A case in which a mother blocked the father from having contact with their son over grounds that the father was domestically abusive and had raped her, will now go to a fact finding hearing.
The mother lost custody of her four year old son after making the claims in court.
The initial ruling raised concerns after the the judge overseeing the case said the woman had not been raped because she had not fought back during the encounter.
Judge Tolson was criticised by the mother and her legal team for failing to make factual determinations on the several allegations around domestic violence raised by the mother, and for his outdated views on rape.
Established research confirms that victims of rape often freeze or become passive when being attacked.
The case was heard in the Family Division of the High Court last Thursday, where Ms Justice Russell said a new fact-finding hearing would take place and would be handled by another judge.
Our question this week, is just this: should parents who are found guilty of domestic abuse, or rape, be allowed to have contact with their children?
Researching Reform 
The past 11 years I encountered many such allegations. I believe that this short paper may be of assistance:
https://www.academia.edu/41133153/Ricochet_Quigley_and_Haas_effect_of_a_Gold-_or_Silver_Bullet_
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A child should never be deprived of contact with either parent unless one of the parents has been convicted in a criminal court of violent crimes against the child(.and I don’t mean a smack on the butt with the flat of the hand !)
In the case quoted supervised contact or overnight contact should be allowed.
There are too many cases where a parent has committed no violent crime and often no crime at all yet has been deprived of all contact face to face and even by email or telephone ! Parents have been jailed for waving at their own children in the street or sending a birthday card ! This is barbaric and it is the judges not the parents who should be jailed in such cases for breach of human rights and crimes against humanity
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First every case is different. But i believe if a parent or parents have been accused and then after a fully investigated claim. Accusations are proven credible. Then no any parent found guilty of such an hideous act should be allowed the opportunity to do again without some serious parenting help.
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How on earth can a Judge decide whether someone has been raped or not if the event happened years ago, and there was no action taken at the time. Had the police been informed within a day of the alleged attack? This mother blocked the father from seeing their children which happens all too often. She then alleges she blocked him because of an alleged rape on her. HHJ Tolson is in charge of the CLFC, 26 courts in High Holborn. Technically he erred by not having a FOF. If the FOF decides the rape did not take place, should the mother receive the same penalty for making a false allegation as the father would if he had committed it? Rape is a most serious criminal offence, it should only be heard in a criminal court.
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What if the mother wasn’t even aware herself of some of the things alleged to have happened to her at the time? Then also alleged to have happened to other children?
Having said this, I don’t believe contact should be stopped, I believe if necessary it should be supervised because one of my children got harmed (not by me) physically and they have eventually returned home most traumatised not ever getting chance to meet their dad again. Their dad sadly died and it got found in criminal court that it had ‘not’ been deliberate injury.
What I’m saying is, can we pre-determine how the child will feel once they’re older? It was thought at court that my child wouldn’t want to know their dad when my child was older.
They could not have got it more wrong.
xx
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Could there be a worse mother than Bay P’s mum? Well she was always “well in” with the “SS” so she could see her surviving children in jail ! Meanwhile scores of parents who had never been convicted of crimes in all their lives are forbidden by horrible judges to email or write to their children and risk jail if they so much a wave to them in the street or send them an anonymous birthday card !
Judges should be held to account and jailed when they order such barbarity……………
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Firstly there has to be seriously compelling reasons to prevent contact between children & their parents.
Secondly historic fact findings or any court case for that matter doesn’t prove the rights or wrongs only which barrister has put the best argument forward. Whoever sounds the most convincing is “on the balance of probabilities “ is judged to be truthful. Of course if there is actual reliable tangible evidence it’s a different matter.
My concern is with Judges. They all have their personal bias. I also believe they lose perspective when they have been in the job too long. They detach themselves from the families in front of them & switch off, losing their compassion & empathy in the process. They believe & are trusting of social workers, who have their own prejudices added to the mix. They ignore what the family say but give patronising lip services pretending they want to look for the best solution.
I think there should be a 5 year time limit for family court judges. There needs to be a total radical overhaul of the Family Court System & there needs to be an emphasis on a non adversarial approach.
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