Do judges always go by Cafcass recommendations?

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Hearing next week. Cafcass have recommended that child lives with the father. Do judges ever go against cafcass recommendations? Both are not represented by lawyers.

anyone please?

They must consider the recommendations and they generally carry a strong weight but judges sometimes have other evidence to consider or else they may not agree with Cafcass.

Social services have also found that the mother is abusive and they recommend that contact is supervised but she’s disagreeing with their findings and cafcass, stating that they both have behaved wrongly and inappropriately. She’s provided her own evidence of the other parent being abusive.

The Cafcass recommendation holds weight, but a judge will consider all the evidence presented in court and make a decision about the child’s best interests based on that evidence - which isn’t necessarily the Cafcass recommendation in its entirety. If there’s other evidence which suggests a different outcome would be more suitable, they can make that ruling.

ETA: if there’s significant evidence from bodies such as social services which supports Cafcass recommendation, particularly regarding abuse and neglect, then that will certainly put additional weight behind it.

What sort of evidence would be needed to show cafcass are wrong?

No, my cafcass officer firmly believed my exes lies and was pushing for more contact (which I had never stopped). The judge however awarded me full custody.

Courts rely heavily on the child impact report because that gives an overall assessment of the child's life, their views and wishes and an expert opinion.

Is the author going to be at the hearing?

Has the evidence gone to cafcass? A recorded phone call nope. A recent police report where the police record physical evidence of an assault maybe. I have never know a judge not to follow cafcass. I’ve know them to ask for more checks, more investigation but always have seen them go with cafcass. Mother needs evidence and cant’t just say it.

Expert testimony / statements from involved professionals (doctors, teachers, police, DV workers etc), anything substantiative which wasn’t considered by Cafcass at the time of making the recommendation. The other parent’s unverified claims about something that they decide to bring up on the day, not.

basically both social services and cafcass recommend the child lives with the father and contacted with the mother is restricted, so it’s quite unlikely then that the judge will make a different decision on the day?? There is no professional support for the mother’s position.

Yes, it’s unlikely. Whilst they could potentially request further fact-finding, her evidence to the contrary would have to be compelling for a judge not to follow clear recommendations from SS and Cafcass and not, as another poster said, “evidence” like a phone call / conversation she’s recorded which she says shows the child’s father being abusive, or unverified claims.

In our case no. Cafcass were trying to be very equinanimous and saying he might have capacity for care, he seemed to be saying all the right things etc etc then he decided he would interrupt multiple times while she was telling this to the judge and asked her questions that actively went against what she was saying, I think one of them was "HOW DO YOU KNOW MY MENTAL STATE IF I DON'T TELL YOU?" which flew in the face of what she was trying to say to be honest. She was trying to make out they had assessed him as potentially capable of looking after a child and the judge could quite clearly see he was not even capable of looking after himself or following what was happening in Court. It was quite concerning how easily Cafcass was going off a 1hr video chat with him from 6 months prior to the Hearing really.

I understand. Thank you.

The judge made a ‘Lives with father’ child arrangements order.

Fortunately for me no, completely disregarded the report (including copious amounts of lies from the other side) and awarded, rightly so, pretty much a 50/50 split. (The £15k in legal fees certainly haven't left a good taste in the mouth) What I find absolutely ridiculous is that they do zero investigating the "facts" rather purely going on what the other person said. Conveniently, the Cafcass officer was no longer with the service, had been an agency worker, and failed to inform me of a) the fact she was leaving the service (made a lie up about going on a week long holiday) and b) her recommendations. I have had subsequent apologies from Cafcass. My advice, follow through on complaints. If it is not a fit for purpose service, which I don't think it is, then make sure you make a formal complaint and, if so, involve your MP. It is the only way things will change.