'Parental alienation' and BBC News article on court ordered contact

[girlwhowearsglasses]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66534732

I am just 😲at this - perhaps I shouldn't be. Kids are being sent to the custody of abusive fathers because they have played the 'parental alienation' card and said it's the mum making it up.

This is shocking :-(

I think that lots of abusers are very charming and very plausible. When you pair this with an abused parent who is often vulnerable, afraid and worried about the consequences of anything they say, as well as Judges who believe that they are far too sharp and too clever to ever be taken in by a liar, the odds are often in the abuser’s favour.

There will always be a number of parents who do try and influence their children. But it is nowhere near the number of abusive parents who use the Courts to continue with their abuse.

I was equally appalled at this.

Those women and children are receiving more protection from the courts in Northern Cyprus than they are from U.K. courts!

Where have you been? It's fairly well known I thought? Parental alienation is controversial and coming under fire, however I have seen it and do believe it exists. I just think it's used by abusers and family courts are not fit for purpose.

I'm so happy this has been brought to light as we're heading this way with ex-dp as he gets more and more erratic. I've avoided it so far as I've read all the horror stories of family court. Feel so angry for all the parents amd children that have been failed so badly by this awful system.

You see it on this site daily...

I'm not shocked, but only because I have been through the system. Beforehand I naively thought it prioritised the safety and well being of children. Instead dads rights seem to dominate the conversation.

Despite a bank of police, medical and school evidence, it was how "charming" dad was with cafcass officer and his "lovely house" that seemed uppermost in their minds (direct quotes from their report)

They ordered increased contact with dad after I went to court with serious safeguarding concerns. I was effectively punished for raising concerns.

My son refused to go, he was too scared, thankfully we got a sensible Judge who didn't punish me for my son's decision. But that was only after an awful meeting with a big red faced brute of a cafcass officer who kept telling me I should force him to go. "You'd force him to go to school or the dentist". Well no actually, not if school or the dentist had tried to kill him I wouldn't.

The family courts are in a horrifying mess

Family courts and parental alienation are separate things to consider here, I think.

I'm not at all surprised that family courts are a shitshow.

I think that saying any more than "parental alienation is an understudied subject that family courts shouldn't ignorantly rely on" would be fair.

I sure as fuck have seen parental alienation happen, but to be honest, it's usually a FAILED attempt at alienation by the non-resident parent -who bitterly turns it back on the resident parent.

I'm shocked that the article doesn't acknowledge that parental
Alienation most frequently occurs from the RP to the NRP. The RP is usually the Mother as it goes as family court still favours Mothers statistically. There still isn't a presumption of 50/50 parental responsibility (where there are no safeguarding issues) and it's still easy for false allegations of DV to be made and believed without evidence. There is no acknowledgment or even real
Mention of the good dads prevented from seeing their children by toxic Mothers.
It's very one sided. It shouldn't be a gender issue. It should be an issue of controlling and abusive parents, not just Fathers-because it's certainly perpetrated by both mothers and fathers.

It’s standard for the family courts , and hard to believe because it’s so preposterous unless you’ve experienced it first hand.

It very clearly is a gender issue, because men are much more likely to be domestically abusive than women.

My DCousin divorced -she(ex) threatened to accuse him of abuse if he didn’t agree to contact plans. That was over 10 years ago.
Hopefully not so easy now. This was in Scotland.

This was certainly by husband's experience. £20k on legal costs, court told ex off many times for influencing the children against their dad, but ultimately did nothing. This was about 20 years ago so I hope things are better now. When I tell our story on MN I am usually accused of making it up

I was shocked to find that cafcass officers don't have anyone read or quality assure their reports before filing to court. In public law all decisions are made by a panel including senior managers and lawyers, all statements and evidence is checked first by a manager then by a lawyer but in private law the cafcass officer decides, writes and files their report in total isolation. There are no checks and balances against bias or discrimination. It's a disaster.

Agreed. It's astonishing, particularly given that, from my conversations with judges I know in my personal life,.it's clear that many know that the quality of cafcass work is often very poor but equally can find it difficult to go against the cafcass recommendations without a clear basis to do so

@Katypp it's
What happened to my H last year-in fact it's still happening now. No one on here believes it-but in the wider world it's very common. And awful.
Obvs some men are horrible abusers that
Shouldn't be near any kids at all. But it's not confined to men and Fathers.

And yes re the quality of cafcass. The report in my dh's case was almost completely inaccurate, (as stated by both sides) contained allegations the ex wife had made recorded as if they were fact, with no evidence (because they were false allegations which was eventually proved) got vital but simple details wrong. In fact it meant an extra day in court going through it to get it right. Piss poor.

But equally @ClaudiaWankleman women are statistically more likely to coercively control children and alienate them against Farhers, as they have more access to them, traditionally, after separation. So...

I believe you.

Ive been on MN since pretty much the start.

Having an horrendous time at the moment with DS who has been dragged through the coals. Haven’t ever posted on here because I know there wouldn’t

be much support.

Family court is horrific. I have a few friends that have been there. The mothers are just assumed to have anxiety and fathers are believed no matter what. Some fathers use the court to continue to abuse their exes. Family court is not about the best interests of a child it’s ensuring men have their rights to access regardless of what they have done or how scared a child might be of them.

My ex partner used to deliberately neglect our son's serious medical condition in order to provoke me into withholding contact out of fear. Every time I sent him away I expected to hear from some hospital doctor somewhere giving me bad news. All I got from Cafcass was "it's his father, he wouldn't do something like that" 🤦🏻‍♀️😢 stupid fuckers. I ended up with a mental breakdown with the stress and have been on meds ever since. Son is an adult now, says his father is a bully and doesn't even see him anymore.

Some fathers are very conniving and manipulative and everyone still believes that it's only abuse if they hit you.

I am so sorry. This is similar to what I went through. It's awful when you feel so utter helpless and your child 's life is at risk. I am now seriously ill and disabled which was undoubtedly triggered by the stress it put me under.

Schools etc tell a children to "tell an Adult" if they don't feel safe. But my son told me, and he told his teachers, and we both sent statements to the court. But cafcass decided to minimise and laugh at the whole thing. In the end the only way my son could keep himself safe was to refuse to see his dad and I was tongue tied to even let him know I supported his decision because of the risk of being accused of parental alienation. My son has sadly learnt that "tell an adult" doesn't mean anything while the family courts prioritise dads rights over children''s safety

Going through this atm with an abuser. He's managed to get reports thrown out, myself made 50% culpable for domestic abuse and also has the cafcass guardian firmly on his side.. this is an abuser who punched me in the face in front of our daughter and also brutally assaulted her when she was 14 months and this was made fact by the Court.
I really don't know what will happen.. especially with cafcass on his side.. he's inching closer to unsupervised contact and it terrifies me.

"no one on here believes it"

I think it's more likely we apply a healthy dose of cynicism.

Every victim of abuse watches their ex go and line up a new and gullible girlfriend who swallows the "Psycho ex... It's all lies" story hook line and sinker. So forgive us if we sound a note of caution about the truth. And of course the new partner isn't actually allowed in court, and shouldnt be being told what went on in court... So how they are all so sure what happens I don't know

I would run a mile from any man who claimed his ex was the problem. It's a huge red flag to me.

I worked at a senior level as a specialist family law solicitor in Scotland for twenty years.

I held many other roles and effectively worked purely in domestic abuse cases for women or appointed by court for children by the time I left.

I would say in that time, at the coal face of the most difficult and complex cases, I could count on one hand the number of times I saw parental alienation in operation. That's out of thousands of cases.

I saw hundreds accused of it, but only maybe four or five where it clearly happened and indeed I withdrew for professional breakdown in relations reasons.

Parental alienation misuse is exceedingly common and exceptionally dangerous to women and children who are facing true situations of abuse.

I saw instances of unexperienced solicitors who should know better brandishing it about in this dangerous manner.

There is a world of difference between a woman hell bent on keeping her child safe, and a woman hell bent on making her ex partners life hell. The later does exist, but it's much rarer.

The level of training, experience, work and practice I did to get to where I was took years.

It astounds me to this day that I would be appearing in court before a Sheriff who, for example, was a purely criminal background.

There is so much wrong with the systems but at present there is a huge amount of room for error.

I don't know about the specifics of these cases, they have tracked down women where the order was made to stay with the father.

Thinking back to the handful I mentioned, in one it was made to grandparents, in two the mother continued until the father broke, and in two eventually the child voted with their feet and went to dad. I never saw an order removing the child for it.

That was not our experience at all. I do wish people would stop assuming all men = violent and controlling, all women = angelic victims. My husband's wife told the children (8 and 3 at the time) she would kill herself if they did not tell CAFCASS they did not want to see their dad. It most certainly happens that women are the alienators too.

Well we've been married nearly 20 years and I was allowed in court so saw it myself, but whatever