Spero, I just read that - typical sad case which illustrates how hard it is for courts to do the right thing.
Father's new girl friend or step mother physically assaults 9 year old and hurts/mark her. Daughters don't want to see father nor his lover. Not surprising.
Girls are now 16 and 14 and know their own mind. I doubt the mother has done much to put them off their father -he probably did all that for himself but courts never seem to believe that.
I fundamentally disagree with this though:
"I appreciate that parenting headstrong or strong-willed teenagers can be particularly taxing, sometimes very tough and exceptionally demanding. And in relation to the parenting of teenagers no judge can safely overlook the teaching of Gillick v West Norfolk and Wisbech Area Health Authority and anor [1986] AC 112, in particular the speeches of Lord Fraser of Tullybelton and Lord Scarman. But parental responsibility does not shrivel away, merely because the child is 14 or even 16, nor does the parental obligation to take all reasonable steps to ensure that a child of that age does what it ought to be doing, and does not do what it ought not to be doing. I accept (see Cambra v Jones [2014] EWHC 2264 (Fam), paras 20, 25) that a parent should not resort to brute force in exercising parental responsibility in relation to a fractious teenager. But what one can reasonably demand – not merely as a matter of law but also and much more fundamentally as a matter of natural parental obligation – is that the parent, by argument, persuasion, cajolement, blandishments, inducements, sanctions (for example, 'grounding' or the confiscation of mobile phones, computers or other electronic equipment) or threats falling short of brute force, or by a combination of them, does their level best to ensure compliance. That is what one would expect of a parent whose rebellious teenage child is foolishly refusing to do GCSEs or A-Levels or 'dropping out' into a life of drug-fuelled crime. Why should we expect any less of a parent whose rebellious teenage child is refusing to see her father? "
I don't do any of those things ever that that judge suggests - not all parents are the same. I have never grounded or punished a child and as my children are so well brought up by my better approach by the time they are teenagers they know what is right and do the right thing.
(Nor though would I ever deny them any contact with their father - who is welcome to them half the time if he wants but chooses zero nights a year, more fool him).
I also disagree with the court think therapy is always right. if the mother and girls don't want it that's fine. Why should we all kow tow to the views of social workers, lawyers, courts who might happen to think therapy is a great thing for everyone to take part in?
The bottom line here is with older children like this in practice they make up their own minds so either men should not divorce until children are 18 or else make sure the children like them enough to want to be with them.