJ Hutton’s decision to overturn the findings, which was granted. On August 8, a further appeal was filed at Manchester Family Court, seeking leave to appeal the decision to abstain and asking the court to “jump” the case to the Court of Appeal so that both cases can be heard together.
A third notice of appeal was filed on August 8, seeking permission to appeal against Mr Justice Greensmith’s July 31 order dismissing the father’s application for reasons for the dismissal decision against DJ Hutton. Again, the application requested that the matter be heard in the Court of Appeal.
All claims were granted in a subsequent series of hearings, and all three appeals were heard by the Court of Appeal on October 23, 2025. Judge Baker handed down the sentence, with Judges Cobb and Miles concurring.
In relation to the father’s appeal against DJ Hutton’s recusal decision, the court held that the mother’s application objectively did not suggest obvious prejudice within the legal meaning of the matter.
After summarizing the “many repetitions” of the mother’s arguments, Mr Justice Baker found that merely disagreeing with a judicial assessment of the evidence was not prejudice, and was “satisfied that the mother’s claim of prejudice was without merit”.
However, he acknowledged that the district judge’s process for recusing himself was irregular, giving the father no opportunity to respond or providing any reasons for his decision. The court allowed the first appeal and ordered that two orders made by DJ Hutton on February 6, 2025 be set aside.
A second appeal brought by the father against HHJ Greensmith’s order of 21 July 2025 was also allowed. “While there was no impediment to Mr. Justice Greensmith considering the issue of dismissal in the context of an appeal, fairness required him to take steps to clarify the reasons for the district judge’s decision and to inform the parties so that they were in a position to respond,” Mr. Justice Baker noted.
“Instead, after hearing motions as to whether the appeal should proceed, the judge returned after a short adjournment and ruled in favor of the appeal. The course he took denied the father a fair opportunity to address a new proposal to withhold the findings on an entirely different basis than the father had anticipated.”
The case was referred to HHJ Singleton KC, appointed Family Judge in Manchester.
On the third appeal, Mr Justice Baker held that HHJ Greensmith was wrong to dismiss the father’s application to give reasons for DJ Hutton’s decision to withdraw, and that HHJ Greensmith was wrong to mark the father’s application as completely without merit, and Mr Justice Baker held that there was no need to require DJ Hutton to give reasons for his withdrawal because the order had been set aside. However, the certificate that the father’s application had no merit was set aside.
Regarding the mother’s use of artificial intelligence to prepare her submissions, Mr Justice Baker said he was sympathetic to the mother’s position as a litigant and said the use of AI was “completely understandable”.
Judge Baker said the mother did not intend to mislead the court, saying, “Litigants are in a difficult position to make direct legal arguments.”
Nevertheless, he cautioned that “all parties, whether represented or not, owe a duty to the court to ensure that the cases cited in amicus briefs are genuine and to lend authority to the propositions raised.”
With clear reference to the phenomenon of AI “hallucination” in legal submissions, the Court of Appeal stated:
“There are increasing reports of “illusions” influencing legal discussions by citing precedents for propositions that are not authoritative, or in some cases, quoting precedents that do not exist at all.”
D (child A) (not attending school) [2025] EWCA Civ 1570
