Call: 1978
Qualifications: BA, MA (University of Pennsylvania)
Practice Team
Family
Constance WhippmanPrint CV
Profile
Constance is the most senior member of the family practitioner team in chambers and is a respected and experienced advocate. A founding member of chambers in 1984 her practice has been for many years now exclusively family with an emphasis on public law children work, particularly the more sensitive cases featuring elements of alleged abuse (physical, alcohol or substance) and mental health issues. Constance retains a special interest in human rights and the child.
Constance also has particular expertise in matters which involve the removal of a child from the jurisdiction, child abduction, wardship, adoption and other cases which have an international element.
Further, Constance advises and appears in complex high-value ancillary relief claims.
Reported Cases
Re J (A Minor) [1999] 2 FLR 86 - instructed as junior counsel in an appeal against a decision to appoint a guardian ad litem in adoption proceedings as the particular person had had prior involvement in the case.
Re A (Protection from Offenders regulations) [1999] 1 FLR 697 - instructed on behalf of the mother in a case where a care order had been made the court had the power to waive reg.3(4A) Foster Placement (Children) Regulations 1991, where a proposed foster carer had a specified conviction, in the best interests of the child.
Re FS (Child Abuse; Evidence) [1996] 2 FLR 158 - acting for the mother in a case to decide whether care orders should be made in respect of three children, one of whom was found to have been sexually abused by her father, where the father denied the allegations but no longer lived at home, and the mother supported the father but agreed to accept the court's ruling.