It seems as if the winds of change in the family courts are blowing in two opposite directions – as fast as the President moves to clean up the system and make it more sophisticated and user-friendly, half-baked pixies inside the system are waving their wicked wands and sentencing parents and family members to prison for failing to disclose the whereabouts of children subject to care orders and other family law proceedings.
And whilst we are in no way sanctioning non-disclosure in situations where children are at risk and in need of locating, two very obvious sentiments emanate from this recent spate of jail-happy judges imprisoning parents in a seemingly never-ending stream of hearings: jail time in this context helps and serves no one, placing inordinate financial pressures on already struggling families, which play out in the family unit and manifest through heightened tension and emotional instability, and very often, children who are shielded from the court process in this way are shielded because the system has let them down.
It is worth noting that most of these jail sentences are in part, symbolic – often prescribed in terms of short stays in prison, usually reduced or halved (though at the end of the day it still goes on your record), but no word yet on whether these spells in jail make tight-lipped parents talk. It is also hugely damaging for children to grow up knowing their parents have been subject to a prison term. Here are some cases over the last few months where judges have decided a stint in prison is the order of the day for parents and family members:
- Mrs Justice Theis, November 2013 Mother Jailed for Refusing to Disclose Whereabouts of Children We do not yet know whether the court had any information at all on the children – such as whether they were being cared for by someone other than the mother, because, gosh, that could mean these young children could be on their own right now, or being neglected or abused by another. We await the judgment on BAILII
- Mr Justice Keehan, October 2013 Family Jailed for Not Revealing Girl’s Location – the article does not explain whether the prison term for these relatives was instrumental in the mother returning to the UK after taking her daughter abroad
- Mr Justice Bodey, May 2013, Father is Jailed for Refusing to Return Children To Their Mother
- Judge David McHugh, Ireland, January 2013 Mother Jailed For Keeping Kids Off School
The very real problem of non disclosure and other concerns the family courts must deal with on a daily basis should not be trivialised, but whilst the problems are serious, and it may seem as if intense punishments are the order of the day, they neither deter desperate parents nor improve the outcomes for children.
Barnardo’s Policy and Practice briefing on parents in prison offers some positives to parents being jailed, but it’s hard to take this research seriously when considering that these parents are unlikely to rock the boat and criticise their time in prison for fear of any possible repercussions should they do so. The impact of a parent in prison on children though, is highlighted in this report and is, to our mind at least, the most important factor of all. The report cites research which shows that children can suffer severe emotional, behavioural and social reactions as a result. These include:
- Hyperactivity
- Becoming quiet and withdrawn
- ‘Acting up’, with caregivers as a result of parent’s absence
- Shyness with parents during visits
- Depression
There is also evidence that children who witness their parents in jail, or who have parents who are jailed, are, sometimes, more likely to go on and offend themselves.
So, please, let’s have a conversation inside the family justice system on effective handling of cases like these – a conversation which, we would modestly suggest, should focus more on support and family care, than on incarceration of minds and bodies.
Researching Reform 
Jailing parents for failing to give information? More echoes of the Gestapo but so far no thumbscrews or fingernails removed…….. They would love to do just that though wouldn’t they?
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Re your comment above about ‘punishments’: “they neither deter desperate parents nor improve the outcomes for children.
What would deter desperate parents and improve the outcomes for children, would be a system which actively cared for the welfare of the children – and by extension their parents.
What we have is a system of Courts run by people who really have no notion of how ordinary people live – and care less.. as they so regularly demonstrate.
The best outcome for children is a safe, peaceable childhood, with people it trusts – not to be thrust into a totally uncaring ‘care system’ by a bunch of ignoramuses, who happened to have staggered through an exam..
The best way to achieve peace for a child is to stop the constantly whipped up Court battles, where in ‘family’ (ho-ho) courts supportive members of that child’s family are deliberately excluded from the court room or any part of the proceedings. (I write as a concerned grandparent.)
Stop treating large numbers of the population as ‘beneath our feet’.
Where a family is falling apart, instead of the legal system growing rich by lobbing a bomb into the centre, of the child’s life, consider how to calm the situation, taking in sensible extended family members and friends, to support the child, oversee its welfare, and for goodness sake, make the state begin to work for the good of the child.
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One DAY PIGS MIGHT FLY…………………………….
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I see you’re back with the pigs.
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Of very real concern in this matter is that the Family Court judge becomes “Judge in their own cause”. The judge prosecutes her/his own motion, acts as the trier of fact and then issues the judgement and sentence.
A gross abuse of the rule of law and the principles of natural justice. At the very least, Contempt of Court proceedings should be heard before another more senior judge.
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Ragnvald above has it about right .No further omment needed !
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Judges traditionally have been given discretion to ‘interpret’ the law, which in turn leaves the door open for re-interpretation and sometimes invention. That, by any one’s definition, is the act of making law. The question then has to be, whether judges are allowed to do this, and the answer under our current system, is no. But even if we remove discretion from the equation, which may not be the answer as discretion rightfully used can be a powerful tool for justice, we still have the problem of the law itself. Law makers too, can be driven by personal sentiment. So, what do we do?
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The perennial problem here is the conflict in children cases between the interests of the children to be in the care of their parents and the wider public interest in the orders of courts being obeyed. Without the latter, nothing stands between society and anarchy.
It’s very easy to pen journalistic condemnation of judges but what do you propose they do where a parent or family member simply fails to obey an order which has been made balancing the competing interests of the child or children and the interests of that parent? A court takes a measured decision and then the parent simply says no. Is the court supposed to allow the parent to be obdurate and do something which the court has decided is contrary to the child’s best interests?
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Hi Jonathan, I do think it’s a difficult issue, and I acknowledge that in the post, but I also mention that it is far better to use preventative measures rather than retro-active ones after the fact, as jailing parents is seldom effective and causes an enormous amount of anxiety for the children involved. I think we should be focusing on providing excellent family support and unrivalled levels of high quality decision making, with much more sophisticated tools at our disposal than the ones the court currently have. I appreciate this sounds as if it needs a ton of resources, but I don’t believe that’s the case. The system is under-funded and levels of efficiency are dangerously low, but we can, I think, counteract that by running a much tighter ship, with support for professionals and parents alike. The children are always my focus, as you know, so anything that impacts negatively on the child is going to be, as a default position, initially, always an indication to my mind that there must be another way.
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There can be no doubt the system is seriously underfunded but that isn’t going to change for the better, only for the worse. However, some parents will just not accept any sort of support if it involves them being challenged in their own views about the control they should be entitled to exercise over their children. It is this tiny but very difficult minority who end up in the situations you have reported. I suspect that you may be being too charitable to some of those who have put themselves in this sort of jeopardy with the courts. After all, troubling as they are, these cases are the tiniest of exceptions to the general run of children cases.
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That’s true, as we know only 10% of cases are labelled “high conflict” and end up in court, but in reality, this translates to thousands of children every year and the barometer as to whether that number could still be reasonably viewed as nominal is in the working of the family court system itself – backed up, severely delayed and struggling to manage this tiny minority, as we would call it. That to my mind, defines the difficulty.
There are always going to be virtually impossible predicaments to solve, but I do think we can do better. So many cases never make it to court for all the wrong reasons; we can’t presume this means the system is working or functioning at acceptable levels. I do believe we can do better, for separating families and the high conflict cases which come to to court.
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“The standard that must be met by the prosecution’s evidence in a criminal prosecution: that no other logical explanation can be derived from the facts except that the defendant committed the crime, thereby overcoming the presumption that a person is innocent until proven guilty.”
The legal dictionary defines above the standard of proof needed in criminal cases and when prison is contemplated that should be the standard of proof in civil or contempt cases.
In all the recent cases where parents or relatives denied knowing where the children were situated there was the perfectly logical explanation that they could be telling the truth !Prison was therefore WRONG; I often help pregnant women to escape the UK to avoid forced adoption and I strongly advise them never to reveal to their relatives where they intend to go and to make contact later only by email and never by phone or letter .These relatives should then be able quite truthfully to say that they do not know where that mother or her children have gone ;hopefully thus (sometimes in vain) avoiding prison for failing to reveal information they never had in the first place !
Of course Court Orders should be obeyed and contact should be enforced by penal measures if necessary.The court however should NEVER issue “no contact orders” that are as inhumane as they are illegal.There exists no statute or delegated legislation that empowers a judge to forbid a mother (or father) who has committed no crime against children, from contacting her child even by email or phone and such orders breach both human rights and the UN convention as well as being without any legal foundation !
“Non molestation orders” are of course quite legal but were clearly designed to protect one person from harassment or violence from another person.The word “molest” is defined in the Oxford Dictionary as “to intentionally annoy” and only those perverse old men in wigs calling themselves judges could interpret the word in such a way as to prevent a mother and daughter having any contact whatever !Prison for sending a birthday card for example because they claim that is “molestation”!Twisting the Enlish language to enable themselves to vent their own spleen !That is what happened to Vicky Haigh who was actually sentenced to three years prison for saying hello to her daughter at what could only have been an accidental meeting when the father drove in to a petrol station near Vick’s house to fill up and had his daughter in the car.
This fact was cleverly obscured by judge Wall who talked at great length to the press about how she had coached her daughter to accuse her father of sex abuse as though she was being sentenced for that; when in fact Vicky was imprisoned for opening the car door and saying hello!There followed “Three years in the slammer” (reduced by 5 months on appeal).
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FA, what you are doing is assuming that the account given by a parent is true. A judge, having heard that person give evidence is entitled to say, I just don’t believe that. Sure, there has to be good reason to do so, and if the judge cannot identify a reason to reject the evidence, there’s a real problem. If you read the judgments, however, the judges do in fact explain the reasons for their rejecting what the parent says and that’s how the criminal standard of proof comes to be met.
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” the judges do in fact explain the reasons for their rejecting what the parent says and that’s how the criminal standard of proof comes to be met.”
I’ve always thought that the criminal standard of proof is “beyond reasonable doubt”, not just the presence of a judge’s explanation of his / her decision.
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JJ if you read the opening of my email you will see that I am not assuming truth or otherwise from parents or relatives.Simply that prison cannot be the right solution when “another logical possibility exists” .If the judge believes the parents are lying that simple subjective belief cannot justify prison whilst the simple possibility exists that they are not.
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Reading the report in the Mr. Justice Keehan case referred to, he concluded for clear reasons that the family members were indeed lying to him. What is subjective about that? On your analysis, the court order to disclose where the mother had taken the child would be totally unenforceable. Not worth the paper its printed on and as a result, the child is to be deprived of a relationship with her father on her mother’s whim. What is your solution to that problem?
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JJ:-The solution must be to pursue the mother and imprison her if indeed she has broken a court order by leaving;and that is generally what happens.
The judge’s opinion is subjective because it only his opinion that the family members knew where the child was but whilst that is enogh in a civil court that is not enough to jail someone in a criminal court since there was also the possibility that they were telling the truth and knew nothing at all.Jail should only happen if a court order has been broken beyond reasonable doubt and here there was a doubt.No court order even from the Chief Justice himself can force someone to give information they do not possess !
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The whole point is that no one is saying where the mother is! That’s why the court has penalised people who do know but aren’t saying. A jury is every bit as entitled in criminal proceedings to say that they don’t believe what a defendant is saying, that they are plainly lying and so they are to be convicted. The judge actually saw these people and heard their answers. He was in no doubt of their lies and gave objective reasons as to why he reached that conclusion.
How did one of them know about the time difference for wherever the mother was staying? Why did one of them delete texts sent to and received from the mother? Why did one of them admit to the police that she had had a recent skype conversation with the mother and then try to explain it away before the judge?
The issue of proof in criminal cases is not beyond any doubt but beyond reasonable doubt. Let’s be clear – your position would leave this father and child bereft of any realistic hope that they could enjoy the proper father/daughter relationship they are entitled to.
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JJ THEY WERE NOT ALLOWED A JURY !I doubt in most of the cases above that they even had a proper defence allowed to be presented against the contempt charge itself! I beleve both fathers and mothers should always have contact but not at the extent of possibly innocent people who may not have known where the children were.Sound more like judicial frustration than justice to me !
More important than contact orders however are NOcontact orders for which the judges have no legal authority whatever and who flout the human rights Act and the U.N Convention worse than the pseudo criminals they are so eager to convict !
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Reblogged this on Children's Rights.
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Reblogged this on The Story of my Twin Boys and commented:
Does Jail time do family Courts any good? I will rather go to jail for life than stay silent one more day !
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Thank you for your comment and for sharing, Phill.
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No worries Natasha, I have had a year of being gaged by the Courts and I have had enough ! If they send me to jail next week for contempt of Court they better send me down for life as I have had it with the Family Courts in the UK and all the secrecy to hide the fraud they commit daily ….
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I’m so sorry to hear that.
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It’s life , will I change the system or the world ? , I guess not , but if I can open one persons eyes to this abuse and help one , mum , dad , child or family then it’s all worth it !
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Good luck, Phill.
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