Monthly Archives: February 2019

Government To Extend Legal Aid For Parents Challenging Adoption Orders

12 Tuesday Feb 2019

Posted by in Family Law, forced adoption, legal aid, Researching Reform

≈ 14 Comments

The government has promised to extend legal aid support to anyone with parental responsibility for a child who wants to challenge applications for placement or adoption orders.

The government will also extend eligibility for non‑means tested legal aid for parents or anyone with parental responsibility who would like to oppose applications for placement orders or adoption orders in public family law proceedings. The Ministry of Justice will bring these policies in line with care and other orders classified under “Special Children Act 1989 cases”. Special Children Act cases include care orders, supervision orders, child assessment orders and emergency protection orders.

The Ministry of Justice will also bring forward proposals to provide a less draconian merits test, which will be equivalent to the merits test currently applicable in “Special Children Act 1989 cases”.

At the same time, the government has promised to increase the scope of legal aid to include Special Guardianship Orders in private family law cases and support for separated migrant children in immigration cases.

As well as a review into legal aid for placement and adoption orders, the government has confirmed that it will increase support for people accessing the justice system as litigants in person.

The review is part of a Legal Support Action Plan, the details of which were published 7 February on the government’s official website. The plan has been designed to help improve access to legal advice and support.

You can read the press release here, which has links to various documents including the action plan.

MKAP

 

Top Court Finds Judge Bullied Mother Into Accepting Care Orders For Her Children

11 Monday Feb 2019

Posted by in Family Law, Researching Reform

≈ 209 Comments

A judge bullied a mother into agreeing to care orders for her two children, the Court of Appeal has found. The orders made by Her Honour Judge Carr QC in Sheffield were set aside by the Court of Appeal and replaced with short-term interim care orders.

The Court of Appeal raised a number of serious concerns in its judgment. The now common practice of judges making up their minds about a case before the parties put their arguments forward during hearings was noted, a phenomenon that will be familiar to lay advisors and families who have been forced to represent themselves in their own family cases.

Lord Justice Peter Jackson sitting at the Court of Appeal said that there had been “a serious procedural irregularity.”

The judgment says:  “consent or non-opposition to the interim care order was not freely given, but was secured by oppressive behaviour on the part of the judge in the form of inappropriate warnings and inducements”. These included:

  • The judge repeatedly isolating the mother and threatening her
  • The judge making fun of her counsel

The Court of Appeal also noted that family law and social work professionals in the case appeared to know very little about the case’s details and that the local authority had mishandled the case and its approach to the appeal.

Legal Futures offers the background to the case and quotes from the judgment, which contain some of the judge’s comments:

Before the mother’s barrister was able to brief the judge on his instructions to contest the care order, HHJ Carr told him that “if it is heard today I shall certainly make findings that your client will be stuck with”.

Her Honour HHJ Carr used the following language, which amounted to bullying and coercive threats, before hearing the case: ‘very risky for her’; ‘a very very precarious position’; ‘inevitably, I’m going to make findings… that that is significant harm. I don’t think there’s any question about it’; ‘not… without some consequences’… “oh, nonsense” and “preposterous proposition you’re putting to me, it’ll fall on deaf ears.”

HHJ Carr also threatened the mother by telling her that she would probably send any findings to the police and make sure that they go to the Crown Prosecution Service.

Jackson LJ said: The only conclusion that the mother and her advisers could draw from this and similar statements… is that the judge had made up her mind and was sure to make adverse findings that would be damaging to her in the long run.”

This kind of behaviour is commonplace in the family courts. We would like to invite all those lay advisors and parents who have experienced this kind of bullying and pre-emptive decision making to leave their comments below this piece as the site is read by judges and politicians. Thank you.

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Event: Faces Of The Crisis

06 Wednesday Feb 2019

Posted by in child abuse, child welfare, Domestic Violence, Researching Reform

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An online event launched by the Women’s Coalition aims to raise awareness around domestic abuse and child contact in family courts.

The social media event, “Faces Of The Crisis”, takes place next month and invites women from around the world who have lost custody of their children to abusive partners to send in a photo of themselves to the organisation, with details of their experience. The event will include an exhibition of photos of mothers who have experienced losing their child to an abusive partner.

Currently 379 people are confirmed to take part, with a further 706 interested in engaging with the event.

The Women’s Coalition is an international non profit organisation based in California and was founded by Cindy Dumas. She set up the coalition after a family court awarded custody of her son Damon to her partner, who went on to sexually abuse their son throughout his childhood. Damon was only able to escape the abuse, and the family court’s control, by getting married at sixteen. He is now the Communications Director for the coalition.

Cindy went on to develop a new model for child contact cases with a view to protecting future generations of children from abusive parents. She has proposed legislation to tackle this issue, which she has called The Child Custody Court Act, or Damon’s Law, after her son. The law proposes a new structure in which child contact cases are heard in conventional civil courts rather than family courts, with the right to a jury trial and full due process protections which are given within civil courts and jury trials.

As part of the model, Damon’s Law also suggests the following:

  • Custody cases heard in regular civil court, i.e. not Family Court
  • Right to a jury trial
  • Right to a speedy trial
  • Videotaped forensic interview of children ​​​​
  • Children may testify only by closed circuit TV​
  • Parents may hire experts to testify​
  • All law enforcement and forensic interviewer evidence admissible​​
  • Primary attachment figure retains temporary primary custody until jury verdict
  • No mandatory or recommending mediation
  • No court-appointed evaluators, children’s attorneys, mediators, psychologists
  • No social services involvement until and unless jury finds both parents abusive​

After trial:

  • Jury decides 1) who is the primary parent and 2) if either parent is abusive.
  • Primary parent maintains primary custody; other parent gets frequent visitation.
  • Visits with abusive parent only with primary parent’s consent and supervised
  • No contact with a sexually abusive parent
  • Judge may not overrule jury verdict
  • Database documenting relevant variables and outcomes​

Mothers who wish to take part in the event should send a photo of themselves (alone), their first name and the country they are from, to WomensCoalitionIntl@gmail.com or on the event’s Facebook page. Only first names will be used for the exhibition.

In order to take part, you will need to have been:

  1. The primary nurturer of your children and that role was taken from you after separation/divorce through being forced into equal or less parenting time
    AND/OR
  2. Unable to protect your children from an abusive father, i.e. if he was given unsupervised visitation, regardless of whether you maintained primary custody.

The Facebook page for the event says that parents can also include a brief summary of how custody and/or unsupervised visitation was given to the father, if they’d like to and that the organisation may edit the summary for clarity, brevity and anonymity.

The exhibition will include photos sent in by mothers previously, which can be seen on the coalition’s website, along with short video clips of mothers talking about their experiences.

The event takes place on Sunday, March 31, 2019 at 1 PM – 4 PM PDT. 

If you would like to take part in this event and you are based in the UK, please be aware that sharing details of your case, including your name and your photo, may constitute a breach of your court order.

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Interesting Things

05 Tuesday Feb 2019

Posted by in News, Researching Reform

≈ 7 Comments

Rise of The Parents’ Guardians

Social workers with a passion for family welfare have launched an organisation called Parents Advocacy and Rights (PAR), dedicated to representing parents as they go through child protection proceedings. Researching Reform was the first project to do this, with the hope that the sector would implement this working strategy into their practice so we are thrilled to see this happen.

The lead social worker for this project is Maggie Mellon, an outspoken child welfare professional and former Vice Chair for the British Association of Social Workers, who has been openly vocal about the need to treat parents with dignity and compassion during child protection work. The organisation is based in Scotland, and we hope that genuinely passionate and compassionate social workers will think about doing the same in other parts of the country. Maggie, any plans for a branch in England?

 

Images courtesy of @weirhopper (Twitter)
BASW Magazine, February 2019

 

New Social Care Evidence Store Launched By Social Work England Partner

The What Works Centre has unveiled a new evidence library for children’s social work, which currently includes 11 reviews of interventions and practice areas. The Centre’s press release offers more information on the library, which aims to highlight which social work practices have a proven track record of working and which do not. What Works is collaborating with new regulatory body Social Work England (SWE) to try to improve the state of children’s social care in the UK.

The new library uses a “Plus and Minus” ratings system: one plus means the practice or policy is supported by evidence which suggests it works; two plusses mean the evidence available suggests the practice appears to be consistently effective;  a zero sign means that the evidence if available shows mixed to no results and a minus sign indicates that the current evidence for the practice suggests the policy tends to make things worse. This however, does not mean the evidence being used is automatically considered to be robust or accurate. In order to address the variations in quality and availability of evidence, the Centre has added another layer to the ratings system which measures the quality of the evidence used as well. Check out the Signs of Safety ratings, which have already ruffled a few feathers.

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Naive Family Of Mum On The Run Ask Judge Not To Prosecute Her or Remove Her Child If She Comes Home

04 Monday Feb 2019

Posted by in child welfare, Family Law, Researching Reform

≈ 27 Comments

The family of Ellie Yarrow-Sanders, a mother going through the family courts with her three-year old son, has asked her to come home after she went missing following the start of family court proceedings. Ellie’s mother and sister have asked the judge and the police not to prosecute Ellie and to guarantee that she won’t lose custody of her son, if she comes home. 

The request, which was made in the hope of reassuring Ellie that she could return home without repercussions for what the court will view as kidnapping, has so far not been met with any response from Ellie, who has been missing with her son for over six months.

In an official statement issued by the Courts and Tribunals Judiciary on 1st February, the judge overseeing the case did not promise to let Ellie keep custody of Olly should she return home, saying only that he promised to deal with her case fairly. Mr Justice Williams also said that a senior social worker had been appointed to the case, to “seek to promote Olly’s welfare”, and that this did not mean there was any chance of Olly being placed in foster care. However the wording of the statement leaves room for a change in contact.

In cases where a parent flees with a child, family courts will often take the view that the parent on the run can no longer be trusted, leaving the door open for a contact order in favour of the remaining parent. Unless the fleeing parent can show that their actions were motivated by a desire to protect a child from risk of harm and provide evidence of that harm, the family court will almost always take the kidnapping into consideration when making an order for contact.

A letter written by Ellie to her family shortly before she disappeared alleges that Olly’s father was abusive, and that his portrayal of her in court had convinced the judge that she was causing Olly emotional harm. Ellie felt she had no choice but to go on the run.

In what’s believed to be a first for a family court judge, Mr Justice Williams also posted a tweet on the Judiciary’s official account asking Ellie to come home. The tweet includes the hash tag #ComeHomeOlly rather than #ComeHomeEllie, a choice which could be seen as manipulative and in bad taste.

The tweet prompted an intense conversation on Twitter, with some tweeters taking the view that assurances from the family courts were empty gestures, while others felt that Ellie should come back and face the court. Further hashtags were also added by tweeters in response to the Judiciary’s own, including   and 

One tweeter wrote:

“She will not be given a voice, there are thousands of us getting abused in family court, acting like you don’t know and care, I’ve had 4 yrs of trying to protect my child so if I was her I’d #keeprunningellie keep that boy safe.”

Another tweeter felt that the public had no right to judge the case without all the facts:

“None of you making such sweeping statements against this man or woman have the full facts before you . The main concern is the child. The truth is that no one comes to work looking to take children off their families. She needs to get back into court and fight her corner.”

One tweeter also questioned whether Mr Justice Williams had the right to promise not to place Olly in foster care:

“I don’t get how a judge can say about not going in2 care. OF COURSE I hope it don’t come 2 that but how can it be promised?? Or did i get that wrong?”

EO

The original Facebook post published on 2nd February by Ellie’s mother Donna and sister Maddie, calling for her and Olly’s safe return home has already received over 125 comments, with some posters telling the family that it was safer for Ellie to remain on the run. Other posters have offered their support and sympathy over Ellie and Olly’s disappearance.

Maddie’s post says the following:

“This is an official statement regarding Ellie and Olly.

This is NOT us siding with Patrick Sheridan. This is us independently and with the judge regarding her next step. As her mother and sister, we support her coming home but only under certain conditions regarding her safety. Without going into specifics I urge you to read her story so you can understand why she had to make the hardest decision of her life and go on the run with her son.

We would love for Ellie and Olly to return home to us, her family who will do everything in our power to protect them from going through anything like that again. We support her with coming home, as the media are stating, but only on certain conditions, such as safety from being prosecuted and that she will not lose custody that come with proven assurance by the media and the judge.

Please believe that we are doing this with the best interest of them both, as a life on the run is very lonely.

We miss you more everyday.”

Posters on Facebook seemed to be overwhelmingly in support of Ellie remaining on the run.

One comment under the post read:

“It maybe lonely but it’s safer. Until they publicly say they will not take Olly from her and start to investigate Patrick then Ellie is safer where she is. I hope to God one day she can come back home.”

Another poster said:

“Please never trust the courts , they are so corrupt the minute she steps foot back in sight Olly with be snatched from her and she will never see him again! Go and be with them where no one will know who they are and start a new life as a family so she won’t be alone then ☹️ #keeprunningellie”

A further post urged the police to investigate the allegations in Ellie’s letter:

“I would just like to see Essex police investigate the crimes she’s listed in her letter. She’s been really specific with easily corroborated evidence. I feel if her letter was substantiated then her actions would be viewed very differently by SS and court, but while they remain in the ‘allegation’ category it’s a double-edged sword.”

One poster felt cases like this would continue as long as domestic violence laws remained piecemeal:

“Until this country does something to seriously change the laws around domestic abuse, control and coercion Ellie needs to keep running. She’s running not just for herself & Ollie now, but for every single one of us who’s ever been put through this kind of abuse.”

Ellie and olly.jpg