Child focused courts

[bahto]

Has anyone been through or experienced the new child focussed courts? Are outcomes different? What has changed- other than things happening in a different order? What do you think of it?

My experience was through a pathfinder court which is the same thing I believe. It was the worst experience of my life, hands down. And I came away with a no contact order so a dream outcome in theory, but a road of utter hell to get there. We were fortunate with the professional network around us. Without courageous professionals willing to stick their necks out for what was right for the children, he would have got access. So I’m not sure the system helped us get this, it was the people. It was start to finish 10months which I know is quick - I had been told to expect it to take up to 2 years - so there is that small grace. Truly diabolical dehumanising and the worst time of my life.

The courts and tribunals press release about this was 17 March! There cannot be much evidence yet on how the system is working. The idea is to listen to children. It’s difficult to work thst in given there’s noisy adults in this process. They have to make it work though but we cannot possibly know this yet. More pathfinder courts are coming on stream this year so more knowledge will be gained.

@buscakethat sounds an awful experience, I’m sorry you went through that. Glad you got the outcome you needed. I’m curious what was dehumanising, but don’t want to retraumatise you by asking questions. It sounds like there is a long way yet for the courts to go.

@OhDear111I meant regarding pathfinder courts too sorry, I thought quite a few of those had been running a while now.

This is from Judiciary.com. There have been pilots and now more roll out. This update was posted on 17 March.

I meant to say, from the detail provided by the Family Judiciary, it’s more child focused. However this won’t stop warring unreasonable parents!

@bahto i guess it’s the nature of family court isn’t it. You feel on trial. Your perpetrator can write the wildest most extreme bullshit about you and you cannot react. He said completely crazy things about me to schools and social care throughout court proceedings including the s7 process, despite already having formally admitted to a significant list of harm toward both me and my children. The professionals were fantastic but I was so unwell and so gaslit and so deeply terrified of my children being forced to have access that I couldn’t see straight.

in court he formally requested my MH records and this could have been ordered. He tried to get them to order me to report to him regularly about what I was doing / what the kids were doing. He managed to get an order to formally get my teeenage daughters CAMHS records. Fortunately CAMHS safeguarded her and took their own legal action to protect her and throw this out.

so it would be easy for me to look back, with the benefit of the outcome I did achieve, and say it was all good. But honestly I thought it would kill me. It’s not hyperbole, my heart rate was through the roof for months.

so the court process itself is dehumanising and the accelerated timescale was good for my kids and I guess good for me in that we got a conclusion more quickly. But I had to produce a full schedule of harm ahead of potential ffh. I had 2 weeks to do this to get it together for my solicitor to send to his. This was beyond traumatising. Decades of abuse, recordings, emails, messages all transcribed and written up in a concise 23 page document listing the abuse that I agreed to be cross examined on if it did come to a ffh (I left out the worst stuff because I couldn’t bear it), together with hundreds of clear cut evidenced examples. 100+ things that he did to me or my children or all of us. It was the most unspeakable and horrendous exercise I have ever undertaken.

That does sound horrific. I’m sorry.

So it sounds like they haven’t really changed much, just made it faster and in a different order.

It is so overwhelming being faced with huge volumes of false allegations and trying to condense and prioritise everything and distill it into a statement the court can digest to a tight deadline that the rest of life’s demands don’t stop for. It’s exhausting and time consuming even when it’s not all about awful traumatic incidents, which must make it 100 times worse. And the stakes are so high it’s truly terrifying.

I think I somehow had got it in my head that this new process was going to be like a nice sitdown with an understanding lady who was going to innately know which spouse was lying and just put everything right. I’m such a naive idiot sometimes.

Thank you for sharing your experience @Buscake, I am wiser for it.

@Buscake But you cannot have a Justice system without information. It’s traumatic but what other option is there but to hear both sides?

@bahtoThe courts are going to be more child focused. You have no evidence that the above poster went through the new system. As the info I posted has made clear, there was a limited trial and more are being rolled out. There isn’t a new system everywhere.

@OhDear111 as I said, this was through the new system - pathfinder.

@bahto every situation is different and my experience will not be you experience. What I will say is that although it was awful for me my children were centred and listened to, and the end outcome was the right thing for them
and what they had asked for. Try to put your trust in the hands of the professionals, I know it isn’t easy. Sending hope and strength to you.

Thank you. This is all helpful.
I wonder what age a child has to be now to be centred and listened to. And if a child’s logic is say wanting to live with the most permissive parent, will that be granted. So much to find out and no idea where to find it.

Mine were 14/13/10 at the time of the conclusion. It was done by the social worker who had worked with us for 18months so she knew them v well and their views re their father. For context, my youngest has LD and even with this she stood by his view and said it was valid, reasoned and proportionate; that contact would not be his best interest.

This makes me think why doesn’t the UK allow a suitably trained and qualified social worker along with say GP sign off to just put child arrangements (or arrangements for reduced/supervised/nil contact with one parent) in place for a certain period of time, when it’s clear cut and necessary for safety, like they can detain an adult in very poor mental health without a full long adversarial court process. Just do it, for X amount of time say max 12 month blocks, after approriate assessments completed, in line with set criteria, with a process for the unhappy parent to complain at a tribunal like with mental health detentions, and some kind of regular review.

@bahto because the parents have a right to go to court! It’s a matter of Justice. Social workers and others give evidence when required.