To think family court can't be THAT bad?

[RabbitWarrren]

I have gone down a rabbit hole of threads on here and Twitter accounts of women fighting to get their kids back after abusive and/or rich men have got full custody or majority custody. Some truly awful stories

Am I being a total cow to think there must be more to it? Loving, caring, devoted mothers losing their kids to men who have criminal records? Or even just losing their kids entirely to men who never lifted a finger before?

I don't mean that these stories aren't horrific and unjust. But just that it must be something must be more complex for a mum to lose their kids?

Am I being naive? Victim blaming? Is the family court system really that criminal?

Interesting article on family courts here by Charlotte Proudman: https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/mar/29/abusers-family-courts-victims-journalists

You've obviously never been involved with family court.

Its not so much the judge you have to worry about, they act on what everyone else says, it's CAFCASS that you need to be terrified of, because it's CAFCASS who are the ones who will make a recommendation to the judge and the judge will do exactly what they say.

My children begged the school not to send them to their dads house because he punched them. Not for the first time. They had bruises on them.

They told police and social the same thing repeatedly, even once in his house. according to SS notes, my eldest asked the social worker to Go upstairs with her and then in private, to take her home because the Dad told them if they didn't smile enough, he'd make sure they never smiled again.

When the evidence was presented in family court, the judge said he didn't have time to read it and awarded my ex more time. Meanwhile Family Support workers were asking social services to recommend no contact and trauma therapy.

I too thought that people would see. They didn't. Family court, ignored all the evidence in part, because there was too much of it. When I challenged them, the judge genuinely replied "well I think you should bare in mind, that he didn't kill you or the children, so he can't be as big of a risk as presented here".

Academically, the research says that this experience is all too common and all too normal.

So yes it's flawed and damaging, and I found it more traumatic than the rape, and assaults and daily abuse I experienced in the relationship.

Judges need to make decisions that are best for children. Completely removing a child's contact with their parent should be avoided if at all possible. If domestic abuse is alleged then the judge needs to consider if the child can safely have contact with a parent - via a third party handover / supervised contact.

The law directs children have a right to see their children and the parents have a right to see kids. So judges are obligated to sk direct contact if it can be 'safely' done.

I was dragged through the courts. I didn't want my children to be subjected to caffcass so worked with him to agree a solution. Turns out it wasn't worth the paper it was written on and he's never shown up for any of it, smearing at me outside court that he couldn't actually have them as agreed! And hasn't since. Because I agreed to it he's lost the control and power.

I'm not disputing what you are saying, but I can't believe a child would be put in a position where they are physically abused, this is horrifying for them and you. I'm so sorry.
Why would social work not start child protection procedures then in this case where there is risk of harm to the child?

Family court made DC have contact with the father who hit them and shoplifted in front of them .

He was a charming man and his family were "pillars of the community" so "of course wouldn't lie". It was DC's word against there's and they were under 5 at the start of the process.

He even got sw's to lie to me for him (heaven only knows what they thought they were doing) when he had to give them information that would have compromised the information he had given the CSA. I knew they were actively living when I got a surreptitious look at one of their notebooks

They did untold harm to my kids for years until he misjudged and actually injured one of them.

Even then Solicitors told me he would still get contact if it went to court

Family Court stalwart here - personally, I think the vast majority of cases being heard in FC should actually be in the criminal courts. It isn't fit for purpose to effectively manage and protect victims of all the abuse that can happen in the name of 'family'.

After the initial major investigation,social services had over 5 major referrals from GPs, school etc. At one point the DCs head teacher was going spare.

Even after we could document injuries at the hospital the best SS could do was say DC said Dad did..... Dad says he didn't.

Throughout the whole process the only documented abuser according to SS was me. Because I had stopped contact on their verbal advice (which they said they never said) and had such a poor opinion of dad I was preventing them having a positive relationship.

I had to go through 19 hearings to reach a conclusion. It was gruelling and stressful, but actually the judge was very fair and CAFCASS were brilliant. They saw through my ex’s bullshit and he was given a zero contact order, which was the best possible outcome. It went on for over two years and fighting my corner was a full time job (with the help of an amazing solicitor and barrister, luckily who were paid for through legal aid due to DV).

The reason they didn't start Child Protection procedures was because they were with me 70% of the time. Apparently because of that, they couldn't spend the resources putting in place something that the family court would take care of. Of course they didn't take care of it. I had the social worker tell me she can't get the resources to protect children who are living in those situations 100% of the time so what did I expect her to do? On one occasion they told me to stop reporting it to them, because they couldn't offer anything for me or the kids.

I understand the swamped and underfunded resource issues but I will never forgive Social Services, or the family courts for the trauma they have inflicted on all of us. I wish I was an isolated case, but sadly, I know of others in the same school as my kids, where the teachers begged social workers to step in, where the father had received a caution for assaulting the child involved, and yet still, they and the family courts have the father 40% custody. The systems are broken and I never would have believed the extent of it until I loved it myself.

Obviously I meant lived it myself. I'm not sure anyone's ever claimed to love the family court!

I found it a mixed bag. I was shocked by what was allowed to pass as acceptable behaviour on the part of a parent. I was disappointed that you get handed round different judges all the time and I was upset by the difference in how you are treated by the judges. I had a lovely older judge who was imo reasonable to both sides and tried to find a workable solution, but ended up with an older male judge that I bet had no actual experience raising children as totally devoid of empathy... probably passed them off to others to raise if he had them at all, was so misogynistic it was untrue and allowed the other parties barrister literally threaten me in his closing argument.

Oh and then there was the female judge who wouldn't let me double barrel the kids name because ExH had had a vasectomy and had a "right" for DS to continue the family name.

Had I even considered that as a possible argument (I hadn't as it wasn't best interests of the children argument) I would had bought the evidence to court that he planned to have the vasectomy reversed if he hadn't already done it.

As it was I sat there aghast as this was the actual main argument against double barrelling in the summing up.

He had at least another two boy children and DS has so many disabilities he us unlikely to have a relationship let alone children.

Senior Cafcass officer who was also dc's court appointed guardian admitted on the stand his entire 4 year case file was based on 'facts' he received from my exh..

It's one of those situations that you have absolutely no idea of, until your sadly have to become involved with it.

Lots of people are naive but that's not their fault, until my involvement I'd never had believed the stories I'd heard.

I think (hope) in years to come we'll look back at family court in disbelief that it was allowed to run the way it does

Is it American? I've not heard of it.

I know someone who the judge took a dislike to so deliberately adjourned until after lunch keeping the legal reps there all day and costing her a fortune. And yet, if she had stayed with Dad it would have been a child protection issue!

True. There is no risk assessment, burden of proof of evidence needed in family court. Its who shouts the loudest
.. the abusive man who they go with. The utter lies they listen to with no proof.

My relative is a judge in the family court and even he agrees it is that bad. He thinks cafcass are atrocious and anti women

Have a look at the work of Charlotte Proudman and Emma Katz (among others)

As a teacher, I have seen many children whose abusive parent has been awarded contact absolutely go to pieces the days preceeding visits, whether to a contact centre or the abuser's home, for years. I have been asked to give statements concerning children's disclosures and actual incidents of violence on school premises, the contents of which, one would have thought, ought to have stopped any demands for contact in their tracks, but that hasn't been the case.
I strongly believe that any violence or threat thereof, including toward pets or members of extended family, as well as malicious, coercive and threatening behaviour (basically any actions that point to not being able to conduct oneself in a safe and responsible way with the children's best interests at heart) should be an instant disqualifier for future contact.

Same thing happened to me. You end up in a situation where family court force contact despite known risks, but social services demonise you as a mum for not protecting them by actively sending them to an abusive situation. All the mums fault and responsibility... never the behaviour of the abuser.

My child’s dad was abusive to not only me in the relationship, but violent and aggressive to his family, friends and strangers. I had proof - the courts didn’t care. I expressed my concern regarding his drug taking, he done multiple drug testing over a year and failed every single one. The courts again, didn’t care and gave him unsupervised contact. Ex was threatening to set me on fire, and for me to ‘say goodbye’ to our child. The courts made HIM out to be a victim and I got ridiculed during each hearing. I was punished. Even worse, he wanted to continue the abuse by getting to see me during pick up/drop offs. So I was adamant in court to have a third party do it on my end to protect myself. The courts said no and it strictly states in our court order ‘no third party’. This abusive, evil man got everything he wanted and I got nothing but punished.