We mentioned a little while back that Family Law Week Blog were inviting people to guest post for them on family law matters and that day has now arrived. An interesting post by McKenzie Friend Shaun O’Connell has now been published, in which he talks about the sometimes difficult relationship between McKenzies and lawyers and we were also privileged to be invited to write a post on the things about the family justice system which concern families the most, when they find themselves inside the family courts.
The Family Law Week Blog is edited by Jacqui Gilliatt, of 4 Brick Court and Lucy Reed, of St Johns Chambers and is part of the Family Law Week family.
If you feel you might like to guest post for Family Law Week Blog, you can either leave us a message at the end of this post or get in touch with Jacqui directly on the Family Law Week Blog.
Many thanks to Jacqui for allowing us to write for the Family Law Week Blog and we will very much look forward to reading future guest posts.
Researching Reform 
“And even where incidents of domestic violence are lodged with the police, it is not a guarantee that the mother’s complaint will be taken seriously. ”
http://speakoutloud.net/category/child-custody
“just because a woman has not been able to stop the man’s abusive and controlling behaviours does not mean she has “let the abuse happen”.
Victims of domestic abuse are made to feel guilty by those with no knowledge of the dynamics of DV.
For 5,000 years women have been in the situation, living under a patriarchal regime where they were tortured, burned etc for speaking the truth.
In the collective conscience women – all women are seen as liars. They are the Eve ill Eves after all who cause men to do things- like hit them, rape them, kill them etc.
This memory is in the DNA of all women on this planet, but is rarely spoken of, It is far easier to continue to teach- and we know they do- to see all women as liars and FEEBLE MINDED.
The only people who know the truth are those present at the time, but professionals give evidence as if they were there,when this is mere opinion, not fact.
Yes, once something is documented in a report it is deemed a fact- and it is too late, because the seeds are sown and others reading the report believe what they read first- this is human nature.
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I so agree with your comment that ‘opinion’ once given is taken as ‘fact’. I am in the unfortunate position of being involved with Social Services for the very first time in my life (I’m now 52 years old) and am alarmed at how their views are taken as ‘gospel’ with no concrete evidence seemingly in place. From my limited experience I can understand how many women ‘put up’ with domestic violence rather than alerting professionals in an attempt for help. A young woman I know who did alert the Police following domestic violence at the hands of her now ex-partner, now has her two beautiful (and well-cared for) girls in foster care as she is deemed ‘not strong enough to protect them from the perpetrator’ – even though he is currently in prison following breaking an injunction the young woman had arranged. Meanwhile, the process grinds on, foster carers are paid, social workers are overstretched as so many children are in care, solicitors earn their crust through Legal Aid – while loved and cared for children are taken from their mother. A travesty I cannot get my head around. What is the purpose of all this?
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Here are the 20 items that concern families most about the Family Court system:-
EXAMPLES OF HOW RULES OF EVIDENCE HAVE BEEN DISCARDED IN THE FAMILY COURTs WHEN GRANTING INTERIM CARE ORDERS.
1:- Statements from the local authority are shown to the judge but rarely to parents.Family and friends of parents are routinely excluded from the court but groups of social workers are allowed to stay in the court to listen to their colleague’s testimony whether they are witnesses or not.
2:- Parents representing themselves are denied the opportunity to cross examine witnesses appearing against them.Judgements,reports from experts,and position statements are either witheld or given to parents at the last minute (too late to read and analyse them properly).
3:- Parents are routinely refused permission to call for a second opinion when “experts” and Doctors have testified against them.If parents record contacts with their children, or interviews with experts or social workers judges routinely refuse permission for these recordings to be heard yet they always allow recordings and video evidence to be heard if produced by police or social workers.
4:-Parents whose children have been taken are routinely and wrongly told that they may not talk to ANYONE about their case.
5:-Parents are threatened with jail if they protest publlcly when their children are taken.They are also jailed for “breach of the peace” or “harassment” if they dare to trace and then contact their own children after adoption.Parents are therefore” twice gagged” contrary to the Human Rights Act ,Article 10 entitling all persons “freedom of expression”,ie freedom of speech.
6:-Local authority barristers in court often read out statements from absent persons as though they are themselves witnesses but they cannot be questioned.
7:- Most solicitors refuse to let their clients speak and then agree to all care orders demanded by social services.They tell the hapless parents “it is better not to oppose the interim care order ,but to wait for the final hearing”,ignoring the position set out below (in red) where L.J.Thorpe makes it very clear that the parents are so prejudiced by the proceedings thereafter that it is “very difficult to get a child back” after a removal hearing.
8:-Judges routinely castigate parents who wish to speak or who represent themselves even though they have the right to do so;Their evidence and their arguments are usually ignored in the judgements.
9;-Parents representing themselves are often given an hour or two’s notice to appear in court but solicitors are given weeks !
10:-Parents are punished for “risk” ie not what they have done but for what they might do in the future! “Risk of emotional abuse” is favourite because there is no legal definition of this and it is usually impossible for parents to defend themselves against “predictions” by so called “experts” who are often unqualified (20% according to the latest report!)
11:-Judges give social workers the power to withold parent’s contact with their children” in care” as a punishment for saying they love them and miss them or that they are fighting to get them back .Foreign children are forbidden to speak their own language with their parents or relatives,mobile phones are confiscated,and children in care are denied the basicrights accorded to murderers and rapists in prison!They use this power to gag parents and force them into complete submission !
12:-Parents are in effect condemned for offences against their children on “probabilities” 51% instead of beyond reasonable doubt.They can be acquitted in the high court and,the appeal court,and even when all charges have been dropped by the police social services can overule all those bodies and condemn parents on 51% probability (nearly half the time they could be wrong!) and take their children into care with a view to forced adoption.
13:-Parents who were themselves in care or who were abused in childhood are often judged unfit to be parents as a result.Their past misdemeanours such as shoplifting,or destruction of property (often 10 years ago or more)
are inevitably used against them during proceedings in court to prove them unfit parents.This would be illegal in a criminal court.
14:-Parents often forfeit their children for “failing to engage with professionals”The very persons who tell them and their neighbours that the children will never be returned !
15:-Parents faced with forced adoption lose their children for life, without being allowed a hearing by jury.
16:-Under the UN Convention on children’s rights,and a recent Supreme Court case (W a child), children have a RIGHT to be heard in court but are usually denied that right.
17:-Solicitors routinely tell client parents to agree to interim care orders or they risk never seeing their children again.A lie !
18:-Social workers are legally obliged to place children with relatives if possible but either ignore this or find pretexts to fail them on assessments
19:-Human rights to free speech and freedom of movement are breached by gagging orders, confiscating passports,and even “prohibited steps” that limit parent’s movements and can force them to remain in the same flat or house indefinitely !
20:-The Children Act specifically instructs social workers to reunite families wherever possible and to place children removed from their parents with relatives.In practice couples are urged to separate,to quit their jobs and go on benefits so as to keep awkward contact times with their children and to be free to meet social workers etc for meetings whenever summoned to do so.Relatives such a grandparents,aunts,and uncles are set aside to be “assessed” and ore often than not fail on the grounds that they are too friendly with the parents or maybe had a difficult past 10 years ago or more,or simply that they are too old in their forties or fifties even though this does not apply to fosterers .Theory and practice are a long way apart in our family courts;
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Proof of the prejudice against parents in the courts a referred to in point 7 above:-
Family torn apart in 15-minute court case by Judge James Orrell …
Lord Justice Thorpe said on Appeal “I am completely aghast at this case.There is nothing more serious than a removal hearing,because the parents are so prejudiced in proceedings thereafter.Once you have lost a child it is very difficult to get a child back.” The hearing above lasted only 15 minutes after a doctor “expressed the opinion” that bruising in the ear of one of the three children looked as though it was caused by pinching .The parents were not allowed to give any evidence!Their three children had all been forcibly removed until they were ordered to be returned by Lord Justice Thorpe on appeal
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and all men who deny false allegations must therefore be guilty by implication…some balance is needed in gender wars which have long been fueled by the system…and such gender biased views.
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