The Family Court Scandal and Abuse

[SpringMum30]

Wasn't sure what to post this under:

Women who are victims of domestic abuse are made by authorities to leave their abusers or risk losing their children.

Women who are victims of domestic abuse are made by the family courts to coparent with their abusers or risk losing their children.

The family court system is not fit for purpose. Women are re traumatised during proceedings whereby they are forced to face their abuser, are further gaslit by Cafcass and magistrates and forced to push their children into unsafe contact arrangements.

The court want to handle cases as quickly as possible and women are criticised for raising allegations of abuse as this prolongs the court process.

The abuser uses the court to further their abuse through the children and is not held accountable for their harmful and abusive behaviour.

If you can relate to this then I am sorry. The trauma experienced can trigger ptsd, anxiety and depression to name a few. I don’t know how to change the system but in raising awareness and talking about it I hope it’s a move in the right direction for real change.

I made a formal complaint against CAFCASS. Their investigation of the complaint consisted of asking the children's guardian (who I'd complained about) if he'd done anything wrong. Shock result - he said no, and they closed the complaint. You can't re open closed complaint. So I made a new complaint. About the way they'd investigated the first complaint. So they sent it for 'internal review' and the head of practice said their was 'learning to be done' for the children's guardian. But no complaint of mine was upheld in any way shape or form. Frankly that tells you all you need to know about the honesty and integrity of CAFCASS

I have worked in this field professionally previously for 10+ years and it doesn't matter what your level of expertise is, to some extent, as there is no clinically reliable way to tell if someone is lying. A famous project studying the body language of parents interviewed about missing children, who were later found to have murdered their children, found no consistencies in the way they behaved when telling the most atrocious lies. The case law noted in most fact findings will lay out people lie about many things for many reasons, including fear and shame, and this does not mean they are lying about the factual matters of the case. Credibility, as determined by the professionals involved, is notoriously subjective, and often there is no evidence as to what either parent is saying other than the voice or behaviour of the child, which is rightly noted here to be hugely subjective in its interpretation and influenced by parents anyway. This is why social workers often detest working private law cases, even more that public law, because they have to make a decision and recommendation based on what is likely to be very flawed evidence with two plausible parents.

Exactly I would like to know too

I think @Polik is getting a hard time and it's unwarranted. She is being forthcoming about a difficult subject. DSL is a very difficult job and I take my hat off to you.

I found it worked well for our family.

Ex was highly abusive. We split. I enforced SS to withhold contact and await him taking me to court.

He did take me to court. My view was always ensuring the safety of the children as priority.

Court ordered him to complete a couple of programmes. He refused to do these programmes. Court ordered no direct or indirect contact as a result.

It's difficult when there is no evidence and it's one word against another.

It is also difficult to accept that what is a highly dangerous environment for a child when the parents are living together can be managed to be safe. This might just be supervised contact, it might be unsupervised there's no real one size fits all.

I can see things a lot clearer now it has been 5 years than when I was in the thick of it.

@Polik you think you saw that because you can't see the abuse and fall for the charms of the abusers. I live with one and no one would believe me because they are so charming and cool, all the ladies love him

The problem is women are also encouraged to allow contact to avoid court. This was my experience with Womens aid. They were supportive but advised me to try to come to an agreement with ex. I did this and he still took me to court. It was then used against me. "If is was that bad why did you allow contact". Well I was advised unless there was severe abuse contact would be awarded anyway and to avoid court at all costs. My ex also started accusing me of parental alienation by limiting contact so it's a very difficult position to be in

I think it is as she is unlikely to be sufficiently skilled to be stating what she is as fact and using her role to qualify her opinions.

And based on people's experience there are many people in the system which seem to be easily duped by manipulative abusers and not sufficiently skilled to unpick damaged, abused children's cases to the point that they will accuse the abused parent of lying.l and actively support the abuser.

Yes there are some cases where a parent lies and fabricates abuse - just as there are rape cases that are fabricated - but I suspect that these are fewer than actual abuse cases.

Its the polar opposite in my experience.

I find your view rather concerning. Much like rape and sexual assault statistics....abusers are far more likely to get away with abuse and false allegations, whilst perfectly possible, will be a tiny percentage.

Agreed.

And my understanding is that the academic research supports this. Women actually very rarely make false accusations of abuse.

Most "high conflict" divorces aren't parents using children as "pawns" but rather the outcome of an abuser dominating and the abused trying to keep themselves and their children safe.

I respectfully disagree, yes, DSL is a difficult job but using their role to demonise parents who disclose abuse and saying that they see many many cases of false allegations as the children do not back the abuse is not okay.

Lots of people on this thread prove how difficult it is to be believed and thinking you know better because you allegedly can spot patterns/behaviour when traumatised children do not disclose abuse readily is dangerous.

The question is, how do things get changed?
The authorities want "what's best for the children", I get that, but they just assume having both parents involved is what's best!
But what happens when parents don't want involvement?

I'm so sorry to read about the abuse many of you have suffered and are still suffering. My personal opinion is that even if the kids weren't abused, mum shouldn't be forced to send them.

No physical abuse here and a wonderful dad at home..
He left and now has minimal contact with the kids - turns up when he should but never on time, never contacts them outside of his day and never gets involved with anything. I see the kids saddened by his attitude towards them and it breaks my heart, but I can't force him to do any more for them!! How can it be right that so many of you guys HAVE to send your kids to abusers, yet on the flip side, deadbeats aren't forced to do more?!
It's a massively fucked up, contradictory system but I honestly don't know what the answer is 😔

I found court and Cafcass reasonably sympathetic and he was made to jump hoops for two years to get access. But it moved towards its inevitable conclusion, and there did seem to be a constant thread running through proceedings that contact with the father should be re established at all cost and that was the only end goal to be considered. There was a large amount of evidence that he had abused me and DS but there was no evidence he had abused DD, that was because he hadn't seen her (his own choice) for 4 years. Her case was viewed very much in isolation. He got contact, she started to hate it after the novelty wore off then he assaulted her. So we're back at square one. I hope he decides not to go back to court, perhaps having to explain the massive decline in her mental health and the cctv footage of the assault will put him off. I hope Cafcass and the court decide they're flogging a dead horse, despite all the courses he was made to go on, he's a deeply damaged man who has damaged his children.

If it's all about the children and their "rights" then how come only children get forced to see parents, but a parent can't be forced into any form of contact? Or at least paying for those children.

Good question!!

Excellent question but again it's the woman's fault for choosing a deadbeat dad.

Absolutely. This should be the ethos.

It is 15 years since I went through the family court process as a grandparent carer. I have never got over it and my treatment by the Judge and Cafcass. I was forced to hand my gs over to a violent abusive thug and his vile parents eow.

I lost the fact finding when a barrister had said he had no doubt findings would be made against him. The solicitors for the Local Authority told me they believed my treatment by the Judge was Dickensian. I was taken to court relentlessly over a three year period probably around 30 plus times. Yet the same Judge who poured scorn upon me felt I was the only party suitable to care for the children. The abuse towards me continued for over ten long years.

We ended back in another series of court hearings after gs's father began offending again - abh and finally gbh when he nearly killed someone. I was taken back to court because I would not hand him over for contact unless I had an undertaking from his parents they would supervise contact. Judge ordered supervised contact - but a different judge.

I cannot think of a way forward and can only urge people to try and work things out although I know this is often impossible. The process is so adversarial and parties become so entrenched.

The best advice I got from an earlier judge was that a fact finding would not make any difference to the eventual outcome. An honest appraisal of our case. They will get contact and supervised is the slippery slope to unsupervised.

My eldest DD always said nice things about her father. She was terrified of telling the truth about his abuse as he’d then mentally torture her during contact.

contact was supported, basically in a church hall where the supervisors would sit at the front observing all the other dead best abusive dads having contact.

ex would strategically sit at the back behind a pillar partly obscured from view.

my younger dd ended up sitting under the table and would not engage my eldest was taking the brunt of the abuse.

in the end I had to tell her if she was telling people she loved him and wanted contact I could not help her or stop contact. And she would have unsupervised contact as the courts would listen to her feelings and wishes.

so she told the truth and god it was bad for a long time till we got a judge who specialised in dv cases.

both my dc still suffer from the remnants of trauma despite the fact I spent thousands in counselling and therapy for them.

I also had police reports and gp and paed reports and. And a lot of other witness statements.

they still put ex’s ‘right’ to contact above my poor children’s well-being. It’s me CAFCASS officer even had the audacity to tell me it was fine as I wasn’t abusive and they had a stable home so ex should have contact.

I've never understood in these situations, it looks to be that if she stays with her abuser then the children can possibly be removed for "failure to protect" but if she decides to leave her abuser, then suddenly the children no longer need protection and must go to his home alone.
I don't know what the best solution would be, but when I see these things I do understand why so many stay with abusers, in their minds it's probably better for her to be around when it happens instead of them being alone with him when it happens.
I know some will be doing things like making excuses for the children to divert his rage away from them and onto herself, trying to keep the children quiet so he doesn't get angry, tiptoeing round him so he isn't wound up etc and they see that as protecting them rather than leaving him and sending them off to be alone with him every weekend.

And yes, false allegations happen. That's the same excuse they give for abysmal stats on rape convictions too though. And that's before we get to the sentencing, so it's really not a shock that we see similar in family court cases.

Do you think there are people with their own prejudices and it depends if you get a pro mother or pro father prejudice? Not sure that is very clear but it seems like there are people on both sides getting a bad experience so is it down to who is allocated to their case?

As an employer I was asked to meet with CAFCAS as my employee's ex had included allegations about his employment (disciplinaries and poor behaviour) I had to say her claims were false. I have no idea if her other allegations were true and if they were it is a shame she included the made up stuff about his work as I think she lost credibility. He got supervised access and after a few months unsupervised and eventually he got overnight contact, this was for a very young child.

I wonder if what she said about other things were true, did my statement mean an unsuitable man got unsupervised access to his child? It does cross my mind from time to time. He moved on and I have no idea how it worked out in the end.

I'd hate to be the one making judgements in these cases, that one example was hard enough and all I had to do was tell the truth.

The thing is, it could possibly be understandable in a strict he said she said situation. However there are thousands of cases where the are police reports, proof of injuries, doctor reports, plenty of evidence and statements , hell even arrests and convictions and they all get ignored and dismissed, ironically citing "the rights of the child". You can't gamble that way with children's lives, and pretend it's for their own good.

Has a child who has been forced to see an abusive parent ever taken legal action against cafcass and the family court once they reach 18?

Money talks and asking for financial compensation at the age of 18 plus may be a way to get the system changed.

And people wonder why I dont let my ex drag me through court why I agreed to him seeing them rather than fighting I stay put and wait him out rather than going through court the social worker I spoke to was pleased im playing the long game and agreed court would give my ex way too much power over me im currently promoting contact but giving my sons wishes and feelings credit which means they haven't seen him for months and he doesn't care because I agreed to his demands its bizarre I offered him more contact he cut it down to virtually nothing an inconvenient hour twice a week he spends longer travelling than seeing them by choice

I will never understand the system