Working within the confines of the courts and the limits of the law, Sir Nicholas was one of the more outspoken judges of his time and certainly pioneered radical discussion on increasing rights for unmarried couples, implementing no-fault divorce and more access to the family courts through media reporting to help increase transparency inside the system. He was also kind enough to take time out of his busy schedule to be a panel member for our Westminster Debate for KIDS.
We will be sorry to see him leave and wish him a quick recovery. However, the question which remains, is who will take Sir Nicholas’s place, as the new President of the Family Division?
Researching Reform 
I hope L.J.Wall makes a swift recovery but I am certainly NOT sad to see him go !He claimed that Christopher Booker had made errors in his column because judge Bellamy said so when in fact Bellamy took some facts off my forced adoption site two days before Christopher’s article was published (without mistakes !) ;He then blamed Christopher for my mistake and so did Wall ! Flattering that judges read my website however !
Even worse he stigmatised Vicky Haigh,relying he said on two judges.(both their judgements are now on line)In fact the first judge (Robertshaw) merely thought it probable that she coached her child to make allegationS about her father,the second judge relied entirely on the report of the first judge and Wall admitted relying on both of them ! Hardly fair to denigrate Vicky publicly on such flimsy evidence.He emphasised that Vicky did not appeal,when in fact her lawyers just did not take the necessary action ,.something a Wall knows well that happens quite regularly in the family courts;
One thing he did get right however …..
Extract from the TIMES April13th 2010)
“Lord Justice Wall (The Senior family court judge) said that the determination of some social workers to place children in an “unsatisfactory care system” away from their families was “quite shocking
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Nicholas Wall, I wish you a long and happy retirement. I am in two minds as to whether it should have been extended by your having retired earlier. I have needed to follow you particularly closely since you accepted the President position, despite the express wish to the contrary of the Lord Chancellor at that time.
It is my opinion that you inherited a hopeless position and that scenario was produced in part by yourself. Perhaps it is rough justice then that you were given the task of cleaning up the family division. In the Pythonesque irony so typical of the family division, there really was nobody better qualified to identify and deal with the rot. A bit like tying a bomber to his home made, tamper-proof bomb and instructing him to defuse it. Couldn’t have been very healthy for you.
Sadly, you will always be remembered for the PC&S case. Perhaps now you are out of office you could finally apologise, not just to the family, but to the nation tainted. In this case, you were easily led; so much so, that you actually joined in with the unwarranted fabrication of a case where there was none against the mother. You denied her representation; you denied her any communication for assistance with anybody outside of the court. You subjected her to these conditions for several days in court. Then you took her baby. You showed the social services and their local authority lawyers how easily led busy judges can be, simply by using Orwellian narrative techniques. You opened the floodgates for child-snatchers before Baby P, and now there is no closing them. But that was before you became President.
In private law, you blew it in 2003. ‘Making Contact Work.’ As ever, a conflict of interest bunch of the wrong people blabbing about the pros and cons of shared parenting. The predictable result was that somehow no move forwards in that area of law that over-feeds the socio-legal professions would happen. But we watched nonetheless to see how you would manage to do it. You ended with a phrase that went something like this: “Yes we can see how (a legal presumption of) shared parenting would help, but we cannot see how it would function in efficacy.” Like Clive Baldwin wrote of you, after PC&S, ‘who needs fact when you have narrative?’ The American Bar Association is more honest; they state they do not like shared parenting as a presumption in law because half their income would disappear.
The British public are tired of being insulted by successive Presidents’ use of transparent, specious and shallow justifications for evading their obligations in private law. Your retort to the criticisms of family law professionals’ profiteering that “there are many altruistic people in family law” did not make it clear whether you included yourself. Hundreds of thousands of damaged and separated families, and especially, separated children and fathers, would counter such a self-inclusion. You should have been monitoring the courts and booting out those who are not altruists, rather than providing shelter for them. Titling something as ‘Making Contact Work’ whilst deliberately going in the opposite direction, with all those involved soaking up public money is the root of Broken Britain.
Rejecting the Early interventions Pilot Project recently when all around you had signed it off (despite stating yourself in 2003 that such a pilot project was a necessity) and failing to define ‘meaningful contact’ at any stage in your career, merely reinforces any opinion of your contemptuous indifference to the suffering of most of the children whose futures were to be decided in your courts. Contact didn’t work in 2003, and does not work upon your stepping down as President nearly ten years later.
During your time as President you have amended and introduced new procedures and Practice Directions in public law to prevent the kind of slip ups you yourself made during your career. In the main, your well reasoned directives are excellent, the envy of the world, and quite rightly so. Taken as a whole, they are watertight. Your directions to curb the dodgy expert witnesses prevalent in family law, and your direct speeches to them, and your book (albeit overpriced) leave no doubt as to the standards and integrity you expect of them. Some of your more recent judgments in the Court of Appeal, and your public comments castigating the aberrant social workers you helped to breed, should make things safer for families. A voluminous set of late career works which possibly indicate a recognition of earlier shortcomings and a serious effort to repent by leaving something tangible as a momento of your presence. But when those of us who try to use your directions to obtain justice or correct injustice, we find that the work you have done in producing some of the finest guidance of any jurisdiction, is simply being ignored.
Local authorities, and too many, far too many, of the judges in the lower courts, are either not bothering to stay up to date or are wiping their backsides with your guidance. For every one injustice you catch in the Court of Appeal (and when you do it, you do it well), hundreds at least are slipping through. It seems that whosoever occupies the Presidency, it’ll always be business as usual….specious language from lawyers, and Alice in Wonderland judges procrastinating in their hermitage of the family courts. More families are stripped of their assets by the legal profession in private law, and the Corporate Parent grows greedier day by day in the public law courts. Nobody cares about the President. Or about the kids. It’s all about the money. The President is just another banker.
Jack Straw’s intervention, though understandable, was perhaps therefore frivolous; it may as well have been you as anybody else. It’s only a position on paper. And so far, you have only papered over the cracks, albeit with nice paper. Whilst you have publicly criticised everybody else, you have only uttered the need for a ‘cultural change’ in the judiciary, plus blaming the current crises on lack of money and judges. More judges will simply make more work for more judges in your ever expanding financial black hole….now so big the government is pulling the plug. If you could only have demonstrated value for money, or demonstrated that Family Division judges actually do their jobs diligently. When you do neither, be not surprised when the money stops.
You leave the Family Division on the path to a better place, until the lawyers find a way around the coming changes, and the judges let it roll on with a nudge and a wink. The job of the President, as you have shown, is not to ensure justice, but to market the appearance of justice, deflect judicial accountability, and come down hard on anybody who may dare to open Pandora’s box. In your time you have blamed social workers, parents and politicians for the current fiasco; let’s hope the next President will be the first to deserve the grandiose label, and come down hard on his own.
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Hi Stu. If you haven’t already plastered your excellent posting here on every legal blog you can find on the inter-web, then you really ought to. It’s well obvious that you have kept abreast of N. Walls career and the many moves and mistakes he has made in it. In many ways you are talking about an eminent man, but a man that was always bound, on the whole, to get most of his initiatives wrong, why? because like most Judges involved with the family courts, the true decisions, the important decisions, the vital decisions are all made WELL before these Judges get to see the case (The where is my rubber stamp philosophy). Yes, the real Judges are the likes of Cafcass and the Social services, now what Judge is going to go against these wise all knowing people’s advice in a case? (Hint of sarcasm?) Actually your comment is so interesting and so well informed, that you really ought to write it on every ‘Wall’ you can find that contains a family court. (Pun intended)
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The Musa case – 7 children + 2 unjustly imprisoned parents = 1 need for a thorough IMPARTIAL UNBIASED investigation into a case riddled with irregularities.
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Sir Nicholas Wall, Judge of the Family Division. I spoke to you at the INNER TEMPLE.You dismissed me without knowing of my case in that place.. I then sent you DETAILED PROOF of the MISCARRIAGE of JUSTICE in the case of my Family. You did not have the decency to reply. YOU KNEW that a WRONG had been done to me and my Family. In this day of your despair, REMEMBER ME. YOU could have caused a JUDICIAL ENQUIRY but chose SILENCE instead. A long time ago I watched a movie called “Witness for the Prosecution”. Perhaps you too could go on the road to Damascus and then speak for all those who have been ABUSED by the actions of Social Services and their accomplices certain lawyers, MONEY SEEKING LAWYERS.
Sir Nicholas Wall. YOU KNEW but was LIMITED by the CODE of the JUDICIARY.
I do not wish you ill. But I hope that in a future book you will explain of the LIMITS that were placed upon you in making a JUST decision. DID YOU BOW TO INSURANCE COMPANIES ?. Sir Nicholas Wall. Events even now are unfolding as to how the System of Social Services operates. The CORRUPTION must STOP.
AGAIN I wish you well.
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As usual, an afterthought.. A replacement you ask ?. None other than Judge Mcfarlane. Please keep in mind that I wrote to him also refuting and PROVING the LIES that were uttered in Court by Walsall MBC in the case of my Family. NO REPLY from this Judge. So my question is this. Will anything change in the METHOD in which the Family Courts are arranged in Social Services favour?. I THINK NOT.
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One of Nicholas Wall’s worst legacies is his still unexplained U-turn on the issue of Payne v Payne:
http://news.realfathersforjustice.org/index.php?itemid=537
Bruno D’Itri
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There is a groundswell now with the parents of snatched children starting to group together and spread the word of the mass corruption in the family courts. The police are now being outed as corrupt too, especially South Yorkshire, by allowing at least 50 young girls to be abused by a paedophile ring that included a police officer. The worst paedophile rings are state run, as witnessed by a mother of a snatched child who was put in prison for merely talking to her own daughter.
Vicky Haigh put her case right in the public domain by fighting the system and engineering that the Gestapo civil servants made serious mistakes by trying to gag her. Hurrah to John Hemming lifting the gag so at least one parent can speak out which I am sure she will do very soon.
At least the council of Doncaster could be named too. Is it any coincidence that Doncaster is in South Yorkshire working alongside the corrupt police force. The amount of collusion between these two “companies” surely warrants a public inquiry?
The truth will out and at last the nation can see for themselves how social services traffic the children of the UK through their own fixed court hearings, where their only motivation is a care order or adoption, to line their pockets, and of course to procure the children for the protected paedophiles.
They care not that the poor child gets put with their abuser as they foam at the mouth with greed. The solicitors and barristers that are state funded are too “in on the act” and advise the parent, as in the case of Vicky Haigh to meet the result that the county councils want, by conning and tricking the trusting parent, to land their care order. This is serious collusion to entrap and defraud the innocent parents.
“By the right means if you can, but by any means MAKE MONEY”, has to be the county councils company policy! There is no logic and these civil servants are de- sensitised as to what is moral and right. The British Tax Payer has a right to know where their money is going.
The RSPCA protect the nations animals better than our children are being protected by the state. Social services are used to procure vulnerable children into a sick state system that use and abuse them, then they just pass them over to the criminal justice system when they are too old to profit from.
Vicky Haigh saw the debris caused in prison as most of the poor women in there were victims of abuse.
I am very uncomfortable with the fact that some CAFCASS Directors are on the boards of child protection charities and indeed adoption companies. A Quango “Law unto themselves”. Why is Child Sex Abuse so closely linked with Secret Family Courts?
They have the whole gory system set up don’t they. Police don’t charge the paedos, social services take the children, secret family courts, gag the parents or put them in prison, and CAFCASS provide a job for the boys!
WAKE UP everyone, get your local MP’s behind Hemming and let’s start by making the much needed changes.
Have a happy retirement Lord Wall, let’s hope the next president does not allow himself to be hoodwinked by the corruption of the whole rotten system and exposes the sheer madness by calling for open courts, public inquiries and to assist in abolishing the most draconian law, that of forced adoption. Let’s hope he DOES have a heart and DOES care about our next generation, otherwise we will soon all be brought up by strangers!
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Well done, D Cutts. You got it nailed. Only one other thing – they also walk over dead bodies! ‘Forced Adoption’ is barbaric and designed to snatch children into abuse!
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Sir Nicholas Wall, in your retirement I trust that your conscience will continually gnaw at what you could have done to help FAMILIES who were abused by Social Services. YOU KNEW of so many miscarriages of Justice but brazened your way till now. I would like to write more but my skin is very thin unlike yours.
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One must question if he indeed is retiring for the stated reason, or is it just a faster way to get him out of the system now that a new Secretary of State was appointed? A change must take place within the judicial system and a younger more active/impartial President must be appointed. A female President should be considered, but hopefully not one that has a history of dismissing women and causing more injustice. There are few female Judges, but regrettably too caught up within the power fight and competition with the male Justices.
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A thoroughly disgraceful presidency and legacy.
Having grown up in Scandinavia, my several years of high court proceedings under Walls leadership, were reminiscent of a Gulag-like experience in the most dark and hostile setting of a black and white Bergman movie.
Wall and his team of incompetent corrupt abusers have caused my children irreparable harm due to their profound ignorance and incompetence.
C O
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a weak, dishonest & cowardly man……….fvf (2006)
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I hope that who ever replaces Sir Nicholas Wall, President of the Family Division.and President of the Court of Protection addresses the failings of the Office of the Official Solicitor.
May Maughan, The Deputy Official Solicitor:40 Blackheath Park, Blackheath London SE3 “We are not prepared to answer any further queries and your correspondence in future, whether by e-mail, hard copy letter, or telephone, will not be answered, nor acknowledged. Yours sincerely May Maughan Deputy Official Solicitor Office of the Official Solicitor and Public Trustee Tel: 020 7911 7121
Law Society investigating Solicitor report dated 30 September 2009. Disclosed 2011
The Official Solicitor was acting as Mr Lawrence’s representative and Guardian and as such had the greater duty to protect him. I consider that the majority of the steps that Mr Lawrence feel should have been taken to protect him should have been taken by the Official Solicitor rather than the firm including the decision and action necessary to invoke the Court of Protection.
24 August 2011 Law Society, Legal Services, disclose correspondence sent by the Solicitors Regulatory Authority to the Court of Protection on 20 July 2010
Mr. Lawrence had come within the jurisdiction of the Court of Protection
The Law Society, Solicitors Regulatory Authority, FINAL REPORT CRO/97504-2008.
“Issues raised by Mr Lawrence are significant and should be investigated and responded to on the basis that they indicate areas in which the legal system appears to have failed to sufficiently protect an extremely vulnerable adult”.
Dr Vanessa Davies, Director, Bar Standards Board We do not have any powers to make Mr Brazil, Mr Allen answer your queries. The current Official Solicitor (Mr Pitblado) wrote to the BSB on 24 June 2009. In his letter he explained that the point had not been reached at which the Court of Protection should have been notified of the existence of the CP3. As the BSB was entitled to do, we took views of the Official Solicitor Mr Pitblado. The fact that you were a patient was plain from supporting documents. 24 August 2011 Solicitors Regulatory Authority to the Court of Protection; Mr. Lawrence had come within the jurisdiction of the Court of Protection
Hospital Medical Director Report reference: Leonard Lawrence
He was then medicated to the extent that he lost mental capacity. During the period the Official Solicitor of the Supreme Court acted as his Guardian ad Litem, three Court of Protection medical certificates (CP3s) had been obtained but not registered with the Court of Protection. He was, therefore, for nearly 18 months regarded as a mentally ill patient without access to the Court of Protection. During this time considerable amounts of his assets went missing.
Emeritus Professor of Medicinal Chemistry Malcolm Hooper
Journal of Biological Physics and Chemistry 11 (209-215) In the Lawrence case there appears to be sound grounds for legal action and significant compensation claims for mistreatment and false diagnoses and an appalling failure of the duty of care.
Graham C. Holt Collegium Basilea (Institute of Advance Study), Basel, Switzerland
Journal of Biological Physics and Chemistry 11 (216-220) At this point the tenor of the presentation changed dramatically from calm, logic science to the harrowing story of one pilot, Len Lawrence…. His story was one of costly legal battles to prove that his brain injury was due to chemical exposure and that he was not mentally unfit. What emerged was a story of incompetence by the medical profession, who lacked knowledge of the symptoms following exposure to neurotoxins and the unfairness of the legal profession in not allowing him to see data concerning his own personal records in their reluctance to tackle those culpable.
Ministry of Justice Leonard Lawrence Pilot and the Official Solicitor.
http://www.ministryofjustice.info/leonard-lawrence-pilot-and-the-official...
GOOGLE: Leonard Lawrence Pilot. 6 October 2011 Boeing … after six years had elapsed and May Maughan, Deputy Official Solicitor was of the belief that Leonard Lawrence …
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WARNING
May Maughan, Deputy Official Solicitor to the Senior Courts,
In October 2012 the Government has admitted more than 5,000 people were wrongly sectioned under the mental health act over the past ten years, including thousands of Britain’s most vulnerable patients having been locked up.
How many were certified [content removed] without a medical and then asset stripped by solicitors and barristers [content removed].
[content removed]
[Content removed] By not registering patients with the Court of Protection no record would exist of the patient, thus leaving the patient open to exploitation.
May Maughan, Deputy Official Solicitor to the Senior Court wrote to the Solicitors Regulatory Authority that there was no requirement for any application to the Court of Protection in the Leonard Lawrence.
May Maughan comments were not accepted by The Law Society Solicitors Regulatory Authority caseworker [content removed] or the Law Society appointed investigating solicitor. Even May Maughan own files does not support her submission to her professional body.
The Law Society investigating Solicitor report disclosed in 2011 The Official Solicitor was acting as Mr. [content removed] representative and Guardian and as such had the greater duty to protect him. I consider that the majority of the steps that [content removed] feel should have been taken to protect him should have been taken by the Official Solicitor rather than the firm including the decision and action necessary to invoke the Court of Protection.
Counsel advice [content removed], funded by the Legal Services Commission Special Cases Unit, [Content removed] had the protection of the Official Solicitor but was not registered as a protected party should be in the Court of Protection. Left financially vulnerable at both point of trial and order of sale.
Disclosure of [content removed] case file by May Maughan, Deputy Official Solicitor on the 20 March 2012 revealed many pages having been torn out. 20 December 2012 May Maughan refuse to discuss why these pages have been remove prior to her sending the files to [content removed]
The remaining case files identified that during the period [Content removed] had been under the jurisdiction of the Official Solicitor [content removed] knew on at least four occasions when it was necessary to have involve the Court of Protection.
19 August 2005 [content removed] was sold [content removed] without authority from the Court of Protection or with the knowledge of [content removed] then the Official Solicitor of the Supreme Court. [Content removed] faied to disclose his previous valuation of £725,000 to the Court of Protection or [content removed] then the Official Solicitor of the Supreme Court. [Content removed] later only received £82,000
16 April 2012 His Honour Judge [content removed]
Well, it actually says so in the Official Solicitor’s guide, does it not?
It actually says in there, We have to refer this to the Court of Protection
[Content removed]
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Dear David,
As you were probably aware would happen, your post has had to be edited for legal reasons.
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The comments section of the following link sheds light on Nicholas Wall’s confused and contradictory thinking, which, I suspect, hastened his departure.
Bruno D’Itri
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An excellent article which exposes Sir Nicholas Wall’s seemingly confused and contradictory stance on Payne v Payne:
http://blog.taylorking.co.uk/category/children/leave-to-remove/
A frank and comprehensive explanation from Wall would have been of great assistance to the legal fraternity. It’s never too late, Nicholas!
Regards
Bruno D’Itri
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Today I watched a program about the hundreds of thousands of people who were responsible for carrying out Hitlers abominations towards the Jewish people. The narrator did not mince his words when he said a great many enjoyed what they were doing and thrived on the power it gave them. I could not help but liken the same to all the people involved in family law. All of them including Wall are responsible for the devastation caused to families for decades and despite knowing mistakes were often made, they were not acknowledged and still they continued to remove children from their families and profited more as more kids were taken.
Wall may have made some changes toward the latter part of his career but he like the rest benefitted from the pain and suffering of the families who stood in court wanting to keep hold of their children and who were not given a fair hearing.
I think that Family Court should be abolished. One judge should not be able to make the decisions that affect the families for a lifetime. There should be a jury and common law should prevail. People think this is what happens and do not understand why in Family Court this is not the case. A professional making an allegation is believed over a parent denying it, without some kind of proof. It’s a nonsense that it’s a balance of probabilities when information is so skewed in court by professionals and even medical information can be unreliable. Its not about what is in a childs best interests, it’s about winning the case for the Barristers and Local Authorities! Their opinion is paramount not the child.
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Good comment Dana Raymond. They have destroyed so many lives and got clean away with it.
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believing i discovered this blog today I, surprising, came across a nov-12 post carrying my name and then realised it was me (i’d forgotten!!). 3+ years on, I felt a sense of satisfaction re-reading my words…..”a weak, dishonest & cowardly man……….ltf v lmf (2006)”. http://www.familylawweek.co.uk/site.aspx?i=ed1744
this poor excuse for a judge (not to mention “knight”) was well aware of the injustices of my case when it reached the CoA on 11 Jul-06 and then, faced with a mountain of evidence exposing years alienation tactics and lower court cover-ups, he reserved judgement until 17 Aug-06 where he casually dismissed the discoveries and dismissed an appeal which his transcript clearly showed had huge merit. the delay was one in a series of steps, specifically, designed to audit 4 years of erroneous, incompetent and corrupt judgements before navigating his way to the pre-determined decision he had already made………..a deliberate tactic as part of the cover-up.
hence, my satisfaction with a comment I forgot I’d made….a weak, dishonest & cowardly man, indeed. 4, now, adult children whose lives are damaged beyond repair – unfortunately, at 17, 21, 23 & 25 they’re not yet aware which will make it all the more devastating
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I concur absolutely. In the case of 7 children removed by a N. London council in 2010/11 this character sat on a hearing which was so one-sided and untruthful it was uncanny. Sticking by his ridiculous statement “professionals don’t lie” he found against the parents, despite glaring irregularities which went ignored. The parents couldn’t even get legal representation for the 6 day hearing – noone would help them – their case was a “no go” area for legal types throughout most of the entire child removal process this family had to go through. The irregularities in the case were very serious and neverending from day one – the guilty parties involved each supporting each other throughout their despicable abuse of power Eventually this character called the parents back for an “emergency” hearing where the parents were both arrested, and remanded in custody – 8 months later to receive 7 years imprisonment each on the charges of “mistreating their children” [they had legal representation for their “trial” – absolute crooks!] – those charges a total fabrication on the part of the council who so wrongly had targeted this family. The character was very much part and parcel of the complete destruction of this perfectly decent and loving family. Noone knows where those children are to this very day. It beggars belief what went on throughout the child removal processes, with the numerous court hearings and appeals against these 2 loving parents, not to mention the 3 years in prison they were each forced to endure – the mother being denied much serious medical treatment throughout her forced incarceration which worsened the existing ailments, which still continue to this day.
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