Welcome to another week.
A family law barrister, with 15 years’ experience, said that the family justice system was unsafe for domestic violence victims, lacked transparency and left her traumatised, after experiencing her own contact battle as a mother through the courts.
The barrister, who chose not to reveal her identity in a Daily Mail piece published today, said her ex partner had made the submission for contact following her refusal to let their daughter have overnight stays with him because of abuse the mother had suffered by the father.
The barrister lost her case and is now appealing.
In the story, she says staff inside the system made her feel belittled, and bullied her, and that her allegations of abuse were minimised and dismissed while her former partner’s behaviour was described by the judge in her case as ‘inappropriate parenting.’
She told the Daily Mail, “My experience convinced me the family court is not safe for women and children who are victims of abuse. I was telling the truth, had medical and police evidence, and had done everything ‘right’. Yet I lost the case.”
The barrister told the tabloid she was now too traumatised to go back to work as a family law barrister.
While it is good of this lawyer to come forward and tell her story in order to highlight the poor practice and lack of awareness around domestic abuse, this is not the first time a professional inside the family justice system has ‘turned’ on the system after being targeted by it.
At least one female solicitor and one female social worker have come forward in recent years to criticise the family courts after having to go through the system as a service user.
What really concerns Researching Reform however, is that these individuals all worked inside the system for years — in the case of the barrister in this story, for more than a decade — and yet they appear not to have understood or cared to acknowledge and address the very serious gaps inside the courts while earning a living from that system.
Gaps, which by their own admission, deeply traumatise people when they are at their most vulnerable, and in extreme cases put the lives of children and parents at risk.
Anyone who has been inside the system for more than a moment can see very clearly that it is reckless with people’s lives – professionals inside the system shouldn’t wait until they are personally affected before advocating for change.
You can read the story in full here.
Many thanks to Dana for alerting us to this story.
Researching Reform 
I have exsposed corruption in family courts for many years, yet it falls on death ears, even allegations of fruad reported to Police only to be turned away, they didnt want to know, Im sorry to all those affected by this lawless behaviour , corruption is so deap it will take many decades to put a stop to it, the system fails and even i have failed to bring those resposible to justice.
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While all details of this story are disturbing and seemingly wrong, perhaps i can suggest the most egregious comment “I was telling the truth,”.
from the CPS website;
“Perjury is regarded as “one of the most serious offences on the criminal calendar because it wholly undermines the whole basis of the administration of justice”: Chapman J in R v Warne (1980) 2 Cr. App. R. (S.) 42. It is regarded as serious whether it is committed in the context of a minor case, for example a car passenger who falsely states that the driver did not jump a red light as alleged, or a serious case, for example a false alibi witness in a bank robbery case.”
Having had personal experience of an HHJ state, (that after one party had admitted under oath to perjury from the very outset, in the MIAM protocols so even the initial written statement seriously fabricated these matters, even before court), yet apparently lying from the very outset and all the way through were ‘not relevant’ in her court.
This is at the heart of many of the problems and of course breach Article 6 Article 8 and more of the ECHR.
That HHJ has now met the very high threshold for multiple senior police officers upon review to direct a criminal investigation into her for conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, coincidentally.
A very experienced barrister still practicing in his 70’s told me perjury occurs every day in the family courts. It is respectfully submitted this is the cause of much that is wrong in the family courts, and it being so prevalent (to paraphrase Chapman J) may be the reason the family courts undermine the whole basis of justice?
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Secret family court hearings, jailing people who speak out agaist them, i do know some victims of this secret injustice in family courts. That have been sent to prison for six months, they tried to do it to me but failed for just speaking out for victims.
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Thank you Natasha for bringing this to our attention. I commend your strong comment that people within the system should not withhold failures of the Family Court until or unless they are affected personally.
It’s not only women who are treated so disgracefully. When I was campaigning ten years ago a barrister, Michael Cox, dared to break the law to uphold a principle. The notorious CSA had branded him a ‘parent without care’ or ‘non-resident parent’ when Michael looked after the children for 50% of the time. His ex-wife received child benefit and family tax credits, he didn’t, yet the CSA said that he owed £42,000 in unpaid child support. He was told he would have to cough up or be banged up. Michael’s ex had written to the Court pleading with them not to imprison him as it would force her to stop work and live on benefits. His sons (16 and 13) were also distraught at the prospect of their Dad being sent down. The Clerk of the Court had informed the Magistrates that their decision was not to rule on the ‘children’s best interests’ as the CSA had already considered those ‘interests’. Michael was sent down. Nobody had asked the children of course.
And many people will remember Bob Geldof being told by a Court official not to say that he loved his children, as it might be thought of as ‘extreme’.
We need those who make their very lucrative livings working in the system to speak out against the present rough justice meted out to parents and children, and which ruins so many lives, but before they are affected personally.
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Shattering to read too .. I suppose it really has to break far more people and do far more dramatic harm before we strip Family Court’s of their immunity to transparency..
As someone that came through bad systems I recognize it all frankly as oppression by the well to do classes having undemocratic dominion once more ..At the Working class end of this it’s life ..
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It makes a change to see the tables turned. i have absolutely no sympathy for this woman. she has obviously made a very good living for many years while watching hundreds of people and children suffer at the hands of compulsive liars yet done nothing.
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This is the link to that story.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-9916813/Agony-fighting-child-courts-family-lawyer.html
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Link is included in the RR post, Keith, just so you’re aware.
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Sorry Natasha i didnt see that. silly me.
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I completely agree Keith I have no sympathy for this lady either for the same reason you have stated.
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As usual the solution to a complicated problem is very simple.
Family Courts should be subject to exactly the same rules and procedures as Criminal courts.iNNOCENT UNTIL PROVED GUILTY BEYOND REASONABLE DOUBT and also OPEN TO THE PUBLIC with parents able to complain in the media about any unfair treatment giving out the names of themselves and their children.
Before social workers and family courts were invented around 1948 trained police and criminal courts did a far better and far fairer job preventing child abuse than the present lot !
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Excellent article. We need to stop Social Workers from exploiting the law to their own advantage, simply because they can. The system is barbaric frankly.
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Shaz social workers are instructed by in house solicitors how to abuse the laws to their advantage
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I agree. many of these inhouse LA solicitors should be behind bars for what they have done to innocent people and the psychological harm caused to the children.
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Keith some of these in house lawyer have fake qulifacations , its all covered up , i inestigated one and it shocked me how they employed him. AA solicitors bow road london he came from, the company never exsisted, AA was him his set up that fooled Solisitors regulation authority to rejestering him for family court work. Its shocking lies and more lies .
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Money talks in family court not evidence or the child’s voice. I agree with the other posts – the lack of transparency and the outset of lies/perjury are rife but overlooked!! It is sad that this is getting so much exposure because she was a barrister, what about people who are not legally trained but expected to act as though they are because they cannot afford legal representation. This happened in my my case both were openly proven to have lied yet the HHJ turned it on me in her judgement because they had barristers and I didn’t. I was allowed to be bullied on the stand by said barristers, however when I tried to argue my case as a LIP I was called overbearing whilst my ex was called calm. Coercive behaviour is overlooked because the whole system thrives on gaslighting the parties simply because they can!!
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I have 4 children and lost the one (youngest) at Family Court to forced ‘alleged’ adoption.
I’d married at 16, had my first baby at 17 and it wasn’t until I became older, I realised my perpetrator had been grooming me even though we were married.
I was raped in earlier days, when we had disagreements and I didn’t want to share the same bed as him. I’d have him wake me up in the middle of the night digging his elbows in my back putting his whole body weight on me to wake me up. Other bad things happened to me in my sleep too which I know, because I woke up and caught him out/in the act.
I would cry at first, then I started defending myself lashing out because it was a horrible thing been woken up to elbows and beatings out the blue like that. Sometimes I’d manage to stop him doing it, other times he’d get worse and he could never tell me why he’d done this with his elbows/beatings.
There were other things he influenced me on too personal to share here, but he’d bribe me he’d tell my family who knew their view points on certain things so was getting me to do the opposite then relying on it to bribe me with.
One day, at a meeting with SS, I’d mentioned an incident where my dad had asked him to do a car boot with him, on the spot. I said no, because as usual I’d had full care of our children and he’d hardly seen them and not just because of work. It was nothing unusual for him to stay out most of or all of the night leaving my children and I with little if any food, no milk for drinks, even no electric so my children and I (3 children at the time) would at times sleep by candlelight and they do remember this. Too frightened to go to bed, I’d have us all sleep in the living room by candle light, although I wouldn’t really sleep concerned there were lit candles around.
As my dad stood next to him looked to one side, my since ex husband put his fist up to me and looked so angry on his face I went upstairs to have a bath, feeling that bit safer my dad was there. But my dad had obviously left, when I realised the bathroom door I’d locked burst open with an angry husband bursting through it.
I’ve never felt so vulnerable in all my life, as he proceeded to get both hands like a double fist together as he beat me hard on my back repeatedly. I almost blacked out, leaning over the side of the bath or rather the force threw me that when then back up again as he punched me so hard on the nose I was fortunate to defend my face just on time with my hands.
A female friend came with me to the hospital and I was so scared he’d drive past and see me I was shaking with fear. I had to have a back passage examination and freaked out again because a male Dr was sent to do it and I insisted it had to be a female.
Then my nose really hurt, but my wedding ring had to be cut off with what reminded me of a tin can opener leaving a neat straight cut through my wedding ring. Just to move this finger a mm killed with sharp pain going through it, I still experience to this day.
I’d been asked at this meeting about dv in the past from the husband I eventually got to leave and we’d got divorced by then. My Solicitor had rushed it through (8 months, it normally took 2 years on average) telling me it was the worst case she’d come across in her whole time as a Solicitor, so she did this for my children’s and my sake she told me.
I told the SW in front of the meeting I could try and find out from the hospital when it was because they have records. My SW said I can do that for you. So imagine my surprise when she came back to say nothing was on record. I tried later on to get said records myself, but sure enough they wasn’t there. Had the hospital failed to log it or had the SW encouraged them to make this record disappear. My bet would be the latter.
I was hit when pregnant, I’d stayed in hostels with my children, I’d been locked in the house with the house phone unplugged being called a slag, bitch and a tart because I dared to say I want a divorce on a Solicitor’s bad advice telling him, because he was so controlling to the point of telling me/choosing what I could wear and I’d told this Solicitor it could cause me to get beat up. Shortly after, there was an article in the local newspaper I wished I’d kept sharing how other women had been advised to tell their husband’s the same and the danger it was putting them in. I’d walked my children to school the next day, like a zombie in a mess crying. He’d also locked the doors threatening to take my son’s penicillin he knew I knew he was allergic to.
I told one of my children’s teacher’s who took me to speak with the headmistress, but I heard no more about this.
He would hide behind doors listening to my conversations, put me down for my singing even walking out of the one karaoke where everyone else enjoyed it and was walking in to the room to listen as he walked out. He told me no one else would want me, that he’d always find out where I live and how at the library through electoral rolls. He’d put me down in front of others belittling me, telling me I was stupid. But there were ones that noticed and one divorcee female had a go at him doing this, right in front of my parents asking him if it made him feel big.
I started believing I must be stupid, I lost confidence including the will to live. I felt so trapped. I had a major breakdown and was in a mh hospital not remembering a lot of it, I was so drugged up. I recovered and went on to gain custody of my children and my house.
Then by the time I had my 4th child I was with another man.
Forwarding on to the beginning of 2018 (said divorce was 1998) I’d lost an aunty who had died. I hadn’t attended the funeral, it been quite far away, but I’d got invited to a family member’s house locally where other family, my partner and last child who had grown older came home to live. Alot of the family had a drink, but I never. I’m recovering alcoholic since I got the news I was to lose my youngest child to adoption.
One of my family members there disclosed some things he knew had happened to me, from being told by my husband at the time, when he was still a child approaching his teen years and we’d all gone abroad together as a big family was back then in the 90’s. He’d observed how distant my husband had been with me, how he’d treated me but said he’d still had respect for him seeing him wear his suits, knowing he ran his own computer business. So he said he’d sat on a table with him with another young family member around the same age. Said family member said he’d asked my husband how he was so successful and that he’d told him he’d got other men to pay for sex with me giving them permission to beat me up if I didn’t comply and that that’s how he’d got his money to start off getting his computer parts disclosing rape basically. That he’d even offered him to sleep with me. Disgusted, I asked you didn’t did you. He said no. But first of all I said my husband was lying telling you that, I’d remember. He said not if you were drugged. Now back then I had been prescribed alot of meds and this was only my relative’s assumptions, but my husband had apparently told him, he’d got paid by men to do this.
After it sunk in more, shortly after, I realised said relative had only been a child, so I reported it to the police as alleged rape. I’d had another family member I asked since who used to visit us back then if he remembered my ex husband drugging me. He said I’d woke up upset my husband came home so late, and that said ex had said to me no wonder I drug you up.
I felt sure the police needed to know this just incase and I approached my ex husband who denied it, labelling said relative who told me a fantasist.
Straight away, 2 police came out, a male and a female pushing me to do a video interview the female was in particular. It was still sinking in. I was belittled by her the way she spoke to me, like when I spoke she came out with repeating my name which resonated through my head putting me off speaking thinking about my decisions since she felt historical rape if proved is difficult to prove.
Regardless, I did the interview told it can take 2 or 3 years to reach Court if it does. Around a year later I requested an update from her, after I’d phoned her expressing my disappointment how she’d treated me making me feel pushed because they’d came back the next day, her insisting me doing said interview. The male officer got her to back off and give me some space and was calmer with me, while they waited outside to come back in after for a decision.
I learnt from the female officer (or CID) even that my Case had been dropped. I’d not even been told about it. She said she’d sent me a letter and my witnesses didn’t come forward for me. This was despite me passing on information from another lady I didn’t know on a personal level getting to hear about it, alleging he’d abused then raped her as a child but the female officer wasn’t really interested or that similar had been alleged about her friends that he’d payed them money to sleep with them, offering her money to also sleep with her separately. Reluctantly, said female officer agreed to let me provide their details, which was minimal on my part as I did not know them fully.
I was told said female officer had sent me a letter. I’d not received one so asked for a copy. If I still have it she said, then a week later she sent it me by email, no address on it.
The one witness couldn’t come forward for her own personal reasons at that time, the rest declined they’d had a drink but my son who was there backed me up in front of others when I disclosed the night of the funeral.
Said female officer said her colleague checked SS records (had also checked other records, even though I’d declined consent due to inaccuracies on my files) and nothing could be found re dv. Then they obviously had not looked hard enough.
I hated men at the time, it took me a while to trust them again. But now I do more where I can, I support both mums and dads with their children.
Xxxx
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