MNHQ here: we need your help - meeting with the Minister for Victims and VAWG

[RhiannonEMumsnet]

Hi there,

As those of you who saw our GE2024 Mumsnet Manifesto will know, two of our policy asks were related to reform of the family courts. We want the new government to ensure that judges in family courts receive regular specialist training on domestic abuse, and we want them to end the presumption of contact in cases with abusive parents. We know this is something that many of you feel very strongly about - in a survey we ran on the topic we found that:

• 85% of you agree that the presumption of parental involvement should not apply in cases where a parent has perpetrated domestic abuse, violence or rape against their child’s other parent.
• 84% of you agree that perpetrators of domestic abuse, violence or rape against their child’s other parent should have their parental responsibility removed.
• 93% of you agree that judges in family courts should receive specialist training on domestic abuse from expert organisations.

Shortly after the election, we wrote to Alex Davies-Jones MP, the new Minister for Victims and Violence against Women and Girls at the Ministry of Justice, to share the results of the survey we ran and call again for reform of the family courts system. We're delighted that she's agreed to meet us next month to talk about this important issue.

We want to use the meeting as a chance to raise your voices, and so if you have experience of the family court system that you would like us to share with the Minister - or anything else related to her responsibilities that you would like us to raise - then please do let us know via this thread.

Thanks,
MNHQ

I've no experience of DV/ VAWG but I'd like to see more funding and support for women who want to leave their violent or controlling partners- women's refuges, safe houses, access to benefits. So many women post on MN that they can't leave for financial reasons. Also misogyny MUST be a hate crime and clamped down on at the first offence.

And here comes another male to tell us all how terrible the nasty women are and how the crts are letting men down and as always its about the mens rights, with PA being banded about (exactly as i mentioned in my post funny that). The fact is this isn't supposed to be about parents rights its supposed to be about what's in the best interest of the children, which is why abusive men should be kept away from their children

@Mrsmartass your experience sounds awful and I’m sorry you went through that. Absolutely no one dismisses that men are also victims of DA and fortunately this is now being talked about more and recognised. However, statistically it is still overwhelmingly women who are victims of DA and violence at the hands of men.

While no one is dismissing you (I hope), and I’m certainly not, and what you’ve been through is very valid, this thread is specifically for questions to the minister about VAWG so perhaps not the right place.

Courts do tend to accept hearsay evidence in some types of cases, and perhaps your post is another example of a reason why DA training would be good for judges.

Demonstrably violent men must not be allowed to see their children unsupervised - it shocks me that they are! That is insane.

Time and time again children suffer because of a notion of father's rights to see them, rather than what's best for the child. If a man (yes, or woman) isn't fit to work with children die to a history of violence, they shouldn't be fit to spend time with their own children unsupervised.

Safeguarding should protect children from their parents just as much as it protects them from others (with the massive caveat that refusing to socially transistion a child and instead 'watch and wait' as per Cass should not be classed child abuse).

My ExH used the threat of the family court, and then actual family court hearings, as a means of abuse and control, issuing applications for court orders regarding contact that he had no intention of sticking to.

At each family court hearing there wasn't even a judge present. There were magistrates. I'd be interested to know of the Minister is aware of this, and what data analysis takes place around the use of magistrates?

My ExH's behaviour in court was appalling and the magistrates adjourned one hearing and made me come back another day, making me take yet another day off work in a professional job to face yet another barrage of abuse. Why did the magistrates collude with this financial and emotional abuse? Why was I penalised for his bad behaviour?

Second, I was surprised that CAFCASS made so many mistakes in my family's case, telling me and the court that 'these children were not known to social services' when my ExH had (a) received a written warning from social services to desist from malicious allegations, (b) received a harassment warning from the police, and (c) had had a disciplinary meeting with his employer - one of the emergency services - where he received a warning about his behaviour.

I had copies of this material with me in court. It was all on record; but CAFCASS apparently knew nothing.

Is the Minister aware of the failings of CAFCASS, and is data being collected and analysed? If not, why not? If it is, what is it being used for, in order to improve the lives of children?

For the Minister's further information: as adults, my DC have nothing to do with their father, and all the forced contact was detrimental to their mental health. What data is being collected on this? How many children forced to see their fathers unsupervised (and sporadically) still have relationships with them when they're 18, 21, 25 years of age or older? How is the damage being quantified, if at all?

'...not enough work has been done towards the transformed system that the Harm Panel recommended, and there is evidence of progress stalling, even reversing. Domestic abuse survivors and support workers told Women’s Aid that they have continued to be disbelieved, children have continued to be forced into unsafe contact arrangements with abusive parents, and perpetrators have continued to use child arrangement proceedings as a form of post-separation abuse'

https://www.womensaid.org.uk/family-courts-remain-an-unsafe-and-traumatic-place-for-women-and-children/

Please put the welfare of children at the forefront of all your work.

Please address what Women's Aid called the 'underlying culture of misogyny, mother-blaming and victim-blaming' in the family courts.

Please consider how some people use and abuse 'parental alienation', especially against mothers.

Male violence against women and girls (and children) shows very starkly how this is a sex-based issue and must be addressed in that context.

Please ensure CAFCASS, social workers and court staff are all trained in how to deal with coercive control, abuse, and MVAWG, and are trauma aware, and provide ways for women to access a second opinion or question a worker without it being used against her.

Please consider the 'Child First' campaign from Women's Aid and Claire Throssell - such a tragic event should never happen again, yet we hear from women that horrifyingly similar situations are repeating themselves in the family court right now.

Finally, please read this thread:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/amibeingunreasonable/5179873-starting-my-social-services-parenting-class-today-filled-with-rage-aibu

OK so wvery woman that applies to family court is guilty of what you just accused your husband of, well done congratulations you just proved my point, sexist court system man he must have had some serious evidence against you to take you tk family court the most sexist court is the land..

@Mrsmartass ok, you’ve made your point but this is not the right thread for this. I replied with a supportive post and note you’ve chosen to ignore mine so I make the assumption you are using this thread to air your own grievances.

Please do not derail this thread. This is a thread for questions specifically about VAWG, which is more than just court processes. Your own experience adds more weight to DA training for judges but it is inappropriate for you to attack individual posters here when they are sharing their own experiences.

You couldn’t possibly understand the experiences of women who have been victims at the hands of men, just as much as we as women couldn’t truly understand how it feels to be a male victim of abuse at the hands of a woman.

You wouldn’t (I hope) for example, if you were white go on a thread where other ethnic minority posters were discussing their experiences with racism and tell them they were wrong (as you would have no idea what they go through) so please respect this space the same.

I think a certain poster might have been shown the door. Thank you, @MNHQ and @RhiannonEMumsnet if this is the case. But how illustrative of the belittling insults and the behaviour that women endure, even in the telling of their experiences.

No personal experience but I am very pleased that MN are seeking to gather evidence for their meeting. Nearer the time of that meeting, would letters to press and news outlets highlighting issues outlined here be helpful to increase public awareness? Well done, MN, and best wishes.

Good point. I'm very happy to help share this, campaign, write to MPs (although mine seems to file my letters straight in the bin) MSPs, etc

ForgedFromGoldAndGrapes I'm really sorry to hear of your experiences, and to be attacked on this thread by a man with a grievance and apparently a problem with women is just unacceptable.

to all women affected by this.

The law should never have been changed to allow unmarried men on BCs automatic PRR

Fully agree with this. It should be reversed.

Also agree with this

Thank you, @ArabellaScott, that's kind of you and made me smile

I'd be happy to go up to London to talk to MPs, a Select Committee, Ministers - anything I can do to help. I've tried to keep an immaculate record of archives, so I'm in a position to substantiate the particulars of what I'm saying.

I think it could also be useful to cast a net out to ask for adult DC who have been through contact forced by family court to volunteer for follow-up interviews, in order that some qualitative and quantitative data might start to be collected about impact and outcomes.

That's a really good idea.

David Challen might be able to help?

https://www.davidchallen.com/

This is probably going to be unpopular but I don't care.

We need to IMMEDIATELY deport ALL MEN who commit violent and sexual acts against women and girls, back to their country of origin. If their country is shit, well perhaps they should have thought about that before raping and abusing women and girls.

This needs to be done ASAP with no exceptions.

I agree with you - but it won’t happen.

Agree with you too @offyoujollywelltrot. They've broken the social contract and given up their right to stay. And many more men should serve sentences for VAWG and CSA and other abuse offences. Again, they've broken the social contract and lost their right to live among us.

I am very much pro immigration, however I can be pro immigration AND want anyone coming to live here, IMMEDIATELY removed should they commit violent and sexual crimes. I do not think that is unreasonable.

To be clear, I mean deport where those don't have a right to stay (or have broken their terms of staying) when they've served their sentence, and that those without immigration issues who commit such offences should be getting custodial sentences. So many are not getting jail time and they've broken the social contract - rights to stay or not.

And of course these are men who shouldn't be having contact with children. In fact, if you brought such a man into your life, you'd risk losing your children. So why on earth the family courts make the contact decisions that they do is impossible to comprehend. These decisions place children in danger.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/10/05/thieves-child-sex-offenders-spared-jail-despite-convictions/

I am so pleased you have gathered evidence to prove the weight of these beliefs.
They seem like common sense to me based on lived experience.
Good luck trying to move forward from a misogynist traditionalist set up that has never represented half the human race.
It's time it was radically updated and there's no-one who would disagree with you.
There's problems with a huge backlog of cases still since lockdown xxxx

Agreed. I too am very pro-immigration. I'm very concerned when I see a conflation of VAWG with people coming here as either economic migrants or as asylum seekers. IMO our country (and the world) is a much more culturally rich place, and arguably more prosperous, as a result of immigration, whether it's for economic or asylum purposes - as long as infrastructure is there to support the numbers involved and those arriving in the UK want to be a part of British society (which is a completely different conversation, linked also to UK ex-pats moving permanently to Spain etc).

However, if an asylum seeker or economic migrant is found guilty of a violent and/or sex offence, I would support immediate deportation back to their original country.

Obviously this doesn't have any impact or bearing on the large (presumably larger?) number of British men who commit VAWG, irrespective of how many generations their family may have lived in the UK. To that end economic migrants and asylum seekers represent a subset of male offenders of VAWG as a group. Different strategic approaches would be needed for other subsets and/or male VAWG as a whole.